Slow News Day

I'm afraid I've really very little to report today - I woke up just after 9 and it was officially miserable outside, lashing rain and dark and cold and you know the best thing about weather like this, you just make a cup of tea and get straight back into your bed with your book and not an iota of guilt, perfect! Couldn't have been better timed in light of the number of hang overs that must have been lingering around Ballymaloe this morning.

And honestly other than that, I've done nothing - laundry, filing, blog catching upping and eating left overs, lovely! We'd planned to do a long walk but the weather did away with that idea.

Back to the kitchens tomorrow and I'm moving again, into the Demo kitchen this week which is quite fun I'm told by those that have already done their week there - only 6 of us and so it's much quieter and less hectic, I'm making Dingle Pie, poached plums and the seafood platter tomorrow so I'm heading for an early night to ensure proper concentration for oyster opening sans palm stabbing, wish me luck!

Happy Halloween

Mmmmm, my head woke up celebrating Halloween early, all a bit scary and sore, I'm swearing off Jager Bombs - again - for the rest of my natural life.

We made a fairly disconsolate trip into Midleton and staggered about Tesco's with our trolley, throwing food into it and hovering around the Halloween section for a while, trying to find some form of accessory to wear to tonight's party. There were the most divine pair of tights that I wish they'd had in grown up sizes, black with silver glitter spider webs all over them, how cool but they only had children's size 7 - 8 and I thought having tights with a crotch sitting somewhere around my knees might be taking the notion of fancy dress that ounce too far. So I settled for a red sequinned tail and an alice band featuring little red devil horns.

We got home as quickly as possible and I made for my bed, aren't afternoon naps just the best thing!! I woke up at 5 much restored although still not able to return to the Blackbird for the Curry Cup final which I dimly recall we'd talked the pub owner into showing - kept checking the score on the internet though and YAY for the Sharks, 30-10 over the Stormers, your man was at the game in Durbs and no doubt he'll be taking over tomorrow morning as the owner of previously mentioned very sore head!

The residents of Mrs Walsh's cottage were coming over for dinner and knowing that we were all in need of comfort food - and a good lining of the stomach before we headed for the Halloween party - we made roast chicken with, if I say so myself, wicked sausage, apple and pecan nut stuffing, roast potatoes, and cauliflower and broccoli with very cheesy sauce, so good.

We made for the Barn, who were hosting the Halloween bash, just before 10 and they'd done such a great job - big fire outside and the garden filled with carved pumpkins, the bloody weather didn't play along though and it rained for most of the night which was such a pity. Having been in the sticks for so long, I've pretty much missed out on Halloween but it was such fun, there were some really good costumes - I abused my black eyliner and added some whiskers and a black nose to my get up and managed to attach my tail to the back of my leggings using my name badge.

I didn't last much past midnight (the vodka punch caught me unawares) but I believe it went on till well after 3, there's a serious shortage of males on this particular course, they're outnumbered about 5:1 and so there was some serious dancing in the lounge, a whole bunch of us girls shrieking away at the top of our voices and dancing around like mad things, it was great!  

Crunch Time

Friday dawned and a fair number of us headed in at 8 to supposedly help with the prep for the pizza demo at 09h30 but more to fire a whole lot more last minute questions to the teachers about the exam and which herbs go with which dish and what have you - if anyone will need a drink tonight, it'll be them, they must be sick to death of us by now.

So in between rolling pizza bases - which by the way I'm rubbish at, as bad as tortillas which are my benchmark for a torturous experience - we tested each other and then had a quick cup of coffee just after 9 before heading in for the pizza demo which was fantastic. I've so many ideas for new pizza toppings - these have been a bit of a favourite for us in Tanzania, as with any good South African household on a Saturday the girls slog away in the kitchen and produce food while the "men" hover on the edge of the couch watching the rugby game and swear frequently at the ref/coach/players, tick as preferred.

I used to buy ready made fresh tortillas from a fab little shop in Arusha and use those as bases and further to my pizza dough rolling efforts this morning, it's likely that I'll remain a loyal tortilla customer going forward, but just listen to some of these for toppings - caramelised onions with blue cheese and rosemary, roasted red onions with gruyere and thyme, grilled aubergine with pesto, parmesan and pine nuts, brie with cranberries and watercress, roasted butternut with pumpkin seeds, red wine shallots and sage, goats cheese with tapenade and roasted red onion, mushroom a'la creme and marjoram, smoked salmon with crispy capers, cream cheese and chive flowers, chorizo with rocket and mozzarella..............OK, I'll stop, it's not just you who's getting hungry!

My favourite is still your good old Margherita - wafer thin crust, sweet, herby tomato sauce, mozzarella and fresh basil leaves, cooked till crispy in the wood fired oven, heavenly. The focaccias were wicked too, there was one in particular that I'm going to have to try and reproduce, topped with potato and rosemary, I know it sounds a bit odd but trust me, it's worth every carb. To be honest, I didn't manage to try much because the demo finished at about 12h45 and my exam was at 13h30, too nervous to eat and I thought it was far more important to pace the hall and talk to myself - I know, of all days to have missed lunch, it doesn't bear thinking about.

I didn't even get pics, sorry, but I must tell you that the actual pizza base making was impressive - instead of endless rolling with minimal results, these guys take a ball of dough and turn it into a pizza base that you can almost see through just by flinging it around the place and throwing it up into the air - it's the Cocktail of the cusine world. I tried for an action shot but all I got was a blur and so this is the best I can do.

And so, crunch time - I did my salad and herb exam first and it wasn't too bad, there weren't any of the really odd leaves which had me confuzzled for the last few days - Texel Green, Purple Choysam, Winter Purslane and all their buddies, at least I know them now - and of the 20 I had to identify and suggest recipes for, there was only 1 that really had me, the rest were OK I think, we'll see. And then from there it was straight onto the Technique Exam and phew, that walk through the kitchen until I reached my designated station was like the Green Mile - Mr. Cod and his glass eye checking me out from the left, a sneaky bowl of sugar waiting to be burnt to oblivion dead centre, Mr. Crab and his many limbs eyeing me from the right - I avoided eye contact with them all and just hoped and prayed that the teacher would do a Johnnie Walker and keep walking and thank God she did until we reached my spot which featured, wait for it, a big fat kuku, YAY! I've never been so pleased to see poultry in all my life, I almost did a little Irish jig right there and then - so, so happy I'd parted with €11 for a chicken at Tesco's last weekend to practice, best money I've ever spent. Granted it still took a while and I'm sure I'll lost points for faffing with him for so long but at least I found all the ball and joints without it looking too much like a combine harvester had paid a visit and my other tasks were easy ones, the sheer relief, I can't tell you!

