Bank Holiday is just a three day weekend that they have a few times a year here in Ireland and the UK, but the term always makes me think of Mary Poppins England even though that has absolutely nothing to do with it (and yes, I just went down that rabbit hole of watching Mary Poppins clips, sister suffragettes!). Many students went home or traveled a bit, but a sizable number stayed on campus.
Earlier in the week, the thought of a three-day weekend filled me with trepidation, but as noted my last chapter, by Friday evening I was so drained that all I wanted to do was sleep. There was a wine tasting at the end of the day, from an extremely handsome French winemaker and his equally attractive wife and that even scotched plans for the pub. On nights like this we Pennyworters repair to the lounge, or the snug, as Housemate Jennifer likes to call it, snacks1 and bottles2 in hand. Conversation ranges over what we cooked this week, the equipment (the pepper mills in kitchen 1 suck), techniques (Sangree is enthralled with sweating onions, I am amazed at my ability to make shortcrust pastry by hand), what we’ve learned (or not, or eschew, because we know better), who got what score (the elusive 1!), the teachers (idiosyncratic but we like them all), and then out comes the tea on the alpha cooks and the youngsters’ antics and then we remind ourselves of the tortoise/hare situation dynamic and that we’re all here so figure it out, and we haul our tired asses to bed.
Note that it is light until 9 pm here already - and it is only early May! On the other end, the first bird singing in the morning is the blackbird.
Anyhoo . . .
In a fit of can-do-it-iveness, I joined the twee-ly named BallyMaHikers group, because when Instructor Richard (who leads the hikes) said the first one on Saturday was an easy walk, mostly paved and boardwalk, up Torc Mountain, I thought great! If you can climb the stairs in your house, he said, you can do this walk. I can do that, I thought smugly, I am a rower, you know, as I’ve informed everybody. Fresh air, activity, be sociable, all good. At 535 meters, Torc is the 329th highest mountain in Ireland. What could possibly go wrong?
I missed the part where he said it was 14k, a four-hour hike, and the last hour up and first one down are on steep rocky paths better fit for goats and boardwalks that look more like balance beams so I was huffing and puffing and hauling my scone-filled I’m-a-rower self up and down that wee hill. The others set a very brisk pace, particularly down, and there was more discussion of the tortoise/hare dynamic toward the back of the now rather stretched out line of BallyMaHikers.
It was pointed out to me later (by my loving husband) that I was twice as old as anyone else in the group so maybe that had something to do with it. I certainly felt it the next day, I can tell you. But it was very beautiful and if I couldn’t keep up with the 20 year olds in the group, I got to know others and am very glad I went.
Sunday night there was a curry-off in the Barn, one of the cottages in the other more charming (read: maybe also more ramshackle) courtyard. Nicola repp’d Pennywort superbly with a chicken curry that she and Jennifer made, and the rest of us brought beer and wine and rice. The school had deposited a positively medieval grilling contraption into that courtyard, which was well-manned by Tall Max (from Australia) who was on naan duty, while Other Max (Hamburg) managed the kitchen and still others set up tables and with flowers and wine and circles of ridiculously deep Adirondack chairs. Everyone brought drinks, and then all of this food came out on to the tables - pots of various curries and butter chicken and potatoes and rice and more kinds of naan and then someone wandered around with a bowl of salad from the garden and Other Max made a nice speech and it was all really charming. Niall (from Dublin) had made a gorgeous roulade for dessert but I cut out early because I had a date with DJ Izzy and Indoor Recess on WMHB Waterville. I hear it might have become a bit of a boozer for some but generally respected the requested quiet hours of 10 pm.3
The Courtyard residents are in a particular pickle because where they live is basically the former stable yard and outbuildings for the house that Darina and Tim live in - and everyone is a little afraid of Darina so they try very hard to behave. The school is her vision, and the farm his, and together the two entities make up this symbiotic Oz of food production and preparation. And while the kool-aid may be fermented, it is delicious so I have drunk it and it is hard to argue with the fact that I do feel physically healthier than I have in ages (Headaches? what means that? Gut issues? never heard of ‘em!) and my skin, if I do say so myself, looks fantastic. The point is, if the soil is healthy (meaning, free of artificial additives), the produce is healthy, and we are healthy. The cooks’ job - that’s us - is just to make it even more delicious.
Now how do you reproduce this on a global scale? That’s the question, doyouknowwhatImean?
The last day of Bank Holiday weekend was exceedingly lazy - more recovery, recipe filing, order or work making. We had an abbreviated Sunday Supper Club potluck with David from London, pictures of which I made a point of texting to my family of working sods back in the US4, and naps. I made everyone spaghetti carbonara for dinner. Let it be known that Marcella’s recipe is better than Rachel’s, it is absolutely no contest.
And with that . . . week three began.
Going forward, snacks means: cheese (always Irish farmhouse), sausage (also almost always Irish), smoked fish (same), somebody’s bread of the day, and for godssake don’t forget the butter.
We do use glasses, we’re not heathens. It’s just that - who wants to get up for another glass of wine when you are comfortably sunk into the couch?
We hear that Mexican night, possibly with karaoke, is in the works for this week!
Those are my tarts which look the bomb but were sort of a fail but still tasted good. Lucy made a beautiful smoked salmon and avocado and cucumber platter, and Jen made the freshest and most delicious chicken salad. David brought the scotch eggs and Cheese Doodles, and we were grateful.
Yummy, even to read, and exhausting, even to imagine.
So lovely to read and as grueling as that hike must have been, the pictures are beautiful. Wish I could have joined you!