Thursday Morning With a Squid

What a long day! I had a really productive morning in the kitchen, I was down for fish and chips with mushy peas – and not the mushy peas that have a grey tinge to them, the real thing, and they are delicious! I started my morning by making focaccia, prepped for the morning’s cooking, and quickly realized I would have extra time. I made brioche dough that I will bake tomorrow morning, made the batter for my fish, fried my chips, made a tomato mayonnaise, fileted a flat fish, prepared a squid, and deep fried it too… I think that’s it. For some reason there were a few extra squid, after making my brioche I thought I would have a go at preparing one. It was quite fun, although I was covered in squid ink, the quill that is their “back bone” really does look like a quill, and the ink like ink, no wonder they are called the scribe of the sea. They were just tossed in seasoned flour and deep-fried, there was nothing chewy about it, so, so tasty.

This morning’s demo started with a TV crew and bright lights. One of the television programs in Ireland is doing a segment on how butter really isn’t bad for us – and what a better place to come than Ballymaloe to talk to Darina Allen! They were in the demo room for maybe 45 minutes. She did a bit on using kale shoots, cooking them simply and serving them with a blob of butter, gave her little chat on butter and how we need fats in our diets because most vitamins are fat soluble not water. It’s funny, we’ve heard the talk so many times, but it never gets old, I really could listen to her talk about it all for hours because she is so, so passionate. After demo I headed down to Kitchen 3, with a bottle of wine and my two sour dough babies, I made two sponges that I will shape in the morning. Mary was there to entertain me, and she fed my starters – good woman she is. At 6:00 we had our second last wine lecture, which was kind of a recap of what we’ve done this far. Very helpful, and I am sure next Friday’s exam will go well. Gwynnie then gave a quick talk on WOOFing, which is an organization where organic farmers give room and board to people willing to work. It is a term I had never heard of until coming to Ireland, but it seems to come up now and then. Interesting concept for sure.

Tomorrow is the end of week nine, and I cannot believe it. Will be heading off to Galway after demo, looking forward to a relaxing weekend, and hoping to get a bit of work done.

The weather has changed again here, the wind has picked up and it is so chilly, I have extra layers on heading to bed tonight! Brrrr!

“And they sit on you like a second mortgage…” Darina on battered fried onions