And suddenly here I am with just three days to go. In less than four hours I have my practical exam (cooking and presenting a three course meal and baking a loaf of bread in three hours – deep breaths now), and then all day Friday there's a theory exam, followed some frantic packing and tidying, a farewell dinner at Ballymaloe House, and a final, misty-eyed trip to the Blackbird. And then back to the real world. Will we remember how it works?
So... some edited (food-related) highlights of the last six weeks, in reverse order.
Gone fishing
First off, my maiden fishing trip, with seven of my classmates and our friendly and patient skipper, Michael.
I caught mackerel! Bucket loads of them! (Well, at least six.) And was only sick once, and very discretely.
Glenny was the undisputed champion of the voyage, catching a pollock that was nearly as big as her. (In fact the girls beat the boys hands down, not that it's a competition, obviously...) That night Darina and Tim had invited all the students that had helped on the market stall for dinner, so we took a few fish over with us. They were swiftly filleted and dispatched to the frying pan, and they were sweetly delicious.
Ballymaloe beach barbecue
On Sunday we had a nearly-end-of-course barbecue on the beach, brilliantly organised by my class-mate Zoe. There was a hog roast (more of a hoglet roast really – Tim and Darina had donated a piglet for the party, and very delicious he was too), and a sound system (decorated with sweet peas from the glasshouse), and more booze than you could shake a stick at (including a gin, gooseberry and elderflower cocktail I made, which I'll wager was the best use of an overcooked gooseberry compote ever), and sunshine and rain and a full moon and singing and dancing and even a bit of cross-dressing swimming in the sea (thanks for that, Conor) – what more could you want of a beach barbecue? (Ok, a bit less rain perhaps.)
There were onions grilled with thyme to accompany the hog, and all the students chipped in with salads and breads.
I made a lurid pink beetroot and horseradish salad...
...and a delicious-if-I-do-say-so-myself spelt focaccia (the recipe is here – shhhhhh it’s not a Ballymaloe one – I did double the recipe and put a bit more olive oil in and a bit less water, and cooked it in a big roasting tray).
A bevy of birthdays
Matt J and Sigrid came over last weekend – the trip was Matt’s 30th birthday present from the rest of the Jarmans. We went on a little adventure to West Cork and stayed in a caravan on Saturday night, and it was ace, and the Goldfrapp song ‘Caravan Girl’ has been going round in my head ever since.
We slept in our funny little cupboard rooms and woke up to the rain drumming soothingly on the caravan roof, and cooked nice food (a highlight: flat French beans fresh from the Ballymaloe glasshouse, boiled till squeaky and then stirred into fried onions and little bits of local Gubeen chorizo), and walked along the cliffs to the next village for a pint (Owenahincha, where we were staying, boasts only a derelict hotel and a chippie – Rosscarbery is much posher), and had lunch at the lovely Glebe Gardens & Cafe, and wandered through their beautiful gardens...
(who would have thought you could grow apricots in an unheated polytunnel in Ireland?)
...and stumbled across a little festival in Baltimore, and had Guinness and oysters even though we weren’t really hungry because it would have been rude not to.
The weekend before that, Ayanna, Frank, Damani, Dave and Matt G all came for Ayanna’s birthday, and we ate fantastic wood-fired pizza, which Philip, the German butcher and baker and Darina’s son-in-law-to-be, is now making at school on Saturdays with his fiancé Emily, assisted by a few of the students (my housemate Antonio mans the oven). The toppings use lots of local ingredients, with as much produce as possible from the school farm, and have included potato, red onion, bacon and rosemary:
...and the unlikely sounding but delicious (really must look 'delicious' up in the thesaurus) courgette and glazed new season carrots:
I made birthday brownies (as tradition dictates - see recipe below), and we walked round the gardens and ceremoniously harvested the spring onions I’d planted on the first day, to be roasted for brunch the next day with thyme and olive oil and sea salt. 
Frank and Dave were smitten by Tommy the duck, who has now been installed in the glasshouse as a slug extermination device (perhaps a slightly flawed plan, as he seems to have as much of a taste for lettuce as he does for slug – but a nice idea).
There seem to have been student birthdays at least once a week, which I suppose is normal when you spend a quarter of a year with 60-odd people. For Antonio's birthday I made the usual brownies, tweaked to make use of my new-found (and still slightly wobbly) paper piping bag skills:
I thought it was about time I included a recipe on here, so here is the one for the brownies. They are gluten free, so will make any coeliacs or wheat-intolerant people you know very happy indeed.
Brownies
Makes 24-48 (or more tiny bite-sized ones)
375g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids, preferably Fairtrade and/or organic)
375g butter
400g unrefined caster sugar
6 very large, 7 large or 9 medium free range eggs
4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder - again, Fairtrade and/or organic
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
250g ground almonds
1 double espresso worth of strong coffee
Large handful of walnuts or pecans if you like
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Put the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl, set over a pan of cold water and bring the water to the boil. Turn the heat off and prod occasionally with a spoon until chocolate and butter melt.
Whizz the sugar, eggs, cocoa and bicarb in a food mixer or with an electric whisk. Add the ground almonds, the melted chocolate and the coffee.
