An Advent weekend in Germany

After the bread  round,  last Wednesday turned into a logistic excersice as we started a little bit earlier than usual, baked our bread, send one basket off to Waterford and one to the Truffle Fairy in Thomastown. Another car went off to Kilkenny very early while the rest of us changed into happy clothes, grabed our suitcases, packed the car, turned around five times in case we forgot something and headed off to Kilkenny. We found the lads who had at this stage deliverd the bread and together headed off to the airport. 9am in the morning, one job done and a long weekend to come. Feeling self righteous and marginally worried about the car which had been driven nearly empty the day before and was protesting with slightly sluggish behaviour, we got to the airport nice and early, parked the car, found the shuttle bus, checked in and settled in to wait. Travelling by air you can choose between frazzled panic or boredom and we opt for boredom any time, incorporating enough time into the schedule to deal with all evenutalities and mostly ending up with no eventualities but with a massive amount of time. So we read, we play, we windowshop, - and we found an amazing new waiting area in the airport. Cooled down to nice temperature and sporting big, colourful sofas, a play area, wifi access, computers and cute holes in the wall, this place was virtually empty because not ascotiated with any restaurant and actually made for the poor travellers with their own sandwiches. The perfect place and the start for a perfect weekend. We travelled on to Charleroi and Mechernich near Cologne for a few packed days with all the family. We ate way, way too many Bratwurst and drank enough Sekt to make it through the entire Christmas. Speltbakers had their promised Christmas outing on the Christmas market in Bonn with hours of food, stalls and ice skating, with Christmas present shopping and hint dropping and with a nostalic look at the carrussell that we are now all too big for and the historic ferris wheel that we will never be too big for but which appears to have shrunk and turned from gigantic to quite small – as so many things do when you grow up.

We met even more family when we celebrated a cousin’s confirmation and are now on our way home. Slowly and with time in hand, we will work our way back to Charleroi, to Dublin and to Bramblestown outside Gowran. Speltbaker’s bread will be  back in the shops on Tuesday, 9th and through to Christmas as we come back full of energy, Christmas spirit and Bratwurst. 

Is busy just an attitude ?

After the bread  life is busy at the moment and all good intentions of blogging twice a week, have failed yet again. Failed in the same way as the grand plan of getting terribly fit and running every day has gone by the wayside. No running, no writing is just not good enough  and will get us nowhere when the next Flora Women’s marathon comes around – as it invariably does – much too soon for any grand training plans.

The  bread round is long done, the paper work too and as the day job of managing a busy household takes over, I sit in beautiful Café la Coco in Kilkenny and wait for the youngest son to be ready for collection. The others have actually done the bread round today, collected the flour and done the shopping while I struggle to see why I am busy. I did the bake this morning,  I did meet the principal of the school to try and iron out some trauma, I did deliver a small order to a neighbour, did some paperwork and made the pastry. Not really that busy is it?   While others prepare the dinner and prep for tomorrow, I sit and write in great comfort, will soon head back home to do my token bit of prep, eat some dinner and go to choir. As I failed to train properly, I have at least started singing. Another grand plan of 20 years standing, I have recently joined Thukolo choir, one of Kilkenny’s gospel choirs. I love it, look forward to our couple of performances in the coming month and can at least tick this off my own personal bucket list. Tomorrow, after the bread round ( which I am not doing again!!) I shall go and run. I already owe the other baker €60 in Shutterbug, the fantastic vintage shop,  as she manages to run and do her work at the same time. We walked the mini marathon together and we have a bet - €30 in Shutterbug if one manages the daily run and the other doesn’t.  She’s winning, she is 35 years younger than me and I won’t even see her at the run next year. I will have to work harder but hey, I wrote this today, didn’t I  - so tomorrow I run or possibly the next day ....

