Random ballymaloe learnings this far - week 2

Two weeks in and my head is almost bursting with knowledge, most of which can probably not be posted on the internets for fear of copyright so Ill give you some of the very odd bits I have scribbled down for your foodie amusement

• Rosemary will only thrive in a house where the woman wears the pants


• That white bit of the rhubarb that you always cut off is meant to be the sweetest


• Some of the foreign people on our course think that cats are milked in Ireland


• Keep an eye on your oven or people will change the temperature and stick something else in


• You can make a wish on new potatoes


• Darina gets her nails done for the Late Late show


• Rhubarb leaves are poisonous to us but not to hens


• Alcohol levels in wine are rising which is apparently a factor of global warming!


• If you are sick 20 minutes within eating something its an allergy rather than food poisoning


• Them knives there they are sharp, do not be thinking about anything other than the knives when washing them or you will end up with stitches


• The whey from making parmesan cheese is fed to the pigs who produce parma ham


• Fat in meat holds the toxins - a good enough reason to not eat fat or non organic meats


• Turmeric is an antiseptic


• The smaller the potato chips the hotter your oil should be


• The cross in soda bread is to let out the fairies

Tomorrow Im working for the night (as much as one can with only 9 functioning fingers) in Ballymaloe House. Some day soon I will be putting in a night in Arbutus. At the weekend I will be drinking a lot of wine at a wine tasting workshop and walking the beaches and cliffs. It feels like years, not weeks ago that I was sitting in an office!

The photos are adding up here if you want more of an idea what my day looks like.