Pour into one or two baking trays lined with baking parchment, sprinkle with nuts if using and cook for between 20 and 30 minutes, depending on how deep your baking trays are, how fierce your oven is and how squidgy you want the brownies to be.
Note: If you’re making these for a birthday, a thank you or whatever, you can toast the nuts first and stir them into the mixture instead of sprinkling them on top, melt some white chocolate, and pipe H-a-p-p-y B-i-r-t-h-d-a-y or whatever onto the tops of the brownies. Arrange them on a big plate and decorate with raspberries and mint leaves, or edible flowers. Even if, like mine, your piping skills aren’t up to much, they never fail to look lovely.
375g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids, preferably Fairtrade and/or organic)
375g butter
400g unrefined caster sugar
6 very large, 7 large or 9 medium free range eggs
4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder - again, Fairtrade and/or organic
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
250g ground almonds
1 double espresso worth of strong coffee
Large handful of walnuts or pecans if you like
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Put the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl, set over a pan of cold water and bring the water to the boil. Turn the heat off and prod occasionally with a spoon until chocolate and butter melt.
Whizz the sugar, eggs, cocoa and bicarb in a food mixer or with an electric whisk. Add the ground almonds, the melted chocolate and the coffee.
Pour into one or two baking trays lined with baking parchment, sprinkle with nuts if using and cook for between 20 and 30 minutes, depending on how deep your baking trays are, how fierce your oven is and how squidgy you want the brownies to be.
Note: If you’re making these for a birthday, a thank you or whatever, you can toast the nuts first and stir them into the mixture instead of sprinkling them on top, melt some white chocolate, and pipe H-a-p-p-y B-i-r-t-h-d-a-y or whatever onto the tops of the brownies. Arrange them on a big plate and decorate with raspberries and mint leaves, or edible flowers. Even if, like mine, your piping skills aren’t up to much, they never fail to look lovely.
Other notable birthdays of late have been that of the lovely Peggy, who threw a cocktails and canapés party (there are, as Peggy noted, benefits to having your birthday at a cookery school). Here is Peggy hostessing it right up with her half-time oranges (famous on three continents):
Little courgette and dill cakes
Feeds 8 as a nibble or starter
500g courgettes, coarsely grated
2 eggs, beaten
6 spring onions or 3 shallots, finely chopped
2 heaped tbsp chopped fresh dill
80g fresh breadcrumbs
100g feta cheese, crumbled
a little flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
olive oil for frying
sea salt and black pepper
Put the courgettes in a colander and sprinkle with sea salt. Leave to drain for 30 mins (I put a weight on top), then squeeze out excess moisture, patting dry with kitchen paper. Mix the courgettes with the eggs, spring onion, dill, breadcrumbs and feta, and season. Refrigerate. Shape into small, flattish, bite-sized patties, roll in seasoned flour. Fry in batches in olive oil over a medium-high heat, cooking on both sides till golden. Drain on kitchen paper, and serve straight away with lemon wedges, parsley salad or tzatziki, or reheat in the oven later on.
The Barn contributed a big plate of tiny bruschetta (bruschetti?) to the party, made on pieces of Bob's number one son who'd been in the freezer.
...and I also made some little courgette, feta and dill cakes from Thomasina Miers’ lovely book Cook – they were a bit messy to make (partly because all the fridges in the cottages were so full of booze that there was nowhere to chill the mixture before I shaped them), but very tasty indeed - so tasty, in fact, that by the time I'd thought to take a picture of them, there was only one lonely and rather unphotogenic little fritter left... so no picture here to entice you, but make them, they really are the business.
Little courgette and dill cakes
Feeds 8 as a nibble or starter
500g courgettes, coarsely grated
2 eggs, beaten
6 spring onions or 3 shallots, finely chopped
2 heaped tbsp chopped fresh dill
80g fresh breadcrumbs
100g feta cheese, crumbled
a little flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
olive oil for frying
sea salt and black pepper
Put the courgettes in a colander and sprinkle with sea salt. Leave to drain for 30 mins (I put a weight on top), then squeeze out excess moisture, patting dry with kitchen paper. Mix the courgettes with the eggs, spring onion, dill, breadcrumbs and feta, and season. Refrigerate. Shape into small, flattish, bite-sized patties, roll in seasoned flour. Fry in batches in olive oil over a medium-high heat, cooking on both sides till golden. Drain on kitchen paper, and serve straight away with lemon wedges, parsley salad or tzatziki, or reheat in the oven later on.
The copious canapes were washed down with considerably more cocktails (and wine, and tequila) than is advisable, and the day after Peggy's party several of us were in a somewhat sorry state... but my housemates Brooke and Henrietta fed us back to something approaching normality with Brooke's speciality, spaghetti Carbonara. Brooke has treated us to Carbonara a few times over the past few weeks, and hers is the best I've had - nothing like the scrambled-eggy versions I've eaten (and made) in the past.
There is so much more to tell you about – the school trip... The fancy tasting menu at the Cliff House Hotel... (see Deirdre’s post about and lovely photos of that here.) The amazing peas that have all but disappeared now from the glasshouse, and the tomatoes that are just arriving... But I think this is probably more than enough for now... and besides I have to get out of bed and get down to the glasshouses to pick some salad leaves for my exam. Wish me luck!
