Fermentation & Wine

It was a chilly day here, but the sky was blue, so it didn’t seem quite so bad. The house and school buildings are freezing! I’m all tucked in under my wool blanket for the night, looking forward to getting back into the kitchen tomorrow morning. I will have to filet a fish, which I am happy about, good practice for the exam next week.

Today we started the morning off with a few different brownies and variations with Darina, and then it was straight into the wine lecture with Colm. Not a bad Wednesday morning at school, tasted a few wines, and took in a lot of information on the different regions in France. After lunch Penny (Darina’s daughter in law) and Emer took us through an introduction to fermentation. Some people found the entire lecture quite dull, but I really enjoyed it, and think there is a lot of truth behind what they were saying. Not to say that I will be making sauerkraut anytime soon! Ha! I do think I will continue to make homemade yoghurt and sour dough when I get home. Tomorrow, I think I will start some water kefir and see how things go with that. Penny was telling us how your guts really are your immune system, and so many issues start from the gut. Rather than worrying so much about killing all of the good bacteria we are surrounded by, we need to try and introduce some of that back into our tummies to have healthy guts. I was going to make a sponge for sour dough tonight, but my sponge was too wet, so I will start one tomorrow morning. We had another sour dough party tonight, wine, cheese, lots of laughs, and good company. Another great end to a lovely day!

“What you need is – I won’t show you, – a very unsexy wool fest… You need wool, three layers of cotton isn’t enough.” Darina