December 7, 2007

Ballymaloe Cookery Course: Week 12: Friday - Final Day

Practical exam over since Wednesday - not very happy with it but delighted that it is over - and two of our three final papers also done. It's the final countdown to 3.30pm, the end of exams and the end of cooking school. Tonight there's a class dinner at Ballymaloe House then it's back to Ballycotton's Blackbird for the rest of the evening. Just that final exam to get through first...

Posted by Caroline at 12:12 PM | Comments (3)

December 4, 2007

Ballymaloe Cookery Course: Week 12: Tuesday

Yesterday we had our last day of cooking in Kitchen Three. It's hard to believe that we're into the final few days of the course already. At least I got to murder my first lobster before we finished up, for yesterday's Lobster with Cream and Fresh Herb lunch. The other dish I made was a Walnut and Armagnac tart with a really short, biscuity pastry and - of course - another pair of sourdough loaves. Had a bit of a disaster with the bread on Friday, however, as I forgot to put in the salt so it misbehaved and didn't turn out very well. At least the loaves yesterday were much better, which is a relief as I'm hoping to use the bread toasted under the cheese in my exam starter - A Warm Salad of Ardsallagh Goat's Cheese with Walnut Oil Dressing. After morning demo today, many of us have Cook Ahead time - my Yoghurt and Cardamom Cream needs to set overnight and at least that will be one less thing to worry about tomorrow although the time will be taken off. It's nice to think that I might get the whole dinner and bread cooked in three hours but, at this stage, I'm not so pushed about that. I just want to get finished!

Posted by Caroline at 9:40 AM | Comments (8)

November 28, 2007

Ballymaloe Cookery Course: Week 11: Wednesday

Wine exam over - phew! - so it's now time to get stuck into revision for next week's theory papers. Meanwhile, we're treating ourselves very well in the house. I made my second pair of sourdough loaves yesterday and, when I brought them home, the Ranelagh Housemate produced his home-cured bacon so we had the Best Bacon Butties Ever with our homemade bread and bacon, followed by a side order of Homemade Noodles with Chicken Liver Sauce for the Husband, scrounged from school for the Husband.

Besides the sourdough, which is working amazingly - and surprisingly! - well, this week is pretty full on in the kitchens. Final full week of cooking. After this week, I think we just have Monday left and that's it. 12 weeks - almost - over and it's back to real life soon.

Posted by Caroline at 5:36 PM | Comments (5)

November 27, 2007

Ballymaloe Cookery Course: Week 11: Tuesday

Wine exam tomorrow at 8am - time to get studying!

Posted by Caroline at 3:59 PM | Comments (5)

November 22, 2007

Ballymaloe Cookery Course: Week 10: Thursday

Today everything clicked into place, despite last night being a late one with the Sister at a musical evening in Ballymaloe House and lots of red wine! I was in at 8am on gardening duty with the ever-perky red-socked gardener. The two of us whizzed around the greenhouse or, rather, she whizzed - I plodded along behind at half speed - gathering quantities of parsley, chervil, coriander, kale and Swiss chard, which we then sorted, washed and labelled back at school.

A morning's work already under my belt, I trotted off to Kitchen 3, to find my sourdough breads had been unceremoniously upended in the fridge overnight. Fortunately it bounced back and I ended up with two beautiful loaves of dark brown crusted, beautifully risen, satisfyingly chewy sourdoughs and an amazing sense of achievement.

Meanwhile, during the bringing-back-to-room-temperature, rising and baking of the dough, myself and my super-efficient American partner worked together on all of this morning's dishes - Smoked Chicken Salad with Parsnip Crisps, Pan-Grilled Tuna and Salsa Verde, Apple and Sweet Geranium Vol au Vents and Homemade Parsley Noodles. It was just one of those days - for a change! - when all went smoothly. As my partner chopped parsley for the Salsa Verde, she handed over enough for my pasta; leftover egg from my dough served as egg wash for our vol au vents; I grabbed salad leaves, she made the parsnip crisps. We rolled, pan-grilled, chopped and assembled together and flew through an incredibly busy and satisfactory morning.

