linen suits for a south african summer wedding

i'm slightly relieved that tomorrow is a lecture day and we won't be doing any cooking.

today i made red currant jelly, celeraic and hazelnut soup and chocolate fudge pudding. i made the jelly straight away as it doesn't take a tremendous amount of time and because it would need some cooling time it could set properly. i moved on to the soup next. i didn't get very far in my chopping as i was halted mid-onion and told that i was 'doing it completely wrong.' i tried not to get upset while my instructor told me to go get a whole onion so she could show me the correct way, but tears were welling up on their own. i got through the onion chopping lesson and went on with my soup. i'm not sure what really sucked my time away, but all the sudden it was 10.45 and i hadn't collected all the ingredients for my chocolate fudge pudding. since the recipe required whisked egg whites, all of the students who were making the puddings were to wait for that step so it could be done together and all the desserts could go into the oven at the same time. i felt a bit panicked as i measured out my chocolate, butter, eggs, etc. i set my chocolate and butter in a bowl on top of the saucepan and brought the water in the saucepan up to a boil to melt the chocolate. while the chocolate melted, my instructor had me get a blender so i could liquidize my soup. i didn't want to leave my chocolate because i was afraid it would burn, so i hesitated a bit. i lugged the contraption that holds the blender over to my workstation and started pouring the soup into the blender. i only got it about half full when the water in my chocolate melter was at a full boil, so i turned my attention back to my chocolate. i stirred the butter and chocolate until they were fulled mixed and then added the eggs, vanilla extract and flour. there was one other student making the chocolate fudge pudding, so florrie made sure we were on the same step at the same time. i whisked my egg whites until they had nice, stiff peaks and then folded them into my batter, poured the batter into the buttered dish and set them in the pan of water in the oven. back to the soup.

my instructor had been minding my soup while i got my pudding ready, so it was simmering gently. it was a mild green color and had a decent flavor, considering it was made of onions, potatoes and celeraic. not terribly exciting. i located a soup bowl and plate and a garnish of parsley, put the bowl and plate in the oven to warm and then tidied my work station. i couldn't find my instructor to ask if i needed to add the extra cream into my soup, so asked another instructor. she said i had a nice consistency and that she wouldn't add anything more to it. happy, i went to retrieve my bowl and plate from the oven. my instructor was helping my cooking partner when i returned to our station and she told me i could add the cream to my soup. i started to explain what i had been told by another instructor and got a bit teary-eyed again. i know, quite ridiculous, really. as i struggled to fight the tears off, my instructor had me follow her out of the kitchen so she could give me a hug and let me know that i was doing just fine. i tried to find the positive, FUN attitude i was so proud of last week, but it was a bit buried.

after another hug, we both headed back into the kitchen. florrie was just removing our chocolate puddings from the oven, so i went over to the oven where she and my classmate, charlotte, were standing. charlotte had forgotten to add flour to hers which meant hers didn't set up as nicely as mine had. we both agreed that it would most definitely still taste good though! i plated up my pudding and it got rave reviews. it had the three layers that we had seen pam create in the demo monday afternoon: a spongey top layer, a second layer of fudge and then a chocolatey sauce on the very bottom. not a bad first attempt.

i wasn't feeling very hungry for lunch again today, but i still managed to try some of the jerusalem artichoke soup that was also made. i sat by a guy called 'mick', who i don't know too well. he's probably a good 10 years or so older than me. he lives in cobh with his wife and kids and is hoping to apply what he learns at ballymaloe to a career directly after completing this course. it didn't take long before mick and i were talking about the wine lecture and wines and the day's cooking. mick had me laughing hysterically at a story about his brother who got married in south africa one summer. i enjoyed our conversation very much and was disappointed when it was time to head into afternoon demo.

there was a bit of a mexican theme on today's demo (thursday's lunch). pam prepared flour tortillas, tortilla chips, irish nachos, quesadillas, guacamole, tomato and coriander salsa, frijoles de olla, black-eyed beans with mushrooms, creme carmel with caramel shards, crunchy orange butter scones, orange butter cream, and seville orange marmalade. we raced through all the recipes in record time and were dismissed at quarter to five.

there was still a good deal of daylight, so one of my classmates, grace, and i decided to take advantage of it and go for a run. we bundled up and headed off toward castlemartyr, which is on the ocean and roughly two miles from the school. it took us about a half mile to adjust to each other's running styles and then we just had to make sure cars saw us as we came around blind bends in the road. grace commented on the palm trees and the sheep in the field as well as the amazing sunset behind us. incredible IRE! when we got the ocean, we walked along the boardwalk, talking non-stop. when we had cooled down (like the vanilla-infused milk had cooled before it was added to the creme carmel mixture in demo), we picked up the pace and started running to warm up. the run back seemed to go much faster and we were back at the school in under an hour. refreshed, invigorated and feeling a bit virtuous, i thanked grace for the run and went to my cottage to make a quick dinner.

charlotte, elisa and emily went down to the pub with a handful of other students. the twins, minnie and connie, and i stayed back so we could catch up on the reading for tomorrow's wine lecture and just relax.

and to bed i go, with hopes for a wonderful wednesday. :)