Days 83 & 84: The end of the beginning

Friday night’s celebrations had a suitably festive theme. A reasonably civilised dinner laid on by the teachers gradually descended into a riotous piss up and by midnight people were quite literally being scraped off the floor.

I’ve said it before but I have spent the past three months in the company of sixty really quite remarkable people. I can honestly say there are none of them that I do not like. All of us were drawn here by one thing or another. We arrived with different hopes, fears and expectations. We were wrung together through the same giant mangle and now, at the end, we scatter. We head our separate ways - some will never cook again, others will excel at it.

Saturday was a strange day of goodbyes. The early morning hugging session was tempered by the fact that most people were either still pissed or chronically hungover. But it was sad to say goodbye to so many good people. It would be nice to think that our paths will cross at different times as we embark upon similar pursuits. People always say that but it seldom happens.

Around the school and cottages cars were being loaded up and tearful farewells were being said. I waved off my closest friend for the last few months with more than a twinge of sadness and a vow to make it to Texas by the summer. Later on we drove another to the airport, and in the evening the few of us that remained dined at Ballymaloe and resolved to meet up again soon, in Sicily or Milan this time.

I woke this morning feeling rather strange. I have of late, though wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth. This place just feels empty. I feel empty - my friends are gone, flown from me, and the great thing that has occupied me so intently for the last twelve weeks has passed into history. I booked my ferry this afternoon and now I too shall follow them off. Just one last roll of the dice in the Blackbird tonight to look forward to.

So I guess this is it. I set out to write down everything that happened from day to day. It was hard to keep it up at times amidst the intensity and demands of everything else. Many an evening I trudged across the courtyard, laptop under my arm, dying to just go to bed. Twelve weeks, eighty-four days, seventy-two posts, sixty-five thousand words. Was it worth it? Probably not - just a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But a true one nonetheless; a round unvarnished tale, delivered.

What happens now? I can’t be sure. But I know one thing, and not for the first time, I will borrow the words of greater men to explain it: This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Once I’ve worked out what comes next, I’ll tell you all about it.

Day 82: Once more unto the breach

I had just about finished putting the pieces back together when the alarm went off for the final day. A quick glance in the mirror and it looks like some of them aren’t quite in the right place and a few are probably gone for good. But I’m alive. Just. Which is a good thing, because three written exams in quick succession could prove tricky were I not.

I am not exaggerating when I tell you how tough it is. I tried to look at some notes yesterday and last night, but with all that energy expended in the practical, I just couldn’t face it. So I am ill prepared and, to be truthful, over it. One more effort and it’s done. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

But actually it turns out I needn’t have bothered. The first paper is on menu planning, fire safety, food hygiene. Luckily I learnt the colour coding for fire extinguishers. And a lot of questions are simply a matter of common sense. Like:

Which of the following are signs that your kitchen may be infested with rats?

a) Rat droppings on the floor

b) Gnaw marks

c) Nibbled packaging

d) Lots of cats outside the kitchen door

Others, I just don’t know. Like the table of various forms of food poisoning with empty cells for incubation periods, symptoms and causes. Let that one go. Plenty of multiple choice and true or false in there though, so whilst hardly an exemplary performance, it isn't brain damaging stuff.

Another two papers follow either side of lunch. Salad leaf recognition is a breeze this time, thanks to me actually taking the effort to learn their names. Herbs are easy and we now have to identify fifteen spices too, which is straightforward enough. The fenugreek got a few people though. One of them put bulgar wheat! Can’t imagine curry would be quite the same if it were. In the final exam there is meat and fish recognition. I really would have struggled with this a few months back, but it’s easy now. There are tons of questions on everything you can imagine. It’s all pretty straightforward, but knackering, and in a sense daunting to realise quite how much we’ve taken in.

So without really noticing it, the course came to a gentle halt some time just before 3pm. Eighty-two days. Somewhere around 150 hours in the kitchen, probably another 400 odd in demo. Four massive lever arch files bursting with recipes and notes, and a brain that has run out of storage.

I drive straight home and go to bed. Tonight we have a farewell dinner back at the school, after which they have laid on a coach to take us to the Blackbird. I’m not quite sure how they’re going to fit sixty of us in there, but it will be interesting finding out.

Most people head home tomorrow, and there is a “hugging session”, as Darina put it, in the morning. Me, I’m going to stick around for a few days. Like a joint of meat suddenly plucked from the heat of the oven, I think I will benefit from a little rest before carving.

