Cheese & Wine

Theory day, and we spent some quality time in the chairs - thank Heaven Claire went over early and bagged us good 'comfy' seats, we'd have been crippled otherwise.

The morning began with a lesson in making butter, cheese and yoghurt - the two Jersey cows obliged by producing a couple of pales of gorgeous milk which was separated into cream and milk and then turned into a batch of different things. I have to tell you that butter made from fresh Jersey cream truly rocks - if I'd been able to lay my hands on a toaster and a loaf of bread, I'd have been done for I think.

Yoghurt is actually pretty easy to make once you've all the cultures and what have you and you don't even need your own cows for that thankfully, not your average backyard pet but the Jersey cows are so beautiful, I'd love to have one pottering about, they've the most gorgeous eyes, so pretty. Darina made some apple purée from the garden apples and put that at the bottom of a small jar and topped it with the yoghurt, not unusual but it somehow tastes better when you've made it yourself and picked the apples and everything.

And then we made cottage cheese and turned that into a few more things - Labne which is a type of middle eastern cheese, very creamy and smooth - some of it went into jars with rosemary, olive oil and chilli, can you imagine that spread on a cracker in a few days once it's officially marinated? And then we made Srikhand too, an Indian dessert made of yoghurt, saffron, cardomom, pistachio nuts and sugar, so good and Coeur a'la Crème, a classic French dessert which we had with berries.

There were lots of others too - a semi hard cheese, ricotta, paneer, all sorts - granted it would still be much easier to just pop out to Woollies and go mad in their cheese section but there's definitely a sense of personal satisfaction when you whip it up yourself, and it's a good excuse to adopt a cow - can just imagine how much my husband will love that motivation...................

Lunch was fab, fab, fab - in the Café and we had tomato and mint soup, veal with roasted parsnips, steamed Irish potatoes, glazed carrots, Swiss chard, green salad, roasted squash and then apple crumble for pud, and the coeur a'la crèmes that we'd made in the morning - the sun was out again so it was tea and coffee on the veranda for a caffeine kick before the afternoon session started - I wish someone would come up with a caffeine kick for your bum, all day in a chair makes for a fairly numb rear end.

We had a wine talk in the afternoon with Colm McCan, sommelier at Ballymaloe House and voted Ireland's Sommelier of the Year in 2009 - it was actually so interesting and I'm feeling a little less panic-stricken by the whole French wine thing  - I now know which wines are made in Saint-Emillion, Pomerol, Margaux and Chablis, only about a million more appelations to go, not to mention Germany, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and Chile but it was a start at least - apparently our primary focus are wines from France, Australia and Chile as these are the 3 most popular in Ireland and I'm at an Irish school - I was gutted, what about our incredible South African wines, a.) because at least I know a bit about them and b.) because they're fantastic! I'm not going to mention anything about Oz, way too much competition between us in the sporting arena in any event but seriously...........................I suppose the one up side is that I'll learn about completely new wines but a small headstart in at least one area would have been nice, the Irish, not to mention the Australians, have a lot to answer for!

I cheered up during the tasting and had a little "Seth Efrican" moment when we tasted a Chardonnay from Rustenberg, woo hoo!

Crème caramel and aubergines for me tomorrow morning, fingers crossed............

Cluck Cluck

Oh my word, mad, mad day in the kitchens - I don't know what happened to us all today but if you'd walked into one of the 3 kitchens in which we all cook, you'd have fallen about yourself laughing - it wasn't just the chickens who were getting chopped up, we were all running around like headless versions of the same species....................and apparently the level of intensity, and the number of things we've to make each day, is just going to keep growing so we're going to have to get a bit more organised - everything just seems to take so much longer than you think it will. We're required to draw up an order of work each day and at the moment these are about as accurate as the plan for the war in Iraq. I had planned to joint my chicken in 15 minutes and yet 40 minutes later I was still fannying about trying to get various body parts into separate bits, not good. And all I could think of was Rory the previous day who managed to dismember a whole chicken in under 3 minutes, and his looked much less like roadkill than mine did by the time I finally got it done - I know he's had years of practice and maybe one day I'll be able to do a similiar job but for now, the frustration, aaarrggh!!

I did make incredible sauce to go with it though - chanterelle mushrooms with tarragon and cream, the chanterelles were also fairly painful and by the time I'd got through cleaning them I was longing for a bog-standard button mushroom - you've to brush the dirt off a chanterelle with a small paintbrush and then pull it apart to check that nothing with more legs than you, or alternatively no legs at all, is hiding in the stem - apparently the five star hotel of choice for bugs.

My sticky chicken wings went down a treat on the lunch table - sweet chilli sauce, soy sauce and then a dusting of sesame seeds, not too shabby. And then finally the zucchini dish turned out perfectly, by far the easiest one of the morning. We're all supposed to be done by 12 and in the dining room but when I ran in there like a banshee at 12h30 looking for a main plate on which to present my chicken dish for tasting, the place was like a graveyard and that did make me feel a tiny bit better - obviously the situation in Kitchens 2 and 3 was as dire as Kitchen 1, safety in numbers you know - I could almost hear Freddie Mercury singing "Under Pressure" in the background, they should pipe that through the school on days like today.

We finally sat down for lunch well after lunch, absolutely knackered - conversation was limited except for the muttering of four letter words and then before we'd had a chance to breath, it was straight onto Afternoon Demo with Rory, most of us with a strong coffee or 3 under our belts.

