This week has felt like the start of something extraordinary in my life. I've found myself back in Dublin working with some amazingly fantastic food industry peeps. First there were the Irish Quality Food Awards which was almost a week of judging foods in categories from meat to ready meals to baking, whittled down to one overall winner, The Golden Q, and winners in each category. I was lucky enough to judge for 2 days amongst a whole mix of food industry insiders from chefs, restaurant owners, food buyers and magazine editors. A real treat for me, I still can't quite believe it.

To top that off I'm now working with the lovely and talented Sharon Hearne-Smith on her first cookbook (which she SO deserves!) and Donal Skehan is photographing….August is a pretty sweet month! And the work which is cleverly disguised as fun, just keeps on rolling…seems like Ireland wants me to stick around and that is exactly what I'm going to do.

I managed a sneak visit to a Community Garden in Dublin at the beginning of the week and it was so great to see them maximising a tiny space giving underprivileged children and adults a chance to work with the earth and grow their own produce. See here and here for more on community gardens and I urge you to go and check your local one out!

And if that wasn't great enough, I find myself staying in a house full of foodies and 7 puppies…I am living the dream.

In a right Pickle

It's summertime. I don't blame you for not realising, noticing, seeing the sun. I haven't in a long time.. This Irish summer is supposed to better than the last 2 years. Heaven help me, and all the Irish, thinking this is better than last year. Wow.

With summer comes the new things. Buds, sprouts, summer veggies and while there is this abundance why not make the most of it and get pickling. In America they call it canning. And while I kind of get this, I do not use cans, I use jars so I'm going to stick with pickling.

Today it was cucumbers. Bright green prickly baby cucumbers. They are crunchy and sweet with a bitter taste on the peel. It's the perfect time while they are at this stage to get them in a jar.

I did three separate jars with three varieties of flavours. A crushed garlic and peppercorns. A chilli flakes and a wild garlic. It's pretty idiot proof. Three sterilised jars. Make sure they are sterilised. Should I say this again? MAKE SURE THEY ARE STERILISED.

Cucumbers are hugely alkaline and rich in minerals that neutralise blood acidosis. This lowly green member of the gourd family is the best natural diuretic known and rather than excreting waste through our skin it allows waste to be excreted through the kidneys. It's also known to contain erepsin, an enzyme which helps to digest proteins meaning that it is a beneficial digestive aid and for those of you with worms, it helps. A lot. If you've got high or low blood pressure you should eat a lot. This summertime veggie is high in potassium. There are a huge number of benefits to eating this crunchy green thing so get to it!

RECIPE:

As many cucumbers as you can squeeze into the jar you have (I used 4)

3tbsp white wine vinegar

½-1 tbsp salt

Add any flavour to taste, I used 4 garlic cloves in the first one, 6 chilli peppers. The second one I used 1 tbsp chilli flakes. The third jar I used a large handful of wild garlic.

Topped up with filtered water.

This recipe hardly seems a recipe. It's easy peasy! Promise. Literally put everything in the jar. Make sure you pack in the cucumbers. Once everything is in the jar, top up with filtered water. Every 12 hours turn the jar upside down. Enjoy after about a week. Enjoy.

Do you remember a while back….?

I worked on a cook book? Neven Maguires Cook book to be exact. It seems like such a long time ago, but it was only 1 month gone. I can't believe it.
During my time with them, I took the opportunity to do some little interviews with the talented people in charge of every stage of the book so that you can have a little sneak inside peak at what it's really like to work in this seemingly glamorous world!

Who'd a thunk that 12+ hour days in a kitchen would be made seem so sexy and fanciful. It's actually bloody hard graft and all the work and energy that goes into creating a cook book is extreme. We worked from 8am to 6 pm non stop, churning out dish after dish, photo after photo all to make beautiful images and tasty food for you, the people to try and get excited about.

My first interview comes from  Joanne Murphy, the food photographer…oh hurry the day when I have a book and I can have Jo working on it!
She is freelance photographer but specialises in food. And how did she get into photography? An old boyfriend gave her a Nikon after seeing Jane Fonda with one and she thought 'why not give it a whirl, it's seems a romantic career'. The rest, is history. Please have a look at her work, she really is an amazing photographer and a lovely lovely person.
Her work can be seen in these books….
McNean Cookbook - Neven Maguire 2012
Sophie Cooks - Sophie Morris 2012
Blazing Salads Cookbook 2013
ICA Cookbook 2012…
and many more!




1. What type of equipment do you use?

 I use a Canon 5d mark ii and a Hasselblad.

2. When and how did you get into food photography?

 Whilst working as Art Director/staff photographer for The Dubliner I met Domini Kemp who was the restaurant critic and I started to photograph restaurants and food for her column, the rest is history...

3. What are your 3 top tips for us instagramers/bloggers who try to make our pictures beautiful?

 Use natural light, get a piece of white card to reflect light back onto your food and think about what you put the food on. Textures are key!

