Bibliocook: All About Food

Back in the cottage and briefly online this evening. The Husband and I moved into a house in Ballycotton last night with one of the other students, who had also been commuting from North Cork. After the beds had been made, the fridge stocked and the supper eaten - I used up a large bunch of carrots from last Thursday week's Mitchelstown market to make one of Darina's Carrot Soups at the weekend - we had time for a long walk down through the town, followed by the best night's sleep I've had since I started the course. No worries about waking an hour early to put on the immersion or getting up at 6am to get into Ballymaloe on time. I've never been so thankful for an electric shower and physical proximity to the location where I'll spend my day! In Ballycotton we are also much closer to the Husband's work place so it's a winner all round.

So why are we back at the cottage tonight, you may ask, especially as I've to be in at 8am tomorrow morning for an extra organic gardening class? With the Husband taking off to Galway tomorrow it's the only way we can manage so that I will have the car for the rest of the week. Then it's back to stay in Ballycotton for the next few nights before - and this sounds familiar from last year's weekend commutes to the cottage - hitting the road on Friday evening so we can spend the weekend in our home, pottering about the garden. Last weekend I finally got around to making some Damson Gin, I've identified a bank of sloes for picking after the first frost for this year's Sloe Gin and the apples on our best apple tree are slowly ripening to perfection.

Tonight it's time to relax and enjoy the fire - no cooking on Wednesdays so no time plans to write out and today's recipe filing can wait till tomorrow night. The practical classes are going more smoothly this week. There was a little panic yesterday as everyone changed partners and many also changed kitchens. Luckily I got to stay in Kitchen 3 so at least I knew where the ingredients and the scales were on Monday morning. Not that that helped too much when I had mis-read our dishes on Friday and came into class thinking that myself and my partner only had to do four of the six dishes that we were actually scheduled to complete. So I still had a mad rush, jointing chickens, making tomato purée, grating ginger and, worst of all, peeling grapes, especially as I was also on bread duty. Then, when it came to tasting, my teacher thought my dishes were both under-sweetened and under-seasoned so it's going to be sugar and salt all the way from now!

Phew! The first week of the twelve-week course - and, according to everyone who works at the Ballymaloe Cookery School, the longest one - is over. It's been five days of early mornings and late evenings, our heads a-swim with new techniques, terms and ideas as we try to concentrate on Darina's afternoon demos, knowing that we will have to cook the dishes ourselves the following morning. After the initial few full-on days, it's easier to see the course structure: we cook four mornings a week from 8.45/9am to 12pm, lunch on the food that we've prepared - normally a three-course meal - start afternoon demonstration at 1.45pm and go straight through until around 5pm-ish. Wednesdays are theory days. For cooking, we are divided into pairs, a teacher to every six students, working in four different kitchens. We cook at least two dishes each and then, at the end of the class, present a taster plate to our teacher for critical assessment.

Cooking under these circumstances - eleven other people trying to find and weigh ingredients, space in the fridge, a spare oven shelf, the equipment that belongs to their station - is much more difficult than you might suspect. On Tuesday we gingerly started practicing with our new super-sharp, monogrammed knife sets. Although I am normally comfortable at using sharp knives, we had been so direly warned that every careful stroke seemed to be about to herald the end of me possessing ten fingers. Fortunately, they survived not only that day but the rest of the week. I'm sure I'll be chopping away like a pro in a few months' time! The second day of cooking was scarcely less auspicious. I was making a French Onion Tart and, again being nervous, managed to put too much liquid in my pastry. Because it was too moist, it refused to co-operate at the rolling out stage and the pastry case was too thick, didn't cook in the appropriate time, refused to take all the filling and was, generally, what we may call a flop. And that was even before I managed to over-caramelise (read burn) my caramelised onions, and had to start them from scratch. These are all things - pastry, tarts, caramelised onions - that I've done at home many times without even thinking. In this environment I'm thinking too much! Fortunately today's recipes (Penne with Spicy Sausage, Tomato and Cream, Mummy's Sweet White Scones and Raspberry Jam) all turned out well and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into my take-home pot of Raspberry Jam with tomorrow morning's toast.

One week of driving has been enough, though. Next week the Husband and I move down to Ballycotton, just around the corner from Ballymaloe, for the duration of the course. The days are still bright but that's not going to last for much longer and an hour+ car trip every morning and evening doesn't give much time for study or relaxation. I may not be online so often but I'll hope to still keep you updated. For now, here comes the weekend!

A day that starts at 6.30am (with a wake-up at 5.30am to switch on the immersion as its timer has refused to co-operate with its owners) and continues until I step out of the car at the cottage after 7pm is, naturally enough, very tiring. When it's the first day of the 12-week course at Ballymaloe, it is also incredibly exhilarating. Today was a whistle-stop tour of the large gardens and greenhouses at the cookery school, grabbing an Asian pear and a couple of sun-warmed dusky cherry tomatoes to eat en route, a fabulous lunch of products from local artisans and garden produce and an afternoon crammed full of demonstrations, all helmed by the ever-energetic Darina Allen.