And so that was that, my weekend started early since I'd been in the first group and got it over with, so happy not to have been slotted in for the 16h30 exam, all that waiting around - I headed home (and incidentally found a few souls still gazing at the now rather dead leaves on the table and muttering to themselves) and poured myself a celebratory glass of wine.

We - and by that I mean pretty much the whole school - headed for the Blackbird at 9 and did the place proud, record takings for them I would think. In my excitement, I forgot that Jager Bombs are the devil and had a few, why, why - got home just before 2 and slept like a baby, the Jagermeister must have fought off the competition from the Red Bull thank Heaven!

Sea Urchins - Turns Out You Can Eat Them....

It's been a hectic few days and so I've not written for ages - between the exam cramming on Thursday evening, the mass exodus to the pub on Friday evening for celebratory drinks and a Halloween party last night, it's been a crazy few days and for much of it, well the last two days at least, my head has hurt, anyway it's time to catch up.

So on Thursday I was only down to make risotto, have no idea how that happened but I wasn't complaining, it was a good excuse to use the time to practice things before Friday's exam so I made orange scones which came out perfectly, and some glazed carrots because I'd not done them before and they were on the list and they've a tendency to fuse themselves to the bottom of your Le Crueset pot so figured they were worth a practice and then made another caramel sauce, also for practice and that was a bit of a confidence buster, honestly this may well be my new nemesis, you've to hold your nerve with caramel otherwise it just takes like runny sugar but me and my nerve seem to be a little too close and I always burn it a bit and there was no change on Thursday, I know it's supposed to have a bit of a burnt sugar taste - in a good way - but mine always tastes rather more like a fireplace.

And then it was time to make the risotto, it doesn't really hold so I had to leave it until just before lunch and the advance planning and organisation felt like the preparation for the Normandy landings, once you start on risotto you can't leave it for so much as a second and it takes about 30 minutes of stirring before you actually have risotto and not just hard bits of rice obstinately swimming around  in stock so I had the best part of my whole cutlery draw lined up and all the things that you've to throw into it during the process sitting anxiously in little bowls. It came out all right actually considering it was my first shot, pumpkin risotto so I'd roasted that earlier in the morning with garlic and herbs and a touch of chilli, not too shabby in the end, well I managed to eat it which doesn't exactly spell incredible cuisine because all I seem to do these days is eat but still, not bad and definitely going to practice again, risotto is so good, going to make a mushroom one next, that's my best.

Afternoon demo was with Rory, YAY, and it was a seafood extravaganza with a few cakes and pies chucked in for those who prefer their food cooked - some of the seafood was, the prawns and the periwinkles and the mussels but a fair amount wasn't, oysters, sea urchins, what have you.

Now my only encounter with a sea urchin to date has been when your man stood on one in Greece whilst trying to tie up my dad's yacht to a tree on the shore, whilst simultaneously been sworn at my dad as we all are when we go sailing together (all meant entirely well, I don't envy his place as skipper when his crew is as rubbish as we all are - when he asks me and my sister to bring up the main sheet, we head down below to strip our beds and bring the sheets back up to the top, and it turns out that's not what he means at all........) - anyway your man was probably wondering why the hell he'd married into the family just as a sea urchin took umbrage against his stumbling around the sea floor and decided to take revenge. Anyway it turns out that you can eat them too, raw or cooked and Rory went for raw - a gentleman named John who farms them in West Cork came and spoke to us about them in the morning, they're quite incredible really, can live for well over 70 years unless they're unfortunate enough to make an appearance at Ballymaloe.

To cook them you would do the whole chuck them into boiling water thing but even worse, to eat them raw you just take a pair of scissors and cut the "lid" off as such and eat them right there and then - as Rory said, if Neptune is the guy in charge in the next life, we're all in a spot of trouble..................

So I decided I must be adventurous, God knows when I'll next have the chance to eat a sea urchin - it's not exactly the type of thing you'd normally find in the cold section at Woollies - so I tried it, not too bad actually, pretty much just tastes of the sea and a bit sweet too. Had an oyster as well, still not my best thing but I don't mind them too much - I've definitely improved since my very first one about 4 years ago where it had a serious debate on the way down, stopping for a mini break halfway down my throat to decide whether to go north or south and thankfully it went south! Opening them of course is an absolute mission, we've been advised to wrap a tea towel 4 times around the hand holding the oyster but I suspect there may well be someone who impales themself to the work station come Monday morning when we have to have a go at this, and it's unlikely that we'll manage it with as much panache as Rory.

We cooked brussel sprouts too, not everyone's cup of tea but I love them - I've never seem them growing actually and they had a branch off a brussel sprout plant to show us, so pretty and so well designed, all these gorgeous leaves curled around the little sprouts to make sure they stay safe.

The cakes were fab, your man loves carrot cake and this is one of the best I've ever tasted so that'll be on the Christmas menu at home for sure and there was also a parsnip and maple syrup cake to die for, too good. Rory also showed us how to make Dingle Pie which is basically very similar to a Cornish pasty, yum!

And lastly we made Carrigeen Moss pudding which to be honest I wasn't too excited about - it's made with milk and, you guessed it, Carrigeen Moss which is a type of seaweed that basically acts as gelatine but served with sweet poached plums it was actually pretty good - between the periwinkles (very Irish), the Dingle Pie (even more so) and the Carrigeen pud, I was properly Irished-out.

Straight after demo, we donned our wellies - the weather had decided to go with the theme and be officially Irish too and by that I mean dark, cold, wet and windy - and made a dash to the glasshouses where we picked one leaf of everything green, headed back to the cottage, spread them all out on the kitchen table and proceeded to try and learn them. Word spread and we soon had a mass of visitors from other cottages and everyone was mumbling the names under their breath and testing each other - such a back-to-school flashback, night before cram sessions although note the bottle of wine to the right, that's the one advantage of being a "mature student" - we had to keep shuffling the leaves around, it was like a dancehall, two steps to the left, one to the right - otherwise you only remembered them because of where they were on the table which wasn't going to help much when we hit the exam room the next day and they'd been arranged in a completely different order, sneaky!

