Darina Allen Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everybody. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe. I'm your host, Kerry Diamond coming to you from Brooklyn, New York. I am very excited about today's show because my guest is none other than food world legend Darina Allen.
Darina is the co-founder of the world famous Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland. She has authored 21 cookbooks, including her latest Darina Allen: How to Cook. She is a champion of the slow food movement, and she believes passionately that children should be taught both how to cook and where their food comes from. Also, Darina helped popularize the idea of farmers markets in Ireland. She shares that story with us and how it includes another culinary superstar, Marcella Hazan.
I'm thrilled to catch up with Darina because I have not seen her since 2019 when I took my first trip to Ireland and visited Ballymaloe, which includes a 100 acre organic farm. It was such a beautiful day and Ballymaloe is such a beautiful place, I was actually moved to tears.
Today's show is presented by Kerrygold, the makers of beautiful butter and cheese made with milk from Irish grass fed cows. There we go, speaking of Ireland, we'll hear more from Kerrygold in just a moment.
A little housekeeping; the latest issue of Cherry Bombe magazine is here. It's issue 18, and it is a celebration of beautiful baked goods. We have six different covers for you to choose from including video superstar, Claire Saffitz and Zoe Francois of the TV show. Zoe Bakes. Zoe was actually with me on that trip to Ireland. How about that? Visit cherrybombe.com to see all the covers and to find a shop near you that carries our magazine.
Speaking of baking, check out our holiday brunch club video series with Free People. We love the Free People people. First up is baker Caroline Schiff, who was just on Radio Cherry Bombe a few weeks ago. I hope you all caught that episode. You can watch Caroline's how to video and get her recipe for her sage, maple and aged cheddar scones on cherrybombe.com.
Now let's hear a quick word from Kerrygold and we'll be right back with Darina Allen of Ballymaloe.
Kerrygold Commercial:
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Kerry Diamond:
Darina Allen, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Darina Allen:
Ah-ha, I feel I've arrived.
Kerry Diamond:
You feel you've arrived. I'm so honored, you have no idea.
Darina Allen:
Well, hello, mutual admiration club here. Good.
Kerry Diamond:
How are things at Ballymaloe?
Darina Allen:
Well, good. It's been quite the rollercoaster, hasn't it, for the last couple of years? We're just keeping on, keeping on, but at the moment, Ireland has come out of this really last three months of lockdown. Ballymaloe House, the country house, hotel and restaurant, that's been back in business for a couple of months now and super busy.
Then here at the cooking school, we're a cooking school and organic farm and garden, even though we have to close the cooking school in the initial lockdown in week 10 of a 12 week course, and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth and the students were heartbroken, not to be able to finish the course.
But anyway, in the toughest times of lockdown, we still kept on 19 of our wonderful team here. All of our gardeners and our farming team stayed on.
Basically we had a farm shop here on the farm, where, as you may know, the cooking school is right down on the south coast of Ireland, I'll paint a little picture for you, quite close to the sea. The little fishing village of Ballycotton is only two miles from us. The school is in the middle of a hundred acre organic farm garden. At that time, it was March. We desperately needed to sow seeds. The teachers who stayed on, they cooked for the farm shop. We expanded the farm shop because the two essential services which were allowed to stay open at that time, of course, were anything to do with food or to do with medicine.
We expanded the farm shop to feed the local community who were at that time, it was a 5K, and that was as far as you could travel, 5K, from your home. The teachers cooked and expanded the range of things there, not just normally our organic vegetables and fruit and the milk from our little micro dairy. I'm a dairy farmer. I've got nine Jersey cows. The proper dairy farmers would think I'm a joke. But anyway, we do have all of our milk and we make our own butter and cheese and yogurt.
We had all of that lovely crusty and natural sourdough bread coming out of the bread shed every day. Of course, the hens were laying and all of that sort of thing, none of that stopped during COVID. We continued all of that. The teachers who weren't cooking for the shop went down onto the farm and they helped sow the seeds and plant the plants and vice versa. They learned new skills.
I can tell you, they learned a greater appreciation for farmers and from the food producers and gardeners. When you see what goes into producing food, there's nothing like sowing a seed and waiting for it to grow into something delicious to eat, and then you realize how long it takes to grow a bunch of carrots or beets or something. After that, every time you see a farmer, you want to give them a hug and you never complain about the price of food again. The other wonderful thing is you won't want to waste a scrap.
Kerry Diamond:
Darina, I'd love to go back to the beginning and hear a little bit about your childhood. I know your mom did the cooking, tell us what she was cooking.
Darina Allen:
I'm 73 at this stage, but I'm very lucky to still have lots of energy, however long that's going to last. But anyway, I'm the eldest of a big Irish family, a family of nine. My mother loved to cook. She loved, loved, loved to cook, and she was a very good home cook. We had our own kitchen garden. We had our own hens, of course. We went to school at the local school literally down the hill in the village.
I always remember that we looked forward to every meal and we thought that was everybody's norm, really. Also a lot of children, of course, going the school in the village, would've brought a little school lunch with them, a little sandwich or something, but mommy had got permission from the headmaster for us to run back up the hill for lunch every day. Again, I didn't even think about that all years later, but now I realize how fortunate we were because we had lovely a nourishing, delicious, bubbly stew or something lovely for lunch every day. A simple, homely, gorgeous real food, and all was always a dessert. It might stewed up lemon custard or it could be rhubarb or gooseberries, or something in season, or a pie or something.
Now I realize that, I touch what I suppose, we were all living on inherited good health, and to a certain extent what we ate, but how fortunate was I to been brought up on this really delicious nourishing food before any of us even talked about food, if you know what I mean. In the winter, she'd make us lovely steamed puddings and at Christmas, there were special things, at Easter and the whole year. Of course at that stage, needless to say, all the food was seasonal food. It was the food of the area.
Kerry Diamond:
Sadly, when you were a child, your dad passed when you were young and you were sent to boarding school. I had read that you had some very progressive nuns who were running the boarding school. Can you tell us about that?
Darina Allen:
Yes. My father actually died and was a very heavy smoker at a time when I think people didn't quite realize how dangerous smoking was. He died when I was 14, but I was already at boarding school since I was 11, because at that stage, if there wasn't a very good school near you, you would go to boarding school.
I was educated by lovely Dominican Sisters, and they were considered and indeed were, very progressive nuns, very visionary nuns. This is in the early '60s now, before maybe your parents were born. They were encouraging us. It was all girls, of course, in that school, to have a proper career, to do law, to do the sciences, to do medicine, to do architecture, whatever.