Day 81: The Last Waltz

There is something morally abhorrent about exams that start at 8am. It’s just not my time of day, but a quick Bond shower, a shot of Vitamin C to stave off the encroaching cold and the adrenalin combine to get me vertical. The drive to the school is eerie. It is still dark, and very misty. In the distance the occasional beams of light from a car’s headlights flash and turn in the darkness, like little explosions in some desolate no man’s land.

Today is D-Day. I am armed with my highly detailed order of work, a little pile of recipes tied together with string and, for the last time, my knives. They’re not as shiny as they were twelve weeks ago, but I diligently sharpened them last night and they’re ready to do their worst. I am filled with a strange sense of foreboding. Twelve weeks reduced to this: three hours, three dishes.

Fortunately I have planned my menu to incorporate dishes that are ever so slightly ring-fenced from disaster. What it ultimately boils down to is organisation, expediency and a willingness to follow one’s instincts. There is no time for questioning yourself now. Cooking, seasoning, timing, presentation - don’t think about it, just do it. Screw your courage to the sticking place.

This is what I do. As always seems to happen in these situations, some form of subconscious autopilot takes over (or maybe there’s a little rat under my hat pulling tufts of hair). It won’t always fly you in the right direction, but after three months, it should be able to get you where you’re going eventually without the Goddamn plane crashing into the mountain.

Everything goes according to plan. It doesn’t go in the order of the plan, because when you see things in front of you, you look at them differently. Boeuf Bourguignon on the heat. Chopping. A lot of chopping. Squid dressing made. White Soda Bread (I luck out in the bread draw and get the easiest and quickest of the lot) is made. Rustic, as they say. Squid cleaned, romanesco prepped, Grapefruit segmented, pomegranate de-seeded. Onions peeled and braised in stock, mushrooms quartered and sautéed in batches. Salad leaves picked, dressing made. Mise en place.

I am bracing myself for the big push. For the only time in our cooking lives, we have to serve all three courses at once. The hot stuff has to be hot, the cold stuff cold. Including all the plates. One plate presented for each course, and the rest presented and garnished in serving plates. This is a logistical nightmare. For this reason my sorbet is made, scooped, plated up and ready for presentation in the freezer.

Pretty much everything else is going to come together at once. I don’t know when my beef will be cooked. Once it is, I have to strain the casserole, remove everything except the meat and reduce the sauce. I also have to boil and mash the spuds so that they are not sitting around too long and going all gluey. The romanesco has to be last minute to be at its best, as does the squid. Not only this, but you have to give a fifteen minute call in advance of your readiness. This is basically the make or break stage. It is a hard call to make. Once you press the button, there’s no going back. This is where it can all go wrong, or all go right.

I don’t remember too much detail. But I know it all went right. The teachers are great and help you clear your shit out of the way as you manically plate up, whilst draining romanesco and char grilling squid. I have all my plates garnished and ready except for the final ingredients, which means I serve on time, with hot food, and, even if I do say so myself, in some style. It looks good.

How does it taste? The squid will be a bit tough as they were quite large. They were cooked all right though. The dressing was gutsy and well seasoned. The beef is properly cooked. It actually cooked much quicker than I anticipated and is probably a little drier than I would have liked, but it is not critically overcooked. The sauce is wonderfully rich though. The mash is just okay. It is probably a touch heavy, but hopefully the copious amounts of salt and butter will have masked that. The romanesco is perfect, but The Headmistress seems to like her vegetables overdone, so she might not like it. I cannot bring myself to do this to a thing of such beauty. Dessert is great.

But that’s just, like, my opinion. There are three judges who independently taste and mark your food, and you don’t get their feedback. Imagine my surprise, as I stand back from my section to present and the camera snatcher walks in to taste my food. I smile inside. I was so close to speaking my mind a couple of weeks ago, but somehow bit my tongue and let it go. Good job I did. The world sucks sometimes. You can fight it if you like, but once you’ve said your piece, it still sucks.

So it’s all over. On reflection, it is the most exhausting three hours of my life. Only when you walk out do you realise what you have just given. Looking around at others, and in the mirror, you see broken faces. Then you realise that you stink. The fumes and fat. A foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. My hands a sorry sight. I need a shower. I need to sleep.

I have a restorative nap, but it doesn’t restore anything like enough. I feel beaten up, emptied out, hollow and broken. Cooked out. Boiled, boiled, boiled and reduced. I am just the little bits left stuck to the bottom of the pan. Pour some stock on me, scrape me up with a whisk and thicken me with roux. Look at what they make you give.

