Firstly, i must apologise for my rubbish blogging!!
Although in my defence I have an up to date journal that i have just about managed to keep up with.

Anyway, a summary of my first 3 weeks at Ballymaloe.

I have to say, I am very happy at the moment, the food is amazing, and I have learnt an awful lot in just in first few weeks.
I have successfully filleted a round fish and was asked "have you done this before" after my first attempt!
I have jointed a chicken, made jam, chutney, seen have a lamb massacred, made and eaten alot of irish soda bread and lots and lotsss of cheese.

I had my first lecture on wine by one of irelands leading sommeliers, and got the chance to try different wines, We have also had talks by 2 wine makers, one south african one spanish, although the spanish wine was not to my taste at all!

I have made torillas from scratch which i then made in to nachos, which are much easier to make than I first thought!

There is a local farmers market which we have been to a couple of times on the saturday, there is a little hot chocolate van there every week, and they have every single hot chocolate you could dream up to choose from, and with each drink you get a little paper casing of chocolate drops, of course, i LOVE this and have brought one every visit, yum.

its quite difficult to actually cook in the evening and weekends due to the amount of people in the house and the lack of space and the oven doesnt even work that well, plus during the week your so stuffed from a day of eating that you dont want to eat much more. but am looking forward to being able to cook for everyone when im back!

Tomorrow the desert demo is on all the different lemon merigue pies you can make, i didnt know there was more than one way, but there is! so will have to keep my ears open and make sure i make Mr Michael a delish pie when im back!!

Luckily, this place is absoloutly beautiful, and am living right by the sea, so nearly everyday, if it isnt raining, i have been on walks down to the beach, today we went down and it was just, gorgeous, the sea was so calm and we could walk for miles along the sandy beach, it iddnt feel like we were in ireland at all, until we got very randomly drenched by a quick shower half way through our walk, we soon dryed of as the sun shone after that.

In the past week we had a guided tour of the Ballymaloe House and restuarant, follwed by afternoon tea with lots of yummy cakes in thier dining area, was brilliant, although i missed the coffee talk after which i didnt know anything about, so was really gutted i missed out!

I had a very long weekend last weekend, friday night was spent in the local pub "the goalpost" where i didnt get back till 3 in the morning, and then the following night we went to a bbq at a students house in ballycotton and then went to the pub and again, didnt get back till 3 so was sooo tired by monday morning the teacher said at the end of the mornings cooking "sweet mary, jesus of god lydia, sweet mary, youve finially finished" sums up my hectic morning really!

I think i'm up to date now and must get on and get to sleep, otherwise its going to be another messy morning in the kitchen!

love to all xx