Of course, I knew nothing about any of that, all I knew about was really growing or cooking. I loved cooking because it was always going on. You can imagine with nine of us in our kitchen at home, there was all always cooking going on. When we tidied up from one meal, it was time to almost start to cook for another. I loved cooking. I got that from my mother without any conversations about it, really.
Then also loved gardening. My mother and both my grandfathers loved the gardens. We had, as I said, a kitchen garden. In fact, also one of the men in the yard helped her to rear chickens for the table and all of that. You can imagine how I thought this was the norm. Anyway, it was wonderful.
Anyway, then it came to, of course, at the end of my five years in, the Dominicans in County Wicklow, and, "What to do, what to do?" The nuns, as I explained to you, were very much encouraging us girls to have a career. Now you might say, "Well, of course, they were in their '60s, many people ... " Actually honestly, at the height of my ambition to at that stage really was I wanted to do something and get a job, and then it was just to pass the time until I found a nice chap, preferably with a bit of money.
Kerry Diamond:
The truth comes out.
Darina Allen:
I would sweep him off his feet and then we'd have two cute little kids and go on and paint my nails and all that. That was about the height of my ambition, but the nuns were having none of that. Anyway, I said that I really wanted to cook. I wanted to learn how to cook. Now again, this is at a time when to say that chefs and cooks had no status is an understatement. You just never heard about a chef or a cook. It was long before the celebrity chef thing. Basically even worse than that then, men were chefs and women, you couldn't get into a top restaurant kitchen or whatever. Anyway, that was a real problem.
Of course, the nuns drew themselves up to their full height. I said that I just would like to either cook or garden. I remember one little nun, and she was quite small, and she joined herself up to her full height with her nose in the air, she said, "Well, you're never going to need that, my dear. You're going to be a career woman and you're going to have own cook and someone to do your grounds and your gardens," and all that.
Anyway, I persisted, much to their disappointment. They said, "Well okay, if you insist, then it must be a degree in horticulture or it must be either a degree in horticulture or else hotel management." Anyway, I had to opt for one or the other. I then decided to do hotel management, and I applied and got into eventually, only on the second count, I got into the Cathal Brugha Street in Dublin, which was a very, very good hotel school in Dublin, which is now DIT.
But anyway, I ended up then, years later, marrying a farmer and horticulturists, so bow I have both. Anyway, I was very fortunate, but anyway, I went to Cathal Brugha Street. Now at the end of that management course again, dilemma, "What to do now?"
Basically the sort of thing you would aspire to having done a management course, was to be an assistant manager in one of the top hotels in Dublin or London or whatever. Off you'd go, and you'd have a lovely little uniform and a little badge saying your name and assistant manager. But anyway, I wasn't interested in that at all. I just wanted to cook.
Everybody else in my class had a job and I remember quite close to the end of the course, there were only 20 something in my class at that time. Now there would be 400. Basically, one of the senior tutors met me in the corridor one day and she said, "Haven't you got a job yet? Why don't you have a job? Everybody else in your class has a job." I told her what I wanted, and I really wanted to cook and I couldn't get into the Rustler, or whatever, and I wanted to learn.
I had a fixation about homemade cream and souffles and the sort of things that sounded so wonderful and exotic in the '60s. I wanted to learn more about fresh herbs as well, because I knew about parsley, and gosh, imagine this, I knew about parsley, I think I knew about thyme and maybe chives, basil, it was 20 years before I knew about basil.
Moraman was the name, and I remember the distinctive name of this professor, and she told me I was far too fussy, but anyway, she said, "Funny," she said, "Can't you be like the rest of them? Why can't you be like the rest of them?" Anyway, she said, "But funny, I was at a dinner the other night and they were talking about woman, this extraordinary woman down in Cork. She's a farmer's wife. They seem to have opened a restaurant in their own house. It's a great big house right at a farm right out in the country. The avenue is miles long," but she said, "You're from the country. Perhaps you'd like that."
She said, "They have their own Jersey herd, so I know she makes her own homemade ice cream from the Jersey cream and have their own pigs, so they have their own pork. They big walled garden. She writes the menu every day, depending on what's in the garden. They're close to the sea. There's a little fishing village down there called Ballycotton. She just writes the menu and puts whatever fish she can get on the menu every day." I couldn't believe my ears. It was ticking all the boxes; the ice cream, the herbs, the everything else.
Kerry Diamond:
It sounded like heaven to you, Darina?
Darina Allen:
It sounded like heaven to me. Anyway, she couldn't remember her name, but she said, "Look, if you'd like, I'll go and ask my friend." Now, by the way, all of that was in incredulous tones, because this is actually at a time when nobody opened a restaurant out in the country, to say the very least of it. But apart from that, when restaurants opened, the chef wrote the menu and it could be the same 10 years later. The idea of writing a menu every day and feeding people the sort of food that you might serve to your family and friends was unheard of.
Kerry Diamond:
What was Ballymaloe like when you arrived?
Darina Allen:
Oh, Ballymaloe was very similar to what it is now, really, in many ways; a big old country house that has been added to at many times. Part of it was Georgian. In fact, the earliest part is 14th century. It's a Geraldine castle, which, that part of it is not derelict now, the castle is still there, but it's not used as a bedroom or anything.
Then of course, I arrived. It was very quiet at that time. I arrived on the 15th of June, I think, of that year. There were no guests staying. Actually, the first person I met was Timmy, because I remember when we were driving up this interminable avenue, it was quite long avenue, because you see years ago, great houses or big houses, it was very fashionable to have a big long avenue, the longer your avenue is, that was a status thing.
But anyway, we drove up. Then I walked in and there didn't seem to be anybody in the hotel. It was very celestial, really. I'd seen some people playing golf, just a couple of people playing at what looked like the beginning of a golf course, as we drove up by the side of the avenue. As we were going out, thinking, "There's nobody here, that's it, basically, this funny looking, longhaired fellow with long hair at a time, again, that was super cool, the very first of the long hair for men, and then shorts and bare feet ran up and he said, "Are you the person who's coming to help us?" It was also lovely in many ways. Anyway, that was Timmy. I thought he's cute, but he was smaller than me at that stage and he's younger than me, but it was more apparent at that stage. He was 20 when we got married and I was 21. He grew about two inches after we got married. He'd murder me for saying that, but anyway.
