This is a story that has evolved over a long time.
Some time in the mid-80's, I read an article in Gourmet magazine about Ballymaloe House. It was a country house restaurant with rooms, but had recently established a cooking school. The Gourmet article was about a 5-day cooking class that had half-day cooking classes and an excursion each day--to Ballycotton Bay to watch the day's catch arrive, to a local cheesemaker, to an artisan bread baker, to other food producers. While that kind of format is not novel today, at the time it was very unusual. It sounded perfect, something I really wanted to do.
And so I began a correspondence with Ballymaloe. (Remember, this was before email and Internet methods of communicating.)
When we did take our first overseas trip in 1987 (to celebrate our 20th anniversary), we spent 12 days in Scotland and 12 days in Ireland--Ireland, largely because of that Gourmet article. Though we had decided we wouldn't spend 5 days in just one spot (we were new to this travel thing, then), we made a point of spending 2 nights at Balłymaloe. We met Myrtle Allen, the matriarch of the family and the person who almost singlehandedly put Ireland on the food map. Her daughter-in-law, Darina, was the head of the new cooking school. We visited the cooking school, where Darina and her husband chatted with us and showed us around. Darina took us out to view her pride and joy, a newly planted herb garden.
In the years since, we have seen myriad articles about the cookery school, and have even seen pictures of the burgeoning herb garden. Darina has become the face of the food revolution in Ireland. She has multiple cookbooks (I own two), has done TV, and is a spokesperson for slow food Ireland.
The Ballymaloe "brand" has grown tremendously. They always had a farm as part of the property, but now they're known for being the source for most of the food consumed at Ballymaloe House and the school. They bottle their own well water. They have special heritage pigs that provide the bacon served. They have their own line of jams, condiments, and relishes. They have a farm shop with cafe, where they sell cooking equipment and local artwork, as well as their breads and farm produce and eggs. They now have a building used for concerts and weddings and events. This is just the tip of the iceberg. They are like Irish royalty.
These days, I get the Ballymaloe newsletter and receive emails periodically. When we decided to visit Ireland this year, it was a given that we would stay at Ballymaloe for a few days. I started watching their extensive list of classes about a year ago. The school is mostly known for its 12-week certificate course, but does lots of half-day classes. I wasn't finding anything to plan our trip around and didn't really think too much more about it. Every so often, I'd check the course listing, but finally decided the class idea wasn't meant to be and let it go. Visiting the house and school would be treat enough.
When we arrived Monday, we learned that a couple times per week a few people can sit in on the afternoon demonstrations for the 12-week certificate course. The only one happening while we were in residence would be on Tuesday, so we asked if we could participate. We had to wait until Tuesday morning to learn our fate, but the fates were smiling on us and we were in!
We showed up early so that we could walk through the now well-known gardens. (You have to buy tickets to visit the gardens, but as temporary students, we were allowed to wander through the vegetable garden, the herbal garden (!), and about four others.) Then we were shown into the very professional demonstration kitchen, with 4 ovens, more burners than I could count, TV cameras, and big overhead mirrors--there were no bad seats, but Darina showed us to two very good seats. She seated us next to Michaela (from Austria) who was told to introduce herself and take care of any questions we had.
There were 62 professional students and 8 of us who were guests (though that might be a funny term given how much each of us paid for the privilege of being there!). We were quite a roomful. Just as we were all getting settled, in came a group of people, and it turned out we were going to be treated to a mini bluegrass concert. The group was going to be performing at the adjacent venue that night.
How many times have you signed up for a cooking class and had a bluegrass concert break out?
The group--Jeff Scroggins and Colorado, a U.S. group in the beginning stage of a European tour--performed three songs, and they were very good. They included a bass, guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and banjo. The fiddle player, the only woman in the group, was from Portland. (What are the odds?)
Darina took care of a number of housekeeping things for the certificate students. They are only in week 3 of their 12 weeks. She had also lined up an ornithologist for a 5:30am Thursday bird walk (Ballymaloe is a certified bird sanctuary, wouldn't you know) and was getting students to sign up for a cheesemaking class, etc. She taught a short segment on edible flowers and plants.
Then suddenly April Bloomfield walked in, and Darina introduced her. I have read any number of articles about April recently. She is a British chef who became well known for her whole-animal approach. She has two Michelin-starred restaurants and has been a winner on Iron Chef. Right now, she has a hot new book out, called "A Girl and Her Greens." A few minutes later, the executive chef of the vaunted Chez Panisse in Berkeley also showed up and got introduced. He was going to do a special class for the students on Wednesday. (To help explain why there were celebrity chefs wandering in and out, Ballymaloe's third annual LitFest, a highly thought of food festival for chefs, wine experts, journalists, authors, educators, publishers, and food bloggers, had just been held on the grounds the three days prior to our arrival. This, naturally, is another of Darina's ventures. The woman is a force of nature.)
Then we were turned over to Philip, one of her sons-in-law, who led us through butchering a half lamb. (Yikes, I'm glad this was a demonstration and not a hands-on class!).
After all this preamble, the most amazing class began. It was led by Rachel Allen, Darina's daughter-in-law and a former cookery school student, who is an Irish celebrity in her own right these days. She has four cookbooks and a TV show (and her own line of small appliances!) and still teaches at Ballymaloe. We watched an incredible array of food getting prepared. All of the foods were meant to show the students specific techniques. We watched Rachel make: bread, leg of lamb, carrots, potatoes, crostini, tapenade, beans, sorbets, tarts, and two vegetable salads. It was all happening at warp speed. The class had gotten off to a slow start, but nothing was spared; it just had to happen at a brisk pace. At times, Jerry and I had to suppress giggles at how rapidly things were happening.
After all that, we all lined up and received plates with little tastes of everything that had been made. Whew!! It was extremely well done. We certainly got our money's worth of an experience. What was supposed to be a 3-hour demonstration, ended up running 4-1/2 very brisk hours. Our heads were spinning by the time we walked back to our car, but, boy, did we feel so lucky to have stumbled onto this opportunity.
My long-held Ballymaloe wish has been granted.
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