We had a great afternoon session and Rory showed us how to make Aubergine Caviar (I've no idea why it's called that, it's basically an aubergine dip, glorious though), Moutabal which is a smoky aubergine dip (really, really good), a roast aubergine salad with saffron yoghurt, basil and pomegranate seeds, spiced chicken with almonds, basmati rice, poppodums, banana and yoghurt raita, cucumber and yoghurt raita, french beans and for pud, créme caramel with caramel shards, YAY, all fabulous as always. Learnt all about saffron which you may well know is the most expensive spice in the world - as Rory told us, on top of that not unimportant factor is the point that it adds a wonderful musty, mysterious element to food but not to get carried away with it because there's not much between musty and mysterious and creating a dish that smells like the attic.

Tomorrow is our theory day but I'm down to make creme caramel, aubergine caviar and white soda bread on Thurday morning - the creme caramel could be fun, trying to assess the right point at which to whip the caramel off the gas could be quite a laugh, it's supposed to come off when it gets to "chestnut" colour but it's a very fine line between chestnut and burnt and on the other hand, if you take it off too quickly, well then you'll just be stuck with runny hot sugar, decisions, decisions....................

I noticed on the recipe list that none of us are to make the moutabal dip which is a bummer because it was by far my favourite dish of the day but to get the charred, smoky flavour that's critical to it the aubergines have to be pretty much well burnt over an open flame using the gas flame on the cookers - having witnessed the sheer mayhem of the morning, I think the school may have wisely decided that we weren't quite up to that yet - nothing like burning the place down in week 2 to put a bit of a dampner on things.

Anyway, that was that - tasting was wicked as always and from there it was straight home, I crawled to the fridge for a glass of wine and then collapsed in front of the telly. Must tell you that it rained the whole day, that sort of non-stop drizzle from a slate grey sky that I'd been told to expect - once I'd got a bit of liquor down my throat, I went online and ordered a good, strong pair of wellies, the time is near I'm afraid where I'll be in them every day - delivery date October 1st, YAY. Even the school puppies sought refuge inside and took up residence on the reception bench.

Forgot to mention that I was also on veg, herb and salad green picking duty this morning, feels like aeons ago but I was at the greenhouse at 07h30 and spent an hour picking green things - still can't get over the greenhouses and how much is grown in them, would love to see the farm in the height of summer, it must be incredible - the Farm Manager Huely, was telling me this morning that in July and August rocket planted on a Monday in the greenhouse is ready for picking the next week, out the ground in no time flat - must be where the name comes from I think. I'm off to be horizontal in my bed now, few pages of the book I think and then sleep, am completely shattered.



The greenhouses and a forest of parsley..........



I'm Getting Better!

Manic Monday and time to tackle the tart again - different filling but same base which is where all my troubles lie but, and this is so cool, the one I made today was a bit better - granted I'm not about to give Gordon Ramsay a run for his money but there was most definitely a slight improvement.

The first one I made last week was as dry as the Sahara desert which apparently makes for crisper, better pastry but by Heaven, it's a mission to roll it out without a million cracks appearing so I went with a tiny bit more liquid for attempt #2 and it helped - God knows if the actual pastry was any better but at least I didn't feel like I needed to impersonate Mike Tyson's biceps to get it from a ball into a flat piece of something - probably a bit wet in terms of pastry-standards so if I could just find a moderate climate somewhere in between drought-stricken desert and flood-drenched plains I'll be cooking with gas.

I even managed that whole roll it onto the rolling pin thing and unroll it into the flan tin business, bit of a milestone for me, sad I know but I was grinning like a Cheshire cat. Deadly filling - Gruyere cheese, parmesan cheese, eggs, cream, dill and the obligatory mass of seasoning - it was really good.

Also made wicked little lemon squares which were delic, could have eaten the whole tray without difficulty - all in all, a good day and I was soooooooooooo glad when the list of what we each had to make went up that my name was nowhere next to Mr. Crab's and so other people got lumped with that task - it'll come up again at some point but the temporary reprieve was most welcome.

Afternoon demo was with Rory and he showed us how to joint a whole chicken and then turn it into creamy sauce with mushrooms and ginger, make sticky chicken wings and spiced chicken legs, zucchini with marjoram, homemade tomato pasta sauce, good old Irish potatoes, gaspacho with all the trimmings and by far the highlight of the day, apple crumble with (oh no, you guessed it) a sweet pastry base, apples from the garden and the most incredible crumble with almonds and cinnamon - it was pure heaven, going to make that many, many times over I know.

Gaspacho; zucchini carpaccio with parmesan; chicken breasts with mushrooms and ginger; apple crumble tart

The chicken is going to be my job tomorrow morning and honestly, you feel as though you could tackle a knee replacement by the time you're done with it - bit ukky but it's all about the joints, ball-and-socket numbers all over the show and if you're going to call yourself a chef, it's not just a case of blunting the hell out of your knife and grinding your way through them as I've done in the past but actually finding the joints and cleanly slipping your knife between them - easier said than done, they're slippery little buggers and when you're holding a razor-sharp filleting knife in one hand and a free-range, organic chicken the size of humble turkey in the other, well it's not the time to day dream about your weekend plans or who's going to get voted off The Apprentice next week. The other small detail is that good quality organic, free range chickens don't come cheap, about €16.00 each here and I'm sure they're pretty steep at home too so if you've plans to run a successful restaurant or something similar in the future, you've got to make sure that you get everything that you can off the kuku before he heads for the stock pot - we're talking a size 0 supermodel silhouette and that makes it just a bit more interesting - looking forward to the challenge ahead...............

Forgot to tell you, just before Demo started, Darina bought in some special mushrooms to show us that had just been delivered to the school - chanterelles which are so pretty and ceps - the office placed a call to a well known London restaurant to ask them what they're currently paying for ceps and the reply was a staggering £45 per kg - nothing like messing up €16.00 worth of chicken and burning £45.00 of cep mushrooms to brighten up your day!