Day 80: Anniversaire

I afforded myself a rather nice drop of cognac before retiring to bed last night, on account of the fact that today was my 32nd Birthday. Or Borthday, as my fat fingers seem to hammer out every time I try and write it. I am usually quite serious about not working on my birthday and have, in the past, been known to throw lavish and unnecessary celebrations to commemorate the occasion. Today, I have no choice in the matter.

My cook ahead for the practical exams is scheduled for 9am, so there goes my lie in and any sniff of a piss up the night before. I have to make Ruby Grapefruit and Pomegranate Sorbet and get my Boeuf Bourguignon started and marinating in preparation for tomorrow’s exam. Each of us has three hours to cook a full three-course meal. Any time spent on cook ahead is deducted from the total. There isn’t a great deal for me to balls up this morning, so it’s all about speed. I get in just after 8.30 so I have time to get all my ingredients ready and my mise en place. I have written out moron-resistant instructions for the few small steps I need to take.

At 9am on the dot I turn the heat on under the pan and pour in some oil. I dice bacon into half-inch cubes and chuck it in. I have 3lb of stewing beef that I dice into 2-inch chunks. Meanwhile I am turning the bacon so it goes crisp and golden and not black. I am also halving grapefruits and squeezing them in the electronic juicer as I go. The bacon goes into the Le Creuset and the first batch of beef goes into the pan to brown.

In the interests of expediency, I am using a large frying pan. The cost of doing so is that it is non-stick, which makes things a little more interesting. As I turn the meat and squeeze the grapefruits, the clock ticks slowly round. I am seasoning the final batch of beef when, in an act of Clark Kent like inadvertent strength, I wrench the top off the pepper mill and send black peppercorns everywhere. This is only a mild turd strewn in my path, and I quickly chuck them out of the pan and carry on as before. But my workstation now looks like the bottom of a rabbit hutch.

All this has dried the pan out completely, so I have to chuck in some more oil to brown the carrot and onion in. It won’t make any difference to the flavour since the whole thing will sit in wine for 24 hours before being slow cooked anyway. That done, it is time to flambé the pan, and I add a generous measure of acceptable, though vastly inferior to last night’s, brandy. The flames nearly take my eyebrows off, but they manage to remain attached. In goes the wine. As it comes up to heat I whisk all the encrusted juices and bits of meat off the bottom of the pan. There are a lot of them, so I whisk them around to disperse their flavour and decide to sieve the wine before I add it to the meat. This is the price of using the non-stick pan and letting it dry out.

I sieve the grapefruit juice over the sugar I have already weighed out, bash out the pomegranate seeds and chuck them in the bowl too. A quick whisk brings it all together and I can stop the clock as it is ready for the sorbetiere. It is 09:23. Job done.

I spend the rest of the morning loafing about waiting for the sorbet machine to work its magic. The one I am using takes three times longer than any other but produces a vastly superior texture. I while away my time looking at pictures of fish for the exams on Friday, and stroll down to the glasshouse to look at salad leaves for the same purpose. A few people are quizzing each other on various topics. I quickly realise that I know very little of what I will need to know in two days’ time. Not exactly the first time that’s happened so I won’t lose too much sleep.

After a long (and late) lunch, I do a bit of filing and set about my order of work for tomorrow. It needs to be extremely detailed. It takes ages. Wanna read it? Of course you don't. It won't happen like that anyway. But just in case it does, I reckon I can squeeze in a quick beer or two before bedtime…

Day 79: Dramatis Personae

Darina Allen, a Headmistress

Where to begin? On day one she introduced herself as The Headmistress and did herself an enormous injustice. For a lady of a certain age she possesses an almost comical amount of energy. She is like a cooking version of the Duracell bunny. In one demo, I recall her firing out instructions, staccato style, almost completely incomprehensible to everyone listening. She stopped herself: “I’m saying it quickly because you have to do it quickly’, she said. That’s Darina!

She has been instrumental in the Slow Food movement in Ireland, is a champion of local food and producers, and her commitment to these causes is quite remarkable. At times it can become almost tiring, as she is happy to launch into tirades on a number of subjects, firing salvos at bureaucrats, politicians and multinationals as they pop up in her sights. Tales of impoverished Irish farmers who fight the authorities to launch their own cheese, or something, frequently punctuate her demos. A lot of these people turn to her - she uses her weight in the Irish food industry to tremendous effect.