Apology to the normal morning person

After the bread round a few weeks ago, life got incredibly busy and we discovered that small things can throw our week out of kilter completely. First there was a drving test afternoon, then a brilliant open day in Kells Wholemeal in Bennettsbridge with a lovely lunch and lots and lots of new ideas. Then the open days started and for two nights the youngest baker had to check out secondary schools. Interesting, fun and good to do but they do eat into the night on the wrong side. By Friday morning, I had done three nights of under 5 hours each and my eyes hurt purely because they had not been closed long enough. Friday mornings – the day after the market in Kilkenny – are normally easy. Just the bread round, no apple pies and normally an easy stroll though a mornings routine. The junior baker, who does prep on Thursday evening after the market, normally gets the morning off because I can easily swing the show on my own. As I keep boasting – I am fast. On this Friday however, I was so slow, I was nearly in reverse as I struggled from dough to dough and was nearly overtaken by the rise of the yeast. The morning escalated into panic as I  dropped a new bulk bag of Butter milk on the floor and created a milk lake. Not only did the junior baker have to appear to save the day but the other - school going junior baker had to be pulled from his bed early as well to make sure we actually got out of the door in time. Pathetic start to a day as they both reasured me that I was not actually ill but just tired. Most people, they said, feel and act like this every morning and could I maybe in future show some sympathy with the normal morning person. Well, if that is true, if you non morning people, feel this terrible every morning, than I am sorry for talking before 7, sorry for trying to make plans before 7, for dealing with family logistics at breakfast and for even suggesting that you might like to pull yourselves together. I think non morning people should have a free morning pass because whatever they do in the mornings can not possibly be of any value to their employer. What a miserable life a non morning person leads in the morning. After the bread round will endeavour to be nicer to the others and never, ever again get so tired that a mornings work and an accidental buttermilk lake presents such a challenge. As another week starts, we plan and scheme how we can fit a working day into reasonable hours, have time for family and still have a night of longer than 5 hours. There are after all still things to be harvested out there. 

Gathering free food

 After the bread round, I try to take the dogs out for a walk most days. These days it is no great hardship as the sun persists in pretending it’s still summer and wonderful clear mornings have given way to sunny days by the time we get to go out. These days, walks are even better as the blackberries are beginning to ripen and it is proving to be a bumper year for fruit. Even the ancient wild damsons at the back of an old hays shed field are ladden down with fruit and free food is everywhere.  Last Sunday we had Blackberry pancakes and Blackberry lemonade and this week we are planning on damson cake, damson pudding and lots and lots and lots of damsons pickled in red wine and red wine vinegar – a secret family recipe that is spectacular. And then there is the elder trees turning to fruit and the crab apples and rosehips looking to be turned into jelly and juice. All free and all available in a hedgerow near you any time over the next month. Busy we may be, but nobody is too busy to pick fruit when the sun is shining. The hunter gatherer in me is still strong enough to enjoy this picking, especially away from the roads when the environmentalist can’t grumble too much about heavy metal residue. And the hunter gatherer also likes bottles and jars and freezers ( new age hunter gatherer here)  filled with products for the winter. This abundance of food compensates us for the loss of day light hours and lower temperatures. The cooking and preserving reminds us of long winters where the fruit will be welcome and distracts us from the Santa ads on the radio which seem to be earlier than ever and make me want to boycott the whole Christmas thing. Looking forward to the harvest festivals – we block out the other one and run with the free food, foraging and cooking over commerce, and spending and artifical magic. 

Buying and selling

After the bread round  - when we settle down to a day’s selling at some market, we first set up  our stall and look for customers and then we change tack and, turning into a customer, we start to shop at our neighbours and other stall holders while at the same time, they sidle around to ask to hold a baguette or a loaf and some Stromboli. On a Thursday in Kilkenny, Speltbakers stall is flanked by Coolanowl Organic Meat on one side and Hartley's Sea Foods on the other. Choice can be a hard thing and  so we alternate and eat meat one Thursday and fish the next. We indulge in the finest of steak or beautiful sausages or a great cut of salmon, tuna or haddock combined with Pat Hartley’s own tartar sauce. Then we wonder on to buy our veg and get a tea or a hot chocolate. We enviously look at the queue of the tourists as they wait patiently for the crepes or the delights of the Bula Bus, a great mobile restaurant. At other markets or fairs, we meet other small producers and sample their wares, see how we can combine our product, can we maybe supply bread to their sausages or baps to their burgers? We chat and exchange views and ideas, we learn from more experienced traders and help out or ask for help when we or them need to leave the  for a while. We plan the Christmas season in the beautiful weather of early autumn and we envy – kind of – all those intrepid souls that traded at the electric picnic last weekend. We listen to the feed back, the tiredness, the sore legs but also  the energy  that comes from being part of such a brilliant weekend and we scheme and plan again.  It is great to be part of the trading community, of those who produce artisan food and crafts and this community is a fantastic and invaluable resource – not only for the advice and help but also for the delicious food. Maybe, just maybe, we will try the electric picnic next year, build  ourselves a funky stall and sell hundreds of Stromboli. We reckon the Stromboli would sell but would I be able to stand the loud music – me who turns off the radio when I come into the bake house?? 

