I went to cooking school at Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

This is the question I get asked most often when I tell people that I went to cooking school in Ireland. Or it is at least implied with a raising of the eyebrows whenever I mention it.

Many people (most Americans I’ve talked to) wrongly think that Irish food is bland and over cooked. That’s not my experience at all. My family took a 2 week trip to Ireland in 2004 and my food memories revolve around the most amazing dairy products I’ve ever tasted and delicious brown bread. Sure, bad food exists everywhere, especially if you don’t know where to go. But I have truly had some of the best meals of my life in Ireland.

To me, going to Cooking School in Ireland makes perfect sense. For those of you who wonder why going to cooking school in Ireland is a no-brainer, allow me to explain.

Why go to cooking school in Ireland?

1// I became interested in cooking while tending my own garden. Ballymaloe Cookery School is a cooking school set on a 100 acre organic farm in County Cork, Ireland. There is a massive glasshouse (greenhouse) and gardens with is a focus on soil health. And there are many activities to get students into the garden such as harvesting vegetables, gathering herbs, making cheese, and even a morning gardening class led by one of the gardeners from Ballymaloe House.

2// Even though at the time I had been eating gluten free for years, the fact that making fresh bread is such an integral part of the course really appealed to me. Ballymaloe teaches yeasted bread, soda bread, and sourdough, which is bread raised with wild yeast from the air. I had a feeling my supposed gluten sensitivity was not actually from all gluten, but rather from flour that is produced in the US and the US agricultural and processing practices in general (spoiler alert: I was correct)

3// While I wanted to get in-depth hands-on cooking experience, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to change careers to cooking. Ballymaloe seemed to cater to both camps – career changers and lifelong learners. And it’s true, I’d say my class of 50 students was made up of roughly half the people who wanted to be trained in cooking for a future job and half who loved cooking and were at Ballymaloe for the enriching experience. My classmates ranged in age from 18 to mid 60’s, and I loved that diversity. At the time I was in my mid 30’s and there were a lot of people roughly my age who were in both camps, or somewhere in the middle, like me.

4// Ireland is a nation of farms, with a plethora of small-scale farmers. The farm to table movement is strong in Ireland and has been for ages. Long before it became ‘fashionable,’ it was just a way of life. We met many of the food producers whose produce, food products, and livestock we were cooking with in the kitchen. We met Martin who raises pigs at Woodside Farm, Jane who makes the most delicious Ardsallagh’s goats cheese, the Ferguson Family who makes cheese, meats, and knifes at Gubeen and Anthony who smokes salmon and chicken at Ummera Smokehouse, and so many more.

5// While many of my fellow students were taken by the focus on seafood in the curriculum, especially with Ballymaloe’s proximity to Ballycotton Bay, this was not originally a draw for me. Up until that point, I didn’t really like seafood and actually avoided eating it at all costs. Well, the thing about really high quality super fresh food is that it tastes exponentially better than not-so-fresh highly processed food. So, I’ll give you one guess for who is now obsessed with seafood… Yup, it’s me.

6// I learned about Ballymaloe from an article in a magazine called Connecticut Cottages and Gardens, which I found at the Architecture office where I was working in Connecticut. The article was an interview with Darina Allen, who founded Ballymaloe Cookery School (with her brother Rory), and Myrtle Allen, her mother in law, who started Ballymaloe House, a country house hotel and restaurant she began in her family’s home that earned one of the first Michelin stars in Ireland. I loved that two women founded two food businesses that became hugely successful. I was drawn to this strong matriarchal history.

7// My ancestors are from Ireland. Both my great grandmother and great grandfather left Ireland on their own to start new lives in Philadelphia during the Great Famine. Learning more about food in Ireland just felt right and I was so excited to spend more time there, on a farm, learning how to cook.