Day 6 & the weekend

Cliff Walking

Week 2 day 6 has come and gone before I had the chance to blink. Let me first recap my weekend.

Friday night came and we all happily relaxed and enjoyed a family dinner in the cottage. Saturday morning my house mate and I ventured out to the local farmers market in Middleton. Ballymaloe has a stall as do about 15 other vendors. They sell everything from fresh vegetables to home made chocolates and cakes. I came home with freshly picked corn on the cob and a large chocolate cake. There were some Irish dancers performing and a folk band so we enjoyed that. We got lost on the way back but ended up seeing some beautiful beaches! 

Sunday my house mates and I went for a long cliff walk. The views couldn't get any better. I could almost see Bermuda. We had lunch in Ballycotton and then headed out for a walk. I spend the evening catching up on my filing and filling out my order of work. Early to bed as I had cows to milk in the morning.

My crab being shredded to pieces

This morning came too soon and before I knew it I was in my wellies staring at a pair of cow butts. Every morning Ballymaloe milks two cows for breakfast and cooking milk. They have all the modern machinery so it was a really quick process. While there I got the chance to see yogurt being made. Its amazing what you can make when you have the right ingredients. I had a spoon of fresh yogurt before I hit the kitchen. This morning I was making soup, biscuits and soda bread. It wasn't my best effort but I managed to pull it off in the end. My soup had too much roux but was saved by the blender. My Soda bread was a little green (too much baking soda) BUT my biscuits were my saving grace. I also had to cut up a crab and get all the meat out. It was staring at me before I snapped its little legs off and dug around for all the good meat. I was not a big fan but it had to be done.

Demo today was more ripping and tearing of animal skin. We learned to joint a chicken and then use everything possible to make something edible and delicious. Hot wings, seasoned chicken breasts, legs and thighs and we even kept the skin and baked it into a crisp cracker type thing. That poor chicken had nothing left. It was a really enjoyable demo though. I learned alot. 

Wine Tasting

After the demo we had another wine lecture and wine tasting. We had a gentleman from Bordeaux talk about all the wines there, all the types of grapes and why we should listen to Mr. Parker. We tasted 5 different wines 1 white and 4 reds. My favorite was the white and the last red we tasted. It goes well with chocolate cakes :) We barely brushed the surface. It would take a lifetime to learn everything. We have a number of other classes to take about wine and then an exam at the end of the year. I might be a little snob by the end of it all! :)

Bed time! No duties tomorrow morning so I can sleep in. 

Things I'm trying to get use to:

Imperial measuring system. There are no cups here :( I'm getting used to lbs and oz

Fresh salad. In a good way! Its so good

Free Range Chickens. I kind of like the idea of having a couple around. 

Fresh Milk. Warm milk is a good thing... and cows are lovely creatures.

Cream! We eat it with everything!

Fresh Herbs. I don't think I can ever eat dried up herbs from a jar again.

Biodynamic... I can't even start to go here yet! :)