Next week will mark a year (525,600 minutes as those bohemians from Rent relentlessly remind us) since I jetted off to the Emerald Isle for my big adventure at Ballymaloe Cookery School. Mag Delish was the real-time chronicle of that experience, warts, tears, ferments, and all. It was life-changing and yet also . . . not?
Since my return, I’ve:
gotten a new kitchen,
gotten a new dog,
gone back to work for a bit but with a healthy disregard for formality,
broken and healed a rib,
erged, then biked, then erged again see above re: rib situation but finally am rowing,
made approximately a billion jugs of water kefir,
made approximately 30 loaves of sourdough because it took at least 15 to get a consistently good product,
made a whole bunch of other things which you can read about in my current substack newsletter, Cooking Without a Net,
thought a lot about the women’s sports bar and lost interest and feel guilty for that,
thought a lot about another food venture but see above re: gone back to work,
thought about what was happening at Ballymaloe pretty much every day and basically stalked them on social media for a while.
But of late I’m not paying as close attention because you know, moving on. At some point in this newsletter I likely compared Ballymaloe to Brigadoon, because just as in that mystical Scottish village, life in this beautiful corner of Cork just carries on in a magical organic burble of flower garnishes and ferments and Jersey cream and chickens and green and sea views everywhere while the rest of the world slouches not quite to oblivion but certainly toward uncertainty and chaos.
Cambridge is not Ireland. And its funny, while I was at Ballymaloe I was kind of surprised at how uninterested in the big wide world everyone seemed - there was almost no discussion of Gaza or Trump or anything other than maybe sports.1 Maybe that was a good thing because living here right now, you just can’t look away from our national dumpster fire. I’m grateful to comedians from around the world who are keeping it real like these Irish wags who remind us that whatever you do, don’t f* with the butter.
But any-hoe, keep calm and cook on . . .
I think I’ve gotten a few new subscribers to this newsletter in recent months. Thank you new folks! If you are here to learn about Ballymaloe, start from the earliest post and read forward to get the full twelve-week experience. Otherwise, Magically Delicious is on hold until . . . who knows?2 You can read about my more recent cooking misadventures and other musings in Cooking Without a Net. I’d love to see you there.
So slán go fóill3 and here are some bakes and bonus dog to help the us all meet the road when it rises up towards us.
And I’m not talking hockey.
Certainly it will be resurrected when my travels take me back to Ireland. And maybe for a little catering gig in Michigan in August, you know who you are.
The google tells me it means goodbye for now in Irish.
ahhh.. must seem like yesterday, yet a lifetime away....