June 2013

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An Irish joke

Friday, June 7, 2013 in Ballymaloe, Ireland

Photo by David Lansing.

Writer/photographer Crai Bower told me this story:

Seamus was coming out of the pub with his son when he stopped and put an arm around the youngster. He nodded towards the village in front of them and said, “You know, I built half the homes in this village but nobody calls me a homebuilder.”

Then with a wave of his arm, he said, “And I worked on half the roads in this village but nobody calls me a roadbuilder.”

Seamus sighed, put his two hands on his son’s shoulders and, looking him hard in the eye, said, “But you fuck one sheep….”

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Midleton Farmers Market

Thursday, June 6, 2013 in Ballymaloe, Ireland | 1 comment

Midleton Farmers Market

As the sign says, Very good with lamb chops, cold meats, pates, sausages, and charcuterie. All photos by David Lansing.

As if writing books and running a cooking school and being on TV weren’t enough, Darina Allen also started the whole farmers market scene in Ireland when she founded the first, in Midleton, in 1999. Believe it or not, before that, there were no farmers markets in Ireland.

She told me, as we were driving to the Midleton market, that it all started when the large supermarket chains started buying up all the small grocers in the country. “Once the big guys came in, everything had to be centralized and they would punish a grocer for carrying produce from local farms. People had no access to local produce anymore. So I decided to start the Midleton farmers market just as a way to let people have that connection again with local producers.”

Now, according to a list published by the Irish Food Board (Bord Bía) there are over 150 farmers markets in Ireland, from the potato market in Carlow to the quay in Wexford County.

These aren’t big, sprawling affairs like you might find in the States, but modest enterprises where you can quickly walk around and get a feel for what’s available in five or ten minutes. Yet perhaps because the market ends up being the best-of-the-best, you’re tempted to buy one of everything, from the little jars of savoury sauces (red currant jelly, cranberry sauce, Cumberland sauce) to a slice of parsnip and maple syrup cake (which tasted like an extraordinary carrot cake).

I was particularly attracted to the smoked mackerel, their rich, oily deliciousness a real flavor-bomb in your mouth. And the local herb-crusted goat cheese. Oh, and Darina’s own elderflower cordial which she says is great with champagne or in a gin and tonic. That sounded so good I bought three bottles of the stuff. Now I just wonder how I’m going to get it all home.

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Ballymaloe Cookery School

Wednesday, June 5, 2013 in Ballymaloe, Ireland | 1 comment

Ballymaloe Cookery School

The Ballymaloe Cookery School. Photo by David Lansing.

 

So I was trying to explain how Ballymaloe is a hotel. And a restaurant. And a cooking school. Ivan and Myrtle Allen started the whole thing back in 1948 (you can still catch Myrtle having a cup of tea by the fireplace in the parlor most mornings; Ivan passed away in 1998).

Anyway, if I start explaining who all of the Allens are (even I can’t keep them straight) and who does what around here, we’ll all end up confused. So I’ll just go right to Darina Allen who learned a bit about Irish farmhouse cooking from her mother-in-law, Myrtle, and then opened the Ballymaloe Cookery School with her husband Tim 30 years ago.

It’s in no way an exaggeration to say that Darina Allen is now Ireland’s best-known chef. In addition to running the Ballymaloe Cookery School, she’s also a newspaper columnist, cookbook author, and television show celebrity. Oh, and she started the whole Farmers Markets in Ireland thing.

When I jokingly suggest to her that she’s sort of the Martha Stewart of Ireland, she says, “Well, I suppose. She’s a nice enough woman. I’ve been on her show a few times.”

Here’s Darina on her cooking school: “We started the school because I was a chef and my husband, Tim, was a farmer and we wanted to run something from home. This connection between farming and cooking is vital. Unlike any other cookery school in the world, we are located in the middle of a 100-acre organic farm, of which ten acres are devoted to organic market gardens, orchards, and greenhouses. This means that our students can learn to cook using the finest and freshest of ingredients. It also means we have a great variety of ingredients—for instance, we grow over 40 different types of tomato alone!

“We believe that cooking and eating should be enriching, enjoyable, entertaining and, in a word, fun.”

Which perhaps explains why the web site for the Ballymaloe Cookery School is cookingisfun.ie.

 

That’s Rachel (cookbook author and Darina’s daughter-in-law), Myrtle (the grand dame of Ballymaloe), and Darina (founder of the Ballymaloe Cookery School).

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An Irish First Communion

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

First Communion in Ireland

A little girl and her father on their way to a First Communion in Midleton, Ireland. Photo by David Lansing.

 

     Saturday morning I went in to Midleton with Darina Allen who started the cooking school at Ballymaloe (more on the market and the school later). Traffic was unusually heavy owing to the fact that hundreds of little kids were receiving their First Communion. Up and down the street you saw excited kids pulling their mums and dads towards the Catholic Church of the Most Holy Rosary.

     As you might expect, First Communion is a big deal for Irish Catholics, particularly in smaller towns like Midleton. It generally takes place in second grade when the kids are around seven or eight (it used to be that First Communion wasn’t given until youths reached the state of adolescence, usually around 11 or 12, but Pope Pius X lowered it to “the age of reason,” reckoned to be about seven, in 1910).

     Now the boys all look sharp enough but it’s the girls who really receive the princess treatment. A story I read in the Irish Times last weekend said the average amount spent dressing a girl for First Communion in Ireland is about 400 euros (or about $520). The story said that these days “the full rig might include white shoes and tights, petticoats, an embroidered dress, cloak, veil, a tiara, handbag and an umbrella.”

     I took the photo above of the little girl and her dad outside the church from our car as we slowly drove by. You might not be able to see the details, but if you could blow it up as I have, you’d notice the silk slippers with rhinestone stars, a gorgeous embroidered dress with multiple folds, white silk gloves, pearl bracelet and earrings, white cardigan and a delicate scarf, all topped with a garland of white flowers in her hair. An outfit and a day she’ll never forget (nor, no doubt, will her dad).


Cute Irish chicks

Monday, June 3, 2013 in Ballymaloe, Ireland

The Irish chicks at Ballymaloe. Photo by David Lansing.

 

I haven’t talked about this before but I have chickens. Three of them: Patty (because I got her on St. Patrick’s Day), Betsy (an Americauna chicken named for Betsy Ross), and Frida, an exotic Spanish hen named after the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (Spanish/Mexico: close enough). They are at home no doubt eating my flowers, destroying my lettuce, and shitting everywhere. I miss them.

 

Yesterday morning at Ballymaloe I went for a walk in the mist (it’s pretty much always “misting” here), past the pond with the geese and the field where fat pigs stood silently snout-high in thick grass until I spotted what looked like an abandoned trailer on the edge of the forest. My eyes hadn’t deceived me. It was, in fact, an old beat up trailer that had been converted into a chicken coop. And outside, eddying around in waves of brown feathers, were perhaps a hundred chickens!

When I bent down to have a closer look, they all came running over. As if I were their long-lost Uncle Dave come back from America.They chirped and they clucked and they crowded against the fence to have a peek at me and say hello. They were a hoot. I only wish I’d had something to feed them. I might have to steal a basket of scones at breakfast tomorrow.


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