Airport notes
Hello from a little keyboard in the airport hehe. The past few weeks have been hectic. Filled with work and travel. I woke several times during the night last night, worried I would miss my flight, sweating, disoriented, unsure if I was really awake or still dreaming. I woke this morning feeling simultaneously rested and physically tired. Hop in for a quick shower, apply facial oil - my skin gulps it in. I wonder if all of this travelling is bad for your skin? Probably, I feel like I heard that somewhere, i.e. in a reel on instagram. I brush my teeth - should I get them cleaned professionally? Definitely I should get those fillings the dentist said I’ll need. I do a big smile in the mirror, all looks fine. One day they’ll fall out I guess, I wonder if they make dentures with a gap. If they don’t it’ll be pretty obvious that I’ve lost my teeth. A problem for another day. I rub cc cream into my face. I’m a big fan of any product that combines multiple functions in one. This one has SPF, calms redness (important for my blushing), and provides a much needed tint to my pasty looking complexion. I curl my eyelashes and apply mascara. Looks fine, presentable. I look more awake than I did 5 minutes ago but definitely still tired. I pack my bag and head downstairs for a cup of instant coffee.
My aunt drops me to the airport and I check in my luggage. It feels very luxurious to be checking in a bag and not opting for the absolute cheapest option. I tell the girl at the help desk that my bag has chef’s knives in it (and a silly amount of oyster knives). She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “they’re in the checked luggage”, I quip. “Oh“, she sighs “yeah, yeah, that’s fine”. As I walk away she laughs with her colleague about it.
Today I’m headed for Copenhagen. A combination of work and leisure. I’ll spend two days resting and two days working, and then head home. I’m excited for incredible pastries. Yesterday I returned from a three day trip to north Germany, where I joined two other fabulous Taste the Atlantic Ambassadors Aine Budds and Fiona Keyes in cooking a luncheon for a group of stakeholders from the German Fish Processors Association. The trip was short and sweet. I served Carlingford and Achill oysters. Incredibly proud of the quality Irish oysters I could present to these stakeholders, taking extra care to ensure each shuck was perfect.
Perfect shucking is an art form, one which I aim to improve every week. I’m not in the business of opening oysters to provide what looks like a lump of grey snot in a milky water. It upsets me deeply when I see oysters served in restaurants that have been minced. Three years of an oyster farmer’s hard work, destroyed in an instant by an impatient shucker. The oyster experience reduced to a bizarre textural experience and a truly unpleasant visual, made worse again by the introduction of broken shell, which the inexperienced shucker provides in abundance. A little bit of extra care is all that’s required to provide a top quality shuck. The meat should be totally intact when the oyster is opened, any stray shell removed and as much of the water as possible kept inside. The oyster should look plump and hydrated. Bizarrely, there are very few restaurants in Ireland that actually provide this kind of experience. Oysters are served in all sorts of conditions, rarely in a way that respects the work that goes into growing these beautiful bivalves. This problem stems from a combination of factors. One is the lack of appetite (and therefore respect) for oysters amongst the Irish public, another the pressure that chefs are under and another a simple lack of knowledge on how to properly shuck oysters. This is something I’m tackling slowly through workshops around the country. In the upcoming year I hope to arrange oyster workshops in as many culinary arts schools around the country as I can. Meanwhile I continue with my Oyster Master Guild training, now registered as a Level 2 student. I’m learning more every day and aim to bring this learning forward to my workshops.
I’m going to Copenhagen to attend the European Aquaculture Show, taking place next week. I haven’t got much idea of what to expect from the show but I hope to learn a lot from the discussions and of course, to network as much as possible. One of the reasons why I love oysters is their positive impacts on the environment. I feel like a complete hypocrite as I step off one flight and onto another to attend events relating to aquaculture, but the alternative is to miss out on these amazing opportunities.
My journey here was shadowed by a shroud of climate guilt. All of the resources that go into flying a gang of people across Europe, it makes the mind boggle. C02 emissions from European flights increased by 9 million tonnes last year. All of the small efforts we make in our daily lives to be more sustainable hardly make a dent in balancing it out. I watch as the passengers disembark from their flight from CPH-DUB. In less than ten minutes my group are herded onboard, like cattle at the mart we amble along, following the signs on the floor and avoiding eye contact. When we arrive in Copenhagen there is another group waiting to board as we disembark. They do this at least four times a day, and every flight is jam packed. It’s incredible how low-cost airlines managed to democratise travel, but unfortunately at a dire cost to the environment. In 2023, Europe recorded 10.2 million flights. The number grows each year, with a 21% increase in low-cost flights. We are so incredibly reliant on aviation to get us from A-B, especially when under time pressure and coming from an island. In an ideal world I’d get the train and a ferry, but that would both cost significantly more money and also take a lot more time. I can neither afford the additional expense nor the additional time off work. The aviation industry is working on solutions. The first green hydrogen powered plane powered on earlier this year, but we’re still a long way from flying in zero emissions planes. Even at this, travel and tourism is only responsible for 8% of global emissions, a small piece of the pie. When I consider all of this, the climate situation feels hopeless. My life stretches out before me and will forever have this cloud of anxiety and guilt; the world is slowly crumbling. The power to fix it rests in the hands of billionaires who will make a profit regardless. I distract myself with the motions of daily life in the interim.
On the positive side of the coin, travelling is such an incredible joy. Discovering new places, eating wonderful food and experiencing new cultures. Copenhagen is full of beautiful people, beautiful buildings and really beautiful pastries. I am lucky to be here to see it. My plan is to absorb every bit of it and return home next week with my art and architecture bucket refilled. I look forward to returning home to the cows. In the meantime nice paintings of them will have to suffice.
That’s all for now x
This is written so well. Grá mór