Once I get through the orthopaedic part of my morning tomorrow, I'm down to make chicken breasts with chanterelle mushroom and tarragon sauce, sticky chicken wings and one of the zucchini dishes, no pressure.

Cep and chanterelle mushrooms

We had a wine talk last evening given by Eric Talavet, Directeur Général of Establissement Thunevin in France, a wine company in Saint-Emillion, Bordeaux, owned by Jean-Luc Thunevin, the first ever producer of "garage wines" - it was actually so interesting although I have to say that French wines confuse the living day lights out of me - instead of just saying what a wine is, like we do at home, you've to identify the type of wine (Merlot, Cab Sauv, etc) by the appellation or area in which it's grown - not speaking French or for that matter, being able to pronounce most of the appellations without sounding like a right hick doesn't help and I can see much studying ahead of me if I'm to pass the wine exam at the end of the course.

We tasted 6 wines - 1 white and 5 reds, all lovely - they had the spitoons all lined up ready for use, I've no idea why, I imagine you could safely lock them up in some dusty, unused corner of the storeroom and throw away the key - spit out good French wine at the end of a long day in the kitchen?? - you'd be mad!

To The Beach & Back

Fabulous Sunday morning lie in - bush friends, perhaps don't read the next sentence and if you do, I'm sorry in advance....................I only woke up at 09h30 and it was lovely!

For the most part, I tried to do as little as possible the whole day which wasn't especially hard - my housemate Niamh and I wondered to the shop to buy a Sunday paper and later in the afternoon the four of us made roast kuku and veggies for early supper, and then we headed to the beach at Ballycotton, to a pub called The Blackbird where we'd heard there was to be live Irish music.

We set off just after 6 for the "gentle stroll" to the beach - the local guidebook had described the walk as being 2 miles, it was actually 3, bit of a case of rounding down I think and the road is very narrow with no pavement or shoulder so we had a few very intimate moments with the hedge on the way when some crazy driver came haring around a corner in Formula 1 fashion. Still, it was a lovely walk and the coastline was gorgeous, huge views of the Atlantic, wide stretch of sandy beach, a small island just off the coast and then the cutest pub - settled myself down very happily in a cosy corner with a pint of Bulmer's cider and waited for the music to start - the "session" kicked off at about 20h30 and it was just fab, musicians coming and going, joining in ad hoc, some folk-style music and then the proper Irish music too - as the Irish girls from school said, " it was good craic"!

We managed to talk our way into a lift for the trip back with one of the other students who'd bought her car - wasn't feeling quite up to the return 3 mile, hedge hugging trek after 2 pints of cider, if nothing else I was unlikely to make it the whole way back without needing to pee!

Back to the kitchen tomorrow morning, I'm making another blasted tart but it's a whole new week and hopefully the pastry part of my brain will actually show up and make a bit of effort..................

Niamh, Natasha, Claire and me sadly with my head in the way, sorry!

Market Day

Oh my God, it’s only been a week and I know, I just know I’ve put on weight already – with it being the weekend, I’ve had to relinquish my lovely chef pants and revert to “normal” clothes and I can literally feel my skinny jeans eyeing me reproachfully from the back of the cupboard, if jeans could speak (and mine will soon be yelling four-letter words at me and begging me to“step away from the pastry”) I just know what they’d be muttering, all sorts of snide remarks like “she says she has to taste everything” and “does she know how much butter is in that sauce?”. Anyway, they’ve a fair point and I’ve made them a solemn promise that I’ll put them on at least once a week – although I fear I may have to lie down soon just to zip them up – if nothing else, the exercise should serve as a deterrent at meal times.......................I hope.

I woke up at 8, which isn’t too bad I suppose and it’s so nice not having to jump out of bed and rush off to do something – instead I made tea, watched the news on the telly, and ambled around the house for a while. One of my housemates, Claire, has a car and had kindly offered to take us all into Middleton, the nearest town about 8 miles away to visit the Farmers’ Market and then on to Tesco’s to stock up with some healthy snacks (it’s good to have goals) and all the other things we’ve discovered we need in the house over the week.

The plan was to leave at about 10 and we were dead excited – bit of cabin fever I suppose and the prospect of a trip into town was very appealing. It was the most glorious day, blue skies and sunny and beautiful – I’m still struggling with this whole weather malarkey (fab Irish word, I love it) though, when I see sun out the window I want to put on shorts and flip flops but a quick test out the front door left me in no doubt that whilst the sun might have been showing her face, she’d bought her friend, very cold wind, with her. It was my coldest day yet and I went out suitably kitted for an expedition to Everest – boots, thick socks, leggings, about 5 layers on the top and even with all that, there were still parts that I couldn’t feel by the time we’d reached the car. God alone knows what I’m going to do come November/December, my duvet might have to become a mobile accessory................! I managed to leave my hat at home, you’ve got to have something to look forward to I suppose for when it gets properly cold and I’m under no illusions at the moment that it’s only me that thinks it’s chilly, us Southern Hemisphere souls are just not geared for this weather.

Anyway, off we headed and found Middleton and the market easily and it was just so cute – about 20 stalls altogether – Ballymaloe has the largest one and I’ll be on duty there in a few weeks time. Too many things you’d want to just buy and take home to eat – patés, amazing fresh fish, smoked salmon, fantastic fruit and veggies (we bought masses, it’s the skinny jeans thing again), cheeses, cakes, relishes, pickles, what have you – all good, good, good.

Middleton Farmer's Market

There were some young girls kitted out in traditional Irish dancing outfits, a bag piping pair and a folk quartet singing in what we think was Spanish although to be honest it was hard to tell although lovely to listen to.