She has an incredible passion for the school and us, its pupils. In a sense she is a kind of benign headmistress I guess. Make her a cup of tea and she’ll listen to all your problems. She has a really genuine kindness and concern for all of us that is impossible to hide. The flip side is you will have to be shooshed by her as you stand chatting to some other fully grown adults, but it is the part she is playing I suppose. She is easy to parody - the aubergine and chilli earrings, the wonderfully consistent phrases; “Oh totally you can”, “Simply delicious”, “A huge thank you”. That in itself says so much - there are few greater compliments than parody.

There may have been plenty of long afternoons when I sat sighing and fidgeting away during her demos, or rolled my eyes as she rattled on about yet another Irish David fighting some great faceless EU Goliath. But I secretly kind of enjoy all that. She is a total control freak as well, straightening spoons and helpfully suggesting how things should be done when her standards are allowed to slip. But so what? It’s people like her, with the vision, determination and energy to make things happen, who actually make things happen. We need do-ers in this movement.

Rory O’Connell, Our Favourite Instructor

Make no mistake about it: Rory is the hero of this Comedy. An extremely gifted chef and a brilliant teacher. But far more than that, Rory entertains. He personifies everything he cooks. Sauces are cantankerous. Mousses may be reticent. A good humoured meringue perhaps. Something may well be described as resembling a finely ground dog biscuit.

Rory is constantly expounding upon the recipes with the wisdom of his enormous experience. Alternative ingredients, flavour combinations, and the omnipresent adaptations for A Restaurant Situation. He understands these recipes because he has cooked them in a commercial environment.

Sure he may be very well natured and slightly Tin-Tin esque, in his neckerchief, twirling spatulas around. But when things happen or better still go wrong he is all over them. Johann, the slightly jester like sous chef might forget to make crème patissiere for a dessert. Rory snaps into life. “I will make it, but I will need the ingredients immediately.” Polite, but unmistakably angry. Just the kind of person you would hate to forget to make crème patissiere for.

The Teachers

It took a week or two to realise that it’s not really the instructors you learn from, but the teachers. The instructors show you how it should be done. You watch, take notes, taste, and learn. But to really learn, you have to cook it yourself. And then you need someone helping you out - showing you techniques, tricks, short cuts, ideas. Telling you how and why things went wrong or went right. Making you slowly realise how to taste and season.

Some of the teachers are better than others. Mostly, it is a question of experience. The ability to teach is a gift. You can’t learn it. It is about empathy. It is about understanding the person you are teaching and knowing how you can connect with them. People respond in different ways to different people. Often, as adults, we forget what it is takes to learn. It takes a relinquishing of power and control, and the willingness to realise that the best way to find out how to do something is to ask someone who has done it many, many times before, and is good at it.

The Students

We’ve kind of touched on this before, with the six types of people. That was actually a thinly veiled method of venting some pent up frustration about one person in particular without actually pointing the finger. There aren’t six types of people here. There are sixty. Sixty-odd. Yeah some of them are a bit annoying, but they can’t be half as annoying as me, can they? Being flung into a closed environment with sixty complete strangers tells you a lot about yourself. You make assumptions about people. They make assumptions about you.

Some of the people I didn’t like, well now I do. And I like them even more because of the lessons they taught me. That everyone you encounter in life has had different experiences to your own, and that empathy and compassion are qualities that guarantee all others. I might not flaunt them myself, but I know I need them.

And if I learnt a few other things along the way, like how to butcher a pig, pluck a pheasant, make béarnaise and beurre blanc, line a flan ring, make praline, joint a chicken, roll pasta, roast duck, make a caramel, sauté mushrooms, fillet a fish, make an omelette, melt chocolate, stuff a turkey, sweat an onion, skin almonds, use gelatine, make gravy, bake bread, make choux pastry, bring back a scrambled hollandaise, carve a quail, skin grapes, segment oranges, ice a cake, make a soufflé and knock up crème patissiere in five minutes flat, well I guess I’d better thank a few people before I leave.

Day 78: Full circle

I wish I hadn’t eaten so much last night. I woke up around four in the morning feeling like Mr Creosote. Not only that, but somewhere between all the smoked eel, roast duck and plum puddings, some combination conspired to produce some truly weird dreams. I could have probably lived with this, but in a dainty yet viciously cruel pirouette, fate had shafted me with more bloody stock duty.

None of this boded well for the final day’s cooking. I finally come to terms with the fact that I am a moron, and bake ciabatta according to the school’s recipe. All that tweaking with flour: what a fucking idiot. I make a couple of soda breads too since they could easily come up in the exam. It’s a good job I do because the brown soda recipe has too much bread soda in it and the loaf comes out looking greener than one of the Incredible Hulk’s turds after a heavy night on the crème de menthe.

