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!