Still Made The Right Decision

But, let’s start with this. This part of the blog was written Sunday night.

There are bugs all over my room. There are no screens on the windows and I left them open all day. Was having way too much fun to shut them. The most common variety of bug in here is the Crane Fly. I didn’t know it was called a Crane Fly until just now when I Googled this:

They’re harmless but they look like giant mosquitoes. And there’s 6 of them in my room. To someone coming from the concrete jungle that’s some Jumanji type shit. Here’s a closer look:

Other than those I’d say there are 4-5 other varieties of general insect in here. I will not be leaving the windows open all night anymore. Lesson learned. Moving on.

Fast forward to Monday night where I’m writing the rest of this, although there is still a giant mosquito/Crane Fly in my actual ceiling light trying to get out, which is one of the Ikea paper ones, which makes for an incredibly violent noise.

Last Friday about half of the school went to a local pub called The Blackbird Bar in Ballycotton, about 7 kilometers away. Picture your typical Irish pub and that’s what the Blackbird is. Same with the pub to the left, the pub to the right and the pub across the street. We’d all been working hard the past week and spent enough time together where everyone got to know each other a bit better. It was nice to let loose a bit. There was a piano in the bar and plenty of drunk scream singing, although there are a few very nice voices and musicians in the group. So far everyone can hold their liquor pretty decently, maybe it’s the Irish water.

Saturday we hit up the Middleton Farmers market where I ate all the food and picked up the best tasting wild mushrooms I’ve ever had from the mushroom guy. I ate a pulled pork sandwich, a lobster roll, a jerk chicken skewer and a bite of everyone else’s food. I THINK the influence is largely from Ballymaloe, since they buy from many of the vendors and have a huge presence, but the food scene in these villages is elevated. The ingredients are the best with the ideal farming climate and everything else trickles from there I guess. The meat is fantastic too since there is grass everywhere and they’re also fed bi-products of the harvested stuff. More on the meat when I get to the BBQ we hosted on Sunday.

After being a bit beat from Friday I decided to make a risotto using the mushrooms for whoever was going to be around the cottage. Was supposed to be a low key night. A couple of WhatsApp messages later we had a nice little dinner party with our cottage and the one across the courtyard. We sat around the table, switched off picking songs for the playlist, drank 12 bottles of wine and talked about everything. The dinner party was nice because it gave that wholesome feel you get from a dinner party. I was complimented on my risotto, which didn’t take much effort since the ingredients are top notch as I mentioned earlier. You can genuinely taste the difference in the end products. Simple ingredients, good technique, that’s a big theme here.

Sunday was a cliff walk with great views followed by a barbecue. The cottages are situated close enough together where it’s easy to get from one to the other. I’m pretty sure everyone just kind of keeps their door unlocked during the days and evenings so visitors can pop in and out. It’s actually great. Then most clusters of cottages have farmhouse style courtyards with tables and fire pits and an industrial grill with a rotisserie.  So some folks from my cottage hosted a BBQ and invited the school. For those who know me it’ll be no surprise that I helped arrange a BBQ and invited 64 people. Hosting a BBQ at cooking school was interesting. There wasn’t a single pre-packaged dish. Everyone was proud of what they made and it added an additional fun element to taste and discuss all of the dishes.

So that’s a recap of the week. Let’s move on to the feels. I’m quoting my buddy Ben Wiles here when he said that he feels “so relaxed yet so productive at the same time.” That was spot on. So far I’ve been able to shut out a lot of the distractions and focus on school. That’s a freaking first!!! The social aspect has been fantastic but one could argue that it’s an integral part of the course. Who knows where we’ll all end up after this. Sure I like to party but the networking and possible future opportunities to work together is invaluable.

Let’s end with a relevant story that captures the overall feels of being here really well. My new friend is a lawyer. We were chatting in a social setting and I asked her the common question of what she did “in her previous life,” which is half joking since many people still have plans to go back to their careers when this is done. Anyway, I stopped paying attention halfway through, couldn’t help it. But then she started talking about making cakes. And it was kinda like this (should start automatically from 0:33):

My point is that you can actually physically see it in everyone when they talk about being here and how they got here. It’s contagious.

Tomorrow I’m making a chicken dish. It’s the first time meat has been introduced. I’ll have to “joint” my own chicken, something I’ll eventually have to be able to do in my sleep. Although my recipe calls for the breast meat, I am positive that not a single giblet of the bird will be wasted.

Oh, and I nailed my tart today after royally messing it up the other day. This one is dill and Gruyère cheese. I will mess up many more but this one felt good.

Thanks for reading!