tears and sweating onions

monday
my monday duties included making the daily salad, so i was in the larder by 8am, sifting through herbs and lettuce leaves with tracy from galway. we talked about the weekend as we carefully tore leaves apart and removed some of the longer stalks. we washed and spun the greens before putting them in large wooden bowls. debbie, a ballymaloe instructor, suggested we make the honey mustard dressing as we could wisk the ingredients by hand and not have to get out the mixer. slightly after 9, the salads were distributed to the dinning rooms, dressings in tow, and we were off to our kitchens.

as i mentioned, jointing chickens was the major task of the day. because we'd slept since the demo on friday, our instructors wanted us to watch them joint half a chicken before we went at it. my only two recipes were the chicken and rosemary main and the tomato fondue. i had brought several backup recipes because, according to my order of work, i would have at least an hour of time to fill. i got most of my ingredients chopped and prepped, however i still had to wait until 10 to joint my chicken. when we all had a go at separating the bird and our teacher's 'well done', we could continue on with our cooking. the demo set me a bit behind and at 11, when we were meant to have a certain amount of our menu cooked and ready to plate, i got a bit frazzled. and, i burned the onions i was meant to 'sweat'. i smelled them seconds before another instructor called out, 'i smell burning onions. who's burning their onions?' back to the larder to get an onion.

my instructor was good to point out that i had used the wrong cooking utensils for my two dishes, which really didn't help me in the moment. i was working with two small chicken breasts and one large one, so the cooking times were slightly different. i allowed far too much air to get in under the sweating paper because i was constantly checking the firmness of the chicken. annoyed and feeling increasingly more impatient, i was ready to call the chicken done just so i could add the remaining ingredients and plate up my food. not really the greatest attitude. i found plates, warmed them in the oven for a few minutes before plating everything up. after i was given remarks about my food, i was back out in the larder washing up dishes. to change my perspective and mood, i turned so i could face out the windows at beautiful IRE as i dried my pans, plates and tasting spoons.

it was almost one by the time i entered the dinning room. i wasn't feeling very hungry, so i didn't over do it with the assortment of dishes laid out for us. i missed the citrus fruit salads, so i ate the daily green salad instead. i tried both of the chicken dishes and the tomato fondue and i had a bite of the apple tart that phoenix made. it's hard to bypass the dessert when one of your classmates does such a wonderful job creating it!

the afternoon demo consisted of two new soups, soup garnishment and decoration, white soda bread, teeny weeny savory scones, spiced chicken with almonds, spiced chicken wings, basmati rice, cucumber and yogurt raita, banana and yogurt raita, poppodums, fluffy lemon pudding and a decadent chocolate fudge pudding. pam reminded us after the demo that colm mccan, the sommelier at the ballymaloe house, would be doing a short introduction to wine that evening from 6-6.30. it was quarter past five when we were dismissed for the day, so i went back to the cottage with emily and did a bit of a clean up in the kitchen before the wine lecture.

colm was a very interesting and enthusiastic guy and very fun to hear speak. he gave us an overview of the six-week wine course we would have over the next eleven weeks and then talked about corks, synthetic material corks and screw-top wine bottles. apparently, we are going to have access to some pretty incredible wine savvy individuals in our upcoming lectures! we do have a wine exam at the end of our 12 weeks, so the tastings and lectures will be incredibly important.

it was almost quarter to seven by the time colm finished up. emily and elisa wanted to make a quick trip to the filling station not far from campus so they could get mars bars for a rice krispie-like treat, so em, elisa, charlotte and i piled into charlotte's mini and ran the quick errand. when we got back, we saw another student getting ready to head out for a run. inspired, elisa and i changed into some warm clothes and headed off on a nice, long walk. we walked in the direction of ballycotton and were gone for over and hour. it was so nice to be outside and moving! we talked about school, family, religion, friends, IRE and many other topics. the route was somewhat lit and the torch i carried helped us avoid pot holes and other obstacles along the road.

everyone else in the cottage was making and eating dinner when we got back, so we did the same. after i finished my order of work for tuesday, i got online, posted to the blog and headed off to bed.