Headed for bed at about 11 with a head full of all things green, by then we were honestly all far more interested in whether the blasted things could be rolled up and smoked - exam day tomorrow and then the weekend, YAY!

Australia - Not Just The Land Of Vegemite Sarmies

We kicked off this morning with a talk on the wines from down under, given by John McDonnell who represents Wine Australia here in Ireland - he was hugely enthusiastic and it was really great to listen to someone speak so passionately about wine, he really does Aus proud and lived there and worked on several Aussie estates for 7 years so he knows his stuff.

Everytime I go wine shopping at Tesco's, which is alarmingly frequently I'm afraid, all I seem to see are Australian wines (although I spotted a bottle of Leopard's Leap from SA the other day and grabbed it with alacrity off the shelf), but it turns out that only 4% of the world's wines are made in Aus - as John told us, with everything else Australia has to offer - just dig a great socking hole somewhere and you're likely to find iron ore or coal or diamonds or something - and add to this the water shortage problem and wine doesn't feature hugely, nonetheless they make some great vino and we tasted 5 today - back to morning tastings (why, why, what's wrong with the late afternoon) and so once again the spitoons were sadly used!

Your man and I are off to Aus next March for my darling friend Patty's wedding, she's marrying the most lovely man, so looking forward to it, and hopefully we'll see lots of other friends and family from SA who've made Aus their home so with any luck, we'll be drinking lots more of their wine then - we saw pics today of the Hunter Valley and Orange whoch both look so gorgeous and as we'll be in Sydney, which is fairly close to both of those regions, I think we'll have to swing by there for a visit. One of my cousins lives in Sydney and married a great Aussie bloke whose family live in Orange and I've heard from her that it's just beautiful.

We watched a short video by an Aussie winemaker who owns and runs a fully biodynamic estate (and whose Chardonnay just won Best Chardonnay in the World for 2010, not too shabby) - anyway there was a pic of David Boon hanging in her office but as I've said before, it's just best to put the sporting competition aside and drink the wine instead - your man will be dead excited with that bit of cricket info slipped in here but don't get ahead of yourself, it's only that one of the boys on the course made a passing comment, I hadn't a cooking clue who he was before...................sorry!

Afternoon demo was with Darina and Rory because there was SO much - it was a Tapas demonstration, all the snacky stuff that you traditionally get in Spain but which is hugely popular right now all over the world, lots of wicked tapas bars in London apparently and I;m sure elsewhere - a lot if is quite salty, all to get you to drink more I suspect as if most of us needed any extra motivation.

So we learnt to make a multitude of things - tortillas (different to the Mexican ones, these are made with egg, potato, onion and garlic, wicked), peppers stuffed with salted cod, deep fried cod and potato balls, all sorts of toppings for toasted bread like chorizo, serrano ham, pata negro ham, a bunch of other things with chroizo which I love, a couple of tuna and achovy dishes, garlic prawns (yum), crispy pork mince meatballs, cheeses, marinated olives, a couple of octupus dishes (don't ask about the cooking process, more boiling salted water), roast almonds with paprika, fritters, garbanzada which is a chickpea and sausage stew, fried potatoes with spicy tomato sauce and last of all, pimento peppers which were lovely but I got lucky, they're a bit of a Russian Roulette thing, most of them are very mild but every now and then you come across one where you feel as though you've been hit with a scud missile, soooo hot!!

Darina carved a Pata Negro ham, similar to proscuitto or parma ham from Italy but this is the Spanish version and the best and most expensive of all their hams - it's made from the hind leg, cured with salt and thyme, placed in a timber box which is then also covered with salt and left to cure for 21 days - all 100% worth it, it was so good. The downside is that with Pata Negro the hoof is always left on the leg and it looks just like the little pig was pointing his toes, ballerina style, so for half the demo I had the added distraction of young Rudolph Nureyev on the counter, not good for my already-stretched concentration.

So much to remember, the note taking was frantic - with the tortillas, you fry the potatoes, onion and garlic in a LOT of oil and then when it comes to drain it, Rory reminded us to use a steel sieve not a nylon one otherwise with the hot oil you'd just melt the hell out the nylon and create some kind of abstract artwork instead of anything edible, good to know.

The thing I learnt most is that on a holiday to Spain I'm likely to put on a lot of weight, for one thing everything is delish but worse, it all seems to be fried, or better yet, deep fried - the ideal diet for a bikini break on the Med! Something to look forward to........................

The school put out a whole lot of salad greens for us today, to try and help with the exam on Friday and honestly I don't know where these all come from - what's wrong with a few different lettuces and a couple of sprigs of rocket if you really insist on being funky? There were things today that I've never heard of - no doubt I've been happily munching them for the past 6 weeks but there's a notable difference between eating them off my lunch plate when they've covered in dressing and now having to identify and name them all.................and this isn't even all of them but the collage couldn't cope with more, need I say anything further!! The close-up  photo snapping was fierce - I'd have given those papparazzi photograhers that work for Heat a proper run for their money.

I have to go and study now, wish me luck!

It's Not Just The Chickens Who End Up Headless.....

Mmmmm, not my finest hour in the kitchen this morning, or hours more like, felt like the morning was never going to end - I'm not quite sure what happened, I was in early but it was all a bit of a disaster - perhaps yesterday's kuku was taking a moment of revenge and putting me in his place, you know headless and running around like a right idiot.

I started with white yeast bread, just because I felt I really had to do it again but when it came time for the dough to have it's first nap of the morning, the hot cupboard wasn't yet on, my fault, should have checked it I suppose so by the time it was warm enough and ready, the dough had to be re-kneaded, lovely, at least it would have used up a few more calories. Not the brightest of starts...................

Then it was onto Bantry Irish Stew with turnips and parsnips and the latter only arrived at 10h30 so that set me back a bit too, was brilliant in the end though and God, it was a miserable day so the perfect thing for lunch.

