Rory O’Connell, one of the founders of Ballymaloe Cookery School and the lead instructor, often used the term bamboozled during our first week. As far as I can tell, this refers to being overwhelmed with information. Which, despite his warning, is exactly what happens. You’re trying to figure out the schedule and work rota and extracurriculars and weekend plans and how to keep up with the kids at the pub AND you are actually trying to absorb information on ingredients and techniques and restaurant business practices and all the food. Also, there is a LOT of chatter as people get to know one another better and so it is all a bit chaotic and indeed, one might say, bamboozling! To control the madness, the teachers ring a little bell whenever they want to get everyone’s attention. This generates a little PTSD at first.1
First demo we get a lot of basics - vegetable prep, soup, and your classic Irish brown soda bread which is sort of the staff of life around here. We cook together with our instructor the first day in the kitchen but are let loose on Wednesday to make the previous day’s demo dishes and we are wildly proud of our simple potato soup and mango in lime syrup. Ruth, my partner, made a French Onion quiche and we have the seemingly stern but actually kindly Julia as our instructor. How shall I do this - maybe a list of what I make each week? First week I cooked:
Carrot Soup with Cumin
Mushrooms a la creme
Baked Rice Pudding with Rhubarb Compote
Potato Soup with Gubeen Chorizo and Flat Parsley
Mango in Lime Syrup
Penne with Mushrooms and Rosemary
Chocolate Hazelnut Tart
This list is going to get a lot longer - they are breaking us in gently. Tops for me, anything rhubarb, I just can’t get enough of that. The mango is pretty great, and I am delighted with my tart.
Friday was lecture day instead of cookiand let it be noted that “wine lecture” becomes wine-everyone-talking-while-drinking by 5 pm) so we don’t have to do orders of work on Thursday night. We - I should say Jen from Texas, who has rapidly become social chair - invite the Walshs (residents of Mrs. Walsh’s cottage across the courtyard) over for snacks and drinks in front of our fire. This is a rather jolly gathering which results in the group photo that will become standard when Jen is organizing an event.
By Friday night we are spent but housemate Lucy and I rally to join the youngsters at a pub in nearby Ballycotton. Those kids get right at it - huge table with maybe 30 of us, pints going down like water, smokin’, yakkin’, and sitting with a couple of sweet 28 year olds who claim to be very interested in our life stories. We head back early but are given the gift of that sunset so who won that evening? (Actually the ones who made it to the trivia contest at the next pub which I wanted to go to but it didn’t start until 9:30 and I was maybe asleep by then? I’ve got to train up here!) There are many personalities here but some clear distinctions emerging between silly and determined youth, flaky and gracious CDCÂ (or Les Affinagées as has been suggested - vote?), social butterflys and flies on the wall, the ambitious ones determined to be seen and the older ones who go unseen. But in the spirit of cohesion, I’ll mention classmates here, but I will not dish on them. Remember what happened to Truman Capote with the Swans, said Bill.
One of the optional jobs here is accompanying the farm truck to the justifiably well-known Farmers Market in Midleton. This requires meeting the truck around 6 am and it is about 42F so I have on multiple layers, none of which I take off during the day because it is cold and gray and eventually just rainy. But this is interesting work. Igor is the stern Lithuanian who manages the market stall and it is his baby - everything is done to his exacting specifications. There’s a quiet ride to the market in the growing light, squeezed in between Igor and Sophie, a vape-ing Ukrainian sprite with beet red hair and a droll sense of humor, who talks me through it all. The BCS stall carries a wide variety of products, which is part of the challenge, and I learn a lot about how to set it up for maximum attractiveness (read sale opportunities), exposure, inventory management, and ease of movement. Igor mans the till the entire time, while Sophie and I answer question, re-stock, keep the place tidy, and generally hang around. The School buys us breakfast (an amazingly delicious apricot custard tart from another stand) and lunch (I have organized for you a borger, says Igor, be ready in ten minutes. With the egg and the cheese. Next time, you try another. Indeed, I couldn’t finish that one, it was enormous!). It isn’t a huge day at the market - that will come later in the season as more fresh produce appears but the bread, prepared foods, frozen foods, dairy, ferments, jarred sauces and jams and jellies and chutneys, bakes, and plants all do a pretty brisk business, making break-down a lot faster than set up. Many of the students from the School come by (10% discount!) and while some find Igor a bit brusque he is a master with his regulars and anyone who wanders in looking a little lost. Their eggs or buttermilk or kombucha are saved ahead of time and handed over like contraband with a smile. I get plenty of time to wander around and am particularly delighted with potatos-only man, the smoked fish kid next door, and the feta and olives people across the parking lot. I’m told that the fish guys on our other side are the place to go - look at the line! - just caught last night, but cheaper than anywhere else. At the end of the day, Igor engages in a little horse-trading, leaving with a giant bag of leftover spinach, returning empty-handed, getting handed a mysterious package from smoked-fish-kid, and so on. Once everything is back in the truck it is “shopp-eeng time!” and we go to the supermarket next door or the drug store or wherever to get the rest of our personal groceries. I can barely stay awake on the ride back and take an enormously hot shower when back at Pennywort.
