Week 6 - Midterms and piglets and pizza: oh my!
Week six officially marks halfway through my time here at Ballymaloe - woah! It feels like I have been here for both my entire life and also five minutes. But if the pandemic taught us anything it is that time is a construct and trying to perceive it passing is a futile venture. But it wasn’t all fun and games and contemplating the space time continuum though - week six is also when we have our midterm assessments. Much spookier than Halloween if you ask me!
But there was a lot of cooking and learning that needed to happen before the exam on Friday. After the long weekend, I made a spatchcock chicken, verdura mista, and roasted garlic mayo. I thought it went quite well but my instructor Julia told me she hated my plating so much that she didn’t even have the words in the english language to explain why she hated it so much. She is originally from Lithuania and English is her second language but even I can admit this is a sick burn! Please write in if you have the english words to describe why this is plated so poorly!!
That evening I attended a lecture by Darina explaining how to get a job. It ranged from not very helpful (“have a resume”) to helpful (“here is a list of restaurants that love to hire Ballymaloe students”).
Wednesday I was up early in order to follow around the head gardener so that he could quiz us on the herbs and lettuces we would be tested on later in the week. More importantly, I finally got to see the piglets up close and personal! They continually run away from me when I try to visit them. Afterwards I went to wash my sheets and found a McDonald’s french fry at the bottom of my bed!! Really learning so much about clean living, organic food, health and wellness here at school. My jazz weekend continues to haunt me.
The morning lecture was our fourth wine lecture which is usually enjoyable but choking back a few different Spanish Albarino at 9:30am on a Wednesday is a lot even for me to stomach. Luckily the afternoon was really cool. Max Rocha - head chef at Cafe Cecilia in London - came and gave a talk and demonstration. He was so nice and humble and essentially the exact opposite of the stereotype of a successful head chef. The food also rocked so hard. I will be thinking about the anchovy and sage fritti until the day I am buried in the ground (jk I will be cremated of course).
Thursday I made a cheese and thyme soufle, orange butter crepes, sweet white scones and white yeast bread. It was also Halloween so you might have caught me on the Ballymaloe instagram being festive (headband brought to you by international accessory powerhouse Claire’s). Food came out pretty good and the souffle wasn’t as difficult as cartoons in the 90’s led me to believe. Overall a win!
But then it was Friday aka exam day. Throughout the week there were periodic stretches of quietly (or maybe not so quietly) panicking about taking my first exam in over a decade. I got up early to run and study before sitting through an extremely enjoyable demonstration with our (handsome) Italian instructor Francesco who schooled us on the finer points of making pizzas. If this man knew the sheer poundage of buffalo chicken pizza I have consumed in my lifetime he would probably instantly vaporize into dust. Sorry dude.
Francesco describing once and for all why pineapple is not acceptable on a pizza
Finally FINALLY it was exam time. There were two portions of the exam - the first was the herb and salad identification portion. You had to be able to identify and name 10 herbs and then list two recipes we had learned that included the herb. The salad leaves we just needed to be able to identify.
During this section you also had to present and pour a glass of wine, put together a food processor and a stand mixer, and set a table correctly based on a specified menu. The identification went quickly for me and I spilled the wine as I poured it. I am a disgrace to all my friends back home. I will take this as an excuse to drink more wine aka practice?
The second part of the exam was the technique assessment. We were given a list of 31 techniques and would be randomly assigned four to execute. These varied wildly from chopping herbs to filleting a whole fish.
I ended up dicing and sweating an onion, making a paper piping bag, making mayonnaise, and sauteing mushrooms. Overall, a pretty easy line up. I watched some people have to filet fish and joint chickens and make scones. Not complaining! The whole thing was a bit of a time warp, but like all things you dread in life it was not as bad as I feared it would be.
Then I was free! Party time! Literally - I was off to join my friends Leah and Scott in Kinsale which you can read all about whenever I get around to writing about it. Goodbye for now!