Today we also got our practical exam times and dates. I'm lucky - cooking the first day, Wednesday 5 December, from 9am. Must spend some more time on actual cooking my menu. The Husband is going to be well sick of eating the same goat's cheese, duck and mousse dishes over the next two weeks

Posted by Caroline at 6:02 PM | Comments (3)

November 20, 2007

Ballymaloe Cookery Course: Week 10: Tuesday

Last week I had a really good time in the kitchen with lots of ideas for my final three-course exam meal. We have to have the menu and a detailed list of ingredients in for Wednesday, alongside the occasion for the meal, the reason for the choice of menu and accompanying wines. I've been toying with cooking Shanagary Chicken Casserole but, the closer I get to the deadline, the more I'm veering towards a duck dish, maybe the Pan-Grilled Duck Breast with Spiced Lentils and Caramelised Apples that I made on Friday or the Duck Legs with Onions that we also cooked that morning. We have three courses, along with a bread - allocated by lottery - to be prepared in three hours and we're penalised if we go over time. Conversations revolve around the pros and cons of different dishes, my head is full of menu permutations and I'm also working on the latest collection of short First Course pieces for Intermezzo magazine. Is it any wonder that I dream of being in kitchens and cooking food every night?!

Posted by Caroline at 2:08 PM | Comments (2)

November 11, 2007

Balllymaloe Cookery Course: Week 8: Sunday

Some days, after the morning's cooking, you feel on top of the world; others leave you feeling like you never want to set foot in a kitchen again! Thursday was one of those days. I had a simple enough list of things to cook - Pan-grilled Steak with Béarnaise Sauce, Cauliflower Cheese and Pommes Allumettes (matchstick-thin chipped potatoes). I was also on lemonade duty (which reminds me: did that jug of lemonade ever make it to the dining room? I got out of the kitchen so late that I completely forgot about it!) and decided to get another bread ticked off my technique list so made a Stripy Cat, a soda bread flecked with chocolate and, because I love that combination, orange rind.

Everything seemed to take much longer than anticipated. Before long it was 11.45am, I was watching two ovens, trying to put a smoked fish starter plate together (hadn't taken that one into account, had I!) with one hand while whisking the living daylights out of my Béarnaise with the other. My partner and half the kitchen had already cooked their steaks and, if there's one thing that makes you feel really behind with things, it's when the kitchen empties around you while you're still struggling. I finally managed to get everything done and tasted - the steak was grand, not brilliant, but I was well beyond caring at that stage - and then I discovered our large saucepan was missing. Every day all the items that are supposed to live in each colour-coded section are checked by the teachers and missing things are the bane of our lives. By the time I had traipsed around the other three kitchens (still no sign) and got the ok to leave, lunch was almost cleared away and I was in a right grump.

Sitting with the few that were still lingering over lunch, it seemed that few people had an easy morning. These crises of confidence - I can't cook, I'm totally disorganised, what on earth am I doing here? - are something that hit us all at different stages, especially when you've left your job to do this course! Then it's good to take a step back, grab a cup of coffee to drink somewhere quiet and calm outside and have some quality chill-out time watching the chickens scratch for beetles under the moss on the steps.

Fortunately, an enjoyable afternoon demo with Rory O'Connor where he efficiently worked his way through an assortment of delicious terrines, crepes and the involved technique for making flaky pastry greatly restored equilibrium, as did some morale-boosting chats with fellow classmates. Although I would have liked the opportunity to make those dishes myself, I walked out of school on Thursday very glad to have the following day off as I was going to a wedding in Killarney. A few days away from the kitchen and I'm gingerly looking forward to getting back there tomorrow. Best start studying those recipes...

Posted by Caroline at 3:13 PM | Comments (9)

November 6, 2007

Balllymaloe Cookery Course: Week 8: Tuesday

After a scattered start - I forgot to check this week's duties and I was actually on early salad prep - Monday was a day spent sitting in demo for the home butchery part of the course. We started easy, jointing a chicken and duck, gradually working our way thorough half carcasses of lamb, pig and a large chunk of a dead bullock. It was not the day to have a hangover as German butcher Philip Dennhardt cut and sawed his way through a small mountain of flesh and bone. As a child I loved being sent to the local butcher, especially if there was a long queue as it gave me an opportunity to gaze, fascinated, at the butcher as he went about his business, reducing large hunks of meat into family-sized portions. Today we watched as chickens were spatchcocked, legs of lamb filleted, pork brined and sausages made. I'm not sure when I'll next be landed with a lamb carcass to cut up but at least I'll have the notes at the ready.

