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A few examples of what our clients have to say - more examples can be seen on our facebook page.

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Our tutor was the lovely Lindy Wildsmith, author of several travel and culinary guides and the kind of lady you know you can learn a lot from. I had never made any of the creations on our list but her direction was clear, presenting the process in simple steps and sharing her knowledge along the way. It was also an absolute treat to work in such a spacious and well-equipped kitchen, and with the small class size we were able to spread out and make the most of it.

"Buongiorno Lindy!
Just a quick note to say thank you to you and Sue for a wonderful course last week at Denman. I absolutely loved it and will look forward to making the dishes (and more from the book!) and pursuing the language. You both put such a lot of effort into organising the course beforehand and during the week, and it paid off as it went swimmingly and was seamlessly perfect. Your patience and organisational skills are a wonder! It was the best course I have done at Denman, so very enjoyable."
Vicky Watkins
Cornwall

Pip! Pip! It’s Lindy’s Jam Session

I liked Lindy’s style. She was patient and thorough and fussed around us like a mother hen as we roasted (the beetroot), simmered, boiled, stirred, zested, strained and funnelled up a whole store cupboard of preserves. Everything tasted good. “I’m going to have that raspberry cordial with some gin tonight,” said Faye wickedly. (SAF)
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FERMENTATION COURSE REVIEW: THE SCHOOL OF ARTISAN FOOD

Lindy was a friendly and relaxed host, guiding us through and showing the processes as well as talking to us about the history of preserving, pickling and fermenting. The day moved along quickly as we chopped and salted the cabbage for the Kimchi before introductions were over. We then swiftly prepped (working in pairs – a great way to meet others and network with like-minded foodies) for our German Sauerkraut, Japanese Salt-Fermented (Shio-Fuke) Cucumber, Golden Mango Pickle and, the highlight for me, the Korean Kimchi.
We had prepped most of our veg and fruit before lunch at 1pm, so covered a lot of ground in the three hours. The course is fast-paced but not rushed and (assuming some basic knife skills) is pretty much at a standard that home cooks of any level would feel comfortable with
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In a pickle at the School of Artisan Food
April 23rd, 2017 Review

The School of Artisan Food is located on the Welbeck Estate in Nottinghamshire

"I have attended courses here before, including Breadmaking, Using Herbs, Starting a Food Business, and A Day of Feasting with food historian Ivan Day. I’ve also experienced the School’s fantastic “Food for Thought” weekend of foodie lectures, so I was delighted to take up the invitation to join their first pickling and fermentation workshop.

Our group of picklers met before the course started for a relaxed coffee with homemade bread and marmalade from School’s own bakery, before gathering in the well-equipped and spacious training kitchen. There were around 12 of us, each with our own work station – such a nice group of people, too. As Lindy got us to introduce ourselves it was clear there was no single shared reason why people joined this course: the group included organic farmers, pub owners, restaurant and farm shop owners, charity workers, prospective food entrepreneurs and people who simply love food and cooking. There was also the odd pickler who had been bought the course as a gift for Christmas (I got a feeling the present-giver who came along treated herself at the same time!)

Lindy was a friendly and relaxed host, guiding us through and showing the processes as well as talking to us about the history of preserving, pickling and fermenting. The day moved along quickly as we chopped and salted the cabbage for the Kimchi before introductions were over. We then swiftly prepped (working in pairs – a great way to meet others and network with like-minded foodies) for our German Sauerkraut, Japanese Salt-Fermented (Shio-Fuke) Cucumber, Golden Mango Pickle and, the highlight for me, the Korean Kimchi

We had prepped most of our veg and fruit before lunch at 1pm, so covered a lot of ground in the three hours. The course is fast-paced but not rushed and (assuming some basic knife skills) is pretty much at a standard that home cooks of any level would feel comfortable with. I do need to mention the catering at the School, which is in another league. All the food served is made fresh on site (and literally in front of us in this case) using as much of their locally grown Welbeck produce as possible, including bread from their own bakery and cheese from their dairy (and depending on your course, beer from the brewery). Today’s lunch was no exception.

Lunch also included breads from Welbeck Bakehouse

After lunch we ruminated on the possible health benefits of gently fermented foods and the positive effect on digestion. We also speculated on why pickling and fermenting is enjoying a renaissance in Britain. Lindy (who herself has the very healthy attitude to food of “eat everything” – a sentiment with which I wholly concur) is convinced the fashion for “clean eating” in the US is responsible for fermented food and drink becoming increasingly popular here. I wonder, though, how much the interest in and knowledge of foods from Eastern Europe – where pickled and fermented foods remain a large part of many of cuisines – has contributed to our revisiting this traditional way of using up a glut and keeping food over winter.

We didn’t use vinegar for any of our preserving on this course, and we had many discussions about the pros, cons and differences between modern vinegars (largely industrially produced) versus the vinegars of the past. Traditionally vinegars were kept fed and nurtured rather like a sourdough starter, so we were all delighted when Alison Parente, a founder of the School, presented us all with a “slice” of “vinegar mother” to take home with us. Yep, this was a first for me. I don’t think I have ever really thought about where vinegar comes from – unless of course presented with a cheap bottle of wine. But there you go, a “vinegar mother” is a vinegar starter – a clump of bacteria that must be fed with wine (a mother after my own heart) to reproduce and ferment. In three months or so we shall have our own gently fermented vinegar to use for pickling or cooking and a vinegar mother who needs a couple of glasses of wine a week to keep her going (I can relate)As ever, the School of Artisan Food delivered a fabulous course – friendly, funny, incredibly interesting and informative, with high quality teaching and, as always, well organised (despite the wobble when we all thought we had added pre-measured sugar to our pickles instead of salt). I can’t rate this place highly enough."