We managed to restrain ourselves admirably I thought and left with only bags of fruit and veggies and from there it was on to Tesco for the basics which included a good few bottles of wine, fresh salmon for our Saturday dinner, a kuku for our Sunday dinner, muesli, yoghurt, what have you – all low calorie, thigh-loving goodies designed to tempt us away from the tasting table – they’ve stiff competition though and I don't rate their chances too highly.

Once we got back to the school, we wandered around the farm and gardens for a while, determined to make the most of the sunshine and to learn a few more herbs and the like on the way, it was lovely.

We made ourselves a brilliant supper of green salad, beans, tomatoes and salmon – so good, our first family dinner, all washed down with a healthy glass or two of cold white wine – we’re really very lucky in our little house, it’s feel like home now and we’re loving it.

Money for Jam

YAY, I made jam for the first time ever and it was actually dead easy, can't believe how much sugar goes into jam but by God, it's good – that’s probably why to be honest!

Actually had a really productive day and made - brace yourself - brown bread, scones, jam, Greek salad and penne pasta with mushrooms, marjoram and at least one cow's worth of cream so of course it was sublime. Even if I say so myself it was all pretty good and my confidence has crept up perhaps one point after the pastry debacle of Wednesday...................don't talk about it.

Still can't believe I made my own jam, with loganberries which I've never seen before but they look and taste just like raspberries and looked completely spiffy inside a jar with my name on it, so cool.

The bread was wicked too, it was a soda bread so none of those things that normally give me palpitations when I think of bread - yeast and kneading and proving (is that how you spell it?) and all that jazz, of course I know it's coming but I'm choosing to happily exist in my little bubble of non-yeast self denial for now, it's nice here. I topped my loaf of bread with sunflower and poppy seeds, looked so pretty and it helps to make a pattern on your bread so that you can ID it in the oven in between all the other loaves - you've to hope then that yours doesn't flop utterly and end up looking like Russian flat bread in between all the other happily risen, bread-like looking loaves - thankfully my loaf was most obliging, did exactly what it was supposed to do and made me smile in a big way! I forgot to take a picture but definitely will next time I'm rostered to make bread (or at least a piccie of someone else's if mine comes out looking like it was trampled by an elephant................).

Friday afternoon demo was taken by Darina and these were for dishes that we would be making on Monday – mucho concentration required since most of us had big plans to drink fairly significant quantities of wine over the course of the weekend, well earned I’d say after our first week. So for Monday morning, we’ll be making tomato and basil soup (which we had on our very first day, so good, take the idea of standard boring old tomato soup and chuck it out the window, add a whole lot of things like basil and salt pepper and sugar and chicken stock and béchamel sauce and suddenly you’ve got tomato soup for the First Team), white soda bread, more tarts (not thinking  about it), two different salads with these fab little radishes, strawberry ice cream (beyond words, made of strawberries, sugar and cream, no need for further comment), raspberry popsicles (ditto the ice cream) and on the not-so-good side, crab – now I’ve nothing against crabs (loved chasing them on the beach when I was little, we used to try and make them race against each other with admittedly limited success) and don’t get me wrong, I’ll eat them any day of the week but when they arrive alive and you’ve to put them in a pot and make them not alive anymore, well I had a bit of a lumpy-throat, not good when you’re trying to become a chef – Darina told us that the best way to approach the whole scenario (especially if you’re the crab) is to put them into cold water and slowly heat the water up and somewhere along the line (I like to think it would be equivalent to sun bathing on a warm day with a cocktail to hand) they just slip away – I’m sticking with that image, made me feel much better. The other thing to look out for are their sneaky front claws, pre the pot, with which they can apparently break your finger if they manage to get hold of you – of course if that happened you’d probably have far fewer qualms about chucking them into a pot of steaming hot water....................anyway, bless them, they went into the pot waving goodbye and came out a bit later sans the wave but tasted really fab when Darina put them into a tart with a bit of coriander, ginger, a touch of chilli and the obligatory cream – I've chosen to simply block out the part where you've to pound them with a weight or a hammer to get the meat out and I’m afraid my guilty complex just crept quietly away and hid behind my taste buds and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon............

And that was it – our first week was over, the bottle of red was bellowing my name, I didn’t have to worry about tarts or crabs till Monday and best of all, I had a weekend ahead of me – for those of you that have worked in the bush, you’ll know that most lodges and game reserves work on straight work cycles of at least 6 weeks and up to 3 months long – for the past 5 years, I’ve worked 3 month work cycles with a month off after that which is wonderful but the idea of Saturday and Sunday off, with a bit of a lie in, was dead appealing – will let you know what it’s like!

Crab tart; yellow tomato, cucumber & radish salad; old-fashioned hot dressed crab;
Greek salad; tomato & basil soup with soda bread scones; cucumber, radish, feta & Nigella seed salad



Who Moved My Cheese?

Wednesday is normally our theory day but with it being the first week, Thursday was scheduled for this instead so that we'd have 2 solid days in the kitchens first and so on our first theory day, we learned mostly about cheeses - Peter Ward of Country Choice came to speak to us, his company imports specialised food products and is based in Country Tipperary - he spoke so passionately about food and the huge value of quality ingredients and genuinely good produce, it was wonderful listening to him and he really inspired me to look for good food, especially local food, wherever it is that I'm living one day - he bought in a whole wheel of Parmesan cheese, real Parmagiano Reggiano from the Parma region of Italy, produced on a farm that he visits most years and made strictly according to the "rules" of parmesan production - couldn't believe how much he struggled with the wheel but everything became clear when he told us it weighed 90 pounds, about 40 kgs, that's only about 10 less than me (now, more like 20 by the time the course is finished I fear) and is made with 1,200 pints of milk, can you believe it and get this, the wheel costs €1,200 - I almost fell off my chair - it did taste incredible though, worth every penny I'd say - Darina told us that every scrap gets used, for obvious reason, and the rind apparently is fantastic in stock.

