Starters at the Cliff House restaurant in Ardmore included beet macaroons and salmon marshmallows. Photo by David Lansing.

Here’s what it says on the menu at the Cliff House restaurant in Ardmore, called The House: “Martijn Kajuiter, our Executive Chef, has sourced as many of our supplies as possible from as local an area as possible, even going so far as to grow our own vegetable garden…From Tadgh O’Foghlu’s honey in nearby Ring, David Brown’s fresh fish from Helvick and Ardmore Bay, to Sean Twomey and Michael McGrath, our butchers in Youghal and Lismore, the quality of the produce has given Martijn the inspiration to cook dishes that can rely on the seasonality of the ingredients.”

Well, you have to love that. I mean at home, my own cooking revolves around whatever I’m currently harvesting in my garden, whether it be peaches or heirloom tomatoes, arugula or Italian Roma beans. But I have to admit that I’m not a big fan of the Ferran Adrià-style of molecular gastronomy. So I was a little taken-aback when the starters arrived at the table.

A box of beet macaroons. Photo by David Lansing

First off, we got a plank of alder with a salmon marshmallow on it, a big gooey square of orange with overtones of fishiness. That was followed by a square rock garden topped with Easter egg-colored beet macaroons.

Really? This is what we do with the gorgeous salmon caught by David Brown in Helvick and Ardmore Bay? We turn it in to marshmallows? And the lovely beets Martijn grows in Youghal are transformed into puffy macaroons?

This may be great fun for chefs who have perfected the art of perfectly-poached Irish salmon and want to do something out-of-the-box to show their skills, but I think the only people at the table who professed a love of Kajuiter’s fishy marshmallows were infected with a bit of “emperor’s new clothes syndrome.”

That said, once Kajuiter was done showing off, the rest of the dishes were outstanding, from the plump West Cork scallops that were lightly seared, just for a minute or two, and served in a puddle of green peas, bacon, and garden herbs, to the moist Helvick cod, baked with its skin on, and seated on a light sauce of brown crab and saffron sauce.

Now if only Kajuiter (and other chefs) would get back to truly bringing out the essence of all the ingredients they work with and get over proving that they can make marshmallows that taste like salmon.

We’ve moved on from Cork to Ardmore, a little seaside town about 60 klicks to the southeast. We’re staying at the Cliff House Hotel, so named because…well, because it’s literally perched on the cliff here.

The original hotel, called Kelly’s, after the owner, a Mr. Kelly from Connemara, was built in the 30s. Mr. Kelly ran the hotel until his death in 1983. After that, they tell me, the hotel fell into disrepair. Until the O’Callaghan family, who’d been coming to Ardmore on holidays forever, purchased the rather decrepit ol’ gal in 2005. They pretty much gutted the place and then spent three years rebuilding, re-opening five years ago this month.

When we checked in we were met by a lovely woman with sad eyes but a lovely smile who introduced herself as Honor. I just couldn’t resist: “I’m Justice,” I told her. She looked at the reservation and seemed a bit confused until I informed her of my poor joke. “Yes, I see,” she said, her pale blue eyes lighting up, “Honor and Justice. Just so.”

Honor escorted us down several floors (the lobby is actually on the ground floor and the rooms are terraced on the cliff below) to our room which was resplendent in pink—pink bedspread, pink armchairs, pink curtains. Above the pink couch was a bookcase with a book I’d heard about but never actually seen: Let’s Go Disco. It’s not what you think. It’s a very stylish cookbook. By Martijn Kajuites, the hotel’s Michelin star chef. Evidently “Let’s go disco!” is what Martijn shouts at his kitchen brigade when things get a little tense in the kitchen. We’re eating there tonight. With Honor, of course. I can hardly wait.

Let’s Go Disco above the pink couch in our room at the Cliff House Hotel in Ardmore. Photo by David Lansing.

Derk getting a manicure after high tea at Cork’s Hayfield Manor. Photo by David Lansing.

So I mentioned yesterday that while we were having high tea at Hayfield Manor in Cork, Lisa Leahy, our host, also offered up the services of two of her spa manicurists (I’m not sure that’s a word—manicurist—but let’s go with it). No manicures for me. I bite my nails (yes, I know, disgusting). But I was curious about how this would work. Who, I wondered, was going to be the first lady to quickly down her tea and run over to the spa ladies to get her nails done?

Actually, it wasn’t a woman; it was Derk Richardson, an editor from AFAR magazine in San Francisco. I like Derk and I’ve been trying to get something in AFAR since they first came out a few years ago, so I did what any ambitious writer would do: I grabbed my camera, ran to the spa table, and snapped several pics of Derk getting his nails done. Not by one manicurist, mind you, but by two!

But Derk wasn’t cooperating; he was scowling at me. “Listen, Derk,” I said as I continued shooting, “I’m going to use these photos for blackmail. Either you give me an assignment or I publish these babies.”

That made him laugh. But he still hasn’t given me an assignment. So I have no choice but to publish…and probably perish.

Hayfield Manor in Cork, Ireland.

Lisa, who works at Hayfield Manor in Cork, has invited us to tea. Not like a cup of tea or something but the full on high tea with a three-tiered silver serving dish full of little triangle sandwiches and smoked salmon on rye bread and an assortment of little tarts and cakes and such. Oh, and some tea…after the champagne.