We are about half strength in the kitchen today. My partner is running a friend to the airport so I can basically do as much, or as little, as I like. I idly pass an hour or so making brandy snap biscuits, all the while pumping my poor shell of a body with the requisite amount of coffee to ensure my survival until the end of the day. Some time after eleven I make beurre blanc for the first time, before turning my attention to the scallops.

I love scallops. I have never actually extracted them from their shells before, but having slain many other, more obviously living, creatures of the deep, I don’t approach the act with too much trepidation. But something feels strangely barbaric about the whole act. The little guys hold on pretty damn tight. You have to wiggle a knife in between the two valves and cut the scallop from the flat side. This is not easy. The scallop, sensing the incursion of some superior foreign force, is pulling the shell as tightly shut as possible, clamping the blade of the knife. I wiggle and twist, trying to create room between the shells for me to cut the muscle free from the shell. The struggle is horrific. There is only ever going to be one winner, but the scallop fights bravely and fiercely. As it does so, I can’t help but feel that I am abusing my higher position in the evolutionary chain. What is worse is when during the fight, you manage to lacerate the abductor, effectively killing the creature instantly. It goes from repulsing the crude invasion of your blade to yielding instantly and swinging open like the doors of Harvey Nicks on Boxing Day. It is a hollow victory. All I can do is think of the caramelised flesh and the soft, sweet centre after a couple of minutes on the grill, and hope that the Lord forgives me.

Out of respect for the dead scallops that fought so gallantly to cling to their sheltered little lives, I go easy on the beurre blanc. I am not too sure about the dry frying either; I would like a little olive oil to smooth things along myself. But either way, with this last dish, my cooking draws to an uneventful close. It is eleven weeks since I first walked into this very same kitchen, and stood around in a circle chopping onions. A lot has happened since then.

We have a demo in the afternoon, on chicken. Nothing life changing, though we are shown how to bone a whole bird, which is interesting. The most laborious dish is the least appetising - a rich casserole roast with a thick creamy sauce. A couple of others are good - Cajun chicken and one with harissa oil are particularly tasty. The demo is relaxed and pretty good fun. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.

I am knackered, of course, and dying to go home and put my feet up, but this is not to be. One of the students, the wonderfully named Maria from Korea, has put together a demo on her native food. Being a big fan of Korean food, I am really looking forward to this. A good twenty or so of us hang around for the 6pm start. Korean food takes a lot of time, she tells us. We go through seasoning your own soy sauce, a lengthy process that produces a result vastly different from what you buy. Since it is the cornerstone of every marinade, it is an essential and delicious step.

We make beef bulgogi (marinated beef) and bibimbab, a rice dish with vegetables and meat that is the staple of Korean cuisine. The dish is balanced by colours, with every vegetable cooked and seasoned individually before being brought together for the meal. The whole ensemble is then garnished with a red chilli beef paste called Yak Gochujang, that I would eat every day for the rest of my life if I could. It was pushing 9pm before we got to taste all of this but it was just about worth the wait. It reminded me of the little Korean place I used to eat in on my own in Victoria Street in Melbourne. I think they thought I was weird.

Thirteen hours is long enough to spend in this place in one go, so we kind of had to go to the pub after that, carrying on the theme of things returning to their beginning. Tomorrow comes the last demo, before the exams take centre stage. The days they may be few, but there’s plenty enough left to fill them.

Days 76 & 77: Le carrefour

I was all set for the pub on Friday night, when I was struck by a mini-epiphany. Nothing too dramatic I have to confess, but I was suddenly confronted by the brutally obvious truth that I would be much better off if I just went home to bed instead. And that’s exactly what I did.

Consequently, I woke on Saturday morning feeling unusually refreshed, and still clinging to the clarity of mind and wellness of body that the hefeweizens have usually eroded. It was pissing down, yet again, but we headed into Cork none the less and passed the time of day. It was looking like another quiet night until a rescue text at about half nine, and a few of us piled down the Blackbird. Pulling up, there were a few girls outside dressed up to the nines. “What’s the occasion?” I asked. “Guess,” came the reply. “Er, Hallowe’en?” No, even scarier than that, it was a bleach blonde hen’s night. Terrifying. The worse part being that every local geezer who came through the door was greeted by howls and cheers, encouraged to remove their shirts and swing them around their heads, toxifying the pub with a deadly cocktail of noxious BO.

