“THEY DON’T CALL US BUTTER-MALOE FOR NOTHING”

It’s a Sunday evening and I am sitting at the kitchen table writing. It’s an overcast day with a spattering of rain ( the first of it we’ve had our whole time in Ireland) I have a Chicken roasting in the oven, and have just completed some of my filing for the last week and written the ‘order of work’ for the following morning.

Week one at Ballymaloe is a complete and utter whirlwind. Information is being thrown at us from every angle, and some info is withheld which makes it all the more confusing. But the system works. By the end of the week, we are exhausted, excited and ready for just about anything.

It’s today that I start the 12 week  Ballymaloe Cookery School course, a school set on 100 acres of organic farmland, in a small village, with a mighty reputation. A group of approximately 66 students will be arriving today with me from all corners of the globe, we will be living on-site in small cottages and be cooking & learning together over the next few months.