And then only had to make meringue in a swiss roll tin and roll it up as a roulade, shove it full of Chantilly cream and strawberries and eventually top it birthday candles and it went out to the dining room at lunch time as a birthday cake for Fiona, so sweet, looked quite good in the end - lashings of icing sugar to hide all the cracks but honestly, it's impossible to roll meringue without it cracking like a socking big fault line, I've never been so into garnish, there were strawberries and cream all over the show and enough icing sugar flying about to get the weather service worried about a blizzard.

Made a bit of raspberry fool as well which is basically just raspberries with sugar, blended, sieved to get rid of the pips (and do my head in later trying to clean the sieve...............the less said, the better) and then lastly pints of whipped cream folded through to create a sort of ripple effect, it was very pretty.

In between all this there were several visits to the heating cupboard to look forlornly at my bread, knead it a few more dozen times and finally shape it into a couple of rolls and a 5 plait loaf, moving ever onwards and upwards from the 3 plait number I first tried a couple of weeks ago - looked lovely in the end but my brain was a bit taxed with the whole 5 ropes of dough needing to be wound around each other malarkey.

And at last it was over, well after 13h00 though - I just gulped down a bit of my presentation plates and headed straight to Demo, what a day! Completely forgot to take any pics, organisation skills were a little lacking today I'm afraid.

Demo was with Darina and there were some delish things on the list today - my favourite, a vegetable curry with yoghrt and coconut milk but so much nicer than anything I've managed to make before, and then a Thai green curry with mushrooms, cauliflower, aubergine, zucchini and lots of coconut milk, yum.

There was a chilled cucumber soup and cucumber mousse with salsa, I'm not a huge fan of cold soups to be honest but this was quite good, masses of cream and yoghurt which probably helped everything along.

Darina also made some small Indian flat breads to go with the curry and asked for volunters to roll out the rest of the dough after she'd shown us a couple - they looked horribly like tortillas which still haunt my dreams and I kept horribly still until a few others had offered to do it, took ages and when we took a short break a bit later (and they were still rolling) they mumbled that they were definitely as bad as the tortillas, so hope they're not on my list for Thursday!!

For pud there were two fab, fab cakes - a rustic plum tart with a caramel topping and an apple fudge cake, so good!

For the most part, conversation at the moment centres around the upcoming exam on Friday - for the herb test we'll each have 10 herbs and 10 salad greens to identify and suggest 2 recipes for each from our reportoire to date................all fine for the common herbs but if I get something dodgy like Borage or Lemon Verbena or something, well let's put it like this, I've spent the evening staring at a herb book, cross referencing against recipes and hoping for divine inspiration.................!

Anatomy 101

Phew, it really is a life of glamour for Deb at the moment - did a bit of house tidying, took the rubbish out, visited the hens and the piggies - rumour has it that one of the sows has had babas and that somewhere there are little piglets but she obviously doesn't want them to be papped just yet, armed as I was with the camera. I wondered around their enclosure for a while but there was no sign of any of the oinks, mind you I'd be inside too if I wasn't so keen to see the little ones, too damn cold to be out so I'll have to try again tomorrow.

Spent the afternoon studying - identifying herbs and thinking of recipes they'd go with, working through the dreaded Technique List for the umpteenth time making notes and then just for the hell of it (and because I really am a bit sad) dismembered a chicken and a fish - rescued Kuku and Haddock from the fridge where they'd been bonding since yesterday, sharpened my knife, got my board ready, thought of McDreamy and went in with the knife. Wasn't too bad - Haddock took me 8 minutes so I'm getting slightly less pathetic, and to be honest most of that time was spent fighting with the gills, trying to get them out the head, sharp little buggers and then Kuku took me 18 minutes which is a vast improvement on my first 40 minute special so there's a small glimmer of hope - not quite up to Ready, Steady, Cook yet but it's not like you need to check the machine anymore to see if it switched to slow motion mode all by itself................



Before and after......



Off to the Playroom now for dinner with Laurie and Nat who've just got back from Galway - apparently the Mini decided to take a long weekend too and broke down just out of Galway but after a llllooongg wait, they finally tracked down the local mechanic and got her back on the road and home. More roast chicken I think with cauliflower and broccoli cheese and rice pudding for dessert, sounds good.................I'm going armed with a bottle of red!

Roast Kuku At The Barn

Mmmmm, very lazy day, woke up at 09h30 with a slightly sore head again, really have to ease off the wine a little today I think...................

Did very little - good old laundry and filing, barrel of fun, and then headed around to the Barn at 7 for supper with Jemima and Eiligh - was a proper, proper spread, roast kuku, parsnips, roast and mashed potatoes (apparently some of them got a little too steamed to be roasted hence the mash...), cabbage and then for pud, the profiteroles filled with ice cream and hot choccie sauce, and just because it's tradition a glass of two of vino - lovely evening.

I managed to turn down the suggestion of heading to The Blackbird at 10, just couldn't face a third morning in a row so I went and read my book instead, tucked up because it was damn freezing.

Another lie in tomorrow, long weekends rock! And then some studying I fear before another week begins.

Sunshine & The City

After such bloody awful weather on Friday, I was sure we were going to wake up to grey skies and rain but luckily God decided to smile on everyone for the long weekend and it was the most gorgeous morning, not even too cold - my head wasn't feeling quite as full of light and joy but we headed for the English Market for a serious fry up at The Farmgate Café, such a fab restaurant, sort of in a raised gallery area above the market so you can see everything happening below you - poached eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomato, toast, pots of tea and freshly squeezed orange juice, the relief! And it really was freshly squeezed orange juice, that has to be one of the most abused culinary terms of all time, honestly some people think that "freshly squeezed" means that you just opened the box of orange juice (which hasn't seen an orange in months)  and squeezed it into the glass - not the same thing.

Feeling a little restored, Nat and Laurie headed off to Galway in the Mini, I'd decided not to go because your man and I are going up there when he comes over in December and I want us to have a few things to do together that I'll not have seen already, apparently it's the greatest place, masses of Irish music and fab pubs, can't wait.

So I wondered around Cork for most of the afternoon, such a pretty city centre, there were bands playing everywhere, sat in the sunshine WITHOUT my coat on it was so lovely, drinking coffee and listening to the music - gorgeous way to spend the day. 

