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MY DAUGHTER LOVES BAKING AND MY ELDEST SON IS DOING A GCSE IN HOSPITALITY. I’M NOT PRESSURING THEM TO FOLLOW ME INTO THE TRADE BUT THEY ARE JUST NATURALLY GOOD AT IT.
Glynn’s sense of humour is all too apparent, with anecdotes of practical jokes and fun behind the scenes.
His love of cooking started at a young age. While his mum was a shrewd and thrifty cook, preparing family meals from often the cheapest cuts of meats she could find, his dad had a more experimental style, rustling up stir fries and curries he’d seen chefs Ken Hom and Madhur Jaffrey, making on TV.
“It was quite unusual in those days for men to cook. Normal supermarkets didn’t have those kind of ingredients in those days either, so he’d go the market in Birmingham and bring back all this unusual stuff.
“My friends would come round at the weekend and in the end we’d all sit round trying this new stuff he’d made. They loved it.”
Writing a foreword in his book, Sat Bains describes the young Glynn as having a real fire in his belly to succeed and succeed he has.
Glynn explained:“I think my working class roots have made me what I am today. My family are really proud of what I have achieved. I left school with no qualifications but it didn’t stop me.
“I’m really pleased with it,” he said, “I was given a completely free rein with no restrictions on size, the quality of the paper or the content and the end result is fabulous.”
While Glynn assures us he is by no means at the end of his culinary journey, he looked upon this project as something akin to a singer’s Greatest Hits.
“I’m really proud of my other two cookbooks but I thought to myself I wanted to draw a line under what I’d achieved so far and tell that story, really revealing what happens in the restaurant world.”
And tell it he does in his own inimitable style. Fans of the chef, who has two restaurants in Birmingham, Purnell’s on Cornwall Street, and Purnell’s Bistro & Ginger’s Bar, on Newhall Street, will no doubt be familiar with the chef from his appearances on both the Great British Menu and also as guest presenter on Saturday Kitchen. He’s gregarious, he’s funny and unashamedly Brummie. The book tells his culinary journey from blagging a work experience gig at the Metropole Hotel after mistaking it for the NEC to setting up his award-winning restaurant 13 years ago. It’s warts and all, shining a spotlight on what really goes on behind those kitchen doors and
“There was no fear of failure, I just had an ambition to thrive, I had nothing to lose. I knew I didn’t want to work in a factory, I wanted to cook and it just snowballed. I became obsessive.” Although he was an avid cook from his teenage days, he recalls the first time he heard of Michelin stars.
“I had no idea what they were but this bloke told me not to worry as I wouldn’t ever get one and that just drove me on to be the best I could be and get one of those stars for myself and prove him wrong.”
In his quest to learn, Glynn sometimes worked for nothing, doing 12-13 hours shifts to perfect his craft and has worked alongside many of the country’s top chefs, including Gordon Ramsay at Aubergine in his early days.
“When I was at school we had this Record of Achievements and I had to write what I wanted to do when I left school. It was full of spelling mistakes but I wrote that I wanted to open a restaurant, in town (which is what we called Birmingham), where rich people in posh cars who drank gin and tonics would come and eat.
“I think I was probably about 14 when I wrote that but my dad kept it and when I was 40 he framed it for me and it hangs up in my house now.
LIVE24-SEVEN.COM
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LOCAL PEOPL E GLYNN PURNE L L
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