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..........