Kerry Diamond:
So your first meeting, you did not think, "This is the man I will marry,"?
Darina Allen:
Well, no, but I did think he was, as you would now say, cute. But anyway, and he had one girlfriend after the other all summer. Then in the winter, there was nobody else, much around.
Kerry Diamond:
So you got there and you basically never left.
Darina Allen:
I got there and I never left. That's absolutely true.
Kerry Diamond:
How would you have described Irish cuisine back then? Was that even a term that anyone would've used?
Darina Allen:
I'm not sure people would've thought of Irish and cuisine in the same thing. Well, people really knew then that you had to feed yourself as well as possible to try and build up your immune system against colds and flu, and I don't even know, because there were viruses then.
Farming groups from Europe and all over Ireland and the UK used to come to see the farm. Occasionally then, they would always, of course, offer hospitality and sometimes lunch and everything. At one stage then, the editor of the Irish Farmers Journal, which is in wide circulation in the farming industry here in Ireland, and was in practically every house and every parish in the country, he asked Myrtle, he said, "That was a lovely lunch you cooked, Ms. Myrtle.Wwould you ever start writing a column, a farmer's wife writing for farmer's wives?" She wrote in the farmer's journal for many, many years, and it's like a wonderful social diary of food in Ireland.
Also at that time in Ireland, Myrtle had traveled a bit, much more now than many other farmers' wives, but also she totally knew, as I said, she believed in the quality of produce that we had in Ireland, but the rest of us all had an incredible inferiority complex, certainly. A lot of Irish food was shocking, really shocking.
Kerry Diamond:
How so?
Darina Allen:
Well, just it was all boiled meat and boiled vegetables, boiled to death and nothing particularly exciting. Basically, as a whole, as a country, we had an inferiority complex about Ireland and Irish produce and Irish this and Irish that. We were sure that what you had in America, certainly, and even in the UK, had to be more exciting than what we had here. Actually that now, of course, has changed a lot. Ireland is now a very confident nation, highly educated young people traveling a lot, all that kind of thing.
I've had a couple of Eureka moments in my life and one of them was actually around this whole thing. Local, of course, when I was a child, it was pretty much a derogatory term. There was one other little shop in the village, Mrs. Freeman, if somebody bought in some surplus eggs or apples from their orchard or something to sell, people would expect to buy them for less because they were local. Anyway, keep that thought in your head.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Darina Allen:
Off I go to Italy. Before I started the cooking school, and I started the Ballymaloe cooking school in 1983, but basically I went off to Italy actually to learn about Italian food. I went to lovely Marcella Hazan. Can you imagine? Anyway, I went along and during that, we went, at one stage, the Rialto market in Florence. Basically, I notice, and I'd been told about the produce in Italy, wonderful fruit and vegetables and fish and everything, and the whole inference was that it was 20 times better than what we had in Ireland.
And anyway, I went along, and there were all these beautiful stores piled high with everything, peaches and tomatoes. I noticed that often in the stalls, there could two different things on the stall; it might be two lots of peaches, two lots of tomatoes, and one lot was always more expensive than the other. The one where they were more expensive always had a little label on it. Now, if you speak Italian, you know what this is, but anyway, the little label on saying, "Nostrana," or "Nostrale." I thought, "Where is this wonderful place, Nostrana and Nostale where all the best things come from?"
I was trying to ask, and no Italian, the impatient store owners because they're sick and tired of tourists trying to ask them questions and take photographs and not buy anything. Eventually one of them did try to understand what I was saying. I said, "Where is this place where all the best things come from?" He said, "It's not a place. It means it comes from the lagoon." I said, "Well, why the lagoon?" He said, "It's local." I said, "Well, if it's local, why is it more expensive?" He said to me, "It's fresher. It's better. It's local, it's in season."
Kerry Diamond:
And it took you going to Italy to have that light bulb moment?
Darina Allen:
It took me going to Italy and it was like [inaudible 00:23:56]. Of course, it's better. It's fresher. Of course, the Italians have it right. Every time I came back, I told everybody for months about that. Of course, later on in that trip, actually, Marcella Hazan had been talking about this wonderful fish dinner we would have in her hometown called Cesenatico on the Adriatic, where this wonderful fish and shellfish came from, and I lived beside Ballycotton.
Anyway, I again, was all prepared for this amazing difference in taste. We sat down and when supper came, and I remember the name of the restaurant still, it was called La Gambera and I'm sure I'm making mess of that pronunciation. I think that's prawn or shrimp or something. And anyway, then the fish came and the shellfish, and I tasted it and I thought, "oh my God, this is very good, but what we get from Ballycotton, the summer place in Ballycotton is miles better than this." I thought that what Myrtle said all along about the quality of the produce we have in Ireland, we don't realize how good it is. That was my second light bulb moment. I came back, and I remember saying to Timmy, "The answer to trying to keep a roof over our heads," and this is at a time when the bottom was falling out of farming, " ... Is under our feet."
Kerry Diamond:
Could you tell us what you learned from Marcella? Did you two cook together?
Darina Allen:
Well, basically, Marcella, I think was the first person to actually do those kind of holiday cooking things where you went to the markets and then to the cheese maker and wine maker, etcetera. Anyway. Marcella did not suffer fools loudly, as you know, and she was fantastic. I loved her. She'd have a cigarette. She'd be stirring the pot with one hand and a cigarette in the other. Now this is all during cooking. Then there was a lovely bottle of Jack Daniels quite close by. I loved Marcella and I went back to film with her years later actually.
Well, of course, one of the main things I wanted learn was how to make fresh pasta. Marcella, she was so funny, there was only one right way of doing something. I remember it must have been, I certainly hadn't seen them in Ireland, but the magic mixes, not magic mixes, but Food Places series must have just come on stream in America at that time. I remember I was the only non-American on the course and there about 10 of us. She couldn't understand where she got Irish farmer's wife. I didn't even have the cooking skills at that time. I was an Irish farmer's wife and still am, but basically there was no more to it. I wasn't a food writer or anything, but they were intrigued as they thought I was some kind of spy or something because there had to be more to it.
I was like the teachers pet in some ways, because they would either victor or Marcella herself, would ask me to sit this beside them virtually every night and I think they were determined to get to the bottom of what they thought was intrigue. God, I've forgotten what the question was that you asked me.
Kerry Diamond:
Just what you had learned from Marcella.