There are 58 other students from seven different countries in the class, ranging from gap year students to people looking for a career change but, no matter what you're there for, there's one thing certain: days are going to be long. We start at 8.45am, will take turns at collecting the fruit and vegetables needed for the day's cooking from 8am, can volunteer to milk cows at 7.30am - and that's before we do any cooking. Tomorrow starts with kitchen tours and, with us cooking in pairs, making our own lunch. Now, it's time for hot chocolate and bed.

Transition from a full-time journalist's job in Dublin to country-based student life is more than just packing a car, cleaning out the old flat and shifting down to the cottage. Mindless routines - the 45-minute stroll to work, a computer-based eight-hour stint, walking home mentally preparing supper, deciding whether to call into one of my favourite shops on the way (Mortons, Donnybrook Fair, Taste of Italy, Al-Khyrat) - suddenly become more precious as the days speed towards leaving the city. Only one thing to do: sidestep the whole situation by flying off to Girona in Spain the day after the move!

The Husband and I spent three nights in the small Catalonian city earlier this week, time to soak up sun and recover from our eighth move in three years, a breathing space to adjust and look forward to the future. Plus an ever-welcome opportunity to consume copious amounts of tapas, cava, café con leche and rioja while reading stacks of books - Miranda Innes' Getting to Mañana, a memoir of her move to Andalusia set a perfect scene as well as having a good scattering of simple recipes - taking long siestas and general relaxation. Now back home, I've the task of condensing two kitchens, their ingredients and equipment (did I mention that I'm a hoarder?!), into one. It's baking blitz time this weekend - No-Knead Bread, Mexican Beans, Brown Bread, Chocolate Sesame Flapjacks, cakes and cookies - as I try to clear some space in the kitchen. Now, where did my new uniform disappear in the move?

Well, I've taken the plunge. Notice has been given at work. Going away parties (the Baggott Inn's self-serve Guinness taps proved particularly popular!), dinners and drinks have been partaken in. After ten years living in Dublin and five years in Cork city, it's time to return to the country. This weekend, the Husband and I move out of our horrible little Dublin flat and, in less than two weeks, on 17 September, I start the 12-week certificate course at Ballymaloe Cookery School.

It really is going back to school time. For the first time since I left second level, I have a uniform list and had to wander down to O'Connor's Workwear on Capel Street yesterday afternoon to purchase two sets of chefs' rig outs - white jackets, check trousers, the lot. Aprons, engraved knives and wine textbooks have been ordered directly from the school and a trip to Reeds filled my stationary requirements. All equipped, I'm ready to embark on a new phase of life as I take my hobbies - writing about food and cooking - and try to make them into something that I can earn a living from. Wish me luck!

Unless absolutely necessary, I tend to avoid bed and breakfasts. I've stayed in many around Ireland and most experiences are nothing to write about - unless in a negative manner. Last year's May Bank Holiday we were forced into B&B accommodation in Westport by weather unsuitable for camping. After we spent the evening avoiding a particularly racist guest, breakfast was enlivened by talk of the May Day flowers that had been left for our piseog-loving landlady. There was a landlady in Navan who thought we were only staying one night and could only offer us bed, no breakfast, for the second night. The best of the lot, however, has to be the Carlingford B&B where the bedroom was painted blood red - the walls, the ceiling, the skirting board, the bathroom even had a matching red toilet and bath! Most disturbing, I spent the night having nightmares about being trapped in a womb.

The one exception that I've come across in Ireland is a B&B just outside Ballymoney in County Antrim, that myself and the Husband stayed in years ago. We had a large, comfortable room, it was run by friendly but not too nosy proprietors and, best of all, they had alternatives to the usual fry-up breakfast - smoked salmon, pancakes and French toast were all for the eating if you gave notice the night before.

This weekend, en route to a wedding in Scotland, we discovered another wonderful B&B. We flew in to Inverness on Friday and, after searching through Organicholidays.co.uk, decided to spent the night at Shenval B&B. The Husband used to do a lot of walking in Glen Affric and was familiar with the area so, after hiring a car, we proceeded onwards to Drumnadrochit and went to stay with Pierre and Christiane Lebrun. Shenval is a small but comfortable B&B, with just three rooms (we ended up in the twin!) and a shared bathroom. After an afternoon snooze, an essential part of any holiday, we followed Pierre's advice and took walked to Corrimony Cairn, just far enough to encourage enough appetite for dinner.

We sat down to the table with a pair of French birdwatchers, for a simple but substantial feed of Scottish specialities - haggis with clapshot, a mixture of turnip and potatoes, followed by Cranachan (a mixture of whipped cream, whisky, honey, and fresh raspberries topped with toasted oatmeal). With dinner, the four of us shared a bottle of wine which we had brought along, sitting over tea and shortbread afterwards with Pierre and Christiane. A relaxed breakfast the following morning, complete with tattie scone and homemade bread, set us up nicely for the day ahead. As we left to drive to Lossiemouth, Pierre and Christiane stood at the door to wave us off, making the whole experience feel more like a visit to friends than a necessary evil. Dinner, bed and breakfast for two was £70. Money well spent.