If you ever think your job is stressful, spare a thought for me, the day I had to build a full-sized chocolate desk for The School for Good and Evil.
Yes, a desk. Out of actual chocolate.
Filmed in the middle of the pandemic at Belfast Harbour Studios, it turned out to be one of the strangest and most nerve-racking days of my career as a food stylist and home economist.
The sets were honestly the most beautiful I’ve ever seen — decorated by Niamh and Pancho- like walking straight into a storybook. Except, of course, we were all masked up and waving hand sanitiser around like our lives depended on it.
The crew atmosphere was brilliant. Everyone was excited to see how it would go (even the medics were hovering), but there was also that look — you know the one — where people are half-convinced the chocolate will melt before the cameras roll.
The chocolate table belonged to Dot, played by the loveliest girl imaginable, Kaitlyn Akinpelumi. She was up for anything and had the whole set laughing.
Her task? To magically turn her school desk into chocolate, break a corner off the desk, and eat it. Easy on paper… not so easy when the lid is about three inches thick and could probably stop a hurley ball at full pelt. We had to rig the section carefully so she could snap it without the whole thing collapsing.
Chocolate, as you know, can be very temperamental. One minute it looks perfect, the next it’s threatening to bloom, crack, or melt.
It was also the hottest day of the year — naturally. I lay awake for a week beforehand, worrying about sugar bloom, fat bloom, and full-on meltdown. However, I had a few tricks up my sleeve to keep things in line. We had trialled the desk in various ways for weeks beforehand, testing with chocolate pastes and other tricks until I found two ingredients that I could add to the chocolate to stabilise it, thereby helping my sleep pattern resume.
Each lid weighed between 4 and 5 stone (25–30kg), and I made a total of 14. My big son was drafted in to haul them about — no better man. Without him, I would have struggled.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, one of the witches had a pet rat on her table. I’ve an innate fear of the creatures. Standing beside 30kg of chocolate on the brink of melting was one thing… but a rat scuttling about her desk? That nearly tipped me over the edge. I still shudder. But I had to focus on my job, I didn’t have the luxury of worrying about something else, I needed this scene to work well as the chocolate wouldn’t keep another day – it was too hot.
We spent the whole day filming, went through all 14 tabletops, and somehow managed to get the perfect shot. The chocolate held its nerve, Dot broke her corner, and the scene looked magical on screen.
Was it stressful? Absolutely. Would I do it again? Absolutely.
That day summed up why I love this work: the madness, the teamwork, the creativity, and the moments where you can’t quite believe this is your actual job.
The sets were breathtaking, the crew were fantastic, and against all odds, the chocolate desk survived.
So if you ever think food styling is all about pretty plates and dainty sprigs of parsley, remember: somewhere out there is a woman who once built a desk out of chocolate, on the hottest day of the year, while side-stepping a rat.