Friday night was the first time we cooked together in the Ballycotton house. The Husband enjoyed watching as three Ballymaloe cooks worked on his dinner. It wasn't just him we were feeding, though, some of our classmates were coming over for a simple meal - Smoked Salmon and Chive Cheese Bruschetta, Roast Chicken with Ham, Stuffing, Glazed Carrots and Cauliflower Cheese, followed by Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream and Pedro Ximnez desert sherry (yep, we had a sherry masterclass last week!) and Chocolate Covered Caramelised Almonds (I had a spare 15 minutes during that morning's cooking). And this was all after we had the usual post-demo plateful. A very relaxed and wine-fuelled meal was followed by a trip to the Blackbird, which was packed with fellow students all dressed up for a Halloween Party. Work hard all week; party any chance we get!

Posted by Caroline at 8:31 AM | Comments (7)

November 1, 2007

Balllymaloe Cookery Course: Week 7: Wednesday

After starting at 8am on Friday - I was on Early AM duty, shaping and rolling pizza bases for that morning's demonstration - and having our first set of set of exams that afternoon, the last thing I needed was a night at Declan Ryan's Arbutus Bakery. But, as my father continually tells my mother, when you enlist your must soldier, so 11.30pm found me wending my weary way along the dark, foggy roads en route to the bakery in Mayfield Industrial Estate on the outskirts of Cork City.

From the moment I got out of the car at 12.30am, until sitting back into it to go home, eight hours later, there wasn't a minute to sit down or even lean against a counter. I was kept busy all night by the three bakers on duty - a Turk, Frenchman and Pole - putting the topping on 160 loaves of Tomato and Basil bread, shaping Brown Soda Bread loaves and cakes, manipulating pide, stacking sourdoughs, egg-washing croissants, pain au chocolate and Danish pastries. With lots to do and big mugs of tea to keep us going, there was no time to feel tired and the time flew.

The worst hour was between 4am and 5am, when there was a short lull as we waited for bread to prove and bake. A pain au chocolate and another dose of tea kept the spirits up and I was soon back in the swing of things. I left at 8.30am, physically shattered but buzzing mentally, with my arms full of the fruits of my labours. I made it safely back to Ballycotton and, after a breakfast of fresh-baked bread, Ballymaloe-made marmalade, and more mugs of tea, the Husband and I headed for home. We hadn't left the sight of the sea before I was unconscious in the passenger seat, only waking up when we got home.

Short week this week so only three cooking mornings. All day Wednesday was spent on a brilliant seminar on setting up your own food business, which included details on costing your dishes and menu planning, to be continued in two week's time. Time to go now - I'm making Shanagary Chicken Casserole and Bread and Butter Pudding today and my mother is coming down for lunch so I've to speed through this morning's cooking!

If you're looking for Arbutus Breads, try Urru in Mallow and Bandon, Declan Ryan sells the bread himself at the Middleton Farmer's Market and On The Pig's Back in Cork's English Market.

Posted by Caroline at 8:34 AM | Comments (2)

October 26, 2007

Balllymaloe Cookery Course: Week 6: Friday

Phew! First exams over. This afternoon we had a comprehensive herb and salad leaf recognition test, followed by a technique exam. Eleven herbs, five salad leaves and four techniques. Last night was spent at the kitchen table, leaves from the greenhouse in front of us as we tried to memorise their different names, appearances and uses, while the Husband ate omelettes, prepared the Ballymaloe way, and the compost bin filled up with orange skins as we segmented enough fruit to keep the house topped up on vitamin C for the next fortnight. Now I'm finished – I was part of the first group – it's time for a long, well-deserved bank holiday weekend!

Posted by Caroline at 3:10 PM | Comments (0)

October 22, 2007

Balllymaloe Cookery Course: Week 6: Monday

Last Wednesday was school tour day. Instead of spending the day sitting through two demonstrations, we got on the road at 7.30am. Our first stop, on a fresh and sunny morning, was at Baylough Cheese, just outside Clogheen, near to my favourite Old Convent Gourmet Hideaway. When we arrived - I got a lift from the Ranelagh Housemate, thereby missing out on a bus trip with 50+ others! – Darina had already unpacked a morning tea of student-made muffins and banana breads as Dick and Anne Keating showed the class how their unpasteurised cows milk cheese is made by hand. The couple are a well-tuned double act; we were entertained as well as educated as they explained how to make cheese and how this particular venture – now on the go for over 20 years – brought them out of the red at a time when there weren’t a huge amount of farmhouse cheeses in Ireland.

A trip through the Vee Valley, looking at its best in the autumn sunshine, took us to Dungarven and Paul Flynn’s Tannery for a light lunch (Chicken Liver Paté, presented in a kilner jar with well-dressed salad and lots of warm, crusty bread, Gingerbread with carmelised bananas for pudding). Paul spoke briefly to the class about opening up his restaurant ten years ago in an area that didn’t have much of a tradition of restaurant dining and the difficulties that presented.

