love hearts day

somehow it's 9pm on monday evening. week six. WEEK SIX!!!

i've managed to put off posting since last thursday and i feel like it's lost time.

thursday and friday came and went with no real highlights. we were warned on day one that weeks five and ten would be hard and that we might feel a bit down and even annoyed with our classmates. not sure if we were truly feeling that last week or if we were expecting to feel that way so we did.

friday morning i was meant to milk the cow. i headed down to the cow milking barn at 7.45am to meet aileen and when she wasn't there, i headed back up to the school lobby to wait for her. at ten after eight and no aileen, i went back down to the barn and found aileen, separating the milk. she explained that we had just missed each other and that i should try coming down next week or the week after. bummed out, i headed back up to the kitchen to take advantage of being in early.

mom got back to IRE on friday morning and drove to ballymaloe friday afternoon to pick me up. she's AMAZING!!! she talked all the way back to crosshaven, telling me about her visit to MI and all the people she saw while she was home. we picked up dad from work and then stopped by the little shop and lynch's before arriving at the house.

the weekend was excellent - lots of good food and good conversation. i practiced my omelet making skills on saturday morning and then dad demonstrated how to make crepes on sunday afternoon. he did a sweet one with strawberries and then a savory one with soft cheese, spinach and tapenade. they were gorgeous!

mom drove me back to ballymaloe on sunday afternoon and i gave her a brief tour of the school grounds since it was still light out.

today, monday, started out a bit rough. the cottage phone rang at half eight to let me and emily know we were on stock duty for the day. whoops! i was just about ready, so we hurried over to the larder and found out that trina (one of the instructors) had done most of the duty in our absence. i told her how bad i felt as we made our way to the freezer for more chicken carcasses and she told me to forget it and that it wasn't the end of the world. but still.

the day got slightly better, although i have a new instructor in the kitchen and i'm intimidated by her. the quickness of what she's doing, the number of students she oversees, my noviceness, etc. we even had a run-in at the sink where i was trying to anticipate her movement and ended up guessing wrong and the bowls in my arms flew into the air and somehow i ended up on the floor, flustered and reminding myself to 'slow down!!' however, she did warm up to me and by the end of the morning she wanted to know more about where i was from in the states, if i had siblings, etc.

i made the ballymaloe irish stew (with lamb chops), kale (i got away with using olive oil instead of butter, but i still had to puree the kale after it was boiled), and pickled cucumber (which accompanied the salmon pates that some of the other students had made).

i was out of the kitchen by 12.30pm and spent some of my free time reading. i'm almost through 'one day', which i started reading after it was highly recommended by some of my classmates. my cottagemate, ellen, is also reading it and she and i have a friendly rivalry going about who's further along. as of right now, i've got fifty pages on her. :)

in demo this afternoon, rory made a loaf of granary bread, goat cheese salad with rocket leaves, roast pepper and tapenade oil, a fish curry with monk fish, ling with tomatoes and fresh spices, choux pastry, chocolate eclairs, choux pastry garlands with raspberries and cream, gougere, beignets with cinnamon and sugar, hot chocolate and cheese galette. the fish curry was surprisingly good and i'm looking forward to having it for lunch tomorrow.

this evening has been spent studying salad leaves and herbs and going over the list of 30 techniques for our exam on friday. and reading. and trying to remember everything that's happened since last thursday.

bed soon. after i complete my order of work. and maybe enjoy some pizza with my cottagemates. and 'circle of friends'...