Chefs in the making

I've had a wonderful day. No, I really do meant it. Starting this morning with a couple of hours of office work, I then headed for Cork to speak with 1st Year Culinary Students in C.I.T. My journey would not have been complete without a delivery along the way and this time it was to the Kingsley Hotel. Late already, I arrived at C.I.T. where I was introduced to 5 First Year Students who were to be my 'helpers' for the day. They were superb. As I wasn't wearing 'whites', it was very much a case of making a suggestion and encouraging the students who were each responsible for a dish with Chef Lisa co-ordinating and supervising everything. All I had to do was enjoy a superb lunch before going to the lecture demo theatre where there were 80 or so students of all ages waiting to hear me speak (how boring would that have been without actually tasting anything). So what did we cook: Dubliner Cheese Puffs; Lough Hyne Cheesecake; Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies; Black Pudding Swirls; Garlic Yeast Bread & Black Pudding Lasagne as well as Rosscarbery Loin & Smoked Loin Bacon; black pudding & sausages. I also brought some Clonakilty Gluten Free Bread; Milleens; Durrus Óg & Gubbeen Cheese, Sheridan's Crackers for everyone to taste as well as Clóna Crème Fraiche & Cream; West Cork Garlic, Irish Yogurts Yogurt, Dubliner Cheese & Drombeg. It's such an experience to introduce all these foods & more like Sally Barnes (one of my favourite food heroes) and Karen & Con from Lettercollum to people who live in West Cork and many who have never been; and explain that these aren't just nice pretty Irish labels but real food made by people living in West Cork.
I'm sure tomorrow won't be half as interesting!

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