4. What is your favourite food to photograph and why?

 Cakes, buns, all things sweet for obvious reasons.


5. Any tips on how to get into being a photographer?

 Assist a photographer. Its the best way to figure out if its for you. And keep taking photos, even if it's just going on instagram you'll start to see your own style emerging.



6. Any exciting future projects we can know about?

 I'm really excited about a project that will be published for Christmas 2014, thats all I can say for the moment... Also I have a couple of personal projects including one with Terry (Two Wooden Horses)

7. Favourite project you've worked on and why?

 Oh thats a tough one. I've loved all of the cookbooks I've worked on. I’ve been very fortunate to work with some of the best people in the business. I love the feeling of being part of a team and its such a lovely feeling to hold the final book in your hands. 

8. Is there another photographer you really admire and why?

Ditte Isager is an amazing Danish photographer also Michael Graydon a Canadian photographer.

9. One person you haven't worked with but would love to photograph or do the photography for?

 In Ireland I'd love to work with Racheal Allen, in the Uk Jamie Oliver. 


10. If you weren't a photographer what would you do?

 If I wasn't a photographer I'd love to be a painter or an archeologist!

11. Can I come and work with you?

 Yes please!

A view from the Castle

It's my second week at my job. I'm growing to love it. I love living in the countryside, I love choosing what I cook for the family, I love looking out my window and seeing the mountain.

The last couple of days have been a heat wave here in Ireland, today the rain and grey came back and it's not pretty. But at least the elderflower is blooming, the wild garlic is still growing and I'm meeting people.

I've had some mishaps in the kitchen, thankfully not ones I've had to serve but I've been trying new recipes. Let's say that they still need some work, but mistakes are good right?  They help us learn, teach us what to do differently. Like this one. I'm trying to make a dahl crisp bread. First attempt = no go. But I'll keep trying!

I've made Greek salads, raw slaws, nut bars, fresh breads, spicy soups and much more. Here's to the future menus.

Ballymaloe LitFest

If you are not aware of the Ballymaloe LitFest where have you been living?!?

What a weekend. The sun shone, the atmosphere buzzed and I met my food hero. Yes, I met the incredible Madhur Jaffrey. She is a legend that brought Indian food to the Western World some would say.

She is a petite, beautiful 80year old woman who learnt to cook through her Mother and the other women in her family and continues that tradition of teaching others to cook.

The weekend was a conglomerate of chefs, authors, foodies, non foodies, stall holders, local producers. The list goes on and on. Over three days there were cooking demos, panel discussions, dancing, lots of eating and drinking, pop up wine shops, pop up bands and much much more.

I met some brilliant and world renowned chefs, David Thompson, Stevie Parle, Thomassina Miers, Stehpanie Alexander, Claudia Rhoden and many more. 

It was literally a who's who of the cooking world and what was fantastic to me as a young woman chef was how many more female cooks where speaking than men. A push in the right direction where, in todays world head chef posts are male dominated.

Sandor Katz the fermentation guru speaking over the weekend and showing us the art of fermentation.

There was the big shed, where drinking and eating activities where part of the weekends events. The pop up bar was a creative explosion with books hanging from the ceiling, old beer kegs as lights and a chandler made from an old whiskey barrel. All adding to the atmospherical aromas of food.

There were gardeners and foragers, dogs running around with children, laughter and ideas. Lots of them. New friends were made, old friends were introduced and it was just a melting pot of cultures. A beautiful melting pot that had all of us who attended in awe once again at the power of Ballymaloe.

That's right. Everything is green. The pyramids, the houses, the cows even. Everything is green. It's the day of St Patrick, I'm in Ireland and the sun is shinning.

We decided to take a walk high up on the cliff tops overlooking Ballycotton before getting down to some wine revision for our exam on Wednesday. After having our last wine lecture with the wine god that is Colm McCan it got us all into motion. He is a fantastic teacher with such knowledge and passion for wine it's pretty inspiring stuff, not to mention he's a great laugh!

 Nerves are definitely kicking in. Thursday was particularly stressful as we had to hand in our final menu. No changes can be made, if you left an ingredient our of your list you can't go back. With over 200 recipes to decide from it was a pretty tough choice to pick three meals that were cohesive, balanced and showed off our abilities to their best. But, it's handed in now. Nothing to do but practice!

It's all in the hands of the cooking gods now. In the mean time we've had some laughs, a brownie off and recalling some memories. 10 weeks ago we all showed up to this tiny Irish village not knowing who we would meet, the friends we would make or what we would learn. And now, it's almost over. Incredible.

Hope you have had a great weekend celebrating St Paddys and here are some Tips of the Week:

1. Pork is pork until it's cured. Then it's bacon.

2. Egg whites keep covered in the fridge for weeks and make the best meringues.

3. If a recipe calls for self raising flour but you don't have any, just add 1tsp of baking powder

Mid-week madness

It's the middle of week 9 at Ballymaloe . That means that I, we, have 3 more weeks here. Exams are looming. Testers are starting to appear and menus keep changing.