Once Peter had left, we moved onto some other cheeses, all made in Ireland where farmhouse cheeses made by artisan cheese makers is a truly thriving industry and I could see, or better taste, why - they were wicked. We tried Cashel Blue, Gubeen Farmhouse cheesse (very strong but good), Ardsallagh Goat's Cheese, Knockalara Sheep's Milk Cheese (similar to feta but nicer) and my personal favourite, Milleens - with this, Darina quickly whipped up some homemade cheese biscuits and I'd honestly not want to buy another packet of standard crackers from the shop again having tasted them, wafer thin and just so much better than anything I've tasted before.

She also made some red currant jelly which was gorgeous, no fruit in the bottle since it was a jelly and not a jam (learning new things every day you see) and the mixture just looked gorgeous in the jar, perfectly clear and a beautiful colour and I could just imagine how good it would be with a thick cut slice of gammon.

Lunch was fab, served in the Cafe and since we'd not been cooking in the morning, made by the school - for the first time I tasted roasted loin of bacon, I've never even seen a whole loin of bacon before but I'm going to try and put aside my love for Babe (somehow) and work out exactly where that part is so that I can do this again myself. Absolute highlight of lunch was the praline ice cream and when the teachers were bombarded with the same question, repeated breathessly by all of us, "Do we learn how to make this" the answer thankfully was yes, the relief was palpable and that's going to be a red letter day of note - you can keep your Haagen Daaz Pralines & Cream, this was heaven in a bowl and the recipe is going to be flagged, highlighted, carefully filed and treasured as soon as I it, YAY!

After lunch it was onto more practical issues including fire safety, which I'm going to do my best to avoid - if it catches on fire, there's a good chance I'll have messed it up properly - and health and hygiene standards and requirements, not as fun as watching demo but absolutely critical if you're going into the food business.

And that was it - our first day of theory, a whole lot more info stashed into our files and the corners of my brain that still have available space after the onslaught on info in our first few days.

Let me tell you one thing - "bagging" a good spot in the Demo Kitchen, which is where we also have our theory days is fast becoming as important to me as my baggy, elasticated chef pants (I love them, I fully appreciate their ugliness now, so much more practical when you don't want to think/feel the results of all the tasting) - there are a few chairs (and by that I mean only about 10) that beat the others hands down in terms of comfort and being near the front is mission critical too - surely if you've a frontline view there should hopefully/theoretically be a smaller chance of wreaking havoc in the kitchen the next day? So the race after lunch to grab one of those spots is becoming more and more competitive by the day, we'll be needing starter blocks and trainers soon!

Back to the kitchen tomorrow morning to make the dishes we watched on Wednesday afternoon's demo so I'll be digging those recipes out tonight for a thorough recap - can't wait to try everything though and no tarts for me tomorrow, woo hoo, my partner has that lovely task instead and I'll just get to eat them instead, my preferred option for sure.

Irish farmhouse cheeses

Peter Ward & Rory O'Connell with the wheel of Parmesan

Half a wheel.......

Pastry......................Not My BFF!

Let me start by saying that I have a llllooonnggg way to go before anything I make that involves pastry could actually be sold or offered to a guest, at the moment they'd probably ask me for money. It took me almost 3 hours this morning to produce one French onion tart (which let's be frank, the French would likely have disowned) and one tomato salad so at the moment any food operation of mine would be running at a bit of a loss...........! I've great faith however that after 12 weeks with Darina and the team of teachers, I'll be whipping these up with my eyes closed.

We're required to be in the kitchen by 08h30 to weigh up and prepare our ingredients and equipment for the day, to start cooking at 09h00 - I was there on the dot of 8, determined not to let this recipe get the better of me - I measured everything out so carefully, floured down my work surface and got cracking ASAP. Not that much of this effort helped, I still somehow managed to end up with a slightly sad looking ball of pastry that was not keen to be rolled out, had no intention of lying across a flan tin or basically of cooperating with me in any way whatsoever. It always looks so easy when the teachers do it, especially that part where to get the rolled out pastry off the work surface and into the tart tin, the chef (and by that I don't yet mean me) rolls the pastry onto the rolling pin, lifts it effortlessly and then unrolls it again on the tin - anyway this certainly wasn't my experience but I've much hope that one day it will be. I'll be making more of these, with different fillings next week, and things are going to be different.

My filling at least tasted amazing, mostly due to the masses of cream and butter it contained - they may be bad for you and likely to vastly increase the diameter of your thighs but WOW, they taste good. The tomato salad was thankfully much simpler and turned out perfectly, YAY!

Lunch was fantastic as always - I tried my own tart and then moved swiftly onto someone else's Quiche Lorraine which was wonderful, had that with some of my own salad which was not too shabby at all.

Our afternoon demo was given by Rory O'Connell, Darina's brother, the co-founder of the school and Head Chef at many wonderful restaurants during the course of his career to date. It was fab - he showed us how to make tomato and basil salad with buffalo mozzarella; traditional Greek salad; penne pasta with tomatoes, chorizo, parsley and cream; rustic peach tart with summer berries; chocolate and hazelnut tart; scones and jam; and candied peel dipped in chocolate.

The best part was Rory's comments during the class, all delivered absolutely deadpan............when talking about scones, he told us he would show us "how to make a scone that slaps you across the face" and recommended that we check our scones very carefully before taking them out of the oven because "there's nothing worse than a soggy bottom if you're a scone". He also requested that when we floured our work surfaces to cut out our scones that we simply flour it, rather than create a winter blizzard in the kitchen.........