The Iverk show

Ih

After the bread round  moved incredibly quickly last Saturday. As one car did the bread round, the other stacked lots and lots and lots of bread into a car and headed off to Piltown and the Iverk show. For years, the Iverk show has been a fixture in this family’s diary. We brought massive marrows to the biggest marrow competition only to discover that our marrow was actually quite small.  We brought decorated cup cakes that actually got to second place. We battled in the Scone and brown bread section and only were successful in the novelty breads with our weird and wonderful yeast breads that have since mutated into the ever popular Stromboli. We wondered the show in amazement every year, loved the cattle section, the multitude of stands and the horse riding competitions. One year we even brought our incredibly badly trained dog to the dog show and regularly show our much better behaved chickens in the poultry tend. Competitions were entered and prices were won and a great day was had every year. This year, however, the car was too full with bread to bring the chickens and – thankfully – the dogs. This year we moved from exhibitor and buyer to seller and took up our stall in the food tent. Between Highbank farm and the Inistioge Food company,  we settled very comfortably to chat and sample every one else’ wares. The driver cider went down very well, the Irish craft ale marinade sorted that nights dinner and both come highly recommended. We met all the other bread bakers and saw that we all have our own little niche. We had challenging discussion with old home bakers who came to the stall, saying they never buy bread and tested our knowledge and our skill. When your product is a one day product, there always moments when you panic and see yourself bringing it all home again, but in Iverk we sold steadily over the day and all those people who said they’d be back later actually came back and we sold it all. A great feeling, a great day and lots more new customers to bake for in the coming weeks. What a fantastic show it was again with one of the final perfect summer’s days in the bargain. We will definitely be back next year – maybe with a trailor and the chickens and the dog……… and the marrows and the eggs and a keen eye on every competitions. Watch this space  

The wild Ireland tour

After the bread round these weekends just keeps going. We compress the weekends, fly through the bread run on Saturday, fly even faster through the bake house clean up and head  West in search of the other half of this family. One weekend we headed west to Clare and to Sligo the next. The junior baker and her father ( who should be driving the Waterford bread run on his way to the office) are on the Wild Ireland Tour, touring the entire coastline of Ireland by bike – and support car. Half way in, they have covered over 1500 km of coastline in honour of Ireland’s wildlife and bio diversity and in search of the many people and project that work in every niche and corner of the island on nature conservation, wildlife and biodiversity.  While they move slowly along the coast, we cut across country on an amazingly good network of roads. They are traveling for 10 days from Waterford to Tarbert in Kerry and we cut across in 3 hours to meet up for dinner and lots of chat.  We stay in the hostel in Tarbert, we head across to Clare on the Ferry, meet the Whale and Dolphin group in Kilrush and go out to Slattery island in their rib in incredibly bad conditions. No dolphins but a fantastic centre and a great boat ride. As the tour moves on to Loop head the next day, we head back to Kilkenny for a weeks baking only to meet them again in Strandhill near Sligo the next weekend. Another snap shot of a great trip, another lovely dinner in a seaside restaurant, an evening to celebrate the junior bakers leaving cert with the tail end of the Fla ceoil playing itself out while she tries and rejects her first glass of Guinness. This time we don’t stay the night as time is tight but travel home again through the night.

We stay in touch  with the blogging and vlogging cyclists online but love our real life snapshots of the tour. Ireland is a tiny country and you can get nearly everywhere on a day’s outing. As always, the west seems a different country, the air seems fresher, the light sharper and the sea wilder than down here in the east, the scenery can be more stunning and the people maybe a little bit easier.  As always – we marvel

how easy it is to travel west these days and how we will have to do this more often. Great plans are taking shape to somehow make it to Antrim next weekend and to definitely, most certainly , take more time to travel, even when they are back. What a trip!! do follow them online under www.wildirelandtour and on the girl on tour you tube channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-SKjcc22Eomgpul5kR6M7w and remember: Nobody can cycle over 100 km a day for one month, if they don’t eat spelt bread for the rest of the year!!!!! 