Jazz jingles

Swung back round the hostel later to fetch my bag and then hopped on the train to Midleton, was pouring when I got there, good excuse to take a cab home rather than the bus and then went round to Mrs. Walsh's cottage for the evening, drank lots more wine with Lucy and between us, solved the world's problems - had an omelette for dinner since that's also in our Technique Exam and if you take more than 30 seconds to make it, you don't pass that part, good excuse to eat omelettes every day for the next week, alternated with poached eggs which rumour has it might also make an appearance...............

Jazz Jaunt

Fab morning on Friday, got full marks for all my dishes for the first time, so excited! Rachel had shown us how to make granary bread the day before, another bread for our repertoire but one of those yeast numbers that requires masses of kneading and sitting around in warm corners and what have you so I went in early (it was still a bit dark for Heaven's sake) so as to give the bread a shot and still finish before lunch, the same day. So kicked off with that, got my arm workout for the week and from there decided to make pastry, just for the hell of it - to be honest, it's one of the items on the Technique Exam list and I'm still a bit dodgy with it so in the spirit of "practice making perfect" I whipped up some shortcrust pastry, rolled it onto the tin (getting quite slick now) and shoved that into the fridge to rest as well. At least with winter officially here, you've not to worry about the butter getting warm or anything, the kitchen was chillier than the fridge, trying to rub the butter into the flour was a lesson in perseverence!

Filleted another little flat fish for fun, a small plaice, wasn't too bad, still not a picture of beauty but anyway, one day it'll come good, hopefully before next Friday.....................

And then made my salad, how good does this sound - small balls of soft goat's cheese, produced by Julia, Bounce and friends at Ardsallagh Farmhouse Cheeses, coated in flaked almonds and deep fried so that all the cheese inside is soft and runny, with peeled roasted peppers, salad greens and tapenade oil? We were supposed to make a starter portion which I did, only I made 2 of them because one wasn't going to cut it for my lunch!

After what felt like hours more kneading and trekking between the heating cupboard and my workstation, my bread finally went into the oven just after 11h00 and came out at 12 looking like something you could actually persuade someone to part money with for, I was dead pleased - this is definitely my favourite of the breads we've learnt so far and it actually worked, first time, YAY!

Dug around the place for some fruit to pop onto my tart, wasn't on the list for the day so it was a bit of a battle but finally rustled up some strawberries and red currants, filled my pastry case with créme patisserie, sloshed some glaze over the whole thing and woo hoo, fruit tart.

Afternoon demo was with Rachel and the list was longer than the Nile - all sorts of patés, crab, salmon, mackerel, potted shrimps, and my word, the ratio of butter to fishy stuff was incredible, about 5:1, no wonder they taste fabulous. And then raspberry fool with these sweet little shortbread-style biscuits - Rachel told us how for her wedding 12 years ago she had the idea of making this recipe and cutting them out in heart shapes, piping each guest's name (and there were 140 of them) in melted chocolate onto each cookie and using them as the place settings, such a cute idea although by guest number 40 she officially hated herself for even starting - I can sympathise, I had the balmy idea of beading a glass tealight candle holder for each place setting at my wedding (why, why), 120 guests and your man will remember (unless he's chosen to block it out entirely, he probably wondered if he was doing the right thing at the time) me saying in your standard pre-bridal state, "it's fine, it's fine, I can handle it". Never again.................

Just in time for the bank holiday weekend the weather went absolutely to the dogs, cold and windy and dark and lashing rain so the fact that we were learning to make Irish stew and all sorts of variations, some with bacon, yum, was perfect, just what you need for that kind of weather. Finished just before 17h00 and that was it, the start of the bank holiday weekend and there was a mass exodus from the school with everyone going home for the weekend.

I went home and grabbed my stuff and headed off to Cork with Natasha and Laurie for a night on the town, Cork Jazz Festival weekend so lots to see and do - Laurie has the cutest car, a little hunter green Mini with white racing stripes across the bonnet, I love it. We were staying in a hostel which I've never done, so much for a mis-spent youth, took us bloody ages to find it, Cork is a confusing mass of one-way systems and what have you but the up side of driving around aimlessly for 40 minutes was that by the time we finally found our humble abode, the rain had thankfully stopped otherwise I'd have had to go out with Macy Gray-style hair, always attractive. I was in a dorm room of 4 but there was no one else around, dumped our things and headed off for a well deserved drink at the nearest pub - especially for Laurie, Nat and my's navigation skills were rubbish, Kingsley Holgate we're not - and from there onto a bunch of different bars during the evening in the search for good music. Nat is 18 and Laurie is 23 and so wherever we went they were carded for ID - my fingers were itching to whip out my driver's licence if requested, hovering above my handbag like horses in the starting blocks of the Grand National, but alas it never happened. At one bar, I even asked the doorman if he was absolutely sure he didn't want to check mine but he just said, No, you're grand love, go in" and then followed up that line by saying, "You're not her mum, are you?" referring to Nat..............God, I needed a few more glasses of wine after that!

Great night, got home just before 2 and the dorm was still empty, I heard noises at about 03h30 but just buried my head in my pillow and tried to stay asleep, helped no doubt by my somewhat enthusiastic wine consumption and then woke up at 9 to find 3 lovely German girls in residence, at least I can tick the hostel thing off my list now and it was quite fun.

Profiteroles With Hot Chocolate Sauce................Heavenly!

I didn't write yesterday because although we had a really interesting day there just wasn't that much to say - it was the first part of a two day course in "Cooking for Pleasure & Profit" - the basic run down on how to set up a catering company/café/coffee shop/restaurant without going bust in the first few months, really good but sadly not much to actually tell you about except that you've to make really good friends with your bank manager or for those souls that are still single, marry well!

Today on the other hand was action-packed - busy morning in the kitchen and OMG winter has arrived, it was so cold this morning that I spent the first half hour in the kitchen hugging the oven. Once I'd defrosted and prised myself away from the hot spot, it was onto brown yeast bread (not that great to be honest, think my first attempt was better in a way and definitely going to have to practice this one a bit more before the dreaded Technique Exam next Friday, don't talk about it), eclairs filled with Chantilly cream and dipped in dark chocolate icing, chorizo, rosemary and parmesan choux pastry puffs (absolutely brilliant) and plaice goujons with aioli and coriander salsa. Those came out fairly well - I was definitely right about the fish world being flat, Mr. Flat Fish in the form of plaice was so much easier - honestly I had him off the bone in about 5 minutes, with the fillets still relatively intact, skin off and head and assorted other body parts in the stock pot, not too shabby.

