Lunches at cooking school are a fickle event. You never know when they will be, or if you will be granted a break at all. One day it may be at 10.30am and the next at 2pm. Some days you may be ravenous by 9am, particularly if there’s a class baking bread next door. The smells wafting through are pure torture, I’m telling you. Other days you may be put off food so much that you never want to eat again, have no appetite whatsoever, despite having eaten nothing since 6.30am. You get the picture. Lunches are up, down and all over the place. What is predictable, however, is that I will always enjoy eating this cannellini bean salad, regardless of the time of day or my state of hunger. It took me a while to realise that salads can actually be, well, exciting. Crazy, I know. I was a pretty good kid and always ate my veg without much cajoling. However, it was always eaten first – quite unceremoniously – and before all of the ‘yummier’ bits. But its not surprising really as iceberg lettuce, chunks of cucumber, wedges of tomato and carrot sticks aren’t all that interesting – to look at or to eat. In my 10 year old brain that’s all a salad was, and all it ever would be. Continue reading