Preps
The twelve-week teaching schedule: what happens in each prep, what to prepare, and what leaves the room.
Each week below pairs a lecture with a session. The lecture argues for a preparation decision; the session is where it is exercised, not restated. Seven sessions — weeks 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 10 — run a calculator against figures for an ingredient the student chooses: a macronutrient split in weeks 2, 3, 4 and 9, a safe-until time in weeks 5, 8 and 10. Three of the remaining five sit at the bench instead of on screen. Week 7 checks a knife's grip and edge against reference figures for hardness and angle. Week 11 applies heat for the first time, to test whether preparation rather than technique decides the result. Week 12 rehearses that same test under the conditions of the graded practical that follows it. Weeks 1 and 6 carry no exercise at all, and each says why. A session with nothing yet to exercise runs no calculator; a lecture with no session behind it would go untested.
Why prepare at all
Why week 1 carries no tutorial exercise: establishing the case for preparation is not itself a preparation decision, and the exercises begin once one exists to practise.
Week 1 · 22 February 2027
Vegetables
A hands-on exercise reading a vegetable's fat, protein and calorie content off the same USDA database this week's lecture cites, in grams rather than impressions.
Week 2 · 1 March 2027
Animal protein I: poultry and fish
A hands-on exercise computing fat, protein and calorie content across four items this week's lecture covers by anatomy, to see what that anatomy means in grams.
Week 3 · 8 March 2027
Animal protein II: red meat
A hands-on exercise comparing two ground-beef blends against lamb and goat, to see what a stated fat percentage actually means in grams.
Week 4 · 15 March 2027
Spices, aromatics and oil
A hands-on exercise computing how long a cut allium or a prepared leaf herb can wait before it must be refrigerated or discarded.
Week 5 · 22 March 2027
The kitchen: tools and surfaces
Chopping boards, choppers, strainers and containers, and their maintenance — including an honest look at what board material actually does to hygiene, knife wear and particle shedding.
Week 6 · 29 March 2027
Cuts, under supervision
This week's lecture describes the knife; this session is where the grip and the standard cuts are practised at the bench and checked against the deck's own figures for length, weight, hardness and edge angle.
Week 7 · 5 April 2027
Timed mise en place
A hands-on exercise computing how long a held item — a portioned vegetable, a stock, a sauce — can safely wait before it must be served or refrigerated again.
Week 8 · 12 April 2027
Fruit
A hands-on exercise comparing calorie density across this week's fruits, and checking whether ripening behaviour tracks nutritional composition or is unrelated to it.
Week 9 · 19 April 2027
Food safety and the cold chain
A hands-on exercise computing a safe-until time for the raw materials and the already-prepared leftovers this course has handled since week 2, using the same cold-chain rule throughout.
Week 10 · 26 April 2027
First heat
The same dish, cooked twice from batches of material prepared two different ways, so that any difference in the result can be attributed to the preparation rather than to what happened at the stove.
Week 11 · 3 May 2027
The live test
The teaching session built around week 12's assessed practical — what is watched before the heat is applied, and whether the semester's preparation decisions hold up in front of an audience under a clock.
Week 12 · 10 May 2027