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!
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