Darina Allen:
Yes. Basically, I can't remember. There was something else I was going to tell you that I learned. Oh yes, I remember there was one unfortunate as student who had the temerity to ask her if they could make pesto in a food processor, because of course, she made pesto pounding it into a pestle and mortar. Well, my goodness, did that person get a telling off. In the end, this girl said, "Well, these are the machines of future," blah, blah, blah, and all of this. Marcella was having none of it. She just about to agree that she could put the basil and the pine nuts and things into the food processor, but there was no question of folding in the cheese. You had to pour that into a bowl and then fold in the cheese.
To this day, I'm teaching students how to make from our own beautiful basil. I think that was the first time I came across basil, actually, as well. It was on that trip to Italy. Any time that I'm teaching students, I tell them this story, and I insist they fold in the beautiful grated Parmesan into the cheese because she used to say it was oil otherwise. I could see Marcella sitting on my shoulder and I'd feel she would appear to if I, under any circumstances, put the Parmesan into the food processor.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh. Darina, that is so funny because there's a Canadian TV show that became really popular in America called Schitt's Creek. It's spelled S-C-H-I-T-T'S about this very wealthy family that falls on hard times and they have to move to the small town. One of the funniest and most famous episodes, there's a scene about folding in the cheese and the mother's trying to teach the son who has never touched anything in a kitchen, how to cook. She's like, "And then you fold in the cheese," and he's like, "You what?" She's like, "Fold in the cheese," and they have this hilarious conversation about what it means to fold in the cheese. I'm going to send you the video clip.
Darina Allen:
Oh, I'd love that.
Kerry Diamond:
Now I read that you started the first farmer's markets in Ireland. So is that true?
Darina Allen:
If you asked me of all the bits and pieces I've been involved in over the years, and I've been involved in a lot of different things, and wat is thing that I got the most satisfaction or feel proudest of, if you want to put it that way, and it's actually having started or restarted the farmer's markets in Ireland. When people come to Ireland do visit, there's a wonderful, what we call the English markets and it's a covered market. It's open for six days a week there in the middle of Cork City.
Anyway, we started out the farmer's market there, and then a number of years later, I set up one in Middleton and then now there're 160 or 170 farmers markets. Basically, it's just so many farmers have told me that they would not be still on the land if it wasn't for the farmers markets, that they can sell their food direct, particularly small farmers.
I remember I wrote about it in the Farmer's Journal that we mentioned earlier, about this terrific new thing, movement in America. So many of the best things start in America. So many things, the arts and breweries and the arts and bakeries because you are further down the road in desperation than we are. Don't misunderstand that now, but basically because you had processed food before we had, and you saw the effect of that on people's health, then when with the beers, it was so bloody awful, you couldn't drink it. The arts and breweries started when the bread got so awful, you couldn't eat it. I think it was Acme Bakery that might have been the first one. Basically, human nature fights back.
Many of the best things I learned from America. I wrote in the Farmer's Journal about this great new movement that was in America, these farmers markets. It could be part of a solution for many farmers who are finding it very tough, because the whole cheap food policy, you remember, had kicked in at that stage.
Actually, after that letter suggesting that farmers got together and set up farmers markets around the country and all of that, I actually got hate mail.
Kerry Diamond:
No.
Darina Allen:
I remember getting it and I wish I kept this letter. Maybe it's somewhere in the archives, but anyway, I got this letter from this furious farmer who was outraged and he said, "How dare you insult us by saying we should set up a stall on the side of the street on our knees?" You see the problem was because of our history in Ireland, that sort of thing was raw because basically people really felt that if you set up a stall beside the street, it meant you were almost in desperation. That was not well received at that time.
I remember years later, the farmers markets then, people would come and see our farmers market and it was really vibrant and the farmers and all sorts of producers selling wonderful food and everything. People came to look at it and people came from abroad, television crews came to film it, radio stations, so it became quite a talking point. Lots of farmers markets set up.
Then about 10 later, I wrote almost an identical article for the Farmers Journal, and the next time I said, "I can give you a little kit of how to set up a farmers market, free and everything," because I was so anxious for this to spread. The next time, there was a much more positive response to it. People had realized that it's not the solution for everybody, but it can be a part of a solution. It's so convivial and the local community is so grateful when people in the community decide to set up a farmers market.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you meet Alice Waters on that trip?
Darina Allen:
Oh, I can't remember which trip now.
Kerry Diamond:
You two are certainly kindred spirits.
Darina Allen:
Yeah. That it was either on that first trip or it could have been on earlier trips that I met Alice. Gosh, we're like soul sisters in a way. She's a teeny bit older than me, but she looks a heck of a lot better, she always looks so glamorous, Alice. Of course, I love Alice. We've been friends many, many years. Of course, you can imagine we're on the same page about a lot of things and so inspired by her edible schoolyard project as well. Gosh, although we're in touch, I haven't met her for over two years now.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about the cookery school. You used the word desperation a little earlier. People might not realize this, but the cookery school at Ballymaloe was opened out of desperation. Can you tell us that story?
Darina Allen:
Totally, it was. Desperation is a wonderful thing. When your back is against the wall, it's amazing what you can come up with. We got married in 1970 and then Ireland went into the EU in 1973, the European Union in 1973. That was a period of great change. The labor cost started to rise so there was this tidal wave of regulations that started to pour in from the EU about food grading and all kinds of things.
Then there was the oil crisis, towards the end of the 1970s and early '80s, there was an incredible recession in Ireland and there was the oil crisis. There was 25% inflation. We were heating five acres of greenhouses with oil. These were greenhouses that actually needed quite an investment. We used to export tomatoes, mushrooms, all of that. We were heating them with oil and the price of oil went up 400% in one year. As I said, labor costs started to rise. There was this incredible inflation and then the whole cheap food policy kicked in.
In other words, any farmer or food producers, it got worse and more ever since, but would suddenly realize that we're getting less for the produce every year, rather than more. All the time, there was this pressure to cut costs and all of that so that everybody could have cheap food. The whole cheap food thing is probably the greatest disaster in health terms and socioeconomic terms and it's not just in Ireland, it's all over the world.
Of course, everybody deserves and needs to have healthy wholesome food. It doesn't have to be expensive, but basically what's happened is that in this whole race to make food cheaper and cheaper, the food is less and less nutritious all the time. You can see that on the vitamin and mineral tables. It's terrifying. We're very lucky now if a lot of the food is even vegetables and fruit and everything has 50% of the nutrients in it than it used to have in the 1950s.
