Ballymaloe Weekend 2 - 21/22 January

No alarm clock needed this morning, thank god, I went for a walk into the village of Shanagarry and tracked down a 2012 diary at the Design Centre/Gallery here. I then had to go and turn the cheese for everyone in the dairy before we salt it tonight.

Also at Ballymaloe today was Mickael Viljanen the Finnish head chef at Gregan's Castle Hotel. He is sort of the Heston Blumenthal of Ireland and has been winning awards as Ireland's top chef. Today he was here to do a demonstration of some of his molecular gastronomy including his famous beetroot meringues and an amazing roast chicken which had been poached first then fried to give it some colour. All the food was spectacular to look at and eat and as students we got to sit in for free!

Also got some great pictures of the surrounding countryside Saturday morning:

After the demonstration we went to salt our cheese ready to go into the fridge to mature. We're making a semi-hard gouda-type cheese. Should be ready in 3-4 months!

Mine is the cheese at the back on the left!

Then on Sunday the housemates and I had dinner together, Darina's Aunt Florence joined us! We also have a new housemate Sarah, who is interning here after being a pastry chef at the world famous Chez Panisse in California, very cool. Our housemate Dermot made chocolate and chilli mousse, it was yum. He has a blog over at http://gasmark7.blogspot.com/ so head over for a read!