May 31 - The Great American Hamburger!

Week 7: Another new kitchen, new partner, new teacher! Great kitchen, great partner, great teacher...life is good! Today's cooking was "The Great American Hamburger" how appropriate given that today is Memorial Day. My burger was good however my presentation was somewhat lacking(sorry no picture). My teacher gave a thumbs up for taste and a very nice rearrangement of my plate...my presentation looked like a 1950s diet special platter...hamburger patty with slice of tomato, onion, lettuce. When my teacher got through with replating, it looked like a gourmet burger! It looked as good as it tasted! I've got 5 weeks to get this plating business down!
Cheers,
Karen

P.S. I did make the above loaf of bread, and thought you'd enjoy seeing some other pictures of the school

Lazy Weekend

We've spent a much needed lazy weekend. Went to the school for wood fired pizza yesterday. It was really delicious. Philip (Darina's future son-in-law) is in charge and it's run like a small cafe. The wood fire oven is a kit that Darina purchased from a company in Italy...I've got all the info for anyone interested in one. The only problem I see with ordering one is that they cost a small fortune!!!! But the pizza is really, really, delicious. I've come down with the "school cold". Thought I was going to escape catching it...started to feel it coming on right before the exam on Friday and it hit full force Friday night. I've got a rudolph nose from all the blowing. I think I just might have the perfect tonic though, an Irish Hot Toddy....hot water, lemon, honey, and Jameson whiskey! We had a small get together on Wednesday night over at our house with some of the other students. Tom and I made mexican food Arizona style and my dad's refried beans were a hit! It was an early night...midnight! Really, Tom and I stayed up until midnight and the last get together we didn't get home till almost 1:30 and I had class the next day. Let me just say, that next day was a rough one...ha! The Irish know how to party and being a smidgen Irish myself I'm keeping up with them; at least trying my best! Miss all of you but can't believe I've only got six more weeks of class.
Cheers!
Karen

Half Way Point

Yesterday was mid-term exam day....we had to identify 10 herbs and write two recipes for each, identify 10 salad greens, set a table, pour a glass of wine, and complete a set of techniques we should be proficient in at this stage of the course. We had a list of over 30 techniques we should know....4 were given the day of the exam. The only thing I was nervous about was having the teacher from this week be my exam instructor. The table setting and pouring the glass of wine...no problem, I've had plenty of experience with both! Studied for the herbs and salad greens and said a little pray the techniques portion would be things I was proficient in. Walked into the technique room and was immediately shshed by the dreaded teacher who also ended up being my exam teacher...damn, not off to a good start. Felt the heart starting to race, oh well what could I do about it. Went to my assigned station to start the technique portion. The techniques I had to demonstrate were: make paper piping cone, filet and skin a round fish, dice and "sweat" an onion, and make caramel sauce. First thing to do...think of order of work, okay. Sweat onion, make caramel sauce, filet fish, make paper piping bag. Diced onion,easy...melted butter, onion in sauce pan, cover with buttered paper and then lid. Start caramel sauce: sugar in pan, measure water...still having trouble with the metric system "how much water do I need, got nervous, read wrong amount, put triple the amount of water into the pan, oh sh...! Do I let dreaded teacher know...no way, think how to solve this...okay it's just some extra water it will boil off, which it did. Start filleting the fish... easy, starting to feel confident. Watching the caramel sauce...fine line between perfect and burnt....went past that fine line, oh sh...! Made paper bag but couldn't figure out how to secure the top of the bag...looking for tape, teacher finally said, just fold it down...duh! Next, into the herb/salad/table setting/wine pouring kitchen; easy! Whew, it's over! and that's how the 6th week ended! Have a nice Memorial Day weekend everyone...
Cheers!
Karen

Day 26 - "Do You Have a Volume Control"

Monday, week 6, new partner, new kitchen, new teacher...and I'm not sure she likes me! The only time she really spoke to me today is when she said: "Do you have a volume control on that voice"? Oops, Tom got a chuckle out of that one, he's frequently saying the same thing to me. It's going to be hard to "turn down the volume", I've got a great group to work with this week. My cooking tasks today were buttered cabbage and Kerry pie. The pie is pot pie made with lamb, carrots, and onions in a delicious gravy base. It was good but I'd like it best not in the crust and served over creamy garlic and chive mashed potatoes. I can't wait to make it for my dad. It reminds me of the ground beef over mashed potatoes he made for dinner when I was a kid.
Cheers,
Karen

