life is made up of little things

tuesday
my cooking partner, marie, was sick today so i got to cook with toby, one of darina's sons. since marie was going to make the watercress soup and the greek moussaka, toby made both recipes while i worked on the spicy apple chutney, the baked potato, the romanesco (a green cauliflower-like veg) and the bananas in lime syrup. we got on well as toby was very conversational, asking questions and sharing cooking tips. i did my best to help him out when i could as the moussaka required a lot of prep work.

i found a comfortable and steady pace (much like running) and enjoyed the morning. my chutney tasted delicious even though it will be much better in 6-8 weeks time. i plated up and had debbie taste my baked potato shortly after 11, making sure to put a generous tab of butter on top and a sprinkle of sea salt. the romanesco wasn't overly complicated, but florrie kept telling us to mind out boiling veg as she didn't want to taste any overcooked romanesco! no pressure. i neatly cut the bunches from the stalk and was slightly grossed out when a slug crawled out of the top bunch. i let him crawl down on to my cutting board and then i put him in the hens' bucket. a nice little snack for them later. instead of drowning my veg in butter when it was ready, i drizzled some olive oil on top and then sprinkled it with sea salt and a grind of black pepper.

the bananas in lime syrup were a bit of a disappointment. my syrup was a bit too sweet, so i squeezed in fresh lime juice to tone it down. i've found that it's hard to get something to taste right if it isn't something you particularly enjoy.

my afternoon duties included serving the dessert which meant whipping up two bowls of cream to accompany the fruit in syrup and the left over chocolate mousse. i whipped up the cream and set the two bowls in the fridge before heading into the dinning room to eat lunch. debbie let me know later that i whipped to cream too much and that darina likes it much soupier. good to know. i'll get it right next time. :)

afternoon demo was run by rachel allen, who has been off traveling with her cooking. she'll be at ballymaloe for the remaining nine weeks though and teaching quite a bit. she is very enthusiastic and has a great smile and attitude, but i found her a bit scattered and hard to follow. she jumped quickly from one dish to another without smooth transitions. a brain workout for sure!

she covered poultry and game and demonstrated how to hang, pluck the feathers, gut and then section a beautiful guinea fowl. all very fascinating. she made french peasant soup, a winter vegetable and bean soup with spicy sausage (rachel LOVES chorizo!), a traditional roast stuffed chicken, roast pheasant with game chips and cranberry sauce, bread sauce, parsnip chips, creamed celery (just an excuse to use butter and cream, really), swede turnips with caramelized onions, winter blackcurrant pudding, kumquat compote and a butter sponge cake with raspberry jam and creme. whew!

hazel and i had talked during lunch about running the 8K loop after demo, so we didn't stick around to taste anything. ray, who lives in the coach house cottage with hazel, also came with us. he isn't a 'runner', but has a natural stride and easy pace. lucky! we ran to our cottages and changed quickly. i was half changed when our cottage fire alarm went off...again. knowing i was the only one in the cottage, i wasn't worried that there was actually a fire. i did a quick check upstairs and in the kitchen. another student who was heading to his cottage stopped in and showed me how to reset the alarm and soon the shrieking was silent. i ran back over the office just to let someone know and was told that sometimes the alarms just go off on their own. good to know. i found hazel and ray near the gate and then the three of us were off, talking about the day and enjoying the last bit of daylight. ray took the lead early on, only to become a small spec in the distance. hazel and i had a similar pace which was a treat. our conversation ranged from discussing the course and what our plans were after the 12 weeks to talking about our families, where we fell in the line up of siblings and being in our thirties. :) she is easily one of my favorites here.

we finished our run in about 40 minutes and when i got back to the pink cottage, everyone was in the kitchen cleaning. i helped the twins carry the recycle bins to the recycle area which included dumping a pot that had been in the fridge holding a chicken carcass for far too long. the smell was just awful!

the rest of the evening was a blur. my mom sent a package to the pink cottage containing australian licorice, a favorite treat of all my cottagemates, so that was attacked and one of the five bags was gone in a matter of seconds. since we didn't have to prepare an order of work for wednesday morning, we hung out around our kitchen table, talking and listening to music. it was sometime after ten when i headed to bed.