This is to make food cheap at all costs. It's a myth, there's no such thing as cheap food. It's far too expensive in health terms and socioeconomic terms. Basically, as taxpayers, we're paying for it, four or five times over, but in our taxes, we're paying for it to provide subsidies to back up a totally unsustainable food system. It's been seen to be so, we have COP going on in Glasgow at the moment, trying to do something about our responsibility to respond to the climate change and all of the things that have led to that, but basically all of these things.
Oh yeah. I was talking about cheap foods. Anyway, as taxpayers, we pay for it to provide the subsidies to back up that obviously unsustainable system. We need to fund the health service, to clean up the water, to clean up the environment, etcetera. We're paying for it five times over, really. There are several people like the Sustainable Food Trust. I think the Rodale Institute over in Europe, the Savory Institute have all done research on what they call true cost accounting, the real price of food. It's about five times what we pay for it on the shelves.
All of these things, it was like a perfect storm. All of these things happened. We were getting less for our produce than we had for years and years. I remember at one stage, we used to deal with the wholesalers. We used sell our produce to the wholesalers in Cork. That's how it was done. Somebody said, "Forget about the wholesalers. The supermarkets are the thing of the future." We were delighted. We got a contract with one of the big Irish supermarkets, which is still here, lots and lots of branches, because they were getting criticism because they had no Irish apples. We sent our lovely apples into them, beautifully graded. We had a big grading house and everything.
I remember we made a contract, of course, and a deal and all of that. Then somehow, we never seemed to be paid quite what we had agreed. Oftentimes, they would send back some, if they found a little bruise on an apple or something. Everything was really carefully graded. This was not a Mickey Mouse operation here. Then I remember this went on and on. Then suddenly we began to realize this was not just an accidental thing. It looked like it was actually policy, and well now, of course, we know that it's policy.
Anyway, I remember at one stage, my husband arriving in and coming back from Cork and we would've breakfast. I'd sent off the children to school and we'd have breakfast together every day when he came back from Cork. I remember he walked in through the kitchen door, and I can still see him, looking even more despondent than ever. He said to me, "I don't care if I have to crawl on my knees, I'm never doing that again. We have to find a different way to earn a living." We're a young married couple at that stage, we had three, if not, four children, and we basically were absolutely looking at the possibility of losing the roof over our heads.
We've been in inherited this lovely 100 acre farm plus a lovely house from my parents-in-law that said, quite rightly, "Well, now you get on with it and keep a roof over your heads." We were very, very much in danger of losing the roof over our heads. We had to look at what talents we had and what resources we had between us. We were young and we had energy, no money, and see how we could earn living.
If you'll remember back quite a long time in the conversation, my only ambition was actually to find a nice chap. I didn't want to be any kind of career woman. Anyway, we looked to see. I often joke that he put me out to work. I could cook and I loved to cook. And at that stage, I'd actually with Myrtle, I had been helping Myrtle to give some cooking classes in the winter when Ballymaloe would be quiet in winter. Myrtle, again, in so many ways, a pioneer, had started to give cooking classes and I was helping her. I thought maybe I could give some cooking classes.
By the way, I come from a long line of mad women. Myrtle, by that stage, by the way, had decided to open a restaurant in Paris called La Ferme Mondez as a shop window for Irish food in Paris because she knew how much our French guests at Ballymaloe loved the food at Ballymaloe. So basically she decided this is a shop window for Ireland, which had an appalling reputation for food at that time. She would open on [Place Marche San Tinora 00:40:33] or right in the center of chic-chic Paris. She'd been giving cooking classes, we'd been giving cooking classes for, I suppose, the two previous winters. She was then going off to Paris, in and out of Ballymaloe and Paris.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait. Myrtle actually opens that place in Paris?
Darina Allen:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, I totally missed this story.
Darina Allen:
It was for seven or eight years. It was written up in the New York Times, this extraordinary thing about this farmer's wife opening a restaurant in Paris and all the Parisians queuing around the corner.
Kerry Diamond:
It sounds like it should be a TV show on HBO or something.
Darina Allen:
Incredible. Anyway, people were still looking for cooking classes and Myrtle was doing this. Myrtle said, "Look, why don't you go ahead do some cooking classes?" I said, "Nobody will ever come and see me. They don't know my name or anything." Of course, they totally didn't. But then we were in desperation, so I started and gave a series of cooking classes on Saturday mornings. We tied our rusty reno around the back while all the lovely ladies in Mantinoti who rode in Cork, who would've been guests of Ballymaloe, came to the cooking classes.
I must say, they were so wonderful. I was terrified giving my first class on my own. But then with anything in life, if you have a go and you get over the first thing, well, that gives you a bit of confidence to go on. Then we did that, and then I remember a friend of mine in Dublin, a tour guide girl said to me, "Well look, why don't you think about everybody, all our friends and everybody," and Ivan and Myrtle were desperate for us to find some way to earn a living. I remember this lovely friend of mine, Paulina Kennedy said, "Well, look, why don't you think about being a residential cooking school?"
I thought nobody would ever come to a cooking school in the middle of the country. What would they do and everything? But anyway, desperation. We decided we'd borrow some money and convert some of the farm buildings, a little part of our farm buildings in our yard. We were very fortunate. We had some farm buildings, and I'm not sure what you call them in America, around our little coach at the back of our house. We converted that into little cooking school and opened in September of 1983 with nine students. You'd be waiting for the phone to ring. It was exciting.
Then after 10 years, we were bursting at the seams, so we doubled in size. It's still a small school, we now take a maximum 60 something students. We've always had one teacher with every six students so we have a very high teacher/student ratios. The students literally, from the second year, I had my first American student and the students come literally from all over the world. We've had people from Yukon territory, from Japan, all from Indonesia, from China, from all over Europe, etcetera. It's very cosmopolitan. I have to tell you, this place is better than Tinder any day, basically, because there's so many wonderful romances and our babes are scattered all over the world.
Kerry Diamond:
So many incredible alumni. Can you tell us about some of the chefs who were alums?
Darina Allen:
Ah, well, my goodness, they're all over the place really, and doing all kinds of fun things. They're in New York, you're in Manhattan, aren't you? Do you know the girls at King?
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely.
Darina Allen:
I just love their food and super proud of them, I have to say. I just love, love, love their food. Right from Tokyo of course, London, Tommy Mars and then Tilda McKenna on and on and on. Lots of them have done television as well. Rachel, my daughter-in-law, was a student originally, Rachel Allen, of course. She also does television and writes tons of books. I think 35 or six of them at this stage have written best-selling cookbooks.