I woke up this morning and appreciated just how clear-headed I had been yesterday. I passed some time filing recipes by the fire, and this evening a load of us went to a big Terra Madre event at Ballymaloe House. Terra Madre, for the uninitiated, is the international slow food movement that encourages and celebrates local, sustainable food. So a couple of hundred people gorged themselves on it just to prove how great it really is. I don’t feel like getting the soapbox out right now, but unless we all do something about the food we eat, how it is produced and where it comes from, we are all fucked.

http://www.slowfood.com/

http://www.terramadre.info/pagine/welcome.lasso?n=en

My friend reminded me the other night that I am at a crossroads. All I really know is that food is next. And food that will count - food that creates and doesn't destroy. Real, natural food. How, what or where, I don’t really know. The paradox of this uncertainty is that we fear the things we cannot control, but they are exactly what make it all worthwhile.

Day 75: Ciablatta

Two days left in the kitchen, and you gotta make them count. Or do you? Today I am lined up to make coffee ice cream and roulades of smoked salmon. That’s it. Whisk some eggs, make a syrup. Whisk them up together, fold in whipped cream and freeze. Slice some salmon. Mix Philadelphia with cream and dill, season, spread on the salmon, roll up and refrigerate. Hardly three hours’ worth there.

What can I add to this miniature roll call of skills to optimise my remaining six hours in the kitchen? Well, there’s ciabatta of course. One last roll of the dice. I have a recipe from Bread Matters that involves a sponge from yesterday and a rye starter, so I water down a little of my sourdough starter to keep the proportions of the original recipe intact. In general, I think the word impossible is often misused. People often employ it to define things that are eminently possible, but simply beyond their own meek powers. I can’t be certain that I am not doing this now, but the dough is impossibly wet. Actually it is more of a puddle than a dough. There is structure there, just. But then there is structure in the guano one has to remove from one’s windscreen after being forced to park under a particularly large tree. In the book he even suggests kneading it like a concertina, not letting it touch the work surface. He has to be taking the piss.

I follow his instructions, and keep the batter like 'dough' under a bowl on my work surface. I have to keep it under a bowl - it is the only way of limiting its slow and steady expansion. Even with the bowl, I keep having to mop up bits of it that have leeched out from under the glass. It is more like a bad science experiment than a bread.

I give it time to develop structure before having a crack at the secondary kneading. This involves getting dough scrapers underneath, stretching one end of it out, away from the surface, then folding it back in on itself. You repeat this for the four points f the compass, helping stretch the gluten and improve structure. Each time you must allow the dough to relax. After a few of these workings, I begin to sense the first tiny shoots of stability in my nascent bread. I keenly latch onto these and attempt to decant onto a baking tray for the final proving. This is a disaster. (Try it yourself - pour a pint of water onto a table, and attempt to put it back in the glass with your bare hands. Use flour if you think this will make it easier). I optimistically cover the pat with a tea towel, in the hope that some form of alchemy way beyond my comprehension might rescue the situation. It doesn’t, and the hens benefit to the tune of some flour, yeast, salt and water that I have kindly amalgamated for them.

If it sounds like all this took a long time - it didn't. I ambled my way through the ice cream and salmon with the unenthused, idle swagger of your average tracksuit clad, hoodie wearing, pre-pubescent Islington chav. Like them, I just couldn't be fucked. I filled my spare, unforgiving minutes with sixty seconds worth of coffee drunk. By lunchtime the caffeine was about the only thing still alive inside me.

Penultimate demo after lunch, and the last one from which we will have to cook. I really, really can’t be arsed by this stage. I have the shittest after demo duty as well; basically washing up all the crap from the afternoon, so I have to be there at the end. This is probably the only thing that prevents me from just driving home and sleeping for the next three days. Also, we are cooking lobster and scallops, two of my favourite things. The demo is better than most of them have been this week, but the standard is still below what we are used to. This is the only week of the course so far where our favourite instructor hasn’t taken a demo. It shows. Without him the course would be pretty lightweight.

The lobster recipes are okay but I’m not sure about the scallops. Poaching them seems criminal. The crime is exacerbated when they are plated up in their shells with mashed potato piped around the edges. I defy you to go anywhere in the world where this kind of presentation is considered normal. And you’re not allowed to use a time machine either. Continuing the seventies theme, when we do fry some in the pan they get drowned in beurre blanc and presented in a cringingly retro yellow puddle.

