the sweet salt

Along with getting my cheese groove on, this weekend has been filled with more exploring, relaxing, eating and sleeping. And “studying” (read drinking) wine with the lovely Tess and Kate. I also got in a good (daylight!) run around the Shanagarry area, including around the Ballymaloe farm and along the beach.

Here’s a summary of week 2 in numbers:

• Piglets born at the Ballymaloe Farm – 8

• Piglets captured on camera – 0 (those wee cuties are evading me)

• Jersey cows on the Ballymaloe farm – 7

• Litres of milk a cow will give a day – 14

• Litres of milk a cow will give if hormones or other intensive farming methods are used – 28 (!)

• Litres of milk a goat will give a day – 3-4

• Litres of milk a sheep will give a day – 2

• Amount of the good bacterias lactobacillus and streptococcus thermophilus found in naturally produced yoghurt –  1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or something)

• Times I’ve thought / talked about / eaten or made cheese or another diary related product – probably 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

• Amount of lemon juice to add to (whole) milk if one needs to make buttermilk – 1 tbsp lemon to 225 mls milk

• Cheeses made – 1

• Time until my cheese is ready to eat – 11.6 weeks (and counting!)

• Guinness’s drunk – 0 (I seem to be in a red wine phase. For “studying” purposes perhaps)

• Official tastings of wine – 4 (including hardly-worth-it low-alcohol wine, a Sauvignon Blanc, a Bourgogne (pinot noir) and a Juracon a desert wine

• Unofficial tastings of wine – don’t ask

• Taste buds in your throat – 0 (hence why a lot of acclaimed wine critics never swallow, but use the spittoon)

• Times I’ve used the spittoon – 0

• Excise duty on a standard bottle of still wine in Ireland – €3.19 (This is high! The highest in the EU in fact, compared with €0.03 in France)

• Cost per kg of Irish cod (whole) – €6.80

• Cost per kg of Irish cod (fillets)  – €19.10

• Value in learning to fillet your own fish – definitely worth it

• Items of Burleigh pottery bought from Ballymaloe House – 3 (and counting….)

• Blue plasters – 0 (long may this continue)

• Burns – 0 (ditto)

• Varieties of fresh garden herbs memorised – 1 (still room for improvement Fi)

• Kilograms of sugar added to my marmalade – 1.6 (!)

• Time spent peeling Jerusalem artichokes – 32 minutes too many

Over and out for another week

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