First Week

First week done and dusted! Just spent the evening in the kitchens at Ballymaloe House, the lone female amongst 8 mad bearded Irish chefs, totally surreal. I think they were mainly speaking English but at times I’m positive there was some Irish, they were that hard to understand! I also shelled enough green beans to make my hands cramp up and go, well, green. But they were really friendly, let me toss a salad (under strict observation) and fed me lobster canapés, crab pate, smoked mackerel (‘mmmn yes please I LOVE mackerel’) petits fours and tons of cheese so can’t really complain. Plus they had their very own Celtic specimen of Dan the man, SO similar except I think he was speaking Irish as the only words I could ever understand were swearwords.

So an eventful end to an eventful week! After baking our first loaves of soda bread and whipping up some pretty special scones on the first day we are all feeling pretty chuffed with ourselves, although we later that evening discovered not one of us in the cottage had the required knowledge of how long to boil an egg for! Also had our first pints of Guinness at the pub in Shanagarry whilst planning a Pink Cottage cocktail party complete with our own sweet geranium concoctions! If nothing else Ballymaloe has introduced us to sweet geranium leaves and we are somewhat addicted. Had some absolutely fantastic heirloom tomotoes too, black in colour and the most incredible unusual flavour. I had all good intentions of getting up for the 8am organic gardening class but after enthusiastic Guinness consumption on Thursday night plumped for the slight lie in before ‘theory day’ started at 9am. Unfortunately for our slightly sensitive stomachs we turned out to be having a morning of tasting German Riesling wines with the Ballymaloe House sommelier, a wine merchant and the actual wine producer who was a jolly German chap. Very poetically he likened the different wines to ballerinas and opera singers, and although I don’t think my palette is quite up to such metaphors (nor my stomach up to such appreciation) was interesting nonetheless. Had another man called Peter come in at the beginning of the week with a 40 pound wheel of organic parmesan Reggiano worth over 1,200 euros! After talking us through the process of making the cheese he cut it open and we all tried it, delicious. Tomorrow we are going for a look around Cork then on Sunday there are grand plans for a big, calorie burning coastal walk! I've done one 3 mile run but other than that dashing to the dessert board has been my primary source of exercise! A few pictures hopefully to follow this..... :-)

The Pink Cottage, and, to the right, the bastard cockerels.