With the rustic tart, it's pretty important to roll the pastry out so that it bears some vague resemblance to a circle - as Rory told us, "there's rustic and then there's agricultural" and so he suggested to us that we make a template for rolling out our pastry and showed us a 30 second way to do this, so fab, and with any luck we'll now be able to roll circles rather than a map of Italy.

With all of the tarts and the scones, you want to be sure to leave them in the oven long enough so that they're a.) not soggy or stodgy in the middle and b.) to make sure they've some colour, nothing worse than an anaemic looking bit of pastry but then you've to watch them very carefully, as we were told "colour is flavour but black is burnt", very solid advice.

Brilliant afternoon, I loved it and when everything was plated up and looking swish, well it was fantastic and certainly a great inspiration.

My kitchen partner and I met up and we worked out what we do the next day, thankfully it was his turn to do pastry and so I'm doing pasta with mushrooms and marjoram, loganberry jam, scones, brown bread and Greek salad, really looking forward to it - the marjoram by the way is unlike anything I've smelt before, obviously all the marjoram I've met to date has been working undercover or was another herb altogether simply masquerading as marjoram, it's just the most special herb with the most incredibly sweet and soft smell - one day the clever people who write computer programmes need to work out a way to upload a smell because I simply can't explain how good this was, note to Microsoft.



Pasta with chorizo, tomato, parsley and cream; tomato salad with basil and mozzarella;
rustic peach tart; chocolate and hazelnut tart



My housemates and I spent the afternoon trying to sort out the massive amount of paperwork we've accumulated already - when we all arrived on Sunday, there was a thick bunch of papers waiting in each of our rooms which some heavy duty stapler took strain getting through but on close inspection we discovered that these were only our recipes for the first week, gasp!! More importantly, you've then to decide HOW to file them all and oh my word, has any conversation about filing ever lasted so long or been so intense - you've have thought we were trying to solve the Middle East peace crisis. But honestly your filing choices are quite wide - do you go by starter, main course and dessert and if you do, then where do savoury tarts go, would they be a starter or a main? Or do you go by food type, i.e. all chicken recipes together, all pork recipes together and so on - bottom line it took us the entire evening, we ran out of file dividers long before that and our files, FOR THE FIRST WEEK ONLY, are already suffering from over filling strain - it is fantastic though to be receiving all these wonderful, tried and tested recipes, such a treat and so looking forward to next week's already (which we get each Friday afternoon) to know what's coming up - that way at least you can start to plan in advance how many sit ups you're going to have to do every day in order to be allowed near the demo tasting.....

Must go and sleep now but before I go, I've posted a few quick pics here of the White Cottage, looks especially pretty at the moment in the sunshine, yup still no rain and lots of blue skies, gorgeous!



Front and back of the White Cottage and the view onto the farm from our sitting room



Looking Tip Top In Our Chef Whites

Tuesday morning saw us all arriving in our chef whites for the very first time - nothing like baggy, elasticated blue and white checked pants, white chef jackets with odd buttons that take ages to put in, clogs and an attractive mop-like thing on your head to make you feel like a supermodel, but at least we all looked the same, lots of giggles all round. Armed with our knife bags and a genuine goal not to lose any fingers at least until the second week, we headed into our respective kitchens for our very first day on the job, so to speak.

The morning began with a quick tour of the kitchens, the pantry and larder - we have duties each day that can be anything from picking herbs and salad greens in the morning to milking cows, making lemonade or bread, serving lunch and then, on the not so fun side, wahing up but it's part of life in the kitchen I suppose and our jobs rotate each day so at least I know I'll not be stuck with hoovering for a whole week at a time or something else equally inspiring.

The school has learnt over the years that having the teachers work very closely with us for the first day results in a lot less blue plasters strapped around various body parts and so we largely watched and assisted under close supervision - needless to say everything came out perfectly and looked fantastic.

Lunch comprises of what we make in the morning so that's fairly motivating - the smells coming out of the ovens and saucepans was encouraging and by lunch, I was utterly ravenous - carrot and cumin soup, penne pasta with mushroom a'la creme sauce and summer fruit salad most definitely hit the spot and then it was time for afternoon demo.

Darina gave the afternoon lecture and since we knew that the next day we'd be working much more on our own, the class was rapt with attention, pens were flying across pages with notes and tips being jotted down left, right and centre. One of the dishes that was on the list was a mixed tomato salad with mint or basil, so many different tomatoes, honestly it was a whole new tomato world.

After watching Darina make onion and thyme soup, potato soup with either basil pesto or chorizo, quiche Lorraine, French onion tart, mushroom and thyme tart, summer salad with dressing, blackberry and apple compote and fork biscuits (deadly little butter biscuits dipped in vanilla sugar), lunch felt like aeons ago and the mad rush for the tasting queue at the end of the demo could have had us qualifying for the Commonwealth Games, each of us armed with a side plate (not big enough for sure) and a fork - not a bad way to end the day.

   

Salad greens

Red & yellow tomato salad with basil

Apple & blackberry compote with sweet geranium leaves



Fork biscuits

Tuesday was my birthday but with it only being the second day and none of us knowing each other that well yet, I'd decided against going in and singing happy birthday to myself in the morning but the horribly efficient office had obviously taken note and at the end of demo, the teachers came out with a birthday cake for me which was so sweet, and everyone sang happy birthday and it was lovely - almond meringue pavlova with cream and berries, so good. We took it home and the residents of White Cottage managed to finish it off with ease in one sitting!

I loved one of Darina's points during demo - selecting an oven is apparently not unlike picking a husband, you'll be stuck with it/him for at least 20 years and if you pick the wrong one, it'll be an uphill battle and fights all the way, sound advice I thought - thankfully I managed to pick an absolutely top-of-the-range model, or perhaps he picked me (and hopefully thought the same thing, probably best not to give that too much consideration) and no problems to date, the only downside right now being that my better half is on the other side of the world which is not fun.