The good news is that there will be scallops and lobster in the kitchen on Monday. And I am guessing that the Mary Celeste theme will return and there will be no one around to cook them. I certainly hope so - then I can ditch my scheduled lamb tagine (heeeelp meeeee) and sear some scallops in a little olive oil. Just three hours left in the kitchen. It would be a shame to waste them. Maybe I could find a little ciabatta recipe from somewhere to pass the time…

Day 74: Last blasts

Not for the first time these past few months, I am really struggling to muster the will to write this. Maybe it is because it is pushing 1am, or maybe it is just a simple equation concerning time and energy: my reserves of both are utterly depleted. I am going to try anyway. Quitting now would be such a waste.

The morning’s cooking was uninspiring. I tried to fatten things up with some white yeast bread. My order of work was bollocks - the dishes were all easy and very little effort was required. Almost the complete opposite of my last day in the kitchen on Tuesday, when I had shitloads to do and needed a really strong plan to get through it. Needless to say, my lack of respect for the day’s cooking, and my consequent failure to plan for it properly, led to a pretty chaotic morning. You can usually judge the efficiency of a session by the amount and randomness of your washing up. My pots and pans, along with many others that I had quietly appropriated during the day as mine became soiled, were scattered around the kitchen like the remnants of a cluster bomb.

Still, I made it through to lunch, had managed to knock up some hollandaise, poached a bit of skate, mashed some spuds and cooked romanesco. I had also taken one of the poached skate wings, dredged it in flour and fried it off in olive oil, which was twice as nice as the poached wing on its own. I also baked a white yeast plait and some rolls, which kicked ass too. I didn’t really bother with lunch, just sank a couple of coffees and a few chocolates.

Demo was another howler I’m afraid. Disjointed, disorganised, and most of us were disinterested. It was a bit like watching someone getting run over in slow motion. Most of us were relieved when it finally drew itself to a close, just before 6pm. I was desperate for a quiet couple of hours with a book followed by a few contemplative beers. But that wasn't to be, since I had put myself down to work in the kitchen again. I managed a quick blast in the shower to keep awake, before reapplying the chef’s whites, donning the flour encrusted apron, and striding across the courtyard in my moonboots for more of the same.

It was exactly what I needed actually. I have been a bit distant and distracted these last few days. High up the list of things pissing me off has been the content of the course. The last few demos have been really rather poor. Unprofessional, even, for a school that charges €10,000 for a twelve week course. Everyone is thinking it. I am not crabbing the place; it has been incredible. But you can’t help wondering if the course, the teachers and instructors aren’t, like the rest of us, beginning to run out of steam.

Day 73: White vin man

In my cheerier mood, I read for a while last night before treating myself to an early night. That’s a slight lie actually. Before settling down to read (a book called Kill Your Friends that is, quite frankly, offensive - yes, even to me) I did a spot of revision. Throughout my life, an evening’s revision can only mean one thing: an exam in the morning. Not in the afternoon, that’s what morning revision is for. In the morning. Eight o’clock in the morning to be precise, the earliest exam of my life to date.

The last exam I sat was the Commonwealth paper of my History finals. I remember it well. It was raining, and I arrived under a Union Jack umbrella, which amused me briefly. I was completely bald, having shaved my head with a bic razor two nights previously after a tremendous all day bender in the Cricketers Arms, celebrating the 2.1 I was certain my penultimate final had secured me. This next exam, coming almost a decade later, was a bit more straightforward. Back then, I had three hours to answer three questions. Can the failure of the British mandate in Palestine be explained by the events of 1917? This time I have one hour to answer one hundred. What grape is Chablis made from? a) Merlot b) Pinot Noir c) Chardonnay. I manage to maintain my 100% record of being the first person to leave every exam I have ever sat, and head for the coffee machine after ten minutes or so.

With the wine exam out of the way, it’s time for the Christmas demo. There is a nice light-hearted feel to proceedings that compensates for some of the anguish of yesterday’s demo. We make plum puddings, roast turkeys (muslin soaked in butter to save you from basting, can’t argue with that), Yule logs, an absurd chocolate Christmas tree that looked ready to topple over at any second, mince pies, sherry trifle, etc etc. I was not alone in being excruciatingly hungry, due to the early start, and during the break stuffed my face with mince pies and guzzled a pint or two of coffee. Lunch was turkey, which was lovely but produced the similar effect to a heavy sedative; something just a notch or two below general anaesthetic. That and the mulled wine, anyway.

We skipped through a filo pastry demo for an hour, that was barely instructive, and headed for a tour of Ballymaloe House. This was fun, and interesting, but I have been living in a cottage here anyway so it wasn't that interesting. Mrs Allen, who owns the house and began it as a hotel and restaurant back in the sixties, gave a lovely talk though. She is a quite remarkable woman, it must be said, and still going strong in her mid-eighties. All that butter and cream can’t be that bad for you, now can it?