The fish came in at about 09h30 and the lady who delivered it had a whole lot extra available for sale - word spread quickly and with fish filleting a definite on the Technique Exam we all dashed home to collect money and then lined up outside her van to buy "practice" fish - I definitely didn't get there quick enough which resulted in two whoopsies, first I had to stand outside for about fifteen minutes freezing to death, it would have been warmer to climb inside the refrigerated van I reckon, block my nose and hand out with Nemo and friends and secondly, by the time I got to the front of the queue most of the smaller fish had been bought and so I lugged home a normal-sized sole (flat fish practice) and a gigantic pollock (round fish practice) that could have been a body double for Jaws - he's huge, has taken up the better half of the fridge and frightened the daylights out of me when I got home this evening, having forgotten about him, and opened the fridge for some milk. I've chucked them both in the freezer for now and the plan is to meet up with the girls from Mrs Walsh's cottage (such a cute name) on Saturday evening to do some filleting, turn them into something for our supper and then drink copious amounts of white wine to make up for what could well be a dodgy practice session..............

Highlight of the day for me (not for my waistline) were beignets which are pretty much a doughnut but better - thin ribbons of choux pastry piped directly into the deep fat fryer (see what I mean) and then once they're puffed up and crispy, tossed in cinnamon sugar, I've no words for how good they are.......................the teachers in our kitchen had the truly inspired idea of suggesting that the students down to make those whip them up at 10h00 for a mid-morning snack and they went down a treat, how to make friends in one simple step!

My little chocolate eclairs

Upmarket fish fingers (I hope).....

Afternoon demo was with Rachel and I made my first acquaintance with a monkfish - now there's no chance this little fellow is going to fair well in American's Next Supermodel but WOW, he tastes good and he bloody should, this one cost €25.00 which ain't cheap, not a dish you'd want to mess up at any rate, and most of the weight is in the head which gets chopped off anyway - he's sort of part of the round fish family although a bit of a loner and looks really easy to fillet, I'm not sure we'll have a shot at him tomorrow, too expensive I would think for all of us to be having a go. Anyway, he ended up in a fish curry which was fantastic, made with all sorts of spices and tamarind and just deadly, definitely one to try again.

A local artisan cheesemaker named Jane Murphy of Ardsallagh Cheeses came in to see us too, she was really lovely, told us about how years ago in 1979 she was at home with her two small children when an insurance salesman came knocking at the door - don't think she took in much of his sales pitch but he noticed that her little ones suffered from excema and told her that if they drank a bit of goat's milk each day it would clear up in no time. Anyway she thanked him, closed the door and promptly forgot about it until an hour or so later when the door bell rang again and he was back, with a goat for her, a completely random act of kindness - she started off milking the little dot, who was named Julia, and sure enough the kid's excema cleared up. Of course they loved the goat and so shortly a second one arrived, named Bounce, and over the years her cheese making company came into being. They are the most delicious cheese - soft and hard goat's cheese and with all sorts of flavour variations, they've a soft roulade filled with cranberries which was wicked! Keeping the goats, and they have up to 500 on their farm at a time, sounds like fairly hard work - goats are escape artists of note not to mention unfussy eaters who won't say no to a bit of laundry on the line, the Sunday paper, the kid's shoes, any form of food left lying around, what have you, apparently not even an electric fence can always keep them in, clever little buggers from the sounds of it. Ardsallagh have won all sorts of international awards for their cheese and well deserved, so so good.

So Rachel then showed us how to make all sorts of salads with soft goats cheese which I love, some with walnuts, others with roasted red peppers and tapenade, and one with toasted almonds and rocket, fab fab fab.

We did a few more choux pastry recipes, salambas which are basically like an eclair but coated in caramel and filled with orange flavoured créme patisserie and then, highlight of the demo (and of course the tasting session) profiteroles filled with a combination of créme patisserie and Chantilly cream and then coated in hot chocolate sauce, heaven on a plate! Rachel suggested filling them with vanilla ice cream too and then chucking the hot choccie sauce over them, can you just imagine.................

Straight on from demo to a brief wine talk with Colm, concentrating on sherries and honestly I don't know what the hell I've been drinking all these years, or actually not drinking because it's not that great, as everyone said, it makes you think of the stuff that comes out your granny's cupboard every now and again and is dished out in tiny glasses - the "real" stuff from Spain is so much better, more like a "normal" wine and just delish and absurdly underpriced - we tasted a 30 year old Oloroso sherry which was fantastic and available at Sainsburys for something stupid like £7.00, imagine making something and not being paid for it for 30 years and then get a measly few quid for it, really not right, they need a massive marketing overhaul I'd say so that we all get to know what sherry should actually taste like.

Finally home and YAY, it's a bank holiday weekend so just tomorrow to go and then 3 days off - I fear the school may be a bit of a graveyard, so many people going home, I wish I could too to see your man but just getting there would take pretty much the whole time so it's not to be. Cooking tomorrow morning (one of the goat's cheese salads, pilaff rice, granary bread, and a tart filled with créme patisserie and berries, basically an excuse to practive my shortcrust pastry which still gives me palpitations and which knowing my luck, will show up on my Technique Exam for sure). Demo with Rachel in the afternoon and then off to Cork with Natasha and Laurie for the night to see a few shows at the annual Cork Jazz Festival which apparently is a riot and great fun, so looking forward to it.

I Like The World Flat

I got through quite a few recipes this morning, took myself by surprise to be honest and made granola (more on that later), blueberry muffins, grapefruit, orange and mint cocktail (which really just entailed a brief negotiation with the citrus fruit to get them to part with the segments and leave all the white pithy stuff behind), spotted dog (white bread with sultanas) and the world's largest fry up - egg, bacon, sausage, mushroom, tomato and toast, a slimmer's delight!

