Its day one. I’ve eaten eel, smoked salmon, and mackerel!!......
After being sat queasily for three and a half hours reading the Sunday papers on the ferry I take a breath of fresh air on the deck and catch my first sight of Ireland: all big clouds, greying skies and rugged mountains. Finally arrived in Rosslare harbour and set off along the N25 into the west and the sunset! Stomach growling and in need of some caffeine for the 2 and a half hour journey ahead looked for somewhere to eat along the way and, wrong wrong wrong as it is to begin a Ballymaloe blog like this, I stopped at a McDonalds for a last resort refuel! I’ll regret writing that.
Being TomTom-less I asked for directions in a little grocery store in the small village of Shanagarry, open despite it being past 10 pm, and a kindly Irish lady pointed me in the right direction . Got a few missed calls off Toby/Tim Allen asking when I was going to arrive, but arrive I did, and was greeted by Tim and Muffin the terrier. Took me into the school, a converted apple barn, to collect my folder – a veritable mine of Ballymaloe information - then across the gravel drive past the chicken coops on the lawn to the Pink Cottage where I’m staying. Met Flo, Elise and Ashleigne who are staying in the cottages, the rest being asleep. Spent a good while unpacking then finally got into bed and started reading my enormous folder which eventually resulted in much welcome sleep.
Leaving the window open for some fresh air seemed like a good idea at 12.30am, however, as the cockerels outside my ground floor room decided to start warming their vocal chords at 4,30am, it decidedly wasn’t. Having dozed for a few hours with a pillow over my head, I decided to get up and went to sit in our open plan living area: high ceilings, beams, woodburning stove, whitewashed walls, duck egg blue cabinets, French doors, fresh flowers on the wooden kitchen table, eccentric ochre Zabussi fridge with butterflies and Bill Clinton magnets) Had a cup of green tea, read my folder and waited for everyone to appear. Eventually one by one they appear for breakfast, and at 9am set off for the school (15 seconds walk across from the courtyard and the drive). Go into the dining room and have coffee, tea, delicious scones, flapjacks, biscuits, cakes and ‘get to know you’ chat amongst the 60 of us on the course. Darina waves a wooden spoon around and gives a lovely welcome speech outlining the ethos and history of Ballymaloe, what we’ll be learning, why we’ll be learning it etc etc. Later on when everyone introduces themselves and their reasons for taking the course her comments upon people coming back around to a more traditional, localised, practical and eco-friendly way of producing and eating food, are thrown into stark context with many of our fellow students finding themselves at Ballymaloe after forced redundancies, business bankruptcy and general disillusionment with a commerce obsessed, commercially driven culture. I’m sitting in-between an American who disliked her finance job in New York and a Dutch lady who too is fed up of her job in tax. The 60 of us then embark on a tour of the 100 acre organic farm encompassing vegetable gardens, fruit gardens, greenhouses , formal gardens, herb gardens, folly with stunning shell-mosaic interior, milking shed, dairy, recycling area, student’s garden and the animals reared on the farm: cows, chickens, and Gloucester Old Spot pigs and piglets. From within the greenhouse we also hear the quack of Tommy the duck, kept for the express use of slug eating.
Back in the school’s Garden Cafe we sit down for dinner on tables of four and have amazing fresh tomato soup with soda bread. Followed by a tasting plate of the best of Ballymaloe – fish caught locally from nearby Ballycotton, devilled eggs from the farm, shell-on prawns with homemade mayonnaise, chicken liver pate, cucumber relish, tomatoes from the greenhouses…..washed down with homemade elderflower cordial. Pudding. Amazing. Slabs of soft Jersey cream ice-cream, strawberry and almond pavlova, autumn raspberries, served with jugs of cream, chocolate sauce or strawberry coulis. As seems the norm here all of the aforementioned produce has been grown organically on the farm or in the immediate vicinity. Then some tea and coffee before going into the demonstration room. It’s a bright, airy lecture theatre type room with open windows and paper lanterns hanging from beams yet large mirrors and flatscreen tvs make it easy to see, even from the sixth row . We see how to sweat vegetables, slice onions, crush garlic, make flapjacks/oatmeal biscuits, wholemeal soda bread, basic stock syrups (rosemary, geranium, lavender etc), homemade lemonade, carrot and cumin soup, and, as we proudly clutch our new canvas wrapped bundles of Victorinox knives, chopping and slicing skills. Demonstration ends and we then signup for various ‘extracurricular’ activities like helping out on the stall Darina runs at the Midleton Farmer’s market, learning how to milk a cow, gardening, and the chance to view the busy kitchen of Ballymaloe House at work. And, after 8 wholly delicious but tiring hours, our first day is finished! We spend the evening somewhat anticlimactically in our living area, on laptops, watching America’s next top model, eating toast and drinking red wine/Henry Weston’s finest..... :-)
