The diagram just wasn’t sticking – I couldn’t remember any of it. I woke up this morning with information swirling around – for some reason I had measurements on the mind and couldn’t get the ratio of salt to water for curing meat out of my brain. Up early with a long list of things…
Author: Úna-Minh
Ballymaloe Day 68: Goodbye week ten!
I stuck the spoon into my mouth, left it dangling and continued chopping onions. There was a method to this madness! Today officially marked the end of week 10 here at Ballymaloe, and I woke up this morning with the Friday feeling swinging around my insides. I mentioned yesterday that we were demoed pork belly…
Ballymaloe Day 67: Here’s to Beaujolais, Beaujolais Nouveau!
The icing sugar began to go brown and then turned a shade of black – like a hawk I gazed into the dark pit of the oven with my fingers crossed behind my chef whites. You’re probably sick of me talking about my tiredness for the past few days but it’s actually become part of…
Ballymaloe Day 66: “We should treat them like diamonds”
“This is nature – I get so happy when I see something beautiful like a Brussel sprout” – Trine Hahnemann. Time has been moving very strangely here in Ballymaloe. There are days when hours whizz by and others when time stands still. The past few nights I’ve been waking at crazy hours, and I don’t…
Ballymaloe Day 65: Drink less, but better wine
I swirled the wine in my glass and moved my nose towards the aroma. I’ve come a long way from Sauvignon Blanc. With the brightness of day sneaking in the window, I was early for stock duty, which is done every morning by two students. Feeling jittery at the thought of my rather tedious workload,…
Ballymaloe Day 64: Not expensive, just sophisticated
There’s something quite challenging about doing the same task over and over again, and as I took out the stones for 31 prunes, I found my mind wavering. Like most days, I had a pretty good variety of things to do including mint chutney and char-grilled squid with parsley and chili oil. Getting to work…
Ballymaloe Day 63: Hitting the books
My surfboard hit the water and I pulled my arms through the waves to bring me forward into the ocean. The sun was shining down and all was clear – it was the perfect scene. Sadly the above paragraph is a complete lie – if only my day was as tranquil and exciting as that!…
Ballymaloe Day 62: On yer bike!
My weekend’s worth of energy went into the pedals of my bicycle today – I haven’t gotten a workout like that in a while. Up early and in the mood to be more proactive in my approach to the weekend, I decided to hop onto my two wheels. My goal was to head to the…
Ballymaloe Day 61: Rare, juicy and full of flavour
My bum hit the seat and I was instantly stuck. I had a food baby and I wasn’t planning on moving anytime soon. Course after course, wine after wine – Let me tell you about yesterday’s dinner! I briefly mentioned in last night’s post that I was jetting off to Ballymaloe House for a special…
Ballymaloe Day 60: The business of food
It’s sometimes hard to believe how much goes into the Ballymaloe Cookery School course. If I could actually condense the course onto paper it would easily hit the 1000 page mark. This week we’ve had two days in a row outside of the kitchen, and today we were back focusing on the various aspects of…