The granola went really well to start with - had the oven timer set to 3 minute intervals to make sure it didn't burn courtesy of all the butter and honey, it was like an Abba revival in there the way I was dancing between my work station and the oven, got very little done in between the checks, 2 minutes and 50 seconds just doesn't give you much time but at least it didn't burn to a cinder. And then the morning's fatal error occured - having gone through all that, I managed to chop up a mountain of hazelnuts, toss them into the granola, stir it all around (the truly dire part) and then realisation dawned and I remembered that I was supposed to remove the skins of the nuts before a.) chopping them up or b.) mixing them in, not good. Of course the bowl was worth a fortune in ingredients and so chucking it all out and starting again wasn't an option, and I wasn't about to present my brekkie display sans the granola so I had to FISH THEM ALL OUT, de-skin them and put them back in - it may have been a grey, miserable day outside but for a bit of colour in your life, you could have just stood next to me for a few minutes, the hit level of four letter words reached an all time high - 20 minutes later it was finally done and I can tell you one thing - it'll never happen again.

My cholestrol-buster fry up was wicked - I couldn't actually eat it all and stuck to the slightly less frightening things instead but it looked good. Once again I forgot to take pictures - it was all a bit manic and very lastminute.com with getting the egg cooked correctly, in other words that 20 second interval in life between an egg being a wobbly mush of white stuff and hard enough for rugby practice but it really did all look quite fab. I don't know many people that could put away that whole breakfast menu in one sitting, perhaps the Springbok back line...................

So instead of lunch, we finished early and had brunch at 12h00 and then at 13h00 we all headed down to Shanagarry Beach to look for periwinkles which are small sea snails - kitted out in jeans, wellies, scarves and rain jackets because it was bloody freezing. Just last week some of the (obviously mad) students were still swimming in the sea and honestly I've no idea how - just fiddling around in the rock pools for the periwinkles had my fingers numb and a pale shade of navy blue, icy icy icy. Funny story - apparently a few years ago, on this same course, about mid-October, a group of students went down to do exactly what we did today and the beach is obviously fairly quiet at this time of year - probably because it's more of a walk in cold room than a beach. Anyway literally a minute before a deluge of 60 odd students hurtled onto the beach, a local bloke had decided to go for a very quick dip but his timing couldn't have been worse - as the periwinkle search went on (and it lasts about 20 minutes before your fingers literally fall off and take up residence in the rock pools), students were commenting on how barmy the guy must have been for swimming so long. Turned out that, with the beach absolutely deserted, he'd opted for a skinny dip and so could hardly then emerge from the depths in the nick and stroll nonchalantly back to his car..............................I'll say only one thing - "frankfurter vs cocktail sausage" - and leave the rest to your imagination.



In pursuit of periwinkles...............

Straight from there we headed back for afternoon demo, defrost took a while and my toes and I became reacquainted about half an hour later.

One of the first things we learnt today was how to fillet a flat fish and let me tell you, in my tiny bubble of fish filleting I like the world flat, you can keep your round fish any day, the flat guys are so much easier to de-body. Of course it may have been an illusion and perhaps my sole and I will have a stand off on Thursday morning but my hopes are high.

In terms of things fishy, I'm afraid the recently collected periwinkles also met a sticky end and spent a minute or two in the good old pot of boiling water - my worst was when the bowl emerged from the fridge and the little dots were trying to climb up the sides, some of them had got right up to the rim, so near and yet so far...........in the spirit of trying everything, I shut my eyes and just ate one (after the trip into the pot and back out onto a plate) and they just taste of the sea really, not sure I'm destined for a long term career in snail eating but at least I gave them a shot.

Other items on the menu were chilli con carne made with beef steak instead of mince, so much nicer, Provencal bean stew, a few chilli sauces, aioli (garlic mayo), goujons of sole, a few salads and then, shock, horror, another type of pastry but this one isn't too bad - choux pastry and granted it'll be a bastard to beat all the eggs into it but at least it doesn't want to be rolled which works for me and better yet, once you've got the hard part over with you then get to turn it into profiteroles and chocolate éclairs - a bright, shiny, LED light at the end of the tunnel, YAY!



Éclairs - available in chocolate, coffee and caramel, YUM!



Theory day tomorrow so there'll be an early morning trip to the demo room by one of us to bag good chairs - the first of a two day course in restaurant management, food costings, payroll, budgeting, what have you. 

Bush Bunny Soup

Back to the kitchen this morning after a 4 day absence and it felt like ages - my fingers were at DefCon 5 in terms of knife-aversion alert and thankfully I managed to get through the day with all 10 intact, decided to burn myself instead but luckily not too badly, trying to wrestle my apple pie out of the oven where it had applied for permanent residence!

So I was down to make strawberry jam (which was postponed because there weren’t enough strawbs), apple pie, caramelised almond biscuits (those incredible ones from last Friday) and soup. It was supposed to be green soup day so all around me students were whizzing up soups fit for the Emerald Isle - watercress, spinach, kale - but I got stuck with cabbage soup. Now I know that sounds as about exciting as a night in doing needlework but it was surprisingly pretty tasty once I’d seasoned it to within an inch of it’s life but green it was not – I’d have parted with my new top from Zara for a few drops of food colouring (which would have had my teacher no doubt doing her own impersonation of Shrek). So in the end I, rather appropriately, made bush bunny khaki-coloured soup and cheered it up with some crispy green bits to give it a bit of colour.

Then it was onto the little almond biscuits which were easy enough and so good, I managed to leave the plate of them behind for someone else to eat because if they’d come home with me, they’d have had a very short life.

And lastly the blasted apple pie – it was made with a different kind of pastry which, hallelujah, you make in my new favourite friend, the food processor so that was all fine but it took forever to cook, hung around in the oven for ages and just didn’t want to emerge in any form of cooked and crispy state. In between managing to burn the side of my arm man-handling it out of the oven I forgot to take a pic but it wasn’t too shabby. I suspect I may have been a bit enthusiastic with the apple filling - when I tried to cut a slice it all sort of collapsed in a bit so I just hid the rest of it and presented a tidied up version instead – Moses and his parting the seas thing would have come in very handy.

