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.
No comments:
Post a Comment