A lot of them are doing artisan bakeries. I encourage them all and I say to them, "You must look out for a strong farmer with a combine harvester with lots of land so you can grow your own vegetables and have your own hens and orchards and all the rest." We have great fun.
I often get a photograph from somebody when eventually, they can keep two hens and even in Brooklyn, I think, there are people with backyard chickens, but anyway, they send me a photograph of their chickens when they collect their first eggs,
Kerry Diamond:
Darina, let's talk about the holidays. What is Ballymaloe like in the month of December?
Darina Allen:
At Christmas, oh my goodness, an amazing buildup to Christmas, of course. I remember Christmases from when I was a child and the buildup was over several months, but on Christmas day, very often many members of the Allen family get together in Ballymaloe house or Christmas day, because on Christmas, we close for a few days over Christmas. We often sit down 55 to 60 people and they would be family and children, grandchildren, and indeed for that matter, Myrtle's great grandchildren in Ballymaloe.
It's fantastic. It's a great big house. The children, of course, adore being there because the whole place is closed and then they can play all the country house games. They slide down the stairs on trays and land on a mattress at the bottom of the thing. They play the wacko game and the there another game called sardines. There are all these kind of country house games they play.
Then a huge Christmas tree and lots of presents and roast Turkey and often there's goose, as well, but always a traditional Christmas with the plum pudding and a trifle and all the Christmas trimmings. Then everybody has a job. Everybody, down to the smallest child will have some little job, maybe putting the napkins on the thing, putting out the crackers. Then the boys usually get jobs and they wash up at the end. Everything, lots would be prepared on the day before, the stuffing or what you call the dressing, and cranberry sauce. All of that's prepared, but everybody joins in the fun of the preparation so that it's not all on one person. Then we always have a lovely hugging session for the cooks and all of that.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you cook or does the family give you a break during the holidays?
Darina Allen:
Well, we cook. Oh no, we all cook, we all love cooking, but actually sometimes in fact, in our particular family, and it hasn't happened for the last few years, but because my children and grandchildren live so close to us, sometimes they go to their other grandparents for Christmas and we have to share out our grandchildren with them. Sometimes we fully celebrate Christmas on about the 18th of December with the tree, the Christmas presents all of that, a whole Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and everything, all the children dressed up in the little velvet frocks and this, that and the other.
Well, Santa Claus doesn't come, he comes on Christmas Eve. We celebrate this full family Christmas on the 18th of December, and then when it comes to Christmas, they actually either have Christmas at Ballymaloe house, as we mentioned, the country house hotel, which is closed on Christmas except for the family. Then we go sometimes to India or Mexico or whatever, Tim and I have celebrated Christmas in all sorts of places. When I go to India, I bring them a Christmas cake and a plum pudding and all the rest of it, make mince pies over there, as well. Yeah, we've lots of variations on Christmas. I'm not sure exactly what's going to happen this year yet at this point.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned a few things I want to go back to, to explain for our audience. You said crackers. You're not talking about the kind of crackers that we put cheese on.
Darina Allen:
It's a little cylinder and then it's wrapped in foil with two little bits coming out of the end. Two people, one takes one end of the cracker and one takes the other and you pull. Inside, there's this sort of little banger, which it makes a little flashy noise, and then there'll be some little trinket or something inside in the cracker and always a paper hat, you see, a jolly paper hat so everybody's in a jolly mood, and always this corny Christmas cracker joke.
Oh my goodness, they're terribly important. You're not really meant to pull them, at least we wait until the end of the meal, but of course the minute the children sit down, they all pull their crackers and steal all the grownups' crackers so it's all bedlam. but anyway. That's all part of the fun.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned a Christmas cake. What is a Christmas cake?
Darina Allen:
Now a Christmas cake in Ireland is changing a little bit now, but always a Christmas cake when I was a child, every house would make a Christmas cake and it would be quite a rich fruit cake. It was made usually three or four weeks before Christmas.
Now actually, if we go back right to me being brought up in a country village, in a grocery store with a post office and so on, well, I remember distinctly around Christmas, local people who had some of their family, many of the Irish people emigrated to America and the UK, and we used to call them the Yanks, for some reason, here, when they'd come back.
Well, people would be waiting for weeks before Christmas watching the postman to see if a parcel came. It would have been their family, that a parcel came from the Yanks, they would send maybe it would be presents, but very often with the dried fruits and the sultanas and raisins and whatever, the makings of the cake as they call it. Then when people got that, they would make the cake.
This was a very important thing. It would've been a very luxurious thing at a time when people had very few luxuries. You keep a few eggs to put in the cake and then people would a bit in, which is an illicit Irish spirit or some whiskey on it. And always, we as children, mommy would decide when she was making a Christmas cake, we would all gather around and take the little stones out of the muscatel raisins and chop the cherries and all the rest of it and help her to stir it and to cream the butter and everything.
Of course, we were all learning how to make a cake without realizing it. We were learning that skill, and the same with the plum pudding. Of course, there was always a tradition that everybody in the family stirred the cake. That was it, and did the plum pudding. Then we made a wish and you'd close your eyes really tight, and think about what you wanted Santa Claus to bring you. The Christmas cake was cooked and then it would be wrapped up, have some more whiskey poured over it, wrapped up and kept onto Christmas. It would be iced with an almond icing and then a white glace icing a couple of days before Christmas.
We'd do a snow scene. That was about the height of our ambition at that stage. You'd slather on this Royal icing, and then you'd get a pallet knife and kind pop it up and down so the peaks looked like snow, and then you'd have Santa slide it on a sleigh or something on top of it.
Then we'd eat that. Mommy always cut the Christmas cake on Christmas Eve and we'd sit down around the fire, having a little Christmas cake and whatever. Then when the children went off to bed, having hunted the biggest socks in the house to put at the end of the bed for Santa Claus to put something into. And at that time, that was a time when a little Mandarin at the end of your sock and a little cap gown, or a little buntie animal, or games. We had those LUDO or those snakes, honestly, I don't even know what they were, but little dogs, tiny things.
Then the other one, Christmas pudding was always another very rich pudding that was steamed for five hours on the first evening and then it would be put away before Christmas and then you'd steam it again on Christmas day. But we always ate the first plum pudding in our house on the evening that the plum puddings were made with lots of whiskey cream and Brandy butter and so on. That tasted the most delicious of all because it was before Christmas, it was such a treat. We kept on that tradition ever since.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, it sounds so good. And you mentioned a trifle, what is in an Allen family trifle?