Next stop was Frank Hederman’s Belvelly Smokehouse, just outside Cobh. During our brief trip there, Frank - a favourite producer of Richard Corrigan's - waved a large frozen wild salmon at us, demonstrated his filleting skills, showed off the fish-stuffed smokehouse and offered generous tastings of his smoked salmon and mackerel.

We weren't finished yet - the final destination in our packed day was Cork's English Market. I'm no stranger there but it was fun to be whisked through by Darina on a whistle-stop tour of her favourite stalls. We were too late for the tripe and drisheen stall, however, and that was already closed but still managed a few quick purchases at On The Pig's Back, the Alternative Bread Company and Bubble Brothers. For once it was nice to have an evening when we weren't already satiated with food from demo so we could enjoy a picnic-style supper of cheese, charcuterie and smoked fish back at the house.

After the intensity of the first month, we're all tired and people have started coming down with colds and other ailments. It was good to have a day away from the coalface - we faced into Thursday morning's cooking with renewed vigour. Now, just started Week Six, it's study time. We have a technique and herb/salad identification exam on Friday. Time to spend a couple of mornings in the garden, perhaps!

Posted by Caroline at 8:47 AM | Comments (4)

October 16, 2007

Balllymaloe Cookery Course: Week 5: Tuesday

I've just got the first three weeks-worth of notes filed and already the first folder is bulging. That's not too much of a problem - the stationary list we were sent before the start of the course specified four lever-arch files - much more of an issue is the actual filing system. In our house, now comprising of three students plus one Husband, there have been several debates over the best way of doing it. Does Tapenade fit under starters or dressings? Or, as I was asked when I called round to our round-the-corner neighbours, three fellow students, should Poppadums be put with their appropriate dish in the Main section or be filed under Bread?

Our welcome notes from the school included a page on how to file the stacks of recipes that we get every day. After long evenings trying to juggle and justify my filing choices, I gave up and started again. All the recipes that we get for the course are drawn directly from The Grey Book aka Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery Course. I've now re-categorised everything according to the sections in that book. It certainly makes life easier; if I'm not sure where to put a recipe, I just refer to the book's index. It also means that I'll be able to find the recipes at some stage in the future.

Theoretically we should be keeping on top of the filing, getting the at-least 20 pages a day into their appropriate sections, while writing our time-plans for the next morning's cooking. Theoretically. In practice, myself and the North Cork Classmate do try to sit down a couple of times a week and go through things. She writes her time-plan at night time; I often get it done in the car in the mornings, while en route to school. The Ranelagh Classmate leaves the house early to write it while in a quiet school. He and the Husband have a great laugh at our attempts to try and make sense of the filing. That's all fine, until he starts struggling under sheaves of paper himself - although he is undoubtedly learning from our mistakes!

Filing aside, we have little interest in cooking in the evenings. A three-course lunch plus samples of the afternoon's cooking before we leave doesn't make for an enormous appetite after school. The Husband, the only person in this house not doing the course, caters for himself while we nibble on loaves of bread baked that day, critically assessing the texture and crust. Some nights, nourishment comes later, in the form of pints of Beamish at the Blackbird in Ballycotton. But, with a practical exam coming up on Friday week, there's already a new intensity to evening study. Dictionaries of ingredients and gardening books are making their way from the cottage to Ballycotton as we try to figure out the difference between fennel and dill or swot up on boning chickens!

Posted by Caroline at 12:50 PM

October 10, 2007

Ballymaloe Cookery Course: Week 4: Wednesday

Up at the crack of dawn on Saturday - well, at 6am it's still pretty dark this time of year - to work on the Ballymaloe stall at the Middleton Farmers' Market. As well as the compulsory practicals and demos at the Cookery School, we can also volunteer for other experiences. Last Tuesday evening I was working and observing in the kitchens of Ballymaloe House, in a few weeks I'll spend Friday night baking at Declan Ryan's Arbutus Bakery - I'm looking forward to the breadmaking, not so much to the 12pm to 7am shift. I've also signed up for a Saturday at the Crawford Gallery Café in Cork city, run by Darina's son, Isaac Allen, and each Wednesday we have a voluntary organic gardening class at 8am. The only thing I've not volunteered for - so far - is the cow-milking!

