A couple of local birds

Time is sliding by at an alarming rate - we're nearly a third of the way through the course already, and they've started talking about exams. In a couple of weeks time I will be expected to demonstrate my herb and salad knowledge (should be ok), and any two skills out of a very long list including 'melt chocolate' (yep, can do that one), 'segment citrus fruit' (easy peasy), 'joint a chicken' (erm...) and 'fillet a fish' (eek).

But all work and no play and all that. There have been walks along the cliffs...

...and along the beach...

...and nights at the pub - this is a very blurry photo of the Sunday night jam at the Blackbird in Ballycotton.

Matt came over the weekend before last, and we spent the weekend in Cork City. We had a lovely dinner at Cafe Paradiso, which Matthew Fort described as "a restaurant which treats food with wit, knowledge, spirit and enjoyment" that "just happens to be vegetarian." We ate local asparagus with salt flakes and rosemary aioli; a watercress, lemon and asparagus risotto; a spiced aubergine and potato gratin with lovely fresh goat's cheese on top; and a brilliant dessert of vanilla ice cream, a shot each of espresso and frangelico, and brutti ma buoni ('ugly but good') cookies - two tiny, chewy hazelnut meringue biscuits. They've offered me a week's work experience after I finish here, I think I'll probably do it.

The next day, in the name of balance, we ate bacon, sausage and black and white pudding sandwiches at the Farmgate Cafe in the English Market, where you can buy organic vegetables, all kinds of cheese (including lots made in County Cork), very many different bits of pig (might get myself a pork bodice if all the butter and double cream starts to show)...

...and all manner of other regional delicacies. Battered burger, madam?

Back at Ballymaloe, I've had a couple of early morning salad and herb duties, which involve going down to the glasshouses before school to 'help' Haulie the gardener pick the produce to be used in that morning's class. Haulie manages to be remarkably patient with the incompetent townies as we snip off stalks of chervil one by one - occasionally muttering "Don't be frightened of it" and "You'd never make a hairdresser," but in a friendly sort of a way.

Cookingwise, I have made redcurrant jelly...

...and mayonnaise (very satisfying)...

...and cooked langoustines (to serve with said mayo)...

...and stuffed and roasted a guinea fowl...

...and made mashed swede, caramelised onions, game chips and parsnip crisps to go with it. (Knowing how to make your own crisps - is this a good thing?)

(Still can't get the hang of the fancy-schmancy presentation - my teacher Rosie did most of this.)

One afternoon we had a talk on game. As the birds they showed us had been in the freezer, they needed to be eaten and were given away to the students after the class.

We made off with this handsome mallard.

First he had to be plucked.

Next came the gutting. Totally unfazed, my housemate Charlotte, a farmer's daughter whose dad runs a shoot, gave her dad a quick call to check that she had the basics right and then got stuck right in. Those of you of a sensitive disposition may want to look away now.

When Charlotte had divested ducky of his innards, we roasted him with baby carrots and young beetroots and new potatoes from the farm. He smelled a bit funny while he was in the oven, and we started to wonder whether it had been worth all the effort, but when he came out he was surprisingly tasty, if a little over-done.