Darina Allen:
Well, actually there's an Allen family trifle and there's also an O'Connell trifle, which is my family. I think everybody agrees that mommy's is even better than Myrtle's, can you imagine such a thing? When Myrtle's was made with a French pastry cream, but Mommy's was made with a homemade custard. Actually, Myrtle's, she would make a sponge cake and then cut it and slathered with raspberry jam and cut it and put it in place.
We used to make our trifle, and at that stage, you would buy little trifle sponges, they were called. There were like little rectangular rusks that you'd buy in the local shop. Then mommy would put, again, the homemade raspberry jam on it, cut it up and then put that down into it. There was a trifle bowl in every house, pretty much, a cut glass in a bowl that was kept just for trifle every year.
Basically, she'd make this wonderful homemade custard, not birds custard, which some people would use, certainly not. Then she'd put the sponges and then loads of sweet sherry. Oh, she had a very heavy hand with the sherry bottle, and then more custard, more of the thing, right up to the top. Then she covered it with custard, then it would cool, and she'd put that away, hide it away. Then on Christmas day or whatever, she would put lots of cream and put lots, about that much thick, about an inch thick, or maybe not quite an inch of supplement cream on top and lots of cherries and diamonds of Angelica and toasted almonds and everything. Some people put hundreds and thousands, but we didn't do that.
In our house then, Mommy always made two huge big bowls of trifle because everybody loved it and there were so many of us. But anyway, I remember when the boys got a bit older and they would go off to midnight mass on Christmas Eve and they would go. They'd come back and they'd probably go into the pub on the way back to have a couple of pints of something, ale or something. Then they'd come home starving and they'd cook themselves rashes and eggs and everything. Then they'd go looking for the trifle and they'd hunt for the trifle around the house. Mommy would come up next day and of course, half the trifle was eaten. This happened a couple of Christmases, she'd hide it in a different place every Christmas. In the end, she actually hid it under her bed so that they wouldn't actually be able to get it. They'd have to come into her bedroom. This became the quite the thing, to hunt for the trifle, a whole thing.
We still make it. Of course, my mother sadly died a number of years ago, but isn't this what memories made of, all of these things? Food in so many ways, evokes such happy memories for those of us who were lucky enough to have lived in a household where there was lots of cooking going on, where so many memories form around kitchen table and all of that, the trifle and the plum pudding. These recipes have been passed down for generations, both in my family and in Myrtle's family and they're all part of Christmas.
Kerry Diamond:
Now speaking of recipes, we're going to leave the holidays behind for a second. Your latest book, it's your 21st book, I believe, How to Cook, is out now. You're laughing at the number 21?
Darina Allen:
I couldn't even find all them. I they're all piled up here. The first one was literally, it was called Simply Delicious, and it went with my television series. There it is.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that, look at you.
Darina Allen:
When I had brown hair. Look at me, there I am wearing brown hair and red glasses. Anyway, I still have the red glasses, of course. I have 21 books and every time I write a book, I think, "That is it. I'm not doing anymore," but then no sooner have I actually written it than I'm sort of impatient start all over again with something else.
Kerry Diamond:
What is the premise behind How to Cook?
Darina Allen:
Well, now this book actually, the working title for all the time was Recipes, 20 or 30 or 40 recipes, No Kid Should Leave School Without, Without Being Able to Do. That was the working title. My publishers, and we had so many arguments, they thought it would narrow it down too much to people thinking it was just for children or for teenagers something. But actually the reality is this book is not just, indeed, for children or for teenagers. It's for so many other people who have left school without the practical skills of cooking or practical skills to feed themselves properly, and concentration on a career and suddenly find themselves helpless.
With this book, what I've done is I've taken a lot of delicious basic things like an omelet, like a Frittata, like a risotto, like a stew, like a loaf of soda bread and done lots and lots of variations on the theme. You can have something that's kind of homey and delicious, or it could be something that's really edgy that you could serve friends or a restaurant, for that matter, depending.
For example, a basic soup, you can make it so that it's totally traditional or you can drizzle a little chili oil with little toasted seeds or then a little Tahini or whatever over the top, and suddenly it becomes something much sexier or whatever. Or basic tomato sauce, there's several great convertibles that are like tomato fondue that can be a topping for a pizza, a filling for an omelet, it could be a sauce for something, it can be served with pasta, on and on and on.
Then people suddenly say, "Oh my god, I can cook. I can cook." They suddenly get one recipe and it works. I'm super, super careful about testing recipes because I've always felt so strongly that our responsibility as a food writer is to actually make sure our recipes are tested properly.
Kerry Diamond:
Darina, you've done so much. What are you up to next? I know you've always got a project brewing, stewing somewhere.
Darina Allen:
Well, everything of course, is being interrupted by COVID, as you can imagine, but really here, what we're working towards is making the whole farm, gardens, the greenhouses, all of that ... We have an acre of greenhouses, a legacy of when we were in horticulture and we grow. We're so fortunate and we can grow 80 or 90 different crops, maybe 25 different types of tomatoes. We have chickens, we have pigs, our own heritage pigs. We have cows, as I mentioned earlier.
We have these amazing and incredible skills in our team and everything. So really we're working towards making this a whole educational food project so we can pass on the skills to courses and to the next generation. We do little farm walks for local children, little farmers clubs. We a teacher teaching children in the local schools how to cook. We link in with nine local schools through another of my hats, to a slow food project. We link in with nine local schools and we teach the children how to grow and how to cook. They come up here onto the farm and I run my hands through the soil and show them the wiggly earthworms. I get them to listen to the birds and sow seeds.
All of those schools must have a school garden. I send a chicken coop and two hens to all of the schools so the children learn how to keep hens. They clean out the chicken coop. They put the manure onto the compost heap and the school garden. That then rots down, goes back onto soil to make the soil more fertile. They learn so much. They can learn maths. Literally, it's integrated into every subject. That of course, was all originally inspired by my lovely friend, Alice and Chez Panisse with her edible schoolyard project. That's one of the things.
My plan is we are working more and more towards using the whole farm as a, an educational project. Also we were working on starting a Master's in education in food production, at least in sustainable food production, sorry, sustainable food project, of course, and food production, and then COVID came so that's on the back burner at the moment.