Market life

After the bread round, last Thursday, went  to the parade in Kilkenny to join the Speltbakers  stall at the farmers market. Long planned, we were finally there - selling our bread  at the market. Many years ago, when we arrived in Kilkenny, we went to the market every Thursday. The children were then very young and loved the atmosphere on the market. We would buy a basket full of veg, sample more than buy at the  cheese stand and struck  up a friendship with the bakery, who would always give us a few chocolate muffins. Now, the  children are mostly taller than me, we have started our own bakery and work together through the early morning to produce large quantities of bread. So, when there was a vacancy for a bread stall at the market, we jumped at it. Investing in a commercial gazebo makes us feel safe for outdoor trading and thus we ventured out. Last Thursday was a pet day in a long and lovely summer. The sun shone, the other traders were very welcoming and there was a fiesta atmosphere all morning with locals and tourists alike enjoying the varied market stalls. When the food stall across from us, fired up the bbq, we got hungry - as did lots of others and business commenced. Buying and selling and chatting with friends and old and new customers, we were busy and didn't stray far from our stall but could see great veg and fruit, cheese and pies, tea, coffee and hot chocolate. On a Thursday on the parade in Kilkenny you can buy meat, fish. bread and veg for the week, you can eat a gorgeous lunch, a yummy desert or tea break, have a great cup of coffee or buy the most amazing handmade pottery, baskets or iron work - and I'm not at all sure that's all. We met lots of new customers. We sold  baguettes to French tourist, remembered that epaudre is the French word for spelt and went home with bags organic salad and tomatoes and a lovely piece of salmon to enjoy the rest if the day. We will do it all again next Thursday and we kind of know that it won't always be sunny and busy and that we won't always sell so well. But somehow I think the market will still be great when the rain  comes and the cold sets in. There is absolutely no substitute for this kind of shopping. Buying  the fish from the man who bought it off the boats in Dunmore east that morning, the meat off the farmer who raised it in carlow, the veg from the woman who grew them just outside Kilkenny - and the bread off the people who made it that morning -

 that is the way life should be. See you there next Thursday. 

In praise of the early morning

After the bread round listens to early morning radio. First thing in the morning, when I am on my own, I concentrate on getting the dough’s right, on mixing the right amounts and getting the right quantities on the shelf to rise. When that is done and the sodas are in the oven, I sit down with a cup of tea and enjoy my break until the other baker arrives at 5.30 and we get to shaping and baking and chatting. The radio goes on and the day starts with RTE 1 rising time. A compromise with the second baker who would prefer Beat while I might prefer Newstalk. So we listen to a mix of music and news, of paper review and of something called “the living word”. Deep and meaningful and sometimes actually very good, she is totally dismissive, still living in a world where people “should just cop on” and I am wondering why everything with a bit of thought in it has to be read in this incredibly irritating, deep, meaningful and grindingly slow voice. Anyhow, today the topic – I think – was the depression of the early morning. At 4am, the slow vouce said, the world looks at its bleakest, thoughts are dark and the night is threatening. Surely, the voice said, the world is going to end some day at 4am . Now  I like 4 am and it is morning and not night to me. I start at 4 with the first light and the first cock crow in the summer and with a spectacular starry night in winter. I find the world at peace at 4am and have my best thoughts at coffee break at 5.15 am. I think the world is at its bleakest around midnight, after a long day, when a tired head thinks stupid thoughts and picks a fight where none was necessary. Late in the evening when yet another day is ending before the work is done,  is not the time to think or plan. I have learned to park all fears and worries that come to me at night and all decisions are deferred until the next morning when invariably the sun rises again and nothing ever looks as bleak. So cut the early morning some slack, get to bed early, get up at 4am and you’ll find a lovely world out there. Of course, playing with wonderful yeast doughs makes it all the better. 

De-cluttering after the holidays

After the bread round  and after the holidays, we are bursting with energy and are on a mission to declutter. Our sitting room doubles up as an office with my desk in one corner and a sofa and table in the other.  A lovely if small room, it boasts a tiny fire place and contains masses of life’s paraphernalia. A beautiful oil painting of an old cousin’s Wicklow cottage reminds me of her long years in the local nursing home, where the painting dwarfed her room and she, only at the very end, stopped noticing that the painting was badly lit. A water colour of Achill island was a present from my parents when we holidayed there together, sharing the B&B with a Canadian artist. Prints of hussars remind me and the children of my father wild stories from a time when soldiers rode to battle and so the line continues along the wall with photographs new and old and presents that are either a long standing joke, a dream or a plan. Into this room, last year, moved both exam candidates with their ton load of books. Another desk was added to the already nicely loaded room and they worked and worked while one studied and the other made lists of what he was going to study tomorrow. At this stage, there is no room to swing a cat or a hoover and the clutter builds up – until they finally sit the exams, desert the room and we all go on holidays. Thankfully, the declutter energy comes back with us. Visiting a nephew who recently set up house and started a family, we stay in his lovely flat, empty of paraphernalia and beautiful in its stark functionality. We want a space like that and thus we energetically declutter. 3 wheelbarrows full of rubbish later, the room is still full and incredibly dusty with hundreds of indignant spiders roaming around but we are winning the declutter battle and courageously throw out masses and masses of bits and pieces that we will never look at again and never needed in the first place. The good bits are still here, the exams eradicated, the space salvaged and a beautiful room nearly restored. Once I stop sneezing, I shall start dusting in earnest and might even rise to a spot of painting. It feels great to move the clutter on and  I move on to the kitchen dresser with its lots and lots of little spaces full of lots of things that nobody needs. The bins fill up and a “check it” bucket is created. Everyone has one night to check the bucket and salvage what they like. After that it goes in the trailer for the dump – or the crate for the sale. Turns out nobody needs anything that was in the drawers, the seeds are about 10- years out of date, no house needs 12 tighteners of soccer studs and the gum shields are too small for any mouth residing currently in this house. The bake house has escaped the clutter and remains functional and bright. The house will have to follow suit and then the garden, if the energy lasts that long. As we grow older, as the children grow up, we still make the choice how we want to live. Friends once gave us a sign that says "This is not a construction site, children live here". Maybe it is time to reclaim the space from construction and stop blaming the kids for our mess. 

