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Les Dames d\u2019Escoffier London are enjoying a vibrant calendar of events and are welcoming new members who are eager to participate in activities and raise funds for other women in hospitality. President Jacqui Pickles is one of the Chapter\u2019s founding members. In 2015 she took the helm from Valentina Harris, who did such a fine job as the first London President.<\/p>\n
Who is this calm and measured lady who manages to instil enthusiasm in such a diverse cross-section of leading women in UK hospitality? She has a successful catering company and has spent almost all her career working in food and wine.<\/p>\n
I asked how she first came to hear of Les Dames d\u2019Escoffier. \u2018I met Valentina Harris in the early 90s. I was doing some work for an importer of kitchen equipment, and met someone who wanted to set up chef demonstrations. Putting some programmes together for her, I got some really good chefs who would go down to her kitchen shop. Valentina was one of those chefs, and we hit it off. I helped her set up a cookery school in France, and we built up a good relationship. It was she who invited me to become one of the founding members of the London Chapter of Les Dames d\u2019Escoffier.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018As a child I do remember it was simple food, Northern food. It was my Grandma who taught me the importance of making something taste good. She really only had three seasonings: salt, pepper and butter. She was a natural cook, and couldn\u2019t make pastry to save her life, but she just knew how things should taste, and how to put them together. My mother was a good cook, but she was much more precise. She had been a nurse, and ran the household as if she was running a ward \u2013 we had to scrub down before each meal! She worked as hard at being a mother and housekeeper as she had as a nurse in the 1950s.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018My mother went to Cordon Bleu evening classes once a week and so, suddenly, when I was about ten years old, we were being given pork fillets stuffed with prunes and anchovies, and stuffed peppers\u2026 We all embraced this, and these were the days before anyone had seen an avocado pear!<\/p>\n \u2018My father had a small farm and he set up a market business selling eggs and cheese. His first market stall was in Barnsley, which was odd because we lived in Preston. In those days there was no motorway so he had to get up very early, feed his pigs and whatever, then drive over the Pennines, and clear the snow from Market Hill in Barnsley to set up his stall. He built a successful business of about 30 shops in the end, and it kept my grandfather, father, my uncle and my elder brother going for 50 years.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018I went into the family business. But there were too many \u2018chiefs\u2019 there, and one day I told Dad that I was handing in my notice. A week later I left and headed south with no plan. Eventually I found some work at Bourne & Hollingsworth. Then I went to the Cordon Bleu school for a week (which was as much as I could afford), and my interest was piqued.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I got a job as a secretary and actually my love of food started in that company. One day my colleague, Mike, asked me to lunch, and took me to the Connaught Grill. In those days it was all silver and waiters in tails \u2013 the poshest place I had ever been. The parents of my boyfriend Guy (now my husband) suggested that the next time he invited me to lunch I was to ask to go to Le Gavroche. So we went to Le Gavroche, and I still remember exactly what we had for lunch. We ate so well, and what a performance, a ballet \u2013 so fantastic! After that, we always went to Le Gavroche. I remember peeking at the bill, and in 1980 it was \u00a378 for the two of us \u2013 quite a lot!<\/p>\n \u2018Guy and I would take our holidays in the South of France. Coming back we would always stop at a little place called Le Cheval d\u2019Or, which had a great dining room. In1982 I said to Guy, \u201cI really want to learn how to cook!\u201d So I handed in my notice, and left my job in January 1983. I told Mike that I would look for a cookery course, and he took me for a last meal at Le Gavroche. He said, \u201cYou never know, you might end up working here.\u201d I laughed, but by May 1984 I was working there!<\/p>\n \u2018Fate played a big part: I applied to the school at La Petite Cuisine in Richmond and that was such a stroke of luck, because Lyn Hall was a brilliant teacher, and knew every great chef in France. It was a wonderful school and I fell in love with the whole thing. She was such a hard taskmaster, but after just three months with her you could go straight into a professional kitchen. From there I went to France, in May 1983, to the Chateau de Montreuil, near Boulogne.<\/p>\n \u2018Then Lyn Hall came to visit, and asked me to come back to the school and be the chef\u2019s assistant. I did that, but within a month the chef had left and I was chef! I did love teaching, and building relationships with the students who came through. But I did miss the restaurant.<\/p>\n \u2018Steven Docherty, the sous-chef at Le Gavroche, was asked to come and give a lecture one evening, and I said to him that I would love to come to the Gavroche kitchen sometime. He said, \u201cJust visit one evening after work, and just peel vegetables or whatever.\u201d So I did that, standing there with a crate of carrots, just watching everything that was going on. So I thought, \u201cI\u2019ve got to get back in!\u201d and one day I asked Albert Roux for a job. He asked, \u201cHow serious are you? How long are you going to cook for?\u201d and I replied, \u201cI\u2019m going to cook for life!\u201d so he said, \u201cOK, you can have a job!\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I started at Le Gavroche in mid-1984. That was the hardest job of my life! Very tough, and I was the only woman in the kitchen. From Le Gavroche I went into their outside catering business. Then Albert gave me a job of looking after all the chefs in the contract side. When they started to go for the big contracts I was brought into the meetings to help them. I was with them until 1986.<\/p>\n \u2018I set up my own company, and my first contract was with John Frieda, the up-market hairdresser, so I called the company Head Chefs Ltd \u2013 we provided food for their clients and we did his opening party in his Mayfair salon. The outside catering work began then.<\/p>\n \u2018I travelled a lot. I saw the world in style \u2013 Japan, Canada, The States, and all round Europe, and it was fabulous. The only place I actually cooked was in Iceland: a merchant bank client used to take their guests for a fishing trip and I cooked in a fishing lodge for a week every July, and it was really hard work. We started at 6 in the morning and finished at 2 in the morning, but it never got dark so you didn\u2019t notice how tired you were.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Learn more about Les Dames d\u2019Escoffier here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\u00a0I left and headed south<\/span><\/h4>\n
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<\/h4>\nThe Cordon Bleu school<\/span><\/h4>\n
A brilliant teacher<\/h4>\n
Building relationships<\/h4>\n
Cooking in a fishing lodge<\/h4>\n
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\nJacqui Pickles continues to be involved with catering and hospitality, and organising international events. She is charismatic, quietly spoken and persuasive. She has already encouraged many women to get involved with the increasingly influential Les Dames d\u2019Escoffier London Chapter.<\/span><\/p>\n