I realized that so many degrees and everything, they're all academic. I must tell you, and you cut this out if you want to, but oh my god, so many people got such a wake up call during COVID. I remember, and I've been going on and on for years about the importance, for goodness sake, we have to teach our children how to cook for a ton of reasons. They need to learn the fun of cooking, of being able to cook for themselves and share with how wonderful it's to be able to make a little spontaneous meal for your family and friends and the easiest way to win friends and influence people.
Since the 1950s, I think, in Ireland, and I'm sure it's the same in America, the whole educational system has been encouraging us to concentrate on a set of academic skills, STEM subjects. Why would you? My nuns in Wicklow, my lovely sisters saying, "Why would you want to learn how to cook? You're never going to use that." We need both kinds of skills and think of the fun.
I only have one skill to a certain extent and that's how to cook, something that my lovely Dominican sisters really did not think was going to get me anywhere. I've had a fantastic and fun life. I've had the great privilege, and I do say this and I really mean this, that I absolutely love teaching people how to cook. I could be teaching algebra or geometry or something. I know they're very important, but it's not like teaching somebody how to cook here. It's like giving them a gift for life. You teach somebody how to make a bowl of soup or a loaf of bread or something. You've given them something that's going to change their quality of life for the rest of their lives.
I feel really fortunate and that that's what I do, and I actually love what I do. I'm so lucky that I look forward to coming out to the school every day. I know a lot of people tell me that by Sunday evening they have a sort of knot in their stomach at the thought of Monday morning. I just feel, for those of us who are fortunate enough to doing something we love doing, despite COVID, it's still been wonderful.
Kerry Diamond:
Darina, you are amazing. Let's do a quick speed round and we'll let you go, although I could talk to you all day, I could talk to you all day. You must own lots of cookbooks. Do you have one that is a particularly treasured cookbook of yours?
Darina Allen:
If I was to choose just one, it would be Good Things by Jane Grigson.
Kerry Diamond:
What is your favorite kitchen tool?
Darina Allen:
Oh golly, I keep thinking an oyster knife, but that's ridiculous. No, I actually think a peeler, one of those silver top peelers or a pestle and mortar actually, but a silver top peeler, I use more often.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you listen to music in the kitchen?
Darina Allen:
Sometimes if I'm tired, I love lovely soothing classical music. And a lot of the time, I can't even identify what it is. I'm not very good at remembering the names of things, but I'll just, "Oh, how lovely is that?" I start to speak even more slowly. Actually, I'll tell you what, I listen more to the radio actually, than to necessarily just putting on a CD or something. Then of course, there's Radio Three and here in Ireland, we have Lyric FM, which always has lovely music too. But in Ireland, we have a lot of chat shows and some very good news in current affairs programs that I like to listen to while I'm cooking.
Kerry Diamond:
As what is the oldest thing in your fridge at home?
Darina Allen:
Oh my God, oh my God. I could be a blackmailed for life if you could see into my fridge. I have things that go back for years basically. I remember I wrote a book a number of years ago called Forgotten Skills of Cooking. And at one stage, one of my daughters, Lydia, who's actually a portrait painter, in fact, with classical training, but she also does little cartoons and everything. She did a brilliant cartoon of the Forgotten Flavors of Darina's Fridge.
See, I hate to throw things out and actually, I was brought up remember, well, oh my goodness, it's so many years ago and I'm 73 years of age now and happily 73, but basically I remember mommy made all the homemade jams during the season, and if jam got some mold on top, we'd just scrape it off and eat the rest of the jam. I remember I was telling this to Timmy one time and he said, "Well, in our house," he said, "Mommy would just say, 'Stir it in, it's penicillin.'" There you are, so that'll to tell you.
I remember once I had this wonderful salami and everything and my lovely treasure in the house. I have two wonderful treasures who look after me from time to time. Of course, I went about doing something about my fridge. Anyway, I threw out what I thought was definitely there for too long, a bit of the salami, a wonderful salceson. Of course, I came home and opened the fridge. He said, "Where is my," whatever? There was a silence or whatever. The next thing, somebody saw Mary racing down to the skip to retrieve the whatever, but at that stage, that's number of years ago. Of course, it would've looked very strange. It would've had a mold on it probably, but mold doesn't phase me at all, as you can tell.
But anyway, so I don't know, what's the oldest thing in my fridge, but it's a standing joke in this family. Because I was brought up, and this is actually a slightly more serious point to be made here, in a way, because I was brought up a long, long time before sell by dates, and use before dates. I judge by looking at something, smelling it, tasting it.
I always used to joke that if you could hear it, it was time to throw it out. But I can't even say that any longer now because we do so much fermenting. We have a fermentation shed here and all the rest of it.
I buy very little of anything that has sell by date, or rest before dates on it anyway. Actually, it's very serious now how much food waste there is because people have lost that skill to actually judge and have the confidence to use their own sense. Of course, we're playing right into it, the more we throw out, the better it is for the food processing companies. In a way let's take back, let's go back and take back the control and upskill again. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Darina, what is a dream travel destination?
Darina Allen:
We love India. We love Mexico, but I've been to Burma, to Vietnam, Cambodia. I haven't been to Georgia. I'm longing to go to Georgia, actually. We love Romania. There are many places I'd like to go back to but now at my age, I keep thinking what I better make what you call in America, a bucket list. Oh my goodness, did we live through the golden age of travel?
Kerry Diamond:
All right, last question. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Darina Allen:
I was rather thinking Barack Obama, but I wondered, does he cook at all? I'm not sure.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't think he does.
Darina Allen:
Well, I think it'd have to be me and Alice, me and Alice and we'd have a lovely time chatting together and we'd cook and we'd forage together. Of course, I'm a real forage nerd as well. We'd forage and we'd have long walks and with paddle in the sea. It would be lovely. Yeah, it would be really lovely.
Kerry Diamond:
That sounds perfect. Well, Darina, thank you for all this time and just for everything you've done. You are such a trail blazer in so many ways. You really are the bomb. You're amazing.
Darina Allen:
Thank you. Come back and see us soon.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Darina Allen of Ballymaloe Cookery School for joining us. Check out Darina's latest cookbook, Darina Allen, How to Cook. You can learn more about Ballymaloe at the website cookingisfun.ie.
Thank you to Kerrygold for supporting our show. If you're baking this month, and I'm sure you are, pick some Kerrygold butter or cheese at your favorite grocery store.
Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe magazine. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our chats with other food world legends, including Nigella Lawson and Ina Garten. Thank you to our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. Thanks to you for listening. You are the bombe.