As I sat in the conservatory of Ballymaloe House, I marvelled at how good it felt to be among people who share a common love for food. Like most Wednesdays, we started off the day with an introduction to various cheeses as well as a few other treats. Today was all about blue cheese and…
Ballymaloe Day 58: Would you like fries with that?
My hands moved up and down, and dimpled the dough like the most uncomfortable back massage ever invented. After yet another dodgy sleep, I woke up with a tired and drained feeling. Almost forgetting my knives (again), I headed into the kitchen for a busy day of cooking. As an extra task, I added focaccia…
Ballymaloe Day 57: Members of the Lost Knives Club
A crack of bone, a shimmy of the knife. Sometimes I often muse about the amount of knives here at the cookery school. Since the start of the course, many students have become “members of the lost knives club” (as Rachel calls it), but bizarrely they end up finding their way back home – be…
Ballymaloe Day 56: Sunday morning, no rain pouring
A bright and sunny day, the brisk air whipped my face as I brought the recycling out of the Coach House. I spied two feral cats sauntering through the bushes, and my wellies crunched through some of the last of the autumn leaves. Cleaning up the house with Sophie, we tucked into an early breakfast…
Part Ten: Irish food and drink producers worth getting to know
Celebrating the best of what we grow, create and produce here in Ireland – this ongoing series looks at some of the many things we create here. Here are five more producers that stood out for me this week: Quinlan’s Seafood and Fish Shops Founded in 1963, Quinlan’s have four fish shops in Co.Kerry (Killorglin,…
Ballymaloe Day 55: Mammy, Midleton and Munchies
After a week of no wine, I treated myself to a glass of French chardonnay last night and slept like a baby. (Serving soufflés yesterday) (From left to right: My godmother and Mammy!) Up at 9am to get a few jobs out of the way, I nabbed the hen bucket and bins and wandered down…
Ballymaloe Day 54: The end of week eight
We have only 13 cooking days left until the end of this course – bizarre. Exhaustion is one way of describing how I’m feeling at the moment, amused tiredness is possibly another way of describing it…. I woke up this morning and went into the kitchen with a mountain on my to-do list. Today we…
Ballymaloe Day 53: Ode to a candied peel
With the funnel firmly in hand, I picked the peel out of the saucepan and poured hot syrup into the jar – my candied peel was finally done! Up at the crack of dawn for stock duty, I slipped into my chef whites after a rather turbulent night’s sleep. Though the workload wasn’t particularly long,…
Ballymaloe Day 52: a “toolbox of flavours”
The top layer of cheese on the flan was bubbling silently like a golden orb of oozing joy. It was inviting me to eat it. Today was all about vegetarian food and with a list of rather intriguing dishes in front of her, Darina went through what she planned to showcase for the day. “If…
Ballymaloe Day 51: I may have a sourdough addiction
The jar was tightly shut with the chocolate contents teasing my stomach. My eyes wandered towards the seal and I whimsically gazed into the glass on the shelf – this was the disadvantage of being short! It was pasta-mania here in Ballymaloe Cookery School today, and the kitchen was abuzz with energy long before 8.30am…