World champion

A break is not only relaxing, enjoyable and recharging.  A holiday also means a new start afterwards with new ideas, new plans and most of all great new resolutions as to how we are going to improve every aspect of life and business. Holidays are not only good for us but for everyone around us, as we turn easier, friendlier and open to new plans and proposals. The daily routine has lots its crippling hold over us and new ways become possible. 
I love holidays, especially the summer, when we close for over 3 weeks and go to Germany for nearly a month. A complete break with life at home, we reconnect with family, become a little bit German again and alternate lazy days of sunshine, chat and food with days of pure tourism and then again with driving days to get to more people to talk to and eat with. This year we became even more German than normal as we went native and became “Weltmeister”, joining the wonderful excitement of the world cup and that wonderful goal that got us that much wanted 4th star. Speltbaker’s car now sports German flag magnets and a window flag and we even took part in the local “auto-corsa”, where after a win, everyone takes to the roads and takes over the local round-abouts for lots and lots of victory laps. Germans, who normally are terribly law abiding,  seat belt wearing and sometimes quite boring in their seriousness, could now be seen driving 8 to  a car with one sitting out of each window, waving their flags and shouting their happiness from the roof tops. We have changed and have become able to show our joy and pride in our national team in a way that used never be possible. “Wir sind Weltmeister!”. After nearly 70 years, the Germans are again able to pronounce themselves winners, to be proud and cheeky – without feeling guilty that they are not feeling guilty anymore. Happy people are always good to see and happy people spread happiness around them. So we had a very happy holiday and come back invigorated and ready for another year of work and play, of a growing business, an ambitious cycling project  and of changing lives as children leave school and move on. This blog will now come to you twice a week while the junior baker is starting on Youtube with her vlog “Girl on tour”. Massive energy all around.  

As spring turns to summer – we live in hope

Summer is coming, the daffs have been and gone, a beautiful camellia is sitting on the window sill outside waiting to be potted and hopeful window boxes with unkillable remains of begonias are waiting to be restocked with primroses and daffodils, with heather and with ivy.  Spring is a time of optimism where miserable gardeners like me go for walks through Altamount garden and think that this year is going to be the year where colour will infuse my own garden and vegetables will grow in abundance. 

In reality, I will probably only ever have unkillables like the brave daffodils and tulips that find their way through last years overgrown grass again and the sturdy rubharb that is rekindling its stocks again. However it is spring and we live in  
hope.


We also live in hope that that elusive truck from France will come in and bring our long awaited ration of spelt flour which will see Speltbakers out of our supply crisis. We live in hope that farmers in Ireland and Europe will head the call of demand and grow more spelt and we live n hope that our small fledging business will grow and prosper.

We live in hope that the teenage baker’s exam will not be badly  
affected by having to start work at 5.30 every other morning. We live in hope that we will actually keep up this blog this time rather than making it only every 6 month. But this is spring that turns to summer.  Good plans and resolution made in lent are at an all time high. If not now than never.  So we resolve to write a weekly blog and not to be overwhelmed by the nitty gritty of the business, the hassle of the storms and  the failing water system in this old house.  

We will focus on the blooms and the beauty, on the bird sound and the sound of kids playing outside again. We will presume that car and water system are fixable and  soon a month will end  with just a little bit of a cushion in the bank. We will take the sign of building in the neighbourhood as the turning point of the recession and we will remain positive and delighted with life  - as the truck arrives from France and 20 bags of flour roll into the strore. Small business and small quantities yet but Speltbakers bakes on.