Afternoon demo was a bit of a marathon session – it was a whole breakfast theme and there were enough recipes to bring tears to your eyes, everything from raw, toasted and bircher-style muesli, to granola to porridge (served with jersey cream and brown sugar which I’ve no doubt would be incredible but by God, it’s a slippery slope if your day starts like that), stewed fruits, fresh fruit salads, smoothies, pancakes, waffles, bread (soda bread with sultanas known as Spotted Dog and if you make it in individual portions, then Spotted Puppies, how cute) and then all manner of eggs – baked, boiled, poached, scrambled, fried, what have you, luckily there was a mammoth basket of eggs to hand, if I was one of the hens I'd have put in for overtime! Masses of accompaniments – bacon, sausages, black and white pudding (not a South African thing and I’m bracing myself to try it tomorrow, honestly if I told you what was in it you’d think I was mad), mushrooms, tomatoes, potato cake (or fadge as it’s known here) and more – all cooked in lashings of butter of course, the fry up alone was at least a week’s worth of calories, I may have to do the Cliff Walk again tomorrow afternoon after having all this for lunch, in fact it may have to be a Cliff Sprint – my arteries are braced for the event........

We finished quite late and I’m so glad I wasn’t on duty tonight, the pile of washing up would have made you weep – decided to skip the tasting since it’ll all be there again tomorrow and I think once will be quite enough. We were shown how to poach an egg properly (without using one of those nifty mould thingys) which I’ve always wanted to know how to do – my previous attempts have resulted in a blizzard-like whirlpool of egg white and a bastard of a pot to clean, Darina’s came out like a dream, all perfect and poached egg-like and it's on my list tomorrow to master once and for all. I’m also down to make muffins, a full Irish breakfast, granola (coated in butter and honey so dead keen to burn to a crisp and ruin my morning..........) and bread – could be a rather busy day!

These Boots Were Made For Walking

I woke up at 09h00 which when you went to sleep at 03h00 really ain't enough sleep, very tired and then for reasons unknown we launched into a massive house cleaning session, the hoover hurt my head but at least the White Cottage looks spiffy - there seem to be random checks of the houses and being criticised for sloppy domestic habits in your mid-thirties is a little disconcerting so we're trying to maintain some sort of a standard..................

Later in the day when my head - and my housemates who'd been at The Blackbird too - had stopped pounding (I've a new affiliation with my yeast bread from last week after it was kneaded and chucked about the work surface for a few hours), we headed to Ballycotton (taking a wide angle around The Blackbird) to do the Cliff Walk and it's so beautiful, can't wait to do it again. It's about 4 miles in total, along the coastline above Ballycotton, with small side paths leading down to little beach coves, cows on your right, the Atlantic on your left and a whole lot of green grass in between. The sun was out, it wasn't too arctic, I must have walked off at least some of last night's dinner - all in all, a good day out! Look at my fab boots, birthday present from your man just before I left for Ireland, I've worn them every day, because a.) I miss him, b.) they're so warm, and c.) properly comfortable.

New boots!





Ballycotton Cliff Walk



Blackberry snacks en route.............

Brights Lights & The Big City

YAY, we went into Cork today for a bit of a look around and (don't tell your man) shopping and it was such fun - good to get out of school for a while and to hit civilisation for a few hours, so fab. I got a few more winter goodies because I've been cold for days so a few more pairs of tights and leggings (have to layer under the jeans now), a gorgeous scarf and a warm coat and with any luck, having bought the winter warmers the Indian summer will continue for a bit longer. It was a beautiful day so my sneaky plan seems to be working.

Rosie, Charlotte, Claire and I went into Midleton last night for dinner, to a restaurant called Sage which was brilliant - the food was fantastic, so going there again. You know your life is sad and cooking-obsessed when you take pictures of everyone's meals before you'll let them go at it with a knife and fork..................

I think I ate too much, just for a change, but at least it helped balance out all the wine - we headed to The Blackbird pub in Ballybotton after dinner, the better half of Ballymaloe was there, it was Rachel's birthday, one of the students and the pub was jam packed, live music and a whole lot more wine and I got home at 03h00 - despite a large glass of water and two headache pills, I have a distinct feeling that Sunday morning is going to suck in a big way!

Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pud

Oh my, busy busy Friday morning demo - Friday was our theory day because the whole week was a little different what with the tour and so on and we got through so many recipes during the morning session that my head felt as though it has been through the food processor!

We started with caramelised pecan and almond squares which I must tell you are by far the best little biscuits we've learnt to make so far - we had them for tea at 11h00 when we took a short break and the contents of those platters did a vanishing act that would have impressed David Copperfield.

From there, Darina moved on to a whole range of winter dishes which I can imagine will be just the thing once it's officially cold (which I'm told it's still not, everyone here is mad) - roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and horseradish sauce, braised short ribs, cassoulet, lamb shanks with garlic, rosemary and haricot beans, pan roasted parsnips, more roast potatoes (done in duck fat, you'd have to buy a new calculator with extra decimal points to work out the calories on those), and then crudités with a whole lot of dips - anchoide (not my best, I just don't get the whole anchoby thing), hummus (always fab), pesto (ditto) and dukkah which was new for me and too good - roasted spices and crushed hazelnuts, so you dip a little pita crisp into olive oil and then into the dukkah so that it sticks and then you eat it and I imagine it all sticks from then on too, most probably onto your bum!

We learnt all about the various cuts of beef so that's another four legged special ticked off the list - personally so far I prefer lamb and in second place, pigs - so many more cuts to know when the animal in question is huge like a cow. Darina spoke to us about the difference between grass-fed and grain-fed beef with grass-fed being by far the preferable option. Luckily, and let's be frank here, Ireland grows grass for the first team, due to the occasional drop of rain that's known to fall in these parts.

We were positively drooling by lunchtime - the smells coming from the roast beef and lamb shank were sublime and watching the Yorkshire puds rise in the oven was like magic - neddless to say, lunch was brilliant!

Now I don't know what happened on Friday afternoon - perhaps it was a combination of the hectic morning session where we whipped through so many recipes or the large lunch and the fact that it was the end of the week but the afternoon session was a battle. It was a talk and cookery demo on gluten-free foods and this is a hugely increasing reality for the food business and so obviously one that we all need to know about but WOW, I struggled to stay awake - I would have gnawed on a coffee bean I think if I could have laid my hands on one. Tell you what too I'm so glad I don't have a gluten intolerance - the lecturer was great and honestly she did her best but somehow things just don't taste as good when they're made with rice flour, corn flour, tapioca flour, etc.

Gluten-free pastries

Week 4 over so we're now theorectically 33.3% chefs, OMG!