Greetings from the Emerald Isle! I have safely arrived and hit the road running! I have only been here a week – and the week seems to have lasted three times that length of time! It’s been a whirlwind of mesmerizing enchantment, and I am sitting down on this Sunday morning to catch a breath and take it all in.

After spending a few days in Salzburg with my husband visiting beautiful sights and doing all the Sound of Music things (I felt like a ten year old all over again!), we arrived in Ireland on Saturday night. We spent Sunday together, celebrating my birthday while moving me into my new home, and finishing the day with a beautiful dinner overlooking the sea at Ballycotton. My sweet husband then dropped me off, kissed me goodbye and headed back to his hotel to prepare for his long journey home. These twelve hours, comprised of saluting my 50th birthday, arriving to a place that I’ve dreamed of for years, and saying goodbye to my spouse, had to have been the most momentous and emotionally filled hours I’ve known in a long while! Oi vey!

My housemates, just to tell you, are the sweetest ladies I could have hoped to be paired with for the next three months. Our cottage is a fun mix of Australia, Canada, Mexico, Ireland and the United States. The rest of our class represents a blend from the United Kingdom, Scotland, France, Thailand, South Africa and Qatar. Could the key to World Peace be as simple as joining together over delicious food? We are having the best time together!

Monday morning arrived in a hot minute and my housemates and I rallied, bright eyed and bushy tailed by 8:00am, and headed to our welcome breakfast. The Ballymaloe staff laid out a breakfast fit for royalty. They presented us with a “Continental Breakfast”, but I have certainly never before seen anything like this elegant spread called by that name. We feasted on hot porridge with eight different fruit compotes sprinkled with an array of fresh herbs, billowy whipped cream, labneh infused with honey and saffron, warm cream scones, half a dozen freshly baked breads, and honey – still on the comb! Fresh squeezed juices, hot coffee and steamed milk rounded out the beverage portion of the morning’s offerings. Coffee being the only exception, every single item was organically produced on their farm! Every. Single. Thing.

Following this we spent hours touring the farm and learning about the first ingredient to perfect food: the dirt beneath our feet. We walked the gardens, visited the glass house (a hot house comprised of an entire acre of land), and met the resident chickens. We talked about compost and the art of building nutritious soil, all the while looking at the gorgeous fruits of their labors. Darina Allen, the school’s founder and primary teacher a.k.a. Head Mistress, told us that “most of cooking equates to shopping, and by shopping, I mean ‘sourcing’”. She also stressed that, “soil, plant, animal, and people are intimately and intricately connected.”. Here at Ballymaloe, they truly live this philosophy, and this farm is a living testament to the dedication to their craft.

We were then treated to a luncheon of Ireland’s most beautifully smoked seafood, fresh vegetables, and pastries, followed by our first afternoon of lecture. Lectures are a typically few hours in length, but after a long morning farm walk, Monday’s lecture was mercifully light with just a few demonstrations and tastings. We were given our assigned duties and dismissed to prepare ourselves for our first day of class on Tuesday morning. Let the games begin!

My new “home away from home” for the next three months!

Darina Allen made me a birthday cake, and yes, 64 new friends joined in to sing “Happy Birthday”!