48 london street, edinburgh scotland EH3 6LX

so of all the amazing things i learned today (and there were A LOAD of them), what made me most excited was this:

one of my classmates, from outside london originally, who is currently living in edinburgh, and i were chatting about edinburgh, and it turns out that he lives at the same address, 48 london street, that i lived when i was there in 2003/04. he's in the very top flat, where as i was on the second floor, third apartment. i just love small world connections like that! :)

thanks for being patient with me as i get settled in and adjust to the newness of being here in IRE and at ballymaloe!

i've been putting a bit too much pressure on myself in regards to blogging and didn't post anything monday or yesterday because there was absolute chaos in my head. it hasn't gone, but a it's bit more organized now i would say. :)

here are a few things to know:

i live in the pink cottage.

i have 6 cottagemates.

my roommate, elisa, is from salt lake city, utah. she's 28 and was here at ballymaloe in august for a one week course.

there are 3 other americans here: a girl, 28 from chicago, a girl, 28 from portland, and a gentleman, gently aged from new mexico.

the other 57 students are from ireland, england, scotland, india, sweden, germany, and the netherlands.

our day is broken into two parts: cooking in the morning and demonstrations in the afternoon. the meal we cook in the morning is what we enjoy for lunch and the demonstrations in the afternoon are of the items we'll be cooking the next morning. wednesdays are set aside for lectures, which means we are in the demo room all day. there are various topics covered: cheese making, wine, butchery, etc.

monday
our first day of school, properly. we were given a tour of the school and then bombarded with information from all directions. i figure it'll take about a week to get the hang of how things operate here and then another week to get a routine down. we had a gorgeous lunch of soup and bread, a plate of samplers (smoked haddock, salmon and eel, sausage, aubergine, a kalamata olive, pate on a bit of bread, a deviled egg, prawns and mayonnaies and some rocket), followed by meringue, ice cream, biscuits, coffee and tea for dessert. with stomachs full (and most of us eager for a nap), we spent the afternoon listening to darina explain some housekeeping items as well as watched her prepare a few dishes with great enthusiasm.

after being released for the day, my cottagemates and i took a trip to tesco (one of the grocery store chains here in IRE) to get some items for breakfast and dinner, as those meals are on our own. i found it funny, that after a day of listening to darina (our instructor) talk about the importance of buying local and organic, some of the things the girls bought were blunt contradictions of Darina's lecture! i guess we all tend to fall back into what we know, don't we? :)

tuesday
we entered the kitchen at 10am, after a brief demonstration on a quick, simple salad and a tour of all the kitchens and a run down of our rota duties. i am in kitchen 3 with about 19 other students. we work in teams of two and every week we switch partners. this is so we can split up the 4-5 menu items and have an opportunity to learn how to make everything. my partner this week is elizabeth, who reminds me of my aunt marigene and my dad's cousin, joanie. we learned in a group as our instructor, florrie, showed us how to make a loaf of bread, chop veg for a soup, assemble mushroom la creme pasta and . at half past one, we were finally able to sit down and eat the meal we had just semi-created. afternoon demo starts at quarter to 2, so we were a bit rushed for time and we sped through another gorgeous meal. once we get into a groove, i imagine we'll enjoy a more leisurely mid-day meal. :)

the afternoon demo started out a bit rough for many students, again mostly because we were sitting in a warm room on full stomachs. darina showed us how to line a flan ring for a quiche/tart, prepare the filling for the tart, how to make a mediterranean veg salad, a winter berry salad, onion and potato soup, and poached apricots. the room smelled amazing and darina sprinkled her demo with funny stories which kept (most of) us entertained. we queued up and had a small taste of all the items before heading back to our cottages to unwind for the evening.

i had one small battle wound from the day, a clean slice across my left thumb (which i didn't get from slicing, but when i washing up).

wednesday
i had herb garden duties today, which meant i met igor (one of the gardeners) and another student in front of the school at five to eight to head down to the greenhouses to pick leaves for the daily salad.

today was truly our first official day in the kitchen, so every student in my kitchen was in before 9, dashing around, gathering the ingredients for their recipes and setting up their workstations. it was a bit of a stressful scene and i had to keep reminding myself that 1. this experience is meant to be FUN 2. it's our first DAY in the kitchen 3. it's our first WEEK in the kitchen and 4. this experience is meant to be FUN!!!

my recipes today were a mushroom and thyme tart and a mediterranean veg salad with ballymaloe french dressing. my partner, liz, was responsible for the wholegrain bread, the potato soup and the poached apricots. after sorting out where everything was located and figuring out the scales (changing the mode from g/kg to lbs/oz), i found myself a bit behind in my work order. i made the pastry crust first so it could blind bake before the filling was added. my first attempt was dough that was much too wet. florrie came over and told me to set the wet dough aside, re-measure my ingredients and begin again. the second try was MUCH better! because i was running behind, i had liz make the french dressing for my salad. by noon, all of the kitchen was either removing the last of the tarts from the oven or plating up their food for the instructors to grade. my tart turned out near perfect, however my salad needed a bit more seasoning (salt). something i'll get the hang of over the next 11 weeks, i'm sure!

we had a bit more time to eat lunch today before moving on in for afternoon demos. darina was called away for something, so pam (her right-hand chef and a ballymaloe graduate) ran the show. we learned three quick and easy salads, a chocolate hazelnut tart, a spicy tomato chorizo pasta, scones and a raspberry jam and a very brilliant way to add a bit of snazz to a plated dessert.

there was meant to be a laundry information session at 6pm, but after standing around in the rain for 30 minutes, the lot of us gave up on mary and went our separate ways. i had tea with a few students in the white cottage before coming back to the pink cottage to eat dinner with my cottagemates.

no wounds for me today, although one of my kitchenmates did nearly separate her finger from her hand at the start of the morning. they'll know tomorrow if she needs more than just a plaster to keep it attached.