Well, Halloween came and went. We dressed up as zombies, ate cake (I made carrot cake muffins and a chocolate gingerbread – both Nigella and both yummy) and vodka jelly and went out. I mananged to flake out at 1 o’clock which was a bit pathetic.
Some (slightly fuzzy) pictures:
Saturday is Halloween and I am excited. I’ve really gotten into Halloween in the last couple of years, mainly due to finding an excellent fake blood recipe last year and turning myself into a zombie/ghost thing. Pumpkin carving is also high on the to-do list, although I have yet to find a way of doing it that means I get a decent amount of flesh out of the pumpkin for eating.
Anyway, on Saturday some people are coming over and we’re going to zombie up and then go in to town. I was going to make chocolate chip gingerbread, carrot cake muffins and vodka jelly. Then I thought that perhaps this was too much cake for a gathering that will probably only last an hour or so. And now I can’t decide – how much cake is too much? Is it a bit silly to make what is essentially two whole cakes just for one little party?
Will this ever end? 2 cakes today could turn into 3 next year and by the time I’m 30 I will be making hundreds of cakes for every gathering, desperate to feed people something they like. I do hope I’m not on a slippery slope made of cake, cream-cheese icing and desperation.
The vodka jelly should be exciting though – I’m going to put jelly worms in it. WIN.
We got the results of our wine exam yesterday – 83%! Yes, really. I have no idea how I did it and I don’t feel particularly knowledgeable about wine, but clearly something stuck. EIGHTY THREE PERCENT. Shocking stuff.
Our penultimate week meant I was back in the demo kitchen, which is very calm and quiet compared to the others. On Thursday I made Paul Flynn’s glazed pork belly with celeriac and potato mash and my teacher (and I quote) said “thank you for the best plate of food I’ve had in ages” (end quote)! High praise. It was a lovely recipe though, I’ll definitely be doing it again. Perhaps with less butter in the mash – they really, really like their butter here. I also made some truffles, lobster in cream sauce, puff pastry (2nd time – not as good as my first attempt) and rack of lamb. There were a few other things but I can’t remember them right now. We also got the recipe for one of the nicest truffles I’ve ever eaten which have a raspberry hidden in the middle and are just gorgeous. Definitely going to be experimenting with that one when I get home.
We have one more morning of cooking, 2 more demos, exams and then we’re finished! It’s weird to think a week tomorrow I’ll be on my way home, but I’m looking forward to it and I’ve got lots of new ideas and experiments to be getting on with. I would like to start filling my blank recipe book and need to start getting recipes from other people as well. I’m also excited to find out just how much I’ve actually learned.
Right, I’m off to practice making raspberry sauce, chicken, mayo and everything else for my practical. There is no way I’m getting all of it done in 3 hours. I also need to practice my presentation, it’s not my strong point. Then I’m going to try to revise some theory and file some notes. Fun, fun, fun!
So I did a wine exam this morning… I have no idea whether I passed or failed to be honest. I completely blanked on anything to do with wine styles, grape varieties and ‘homelands’ (basically all of the stuff I wanted to learn), but managed to remember the less useful things like how sherry is made.
I need 60% to pass and I really have no idea if I’ve done it or not. Fingers crossed. It doesn’t have any bearing on our food certificate though, so it won’t be too much of a disaster if I’ve failed. Just as long as I can get through the practical cookery exam. Which is a week today. Oh god.
I just wanted to say a big thank you to Robert McIntosh from Wine Conversation for mentioning me on Twitter, so thank you! Make sure you visit Wine Conversation and give it a read as well.
My main reason for blogging about Ballymaloe was that I found it very hard to get info online when I was deciding whether to come, so hopefully I’ll be able to help out anyone who’s thinking of going. If you do have any questions just leave me a comment or email me and I’m really happy to help.
Also, I’m planning to carry on the blog after school finishes and start posting recipes and things so stick around and hopefully things will get even more interesting.
Speaking of interesting, I have a whole load of filing to do.
Oh also, I jointed a chicken in 6 minutes today. Result!