Weekend Travels

Yesterday we went to Kinsale...coastal town towards the southern tip. It's charming and has fantastic seafood. We ate at Fishy Fishy Restaurant; Tom had crab claws that were huge! I was here almost 12 years ago and The Old Head golf club had just been completed. The pictures above show the view surrounding the club. The picture of the house is a B & B I stayed in with Kim, Kelli, and Teddy (Kelli's cousin) 12 years ago. Today has been spent catching up with filing massive amount of recipes and grocery shopping. Tom usually does the shopping; we have complete role reversal over here...I kiss him goodby in the morning and he's off to exercise, horseback ride, and golf. He throws in grocery shopping and the occasional housework. I think he's liking this role reversal!
Cheers!
Karen

Day 25 - "Do I Really Like Cooking"?`

Today was the first day that I have to say I HATED cooking and wondered what I'm I doing here. Thank goodness by the end of our demonstration today I was back to wow I can't believe I am here! The morning started great. My assigned duty today was making the white bread for lunch. White yeast bread was learned last week so I decided to make it for my bread today. Got an early start and had my bread dough made by 9:30. That's when all hell broke lose. Next on my "order of work" was make the strawberry jam, this was started yesterday...easy. Put the jars in the oven to sterlize and began cooking the jam which by the way has an insanely amount of sugar in it. Next on the list make choux pastry, make pastry cream, make chocolate sauce, roll goat cheese into balls for salad, roast peppers, make olive tapenade, make salad dressing, punch down dough, form dough into 5 braided plait, pipe choux pastry onto baking sheet into profiterole shapes, bake choux pastry, make chantilly cream, etc., etc, etc....get the picture, well the one above shows it all! My week 5 partner has been Nikki and she helped clean up the mess! After all that cooking I also had blitz duty which is cleaning all the ovens! I collaped into the chair at 1:45 for our afternoon demonstration which was all about the amazing seafood of Ireland. I was lucky to bring home two of the crabs for dinner tonight and my 5 plait loaf of bread. Ya, cooking is pretty darn great!

Day 24 - "The Spotted Dog"

I've got it! The Spotted Dog that is; which happens to be a type of soda bread. We're now at a stage in the course where we are expected to practice recipes we feel we have not mastered. So today I decided to make the "Spotted Dog" in addition to making Provencal Bean Stew, fileting a flat fish, and Strawberry Jam (will finish tomorrow)!. It's a time dilema when adding an additional item to make and thank goodness for one of my classmates Tara...she got the strawberry jam started for me. Having an oven available is also a dilema so as soon as I arrived this morning I started on the bread. We weigh our ingredients here instead of using measuring cups so I quickly start at the weigh up area for the flour. Back to my station, add the salt, baking soda, and raisins to the flour. Here's where my cooking fairies were watching over me, I really mixed these ingredients together well...as the recipe said: "mix well by lifting the flour and fruit up in to your hands and then letting them fall back into the bowl through your fingers. This adds more air and therefore more lightness to your finished bread". I quickly got the buttermilk whisked with the egg, made a well in the center of the flour mixture and added 3/4 of the buttermilk/egg mixture. Began using my hand to mix wet ingredients into dry; fast and I mean fast when mixing. Dough seemed dry so added a little more milk...still dry, added all the milk. Still seemed dry but plopped it out on the counter formed my loaf and placed on the baking sheet. Now comes the part that allowed this bread to be perfect (Tom's response)...making the cross and letting the fairies out. I took my knife and made two deep cuts to form a cross from one side of the bread to the other. Then I made a slash in each of the four quadrants made by the cross...legend has it this lets the fairies out of the bread and if you don't do this your bread won't turn out. I almost didn't let the fairies out but when I asked my classmate John what he thought his response was "it never hurts to believe in a little Irish superstition!" I completely agree because my teacher said it was a perfect loaf and Tom said he would definitely buy a loaf which ofcourse means perfection!
Cheers!
Karen

Day 23 - The Magic of Food

Lecture day...we get to wear normal clothes, eat food prepared by the teachers (or otherwise known as clean out the refrigerator day for lunch; always delicious though),and listen! The afternoon lectures were presented by two local food purveyors...Peter Ward of Country Choice and Arun Kapil of Green Saffron. Peter started Country Choice over 25 years ago. He imports food from around the world and today he talked about Parmigiano-Reggiano. That's him in the picture. It took 600 pints of milk to make that round and two years of aging. The producer of this cheese has to follow very strict guidelines before the stamp of Parmigiano-Reggiano is allowed on the cheese. It was yummy! Our second guest speaker is a past Ballymaloe student and he started a spice import company called Green Saffron. We had an olfactory overload with all the incredible spices Arun brought with him. "The magic of food" as was stated by Peter Ward today, I completely agree!
Cheers,
Karen

Day 22 - "The Fry Up"

Sorry for the lack of posts but the internet connection at the house I am living in has been down so I'm having to use the computer at the school. I've got just a few minutes before the afternoon demonstration begins...today was Irish Breakfast Day! Nothing like eating breakfast for lunch. It was delicious even the black pudding (it's made with pig's blood). The slang for it is "a fry up" and that says it all! We had a competition today for who presented the best Irish Breakfast. The prize was a bottle of champagne...I did not win! By the time the sausage, black & white puddings, rashers, streaky bacon, tomato, mushroom, and egg were fried (oh yea and the plate warmed) I just wanted to get the d... food plated up and graded. My plate looked like I felt... frazzled!
Cheers!
Karen

Day 17: Heat from Within!