Being on the other side of a market stall has been on of the highlights for me. The Middleton Farmers' Market - unlike the now defunct one in Fermoy - is a healthy, thriving little market. Held in the town centre, it has more than a dozen stalls, including Arbutus Bakery, O'Connaill's Chocolate (they also have a shop/café on French Church Street in Cork), Frank Hederman's smoked fish, plants, flowers, olives, organic meat, chicken and vegetables. The Ballymaloe Cookery School stall sells tubs of prepared meals, sauces, jams, jellies, chutneys, organic veg, eggs and pork, many of which are prepared by us students. It is currently run by Philip, an ebullient butcher from Germany, who is experimenting with various cures on the pigs at Ballymaloe, lectures on cheesemaking and also makes a colourful range of cupcakes for sale each week at the market.

I met him and the Czech assistant at the school at 7am to load up. We had our market spot well before 8am and quickly started setting up. Before we were even half-way ready, we had customers looking for eggs - unfortunately, as we're doing omelettes at school at the moment, we only had 1½ dozen. They didn't last long and I spent the rest of the day explaining to people that it was "the students" fault that there was a severe egg shortage!

The morning flew by. A more-or-less constant stream of customers kept three of us busy behind the stall. Philip was like the circus ringmaster out in front, chatting to people, urging them to sample and purchase the Beetroot Pickle, Chicken Liver Pate (the secret behind the flavour? As much butter as chicken livers, if not considerably more!) and Garlic Mayo on offer. Maths never being one of my strong points, I had lots of fun trying to add up what people owed me. Fortunately most people were patient as I wrestled with the figures - there certainly were times that they needed to be.

Mental arithmetic aside, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was a gorgeous morning, everyone smiling in the sunshine. Sustained by some Pain Au Chocolat and strong coffees, we flew around until 2pm and then gladly started packing up and putting everything back into the van. I got off lightly, though, as I was going home to the cottage straight from Middleton - the Husband had spent the morning exploring the town and lying in the sunshine until I was allowed to leave. Totally hyper when I finished work, half-way through a lovely lunch at the Farmgate, I started to fade rapidly and slept the whole way home. Just as well there was another driver on hand!

Posted by Caroline at 5:29 PM | Comments (4)

October 3, 2007

Ballymaloe Cookery Course: Week 3, Wednesday

Week three – a new partner and, this time round, a new kitchen. I’m cooking in the demo area this week. Lots of space and, with only eight people working there, a calmer atmosphere. Apart from when I discover, at the last minute on Monday, that I’m on cheeseboard duty and have to throw a batch of Cheese Biscuits together at the last minute!

It’s been a savoury week so far for me. Monday I made a composed salad of Roast Red and Yellow Peppers, Zucchini, Parmesan and Rocket, a Fish Gratin with Imokilly Cheddar and Mustard, served with beetroot in a piquant cream sauce and Salmon Papilotte. Plus a Brown Yeast Bread, just for fun. Basically, we are taught a couple of breads a week and we have to practice them as much as possible, on top of everything else that we are cooking. Tuesday was much more straightforward. A dish of spicy Black Eyed Beans with Mushrooms and Basmati rice was my main event as the Apple Chilli Jelly didn’t drip fast enough to be finished in that class. I’m in early on Thursday to get that sorted out. I also made a loaf of Brown Soda Bread but, due to oven issues, I had a nicely shaped brick to serve up at lunchtime. That was one loaf that didn’t make it back to my Ballycotton house!

One of the many advantages to living in Ballycotton is being able to participate in all the extra-curricular activities. Last night I spent in the kitchens of Ballymaloe House, making up salads and trying to be useful as the chefs whizzed around. This Saturday I’m off to work at the the market in Middleton on the Ballymaloe stall. As with meeting cheesemakers like Bill Hogan and Ari Weinzweig of Zingermans Deli, it’s great to get these opportunities to see behind the scenes – it certainly makes you appreciate a plate of food in a restaurant or a sliver of Gabriel cheese that much more.

Posted by Caroline at 8:57 AM | Comments (8)

September 25, 2007

Ballymaloe Cookery Course: Week 2, Tuesday

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!

Posted by Caroline at 9:23 PM | Comments (6)

September 21, 2007

Ballymaloe Cookery Course: Week 1, Friday

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!

Posted by Caroline at 9:57 PM | Comments (5)

September 17, 2007

Ballymaloe Cookery Course: Week 1, Monday

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.

Posted by Caroline at 8:18 PM | Comments (5)

September 4, 2007

What's next? Ballymaloe!

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!

Posted by Caroline at 7:47 PM | Comments (27)