08.00 We’ll wake up around 8am, which is later than during the week when things start on the farm at 6.30am.
Our two older sons are in Skibbereen Rowing Club where our two amazing Olympians come from so the pride and the buzz in the air is amazing. The club is grassroots but they produce world-class rowers and our eldest kids, Olan and Oscar, are really enjoying rowing and being involved. My wonderful wife Ciara brings them there while I make the younger ones, Euan, Devin and Rowan, French toast or pancakes for breakfast.
Saturday and Sunday in summer means farmers’ markets. My sister Clovisse looks after that side of business so we might be runners or points of contact for her in the morning and then we will go about our farm chores. 11.
00 Monday to Friday on the farm revolves around food production but at the weekend the farm needs maintenance. I’ll check that everything is behaving properly and then I’ll light the smokers which takes about an hour. There are about 10 steps in the process of our salami making.
After they are fermented we smoke them. I will light the traditional smoker — we use oak and ash which will wisp through the salamis in a very passive, old-school way during the weekend. They then go into the ageing rooms.
My kids are fantastically feral, and my dad, Tom Ferguson, is the centre of their universe, so they'll abandon me and go find him. We have a family phrase: “Never put forward a job you can do today” so there’s always something to do. What mum and dad achieved in my childhood with Gubbeen cheese was amazing — a West Cork farming dad, a fantastic hippy mum making artisan food in West Cork at the most shining time in Irish artisan food history.
12.00 I might be pulled into a farm job or I might spend the day in my workshop. Knifemaking is a passion because I’ve grown up around food all my life and knives are a tool for food.
It is multifaceted. There is the metallurgy involved — turning certain steels into high performance tools. The handle can be made from the most exotic materials or the simplest — they are what catch the eye and are part of the story.
Knives can be sentimental or visually stunning but they also have to withstand the abuse of a kitchen. Even if they are cared for they will get hot, cold, dry, wet, dropped, left in the sink. I’ve been doing it for 15 years and am always trying to hone my skills and best my previous knife.
Food and knifemaking work beautifully together — when I’m making knives I’m thinking about salami, and when I’m making salami I’m thinking about knives. 15.30 The market stall usually wraps up around 3.
30pm so it will come back and we’ll help restock for the next one. We are in Skibbereen Market on Saturdays. I love this market because of the diversity of the stalls but also the randomness of it.
There is a certain wildness to it — there are guys working out of the back of vans, serious organic growers, people who have excess produce, amazing fish stalls — every time you go it feels different. It’s rare that you’d go to a supermarket and ask people around you how they cook a dish but that’s what you do in Skibbereen Market — it’s a convivial thing, a ritual. We’ll stock up on crepes, fish, olives, Toon’s Bridge Dairy Mozzarella, sourdough spelt bread from our friend Martin and coffee from Red Strand Coffee.
17.00 I’ll emerge from the workshop and start preparing food. I tend to do two meals — with five kids there’s always going to be a fussy eater — so I’ll make a kid-friendly meal.
Then myself and my wife will sit down and spend quality time together, often with my parents. Being so near the coast and market we often have beautiful fish — a favourite, black sole, is a luxury. My sister has an incredible garden so we have access to her greens.
We have our own cured meats, eggs and cheese and pork is something that we always have available to us — pork schnitzel is a hit with the kids. We also love West Cork Wagyu from Michael Twomey in Macroom. 20.
00 We are very sociable as a family. West Cork is a destination — you don’t just pop down and back in the same day. Lots of people will come to visit as part of their holiday — relations, friends of the family and friends from the food world.
Before The Big Grill, we will have people come to stay with us from afar. The list of people at The Big Grill is incredible, and, I’m not being corny, but many of these people have become lifelong friends. We share a passion for food and fire, gluttony and far too many drinks — and that’s bonding.
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