July 17th

I’ve been here 17 days & I am homesick, no question. I miss my handsome husband, my dad, my pets & my home. But, if I keep quite busy while here I can fight the homesickness. It helps to have Mom here with me too. Cooking while on holiday helps as well. Yesterday I made lamb & butterbean (lima) stew and a quick soda bread version of foccacia. In addition to what I made, I tasted Aztec soup, dal, poppodoms and vindaloo, all absolutely delish. To help the teachers out, I also made the boiled potatoes that are served with every Irish meal. The potatoes had just been harvested, so they were very fresh, very new potatoes and my teacher had me cook them with a large sprig of mint in the vast cauldron of boiling salted water and I must say they were the best boiled potatoes ever! Today I made a pork pie with "gentle spices" – don’t you love that terminology? I do. I also made some mocha sandwich cookies. I chose to make these for the most part because my hubby likes mochas and I thought he might like these if I made them. We’ll see what he thinks but I think they’ll be a big hit… I also helped the teachers again by roasting the leftover boiled potatoes from yesterday in olive oil, seasoned with fresh rosemary. yum.

We have the afternoon off before the barbeque courses start in the morning. We are the only ones doing the next course from the 56 who just did the Rachel Allen’s Favorite food course, http://www.rachelallen.co.uk  &, as a result, our cottage is empty ’til tomorrow. So We hopped in the car & went to nearby Midelton and got mom knitting needles. After her nap she can start knitting with the wool skeins she got 2 weeks ago in the Aran islands. I was given my pork pie from this mornings cooking session to take to our cottage for dinner so we are set for the evening.

the weather is superb right now. absolutely perfect, too bad everyone’s gone home.

that’s all for now. love Karen