Flour Child On The Farm
Hello from Ireland! It’s been two weeks well spent at the Ballymaloe Cookery School just outside of Cork, Ireland and it truly feels like a little slice of heaven here. While it’s vastly different from the energetic, fast-paced New York City living that I’m used to, this organic farm lifestyle has turned my world upside down. The food is sustainably grown and sourced, the people could not be any kinder, and the Jersey cows are simply precious. Did I mention I’ve been consuming dairy on the daily? Let’s unpack some moments from the last two weeks here.
One of the most vital things that I’ve learned here so far is that the core of both a healthy and a happy life is good quality food. If your food is grown sustainably with thoughtful care, it’s likely to have strong nutritional value and take the quality of a dish to the next level. A great example of this is the heirloom tomato salad that they serve here at Ballymaloe quite often. It has so few ingredients yet it’s so healthy and delicious. We’ve also learned the immense importance of limiting food waste and using every part of an ingredient you can, wether that be produce, meat, fish, or dairy. There is such a lack of food waste here; any food scraps are given to the hens or composted if possible, all parts of the meat and seafood can usually be used for a stock or broth, and even dairy products like milk and yogurt have dual uses and can take on a second life through fermentation.
A day in the life at Ballymaloe usually looks like waking up around 7:15, heading to the kitchen at 8:15, preparing your ingredients for the morning cooking sessions, cooking about 2-3 recipes, and then eating lunch (the prepared food from the morning session) at about 12:45-1. Around 2 pm we start our demonstration for the afternoon, which consists of learning the recipes for the next morning’s cooking sessions. After demo finishes around 5, we have a small tasting and then tend to do some form of physical activity to debrief after the day. Some of my favorite lunch dishes recently have been the lasagna with homemade pasta sheets, sourdough with grilled lamb and labneh, spicy cucumber salad, and zucchini risotto with zucchini blossoms. Even the fresh lettuce is so tasty.
We also drink so many delicious fermented drinks like kefir water and kombucha made in the fermentation shed here at the farm. Some of my favorite flavor combinations have been ginger lime kefir water, raspberry and strawberry kombucha, and cucumber apple kefir water.
I have so much more to share! Keep up with me for more recipe inspiration, stories from the farm, and educational content on food sustainability.