I have about 5 ideas of each course of my final practical that I just cannot decide on. Doesn't really help that we have roughly 30 new recipes a day to add to our repertoire.

But in the meantime we have food, friends and laughter. Mistakes in the kitchen can be just as fun as successes, my best sourdough so far made an appearance (did you see it?!?!) and we met the lovely Madeline from Brown Envelope Seeds who, I might add, is growing 7 different types of Quinoa in West Cork. Now I love quinoa. It's a whole protein not to mention it has 13 amino acids and is considered a super food. So to find someone growing it (successfully) in Ireland is fantastic.

So, here are some Tips of the Week:

1. A mix of cream and egg yolk is called a Liaison. Adding this to sauces will thicken and richen. Never add the Liaison to boiling liquid, always add the boiling liquid to the Liaison.

2. In a burger you generally want 10-15% fat. In Pork this would be the shoulder meat, in Lamb the flank and brisket in Beef.

3. If a recipe calls for fresh yeast but you only have dry. Simply half the amount and go with the dry.

Please may I have a Buffalo?

50 students, Darina Allen, 5 local producers and some buffalo. You guessed it, I'm talking about our Ballymaloe Cookery School Trip.

Thursday was the day when we were allowed out into the local population (for better or worse) to meet some producers/business owners who are making a success of it. First was Bill Casey, who is literally a stone's throw away from the school and is the one man band behind the award winning Shanagarry Smoked Salmon.

Second we trundled off to Mahon Farmers Market to witness the various stands and their wares in full force. Foot fall has actually increased in the shopping arcade due to the market and Thursdays are now the busiest of the week. A great plus.

Next we tootled off to West Cork and Toons Bridge Dairy were we met Toby Simmonds and his wife and got to see, in action, the making of the only Irish Buffalo Mozzarella. Very exciting stuff especially as we managed to get up close and personal to the Buffalo shipped in from Italy (my favourite bit).

Down the road was Donal Creedon (Macroom Oatmeal) who is another inspiring example of a one man band producing stone ground oatmeal. Only able to produce 1 tonne of oatmeal a week due to the intricate and delicate process to make this delicious product. It was a wonderful example of people doing something purely for the love, not necessarily the money.

We then visited Urru, a deli-come-cafe run by an ex Ballymaloe Student and then off to the The Poachers Inn for a pint and some tantalising nibbles again, run by ex students.

A great day with a range of different examples of business ideas.

We (friend + I) decided we should explore Ireland a little bit. So on Friday afternoon, after demo we headed to Limerick for some food and Rugby. A great weekend with some wonderful people (Peter from Country Choice was one of them), great atmosphere and far too much food at the Milk Market (surprise surprise!). On the way back we stopped at the largest Stone Circle in Ireland. Talk about atmospheric...

Exams, Dingle and Ice Cream

On Friday we had our midterm exams. Yes, that's right, I know I've been talking about them but they actually happened. People were worrying whether this leaf is an oak leaf or a butter leaf, a mibuna or mizuna. If it wasn't so serious, it would be funny. Ok, it was a little funny and let's face it, not really worth getting all in a tizz about but, Ballymaloe Cookery School and Darina take lettuce leaves very seriously so we were all revising like mad chefs.

Apart from our exams to look forward to this week, I had set up a nutritional talk with our Ballymaloe Cookery Schools very own nutritionist, Debbie Shaw. A small group of us got together after a long day of lectures and spoke about PCOS (Polyststic Ovarian Syndrome), cholesterol, whole-food diet, blood sugar balancing etc etc. Two hours flew by and we literally could have talked all night. 

As a young woman who has had severe complications with PCOS it was utterly fascinating and a real eye opener. Debbie is a naturopath, not a classic doctor, or a surgeon. She looks at the whole body, the problems AND the symptoms. She looks at what you eat, your lifestyle, the things you worry about. 

It made me take a long hard look at the way I eat. Here at Ballymaloe Cookery School, we are inundated with food. Every day, 3 course meals are put in front of us, then demo tastings then extra work. It's literally food overload and I have to really put my will power in full force to stop myself from tasting all the yummy things. In the coming weeks, I'm going to be looking at PCOS in depth, foods and recipes that help the symptoms. 1 in 15 women have it in the world. That is a big number!

So, because we had worked so hard for our exams, as a little treat to ourselves, some of the girls and I went off to Dingle, stopping off along the way. Have I mentioned how much I'm falling in love with Ireland?! The countryside, the people….We had a great time, walking along Inch Beach, eating Murphy's Ice Cream (twice), enjoying fresh mussles at Ashe's, eating at the Smoke House in Killarney, drinking Guinness in a hardware store (don't ask!) and much more! All in all, a Yummy weekend.

Bring on the next 6 weeks and the future!