My name is Ger Kavanagh, and I am an addict.
Yes, you read that right, an addict. I have been cooking and baking since I was learning to walk around my very Irish Mammys kitchen. Irish Mammy had been taught by Irish Granny, whose, to this day, jam tarts recipe has been unable to be remade since she passed away. Luckily Irish Granny passed on her cold hands and warm heart to Irish Mammy which was then passed to me, beginning a line of fairly good pastry makers! Irish Mammy taught me everything, from her family famous Butterfly Buns to every different type of fruit crumble.
However, there is also a Dad to think about here, Mr Active. Mr Active spent his twenties travelling around the world, visiting everywhere from Israel to Italy and came home with a very good appreciation for food and drink of other cultures. While Irish Mammy inspired my baking, it was definitely Mr Active who taught me to always try something new, even if it looked hard or you didn't particularly like some of the ingredients. The odd time Mr Active would take to cooking, it would be picked out of whatever cook book had taken his eye and a recipe he had back in '94 in a restaurant in a small village in the back-arse of nowhere in Italy! Expensive ingredients would be bought, many times to only ever be used for this one recipe, and the process would being, myself and him pouring over the recipe. Long wait times could often end up in Mr Active becoming bored, and myself taking over the kitchen, something that from about the age of ten I relished!
Living at home, being in the kitchen was a big part of my life. Whether it was trying to escape study for the Leaving Cert by baking a cake to family Sunday dinners, there was always a reason to be in there.
Then college came. Lets just say that while in First Year, I was head chef in the house and the others were in charge of cleaning. However, it was definitely very basic college food, yet all vegetarian. Stir frys, chilli with Quorn mince, frozen pizzas, you name it, we had it.
In the last couple of years, it is definitely fair to say I grew up. I've graduated from college, I've lived in Copenhagen by myself for a year, I've held down two full time jobs and am now being taught the ropes of being a supervisor in a restaurant. However, I think I could tell from day one that the waitress world is not for me, more so as a stop gap. While I have never learnt so much in the last year to do with food or wine, I have definitely pushed my body to the limit. Being told if you don't slow down, you'll end up in hospital while in the middle of a manically busy Christmas period in a restaurant that has just opened is one thing. Trying to complete Final Year exams at the same time is another!
But I got through it and working in restaurants has only helped in making me want to learn more and more. I use going out for lunch or dinner as "research", when really all I want to do is be part of that experience that I work in on a daily basis. Thanks to this new-found knowledge, I've had some amazing meals this year, top of the list being my graduation dinner in Chapter One, an absolute Bucket List restaurant for myself. Yet, the cooking still calls me back. I want to know more, I want to be able to put flavours together that make you think. And most of all, I want to be able to look at our sometimes very sparse fridge and go, cool, I can make a dinner out of that for five girls, one of those being unable to eat meat, dairy or gluten! (Yes, Miss Annie, I'm talking about you!)
So this will be my outlet for that. I'm still not 100% sure what it is going to be yet, but expect reviews, recipes and ramblings.
Ger
Soundtrack
The gas heating come on for the first time this year, the kettle boiling and my computer trying to keep itself warm. Winter is most certainly coming!
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