Roast Chicken Dinner Party

Tomorrow is the big day… A school outing, we leave the school at 8:45 and are heading to Mahon Point Farmers Market, then to Durrus Farmhouse Cheese, followed by Good Things Café, and finally Urrus Atrisan Foodstore. We are heading back to the school in time for an event at Ballymaloe House put on by Riedel, a wine tasting with various glasses, which I am very much looking forward to. Hopefully the weather is good (although the wind howling through the house tonight, doesn’t seem too promising), and we are able to see a lot of the countryside of West Cork from the bus!

After a long day in the demo room today, which included various fridge biscuits, an introduction to blue cheese, and vegetarian cooking before lunch, then a brief talk with Colm this afternoon on natural, organic and biodynamic wines, we had a very enjoyable evening here in The White Cottage. Rachel was back doing this morning’s demo, which featured many tasty vegetarian recipes with many different influences for flavour. Tim and Darina were back at lunch after two weeks away, it was funny to see everyone’s reactions to them being back, we all missed them and it’s great to have them back. The bus trip tomorrow should be filled with many stories from their travels trough Turkey. Wine this afternoon was very interesting, we chatted about the difference between organic, natural and biodynamic farming on a vineyard, which are all on the rise in the wine world. The hot topic right now apparently is sulphites in wine, and I now feel like I have a bit of an understanding on the topic! After our wine lecture, we came home and made dinner at our house, the kids from The Playroom joined us, along with Kelly, Jared, and Shannon. We had a lovely evening, lots of food and wine chat, lots of wine was consumed (it truly amazes me how much wine a bunch of food & wine nerds can drink without any evidence)… Now it is past my bedtime… One more day in the kitchen this week, and then I am off to London!

“Rachel… Rachel… There is paper on the hob…” – Max

“Thank you, thank you, not the worst fire I have started… For the guests, emergency exists are behind you.” – Rachel