i get knocked down, but i get up again

this week i'm in the demo kitchen which is quite different from the other kitchens. there are only six of us in this kitchen which makes us a true team. pam is our instructor which is a real treat.

i got into the kitchen at 8am so i could get a loaf of granary bread checked off my technique sheet and find my way around the kitchen. it turned out to be a bit of wasted energy as i started out using the wrong flour for my bread and then had a hard time trying to find ingredients. pam came in at 9am and gave us the rundown of the kitchen and then let us back to our cooking. in addition to my bread, i was cooking roast duck with onion and sage stuffing and bruschetta with mushrooms and parmesan.

the duck turned out perfectly aside from the fact that i was rushing to carve it at 1pm. the bruschetta was lovely and i was pleased that i even got to make the pesto to go on top of it. my granary loaf was questionable since i used a tin that was too small. when i removed it from the warming oven, the dough was pouring over the sides of the tin. i quickly squished it back in and was ready to transfer it to another tin but pam told me to put it the oven. to her surprise, and mine, it turned out beautifully.

i flew through lunch and was back in demo without getting my anticipated walk in. not the end of the world, but a bit of a bummer. darina popped her head in to thank everyone for their participation in friday night's pub quiz. the money raised was going to support her india fund. we students contributed six hundred euros which darina/ballymaloe are going to match euro for euro. not a bad collection! rory ran demo again today and after showing us how to cut our own steaks, he made a plate of smoked fish with horseradish sauce, a sweet dill mayonnaise, pan-grilled steak with bearnaise sauce and chips, pan-grilled steak with chipotle butter, chargrilled sirloin steak with salsa verde, steak au poivre, pan-grilled steak with roast red peppers, anchoide and rocket, ballymaloe spiced beef, spiced tomato sauce, mushroom sauce, ratatouille nicoise, pommes allumettes, cauliflower cheese, italian cauliflower fritters, rocket and olive salad, cabbage, sultana and fennel salad, normandy pear tart, apricot and frangipane tart, a bakewell tart, a pine kernel tart, a blood orange tart and a seville orange bakewell tart.

after struggling to keep my eyes open through the first half of demo, i took a nap after we were dismissed for the day. i got up when charlotte came in to ask me if i wanted a cup of tea. emily's mom and a friend were visiting as they had come down to ballymaloe for the afternoon. they chatted a bit about lunch and demo and then were on their way back up to dublin.

i did some filing, completed my order of work and am still contemplating on my menu for my final exam in three weeks. i have until thursday to finalize my dishes, complete my grocery list and order of work. we have a wine exam on wednesday the 23rd, cooking exams wednesday the 30th and thursday the 31st and written exams on april 1st. can't believe my twelve weeks are nearly up!