Crunch Time

This coming Thursday, we have to turn in our memus for the 3-course meal we will cook for the practical part of the final exam.  During the 3 hours we will have, we must also make a loaf of bread, but we won't know which bread we will make until the day before the exam.  There is also a 4-1/2 hour written final exam on our last day, Friday, April 1st.  Is it a joke?  Afraid not.  But there is an alternative -- skip the whole exam process and receive a certificate of attendance.  This is particularly tempting for me, because Charlene will be here that last week and, if I skipped the exams, we could start our vacationing earlier.  Of course, if I skip the exams, I won't know how I measure up when under pressure; but, I also wouldn't have to study lots of stuff for the written exam that I almost certainly will never use again, e.g., Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) as dictated by Irish law (one of 25 topics).  Yuck!  Tomorrow I'm going to sort out all the study material and I'll decide early in the week.  Don't hesitate to provide me comments.

From the serious to the trivial and fun in the Q&A world -- this Friday there was a pub quiz run by Stephen, the student I've mentioned in previous blogs.  What's a pub quiz, you ask (like I had to)?  Assuming this one was typical, participants pay an entry fee (5 euro for this one, with profits going to Darina's India fund, a charity), form teams, and each team answers a set of questions -- kind of like a trivial pursuit.  There are prizes for the team with the most points and this one also had a raffle with lots of prizes.  Needless to say, conducting it in a pub means there is lots of one more activity, which also contributes to the atmosphere.  Here is a picture of our non-award-winning team, EU+1, with our Guinness (mine is actually a Beamish, a similar stout that I think has more body) in clear site.

Paul is Irish; Bryony is originally from Great Britain but long residence in Sweden; Louise is also from GB but now Ireland; Stasha is from Holland; and of course I'm from the U.S. (the +1).  My contribution to our effort was totally neutral -- I directed us away from one correct answer, towards another correct answer, and otherwise knew nothing that others didn't know.  We were doing well until the music section, which counted double, and for which I knew almost nothing (no questions about John Denver).  I was worse (if that's possible) on identifying pictures of celebrities (although I did recognize the Dalai Lama).  All of this was loads of fun -- just wish I could hear better is such noisy settings.

The week had another unusual activity -- we took a tour on Thursday instead of cooking and a demo.  A bus took us to:  a smoke house near Cobh (pronounced "cove"); a farmer's market in the sheltered parking of a shopping center near Cork; the cheese making plant for Cashel Blue; and to the lovely town of Lismore for multiple stops.  In this case, pictures are much better than words.  Here is a picture of Bryony and Paul sharing a table at the farmers' market with an adorable child and her grandfather.  This is near a stall that sells the most delicious hot chocolate and or coffee (mocha coffee for me -- delicious!).  You can see they put little servings of chocolates on top of the cups of liquid.  Sure wish we had markets like this in Albuquerque.

I'm not a big fan of blue cheese, except on certain salads, and some of the other students thought the tour rather boring.  I found it quite interesting, with lots of opportunities for fun.  Here is a self portrait of me in my sanitary digs for the tour.

I could try to explain that wide-angle lenses at close distances give distorted images, but think what you may of that mug. 

On the way to Lismore, we climbed the Knockmealdown Mountains and looked back on the Blackwater Valley.

I chose this particular shot because some of the sky is actually blue, but also because of the spots in the foreground, which are trash!  One of the surprises (and disappointments) on this 12-week visit has been the trash that I notice along side the roads (lots of time to look when I do my power walking).  This is the most extreme case, where someone had just dumped an old set of table and chairs over the side of the road at the most incredibly picturesque spot.  Fortunately, Lismore is still beautiful.  Here is the castle as seen from the car park near the town.

In Lismore, we visited a cafe, where the former Ballymaloe student-owner shared practical experience in running a cafe-business.  Next to the O'Brien Chop House, where this owner (all the way on the right in the picture below of the gardens in the back of the restaurant, where serving occurs in the summer) got lots of attention from the young women (yes, he is quite handsome) but he also did a great job of explaining some of what it takes to operate a successful restaurant.

Last stop in Lismore was a butcher shop, where we heard how the animals are killed and cut apart.  Not the prettiest part of the food business, but a necessary one, unless you go vegetarian.

On that cheery note, let's finish this edition with my cooking experience this week.  On Monday, I had only two dishes, seared tuna and lemon rice, but I had to make the accompaniments for the tuna.  The piperonata (a sweet pepper sauce) was delicious, but I could do without the tapenade, which is heavy on the olives and too bitter for me.  I seared the tuna as instructed, i.e., very hot grill for only two minutes per side.  Yes, very rare in the middle, but I'm a convert -- rare is right for tuna!  For Tuesday, I convinced my partner, Alex, to let me have only two of our five dishes, so I could make a white yeast bread (very time consuming).  One dish was vanilla ice cream, which I had to start first thing, so it would be ready for lunch.  It took longer than I expected and, by the time I got it in the freezer, it was too late to start the bread.  So, I finished off a rather relaxed morning with green pea soup with fresh mint and cream.  This was not like pea soups I've had before, but delicious -- a keeper!  When Rose tasted it, she said it was seasoned just right.  When I told her I thought it was too salty she said no!  Well, this is the salty world of Ballymaloe (read into the pun as much as you want).  Friday, I finally got to make the bread I had been trying to squeeze in.  I made an Italian focaccia, using a white yeast bread as the base.  With lots of olive oil, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and sea salt, it was/is (still eating it at the cottage) delicious.  I also made an Indian Naan bread, which was more work than I think it is worth, and pears poached in a saffron syrup.  If you have priced saffron, you know that these are expensive pears!  If I do the final, I may do these for the dessert, because they taste really good and don't take too much effort.

There are three primary kitchens for the students plus the demo kitchen, which only a few at a time use.  Each of the primary three can have roughly 20 students.  We rotate between the kitchens and I'm back to the kitchen I started in on week one.  Returning made me realize how different I feel about things.  Much less pressure, but also a lot more confidence on each days cooking.  Shouldn't be surprising, but 9 weeks is not a long time to develop cooking skills.  Not sure I'm really that much better, but the confidence is there, regardless.

I haven't heard from most of you in a long time.  Comments are welcome.