We work in twos in the kitchen so I met up with my partner straight after demo to decide which of the following day's dishes we would each make and I'm stuck with French onion tart as one of mine............not good, I've yet to make pastry that doesn't sink like a stone as you (try to) swallow it, going to be in bright eyed and bushy tailed early tomorrow morning to give it a go and hopefully produce something that won't kill off anyone at lunch, mmmmmmmm .............more on that soon I'm sure.

First Day at School

Monday morning dawned bright and sunny, granted not quite the sunny I'm used to being from South Africa, i.e. I was wearing 3 top layers, jeans and boots but sunny nonetheless which was certainly more than I was expecting having being warned of rain, rain and more rain by everyone I know. So we (the 62 students) met in the Cafe for brekkie which was deadly, all sorts of homemade mueslies, scones, freshly baked breads, jams, warm porridge, homemade yoghurt, what have you - too good and in the name of "trying everything" which, I told myself, was critical as a cookery student, I managed to scoff down a vast assortment of what was on offer, not hard I can tell you!

From there we headed off on a walk around the school and farm which was just eye-opening for me and so inspirational - I was sadly not born with "green" fingers, mine are more accustomed to killing anything with which I'm charged to grow/look after/care for but after a few hours in the gardens of Ballymaloe I'm determined to master the art of gardening and as it's known here, GIY or Grow It Yourself - the idea of wandering out your back door to pick all sorts of fresh goodies is so fab and certainly a very real aspiration. I do appreciate the tremendous amount of hard work that must go into maintaining gardens and kitchen gardens on this scale, and I truly take my hat off to the team that does this, it must be an awesome task - we were told as students that much of what we would be cooking with each day would be coming straight off the farm that morning, what a privilege - I tasted some cucumber in the greenhouses, more on those later, and even as a dedicated fan of Woollies Food at home in SA, this cucumber knocked the socks off anything I've ever bought there, to be honest I don't even much like cucumber but this one was a revelation.

There are masses of gardens, all sorts, and the flower gardens are spectacular too, so glad to be here before winter sets in properly to see a little of it now - the best parts for me were the fruit trees, apple trees holding literally kgs of apples on their branches, they look almost unreal, and nut trees - the closest I've ever got to a hazelnut to date has been to snip off the corner of a plastic packet and sprinkle them liberally over something preferably containing a large component of chocolate. But there they were, hanging on trees, fantastic and I've no doubt that somehow they would make vanilla ice cream with choccie sauce somehow even more irresistable.

The outdoor vegetable garden was fantastic, cabbages the size of a small vehicle and the herb garden is just gorgeous, going to have to take a piccie and post it - all set in little individual hedged areas like a really formal garden, it's enchanting and the smell is fantastic, most definitely good for the soul.

Next stop was the cows and 3 incredibly happy looking pigs who were still tucked up inside their little house at 11 in the morning, not too shabby - there are between 250 and 300 hens too, and a number of roosters who thankfully hang around the Pink Cottage, quite far from where I live, and rumour has it that's a good thing since they're not averse to a bit of heavy duty cock-a-doodle-doing from 6 in the morning and at 2 minute intervals thereafter. Anyway, they live in a small house called the Palais des Poulets which I just love! We've had fresh eggs delivered to our cottage each day and they are so good - huge, epidural-requiring eggs that are super, super fresh.

Last stop was the greenhouse which covers an acre, this really does need pics which I'll post in a day or so - just rows and rows of beautiful salad greens, herbs, veg and hanging overhead, onions and garlic. The tomatoes were particularly special - my knowledge of tomatoes is normal, cherry, plum and those rosa tomatoes that Woollies keep - in the greenhouse I saw about 10 more varieties, all funny shapes and colours and fab names. We each planted a spring onion which we've to care for during our stay, going to do my utmost not to kill it, stiff competition in that greenhouse and I can't have my spring onion losing face amongst all those other supermodel veg.

We spent the afternoon watching a demonstration, to be known from now on as "Demo" - we have this every afternoon, except Wednesdays, and basically this is done by one of the school's teachers and we watch a total of about 12 or so recipes which, deep breath, gasp, gasp we then have to make on our own the next morning. So on our first afternoon we learnt to make chicken stock, 3 versions of carrot soup, homemade lemonade, mushroom a'la créme (unbelievably good), candied peel, brown soda bread, summer fruit salad with sweet geranium leaves and oatmeal biscuits. All that between 14h00 and 17h30 - my brain was sauteéd, whipped, creamed and well cooked! Our first demo was with Darina, founder and owner of the school and it was brilliant, overwhelming but brilliant - lesson number one, as many of the ingredients as possible are organic, low fat products are not used at all, butter and cream rule supreme and seasoning is everything! So bottom line, everything tastes amazing but there's a remarkably good chance that my own bottom line will not leave Ballymaloe in the same condition in which it arrived...............not good.

Best part of the day, the tasting session after Demo - worst part of the day, trying to work out daily duties from the Weekly Duty Roster, v.v.confusing, I think I might be on Kitchen Blitz tomorrow, still trying to work out what that is.............

Spent the evening trying to sort out recipes for the next day and sprucing up my chef kit for it's first public outing - baggy blue and white checked trousers with a gorgeous elasticated waste, white jacket, clogs and some rather dodgy headgear, wish me luck!

Bound for the Emerald Isle

Very, very brief bio and introduction - my name is Debra, I'm 34 and having spent the past almost 8 years working in the bush in South Africa, my home, and more recentlyfor the last 5 years in Tanzania, in the Serengeti district, I've taken a 4 month sabattical from work to fulfil a dream I've had for years - to complete the 12 week Certificate Cooking Course at Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland.