Day 16: Double Yolked

Mondays are hard...I really need weekends to be longer, who decided a weekend is two days anyway...not someone who works and today felt like work, it was an 11 hour day because we had an evening wine lecture. Our guest speaker for that was a hoot and as the evening progressed and we became more relaxed so did he...he had some funny stories to tell about trips to South Africa. This is a man with the gift of gab! My cooking responsiblities today involved poaching an egg and making sponge cake. Doesn't sound like much but started at 8:45 and didn't present to my teacher until 12:45, I know your saying to yourselves 4 hours to make an egg and bake a cake good lord how could she make any money at this when she gets out of that school! I said the same thing to myself as the morning progressed...remember, today felt like WORK! Anyway got it done and two more items checked off the technique sheet! Results of the morning are shown above and by the way the first egg I poached had a double yolk, I think it's a good sign!
Cheers,
Karen

Weekend Travels!

Went to Kilkenny yesterday...fasinating place; it's known as Ireland's Medieval Capital as you can see from the picture of Tom in one of the narrow alley ways. It was the stronghold in the 1600s for Cromwell's troops and the British Crown made it illegal for the Anglo Norman invaders to assimilate into the Irish culture in anyway...dress, speech, or marriage. The Irish were not allowed to live within the city walls or be educated so the Catholic monks taught school in the hedges hence the name Hedge School. The picture of the stained glass is in the Black Abbey and depicts the stations of the cross. Kilkenny is also known for it's music and crafts...which brings me to the highlight of the trip for me...shopping! Nicholas Mosse pottery is headquartered here and when I walked through the doors I entered pottery nirvana...infact the sales lady told Tom that I was like a child in a candy store! I first learned about Nicholas Mosse when I went to Ireland to celebrate turning 40...here I am well past that age and his pottery still makes me swoon. But back to the age thing. We drove on a new toll motorway on the way up to Kilkenny from where we are living. As we entered the bridge we needed to stop at the toll booth to pay. Since we have a french car the driving wheel is on the left not the right. Tom handed me the money to give to the attendant which I did but I couldn't figure out why she looked at me so funny. A few minutes later I pulled down the visor to look in the mirror and starring me in the face was a woman wearing sunglasses with reading glasses on top....no wonder the young people in class call us "The Ancients"!
Cheers!
Karen

Day 15 - Success, well almost!

Being Friday today is the last day I get to have Eoin (pronounced Owen) as my partner and let me tell you he has been a fantastic partner! Kind, funny, and always there to bail me out; like the day I didn't turn off the gas stove and the chopping block was set on top of it and it started to smolder...yea I failed kitchen safety on that day. I made one of our needed skills recipes today...Mummy's White Cream Scones. I was very, very proud of them and brought a few home for Tom to taste. He's tasting it and I say, "well what do you think aren't they delicious"! His response, yes they're very good. I ask, "would you buy one at a store and he said no! NO, what do you mean no! His response, "when I buy something at a store I want it to be really delicious"...my response, what could be more delicious than a freshly baked scone covered in Irish butter, homemade raspberry jam, and softly whipped Irish cream....nothing!
Cheers!
Karen

What Day Is It?

Oh boy, everything is starting to run together...my mind has frozen like the computer I brought over! It's been a busy six days since I last blogged. Tom and I took off for the northwest of Ireland this past Saturday. We went to Donegal, completely fell in love with this part of Ireland. It's Yeats country and given the rugged beauty of the landscape I understand his yearning for his homeland when he was away. It is lambing season so the baby lambs were in abundance. We stayed in a castle called Solis Lough Eske. It's situated on the lake Lough Eske and I felt like I was in a fairy tale! It was magical. The drive took 7 1/2 hours to get back on Monday (we had a three day weekend) and it was hard to get back into the swing of things on Tuesday. I completely burned the glazed carrots and today I let my brown yeast bread rise too much. But I did learn how to butcher one of those sweet little lambs that I had spent the weekend ooing and ahhing over...disgusting I know but I am in a cooking course!
Cheers,
Karen