Lisa has strawberry blond hair and blue eyes and is gorgeous but that’s not why I love her. I love her because when we first met at Ballymaloe and I asked her where in Cork I should go to get the famous Cork clove rock candy that I’m addicted to she went and found some and gave me four jars of the stuff. That alone is enough to make me be in her debt forever.

So she invites us all to tea at Hayfield and tells us she has a little treat for us. I’m secretly hoping it’s more clove rock candy but instead she’s had a couple of manicurists come down from the spa and tells us that if anyone wants to get a manicure when they’re done with their tea, they’re more than welcome.

Wow. Smoked salmon, champagne, tea, and a manicure. This is why I love Lisa. And want to do something for her but I can’t think of what. Until she starts talking about her daughter, Belle, who is crazy about all things related to Disney’s Toy Story. “She’s got just about all of the dolls,” Lisa says. “Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Jessie. About the only one we haven’t been able to find is that silly horse, Bullseye.”

So that’s it. When I get home I must see if I can find a Bullseye doll. And then ship it off to Belle in Cork. Clove candy for a Bullseye. A good trade, I think.

High tea at Hayfield Manor in Cork. Photo by David Lansing.

Jill and the pot still at Jameson Heritage Center in MIdleton, Ireland. Photo by David Lansing.

We were driving to the old Jameson distillery in Midleton when Jill Robinson, a writer from Northern California, leaned over and asked me if, when we got to Jameson, I’d take some photos of her kissing the big pot still out front.

I told her I’d be happy to and then asked her why she wanted a photo of herself kissing a pot still.

“I told someone I’d do it,” she said.

Very mysterious.

There was a sign near the pot still asking people to keep off the grass. Jill thought about that for a moment and then said, “To hell with it.” She ran across the grass and through the flowers and put her arms around the shiny pot still. Or at least as much of it as she could. I took pictures of her kissing the still, hugging it, and seductively leaning up against it as if she were Marlene Dietrich standing in front of her bedroom door.

Her antics created quite a scene. At one point I looked over my shoulder and there were at least a dozen other Jameson visitors also taking her picture. It had become an impromptu paparazzi moment and everyone was snapping pictures as fast as they could. I’m sure they had no more idea why they were taking the pictures than I did. But it was fun.

Jameson Heritage Center in Midleton. Photo by David Lansing.

You can just make out the ruins of Penn Castle behind the Design Center in Shanagarry, County Cork.

Last week after writing about Shanagarry, the little fishing village that is home to the Ballymaloe cooking school, I got a note from one of my readers, Fred Harwood, who always seems to know a damn lot about the places I’m visiting. Fred wanted to know if Shanagarry wasn’t the village where William Penn owned a castle.

I don’t know how Fred knew this, but he was right; there is a Penn castle here. I’ll tell you how I found out. Yesterday Jan decided to go for a run along the country road in to Shanagarry, which is a couple of miles away. She got a bit lost (and also realized, after passing a roadside memorial to a killed pedestrian, that this wee road probably wasn’t the best for jogging) and went a lot further than she’d expected.

On her way back, there was an older gentleman doing some gardening in his front yard. He stood up and watched as Jan approached and then yelled out asking how far she’d run. Jan said she really didn’t know, but it was further than she’d expected. So the old gent comes over to the low stone wall in front of his house and asks her where she’s from. She tells him and then he points across the street to a ruin sitting behind the Design Center and says, “You’ve heard of William Penn, I suppose. Well, that was his castle.”

It’s not much to look at, the Penn Castle. More like a decrepit stone manor house. But it’s got an interesting story. Penn became a Quaker when he was about fifteen when he met a Quaker missionary, Thomas Loe, but he sort of kept it to himself because the Quakers were persecuted by both Catholics and Protestants in England and Ireland. In 1669, when Penn was 25, he traveled to Ireland to deal with his father’s estates, including the property in Shanagarry known as Penn Castle. While there he became an integral part of the Quaker community (which still exists in this area of Ireland) and decided that he needed to take the issue of Quaker persecution directly to the King. Which he did.

Somewhat surprisingly, King Charles granted an extraordinarily generous charter to Penn giving him possession of over 45,000 square miles of land west of New Jersey and north of Maryland in return for one-fifth of all the gold and silver mined in the province (which had virtually none). At first Penn called the area “New Wales,” and then “Sylvania” (Latin for “forest or words”), but King Charles changed the name to Pennsylvania in honor of Penn’s father, an English admiral and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1670.

In 1682 in England, William Penn drew up a Frame of Government for the Pennsylvania colony. Freedom of worship in the colony was an absolute, as was freedom from unjust imprisonment and free elections.

One last thing: Ireland is celebrating this big thing this year called The Gathering. It’s a way to get the hundreds of thousands of people all over the world who are at least part Irish to come home for all kinds of gatherings in the villages, towns and cities of Ireland. There are literary gatherings and jazz gatherings and walking gatherings and, perhaps the most famous gathering, a Riverdance Gathering in Dublin from July 15^th to 21^st when hundreds (thousands?) of former Riverdance cast members, as well as amateurs, will dance along the banks of the River Liffey. That should be spectacular.

Anyway, I mention this because there’s also going to be a William Penn Gathering in Shanagarry on August 25^th to celebrate all things Penn. Fred, maybe you should think about going.

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….”

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.

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).

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).