The Sunday Supper Club2 had its inaugural meeting this week. Housemate Sue thought we should have a Sunday dinner together, and Housemate Jen jumped into action to organize with a chat group, involving our house and some strays who didn’t have other weekend plans. This becomes a weekend-long affair, as one must discuss, provision, discuss, prepare, fret because the oven is wonky and the kitchen tools in our cottage are like a Martha’s Vineyard rental3 and whatever it is, isn’t turning out like it does at home. Then there is an unnecessarily long discussion of how to arrange tables for 10, quite a bit of kitchen quadrille-ing4, and finally, eating, drinking, taking eating, moving to the living room in front of the fire, and more talking - and not about the food! What did we eat? I made gin and tonics with this amazing local gin called Bertha’s Revenge5, Miguel (Belgian, lives in Barcelona, but works remotely for a company in the Bay Area) brought a smoke mackerel pate, then we had a group effort led by Sue of roast lamb, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, roast carrots, broccoli, a beautiful salad, some sourdough bread from the market, and Lucy’s dark dark chocolate brownies which she kept apologizing for god knows why. Kadence (Louisiana!) and Jess (South Africa) brought more wine like we needed that.
Kadence is going to make gumbo next week! Shout-out to Kadence who got married a month ago and her very sweet firefighter husband joined her for the first week of this as their “honeymoon” and then left. Now that’s devotion.
This next weekend is Bank Holiday in the UK, which means a three-day weekend. I face it with a bit of trepidation about how to fill those long days without my usual exploring partner but I guess I’ll figure it out. One of the instructors here, Richard, organizes hikes for the students, and I’ll go on the easy one this Saturday. There is also talk of a curry-off in the Barn on Sunday (that is one of the lesser cottages in which the young people live), or maybe Kadence’s gumbo, and a cook-out on the beach on Monday to celebrate some birthdays. If that happens, I’m bringing deviled eggs because the only person in my house who knows what they are is Jennifer from Texas! And these people consider themselves A-level picnickers?
I’m going to wrap it here because I’m starting to overlap into this week. And I’m trying to figure out how to fit kitchen time, demo time, extracurriculars, bread shed, fermentation shed, extracurricular cooking, actual fitness (I joined a local gym just for the erg!), connecting with home, laundry, work prep, file maintenance, beach walk time, bird ID time, all into my life. I am bamboozled! Leaving you with the new pigs and one of their neighbors.
This will resonate with exactly four of you, but you know who you are. I even spent farmers’ market day with the market manager Igor, who has a heavy Slavic accent! although therein ended the similarity. dingalingaling!
With profound apologies to Supper Clubbers in the US (you know who you are) - the name seemed to have been bestowed before I knew it! While fun, it is NOT the same as gathering with you all so don’t be offended.
Which means, you might have a food process and a blender but only two tea towels and no digital scale.
You know, that dance you do when there are a lot of cooks cooking in the kitchen?
Track this down if you can. It is milk-washed, which means the base spirit is distilled from whey, which comes from local dairy farmers right here in Cork. It has a beautifully herbal finish and goes down extremely easily. Ballyvolane Spirits.
Very impressed re the erg
I can't keep up, but the photos are inspiring and beautiful!