Charlotte Pike

Today has been such a busy day. I changed kitchen and am now in the Demo kitchen which is brilliant as there are only 6 people in that kitchen and it is a lot calmer. I was late starting as my sourdough took longer to put together than I anticipated first thing, as the scales were in fact broken, and gave an inaccurate weight for the ingredients. Then I had to get my bearings in the kitchen and get all my ingredients from the other weigh up area as stock production was in full swing in our larder.

I very quickly got massively behind schedule, not helped by the fact that my bread rolls took FOREVER to prove, and I ended up baking them after lunch. Still, Pam, my teacher was absolutely amazing and marked me on my other items to cook – frites and sticky toffee pudding. I was in a bit of a tizz when she marked my dishes, so I wasn’t looking at my marks properly. But I *think* I scored a 10 for my STP (!!) and a 9 for my frites which I believe were marked down as they weren’t even in size. It would have been nice, but I was working with some crazy shaped organic potatoes, so I did my best!

We had a really late finish after demo with Rory today, and I didn’t manage to take any decent photos, so I am sharing a photo of Garryvoe Strand from my walk along there yesterday with Amy.

So, fingers crossed for a better week. Tomorrow is omelette day, so I have omelettes, fritattas and marzipan, of all things to make.

It’s probably a good thing I didn’t blog last thursday (day 19). The week had gone from bad to worse and Thursday was the last straw. Despite getting in around 7.30am, I managed to get way behind schedule very quickly. So much so that my chicken should have marinated in the fridge for an hour having made a lovely sauce for it to sit in and having jointed the chicken, too. The chicken made it into the oven at the last minute in order to get it cooked in time for lunch. I set the timer and got on with my yeast bread which was also woefully behind schedule. After around 20 minutes, I went back to have a peek at the chicken through the oven door, only to find someone had turned my oven up to 250C and the chicken was burnt. Not only that, the timer I set on the oven for my bread hadn’t gone off either and my bread was black. By that point I was on the edge. I managed to (just about) hold it together and serve my food which, predictably didn’t score well. Then, I found out I had an extra two duties to complete at lunchtime, so again, didn’t get a break and was later for Rachel’s demo to start.

Come Thursday night, I was feeling pretty despondent. Everything I seem to touch at Ballymaloe goes wrong. And it’s things I know I can cook and do reasonably order phentermine k25 well. I hate to say it, but a lot of the time, it really isn’t my fault that things go wrong – I have lost count of the number of times my oven has been turned up or down with my back turned and ruined my cooking and so on.

By friday morning, I was past caring, and I only had two recipes, so I went in early to get started. The kitchen seemed my calmer on friday and was a much more enjoyable place to work. Sorcha, my teacher for the day was on great form and really helpful, and I managed 4 recipes in the end, getting a 9* for my apple pie.

I was really buoyed by my progress on friday and was looking forward to the weekend. My lovely friend Amy came out to stay and we had a great weekend exploring the local area and having a good catch up. So, it’s sunday night again, and I’m feeling a little refreshed and more positive about the week ahead. I’ve been put into the kitchen I wanted, so I have a good feeling about Week 4. We’re a quarter of the way through the course already.

Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to email me and leave me lovely comments. I’m still having trouble uploading photos, so please do follow me on Instagram (CHARLOTTEKDIARY) as I am able to share more there.

Today, I’ve managed to feel even more tired than yesterday. I’ve never felt this tired before. I did get up early and go for a garden walk with Tim and we sowed some peas and broad beans in the glasshouse, which was a very nice way to spend the morning. It is getting light much earlier now.

We start our theory day at 9am and we focussed on beef and lamb today. Here’s Darina with the giant beef rib which became our lunch later on. Rory came in to demonstrate some dishes later, too.

Lunch today was really nice – the usual assortment of dishes, which today included beef, lamb, beans, salad and prawns. And several puddings, too.

I really struggled to stay awake this afternoon. We ran though various methods of preserving and career opportunities – plenty of food for thought.

We finished really late for a Wednesday (around 5:45pm) and off we went to make our first sourdough loaves. I didn’t manage to stay the duration as I had some work to do, but Alice very kindly brought me round half a loaf fresh from the oven, which made a delicious surprise. Tim’s sourdough is just incredible and I can’t wait to get my own starter going. I’m hoping to get it going nicely and to be able to bring it back with me in April. Tomorrow I have just two recipes to cook, so I’ll see if I can do something extra, as one is bread and one is meringue – both should be fairly easy.