Last week at Ballymaloe

This week at Ballymaloe just flew by. It was a solid four days of cooking Monday through Thursday with lectures in the afternoon and Friday morning and a going away lunch banquet Friday afternoon. My partner this week was Stella a very pleasant serious hard working Dubliner and university student. Her father was a theatre producer and she was named after Stella in a Street Car named desire. We made possets with nougatin biscuits, roasted aubergine 🍆, legs of lamb, smoked mackerel, roasted chickens, choux pastry, beet root hummus, loaves of bread and more. As the weeks go by, the recipes are getting harder. In the evening I went for supper with Faith the Toronto family doctor taking the sustainability course to the Black Dog in Ballycotton. Tuesday night I went swimming by myself in Garryvoe to come home to a roast beef supper made by my house mates. Wednesday Doug and I went and hiked the circular route of the Ballycotton cliffs and a road loop back to town for 2 hours. Thursday was our last night so the boys being Doug, Bryan, Kevin,Nils and myself went for one last swim at Shannongary beach. The water is starting to get quite cold so it wasn't a long swim. The boys were going to head out to the Goalpost which is the Shannongary pub for a drink. I got back to my house and fell into conversation with Jakob and Lynda two of my roommates. Before I knew it, it was 8 pm and I hadn't started packing. I have accumulated a knife set, some clothing and a huge binder full of recipes. It turned into a Chinese puzzle fitting it all in. By then it was 9 pm and I had lost my momentum. Plus I realized that they probably wouldn't even be in the bar by the time I walked down there so I called it an early night.

The next morning we had a chocolate making demonstration. Richard and Rory ran it and it was quite informative. With the right basic equipment and the time, anyone can make chocolates including ones with fillings. All the students at the demonstration looked a lot worse for wear. All the older guys who had headed out looked terrible including Doug. I guess they had all got caught up in the moment with the younger crowd and thought they could match them with drinks and staying up late. We finished the morning with a wonderful lunch banquet prepared and served by the staff from 1:30 to 3:30. After multiple farewells and hugs we finally got away. Some of the younger girls were quite emotional. I was very fortunate to have secured a ride with Doug in his beautiful Land Rover to Dublin and we were joined by Caroline from Oslo who Doug had got to know quite well but I hadn't. The three of us were all so happy to discuss cooking and our experiences that the 3.5 hour trip went so quickly. Doug was so kind to drop me off at my Air BnB that wasn't too far from the ring road.

I just can't believe that the week flew by so quickly. After spending 5 weeks in the bucolic rural Cork county where Ballymaloe was located on a beautiful farm with exquisite gardens, it was a little bit of a shock to find oneself back in a city.Read more