Day 72: L'orage de merde

I received a text message late last night from my Sicilian friend. It read:

Buonanotte caro Joe. Today you looked pensive, stressed and sad altogether. Hope you feel better tonight. Let’s have a coffee together tomorrow before demo, hopefully enjoying some sunshine.

He was right. I spent most of yesterday in the most inconsolably shitty mood. I was tired, stressed and generally pissed off. The weekend having done absolutely fuck all to relieve my tiredness, actually compounded it instead, beyond my worst nightmares. The early start yesterday was the beginning of the end.

I managed to lighten up a little in the evening after writing the blog. I sat down in the cottage with a bottle of wine and decided to tackle today’s order of work. It looked like a busy one, so I wanted to get organised. Inexplicably, I had this crazy notion that I could restore my normal composure and relaxed demeanour, climb out of this trough of depression and despair, by cooking my way through an absolute shitstorm.

At the top of the order of work you write your name, date and what you are cooking. My name doesn’t cause me too much trouble but when I write the date I kind of shudder. Tuesday 1st December. Holy shit. It can’t be true. I remember this day a year ago; holed up with the flu, in dark, wet, depressingly recession clad London praying for the day in two weeks time when I would get on a plane for Australia. Now I don’t even know what country I’ll be in in two weeks’ time.

This isn’t helping much, so I move onto my dishes. Cappelletti with Tomato and Cream Sauce. Sounds straightforward. Isn’t. It’s a freaking nightmare. First you have to make the pasta, which takes ages since you have to knead it by hand and then roll it out. Then you have to make the filling, which involves mincing then cooking pork and chicken, separately, then letting them cool before you combine them with a range of other ingredients. Then you have to make the bloody things - 6cm squares of pasta with a blob of filling in the middle, folded into triangles, wrapped around your finger, then folded back on themselves so they resemble little Modenese hats. The recipe will yield 150, it says. No it won’t, I tell myself. Then there is the sauce, which needs prepping, slow cooking, pureeing though a mouli and combining with cream.

Piece of cake. And when that’s all done, I also have to make panna cotta, which takes a bit of attention since if you let the cream boil you have buggered it. And you have to prep moulds and sponge and dissolve gelatine as well. I have also got a biga going so am going to make more bloody ciabatta. And to top it all, I have this absurd idea that I will be able to make a couple of focaccias as well to tick the box next to my white bread duty. I diligently prepare my time plan. Even if I get my breads done before 9am when we officially start cooking, I still can’t be finished before 12.30. This is the first time I have written an order of work that finishes after noon. Normally you plan to finish at about ten to, then roll on way past, so this is complete madness.

I’m up early and in the kitchen at 8.30am. I get yeast sponging for both breads and all my ingredients sieved and ready. By 9am the ciabatta is resting, the focaccia is being kneaded in the Kenwood and I am already working on my pasta dough. I go through my order of work with my teacher. She explains how you are supposed to take it easy in the last week, set yourself a few simple dishes and do them well and on time. I know, I tell her, but I just can’t help myself. Not only am I going to do it, I’m going to do it without losing it. I invite her back at 1pm, when I am thrashing around the kitchen like some fallen giant fighting for it’s final breath, to gloat.

When I left the house this morning, I paused for a moment. Calm, composed, clean. And confident. That was what I need to be. I stopped short of tapping this into myself, as some people round here have been doing, with considerable success. I listen to some soft tunes in the car to get me in a soothing mood. And I don’t even think about a cup of coffee until almost 11am. By the time I do, I know it is all over.

My pasta is made and rolled. My filling is ready, perfectly seasoned and completely delicious. The sauce is on the go, I have to get my breads in the oven and make the panna cotta, but I am ahead of the mark and I am staying there. I serve up the pasta, with a beautiful focaccia at 12.10, while everyone else is still hard at it. The panna cotta is chilling, ready for tomorrow and the ciabattas are in the oven.

It has been hard. Relentless. The hardest day’s cooking of my life. I am back feeling myself once more. The shitstorm therapy worked. When you get to the top, you'll feel a lot better about yourself. The ciabatta is still not right, though and I am running out of time. I’ll have to squeeze in one more go before I’m outta here. You’d have thought the reward for the morning’s achievements would be a nice easy demo, but no. Instead it is among the most laborious and dull we have had so far. The upshot of it all? On Thursday I have to poach a skate wing and steam 2lb of potatoes. That should keep me busy for about ten minutes. Maybe I should just do what the lady said; take it easy, simple dishes, done well and on time....