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.

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...