Everyone has asked, why Ireland, and especially during the winter and to be honest I'm still not entirely sure - my gran is Irish and I've an Irish passport although (and I hate to even admit this) I've never been to Ireland before. My gran, whom I adore, visited Ballymaloe years ago and spoke of it so fondly that it's just stuck in my mind since then and I love the idea of rolling green countryside and fat, happy cows and the Atlantic coastline and being on an organic farm for 12 weeks and learning to cook at the same time, all of which is Ballymaloe to a tee - perhaps it's the years of African savanna, which don't get me wrong is beyond description and just so special, but a change is as good as a holiday and so it's all "Out of Africa" for a short stint. As for the cooking, well I've wanted to be able to do that properly for as long as I can remember - I can cook basically but whenever I try something fancy, normally having been privileged to eat it at one of the lodges I've worked at and tried to re-create it later at home, it just does not come out the same way and that's putting it nicely - pastry in particular is my nemesis and if there's one thing I master on this course, that'll be it.

And so, although it means being away from my husband for 3 months which is going to be awful and working for most of my sabattical, it's worth it a 100 times over and with any luck, by December 11th I'll be whipping up mouth-watering tarts and croissants with my eyes closed (smaller ambitions include hoping to still have 10 finger tips..........).

September 18th, lunch time....................oh my word, can hardly believe the time had finally arrived to pack the winter woollies, forget about sludge-coloured bush gear and flip flops, negotiate with my brand-spanking new set of (way too sharp) kitchen knives and head off to Ireland for three months cooking at Ballymaloe Cookery School, where they promise to take you from not being able to identify a wooden spoon to professional level cookery skill in 12 weeks flat, no easy task!

And so having paid half of my family to sit on the world's largest suitcase to get it closed, and wearing an extensive assortment of clothing better suited to arctic exploration than to Durbs-by-the-sea, all in a bid to reduce the overall tonnage of my suitcase, we headed to the airport. And not five minutes from home ran into the mother of all traffic jams - stuck around for about 5 minutes (literally, movement was in millimetres rather than the preferred kilometres) and then decided that the time had come to negotiate the central section to get onto the other side of the highway and find an alternative route. Brand new little Toyota Yaris did very well, certainly not what it had in mind I doubt for it's first week with Deb and Stu but that's what you get when a pair of bush cats buy you and drive you out of the showroom. Anyway, there we were heading away from the airport, just what you feel like when you're embarking on a 24+ hour trip that involves numerous too-tight-to-mention flight connections.....................after another minor run-in with the Saturday afternoon rugby traffic down  by the stadium, we finally got onto the old highway and screeched into the airport with minutes to spare, man-handled the suitcase out of the boot and onto an obstinate trolley and headed for check in. No amount of eyelash batting/pleading/motivation was going to get me out of excess luggage charges and so after lengthy negotiations, I ended up paying for every single gram of excess (about 10 kilograms, gasp) and waving a happy, good riddance to said suitcase, sending it on it's way with a prayer that it would meet me in Dublin the next morning. In true South African fashion, it was secured with high-level locks and enough plastic wrap to keep an industrial kitchen supplied for at least a year - to be honest, for a change, rather than stressing about "en route bag theft" (a Johannesburg speciality) I was more concerned with the luggage handlers simply dumping it unceremoniously in some dark, forgotten corner to avoid having to lift it on and off the carousels.

All went well from Durban to Johannesburg, and then from there onto London, even managed to sleep a bit - and then for step 3, London to Dublin, everything seemed to be on track, timely check in, swift closing of the aeroplane doors, prompt taxi out to the runway..................and then an almost hour-long wait there as countless other planes took off and we remained firmly earth-bound. Lift off was eventually achieved, about an hour off schedule, but if nothing else my suitcase was there in Dublin, not waiting for me as such, it was the last one to come up but then I suppose the dear luggage handlers were busy cursing up until that point before flinging it onto the carousel with a final, carefully worded Irish expletitive.

I'd like to say that I dashed up to Ryan Air to check in but it was more a case of trying to find traction in my arctic boots to push the trolley forwards, what with it being loaded with 2 coats (Dublin was stubbornly un-freezer-like), hand luggage (which as all women know normally weighs more than checked luggage), laptop, and previously mentioned suitcase. And when I finally arrived at the counter, it was only to find that my 11h40 flight to Cork had closed, that the next flight was at 22h00 that night, that no other airlines fly there and that the 12h15 bus was my only option and so the bus it was. Not too bad at all and breathtaking country views for most of the trip, battled to keep my eyes open but did see fat, happy cows sitting down and just munching around themselves in a sort of semi-circle, now that's the life.

And lastly from the bus stop at Cork, it was an eye-wateringly expensive taxi ride out to the school, about 20 miles from Cork, where I parted with many, many Euros and finally checked into my home for the next 12 weeks, and what an incredibly beautiful home.

Ballymaloe is set on a 100 acre farm with incredible gardens, the odd cow, some happy pigs, lots of chickens and plenty of excited students - 62 of us in total.

I'm staying in the White Cottage which is picture-perfect cute, attic rooms, white-washed walls, climbing creepers and flowers, just gorgeous - I've 3 lovely housemates and we've each got a bedroom and bathroom and then there's a communal kitchen and sitting room which looks out onto the gardens and a meadow and is exactly, exactly what I had in mind, piccies to follow.

Going to sign off for now, to be 100% honest I'm a few days behind as had to work out how to set up a blog to start with so will be catching up a bit more later and tomorrow with details of the first 3 days at cookery school........................watch this space.