LIFESTYLE Q&A:Darina Allen, author and owner of Ballymaloe Cookery School
Do you think you have a healthy lifestyle?
One can always do better. My work is pretty active; it’s not very sedentary. I love walking and I’m surrounded by children and grandchildren, and they keep me running around.
How often do you exercise?
I love to walk by the strand or the cliffs in Ballycotton. One of the most relaxing things is to do a hillwalk that takes the best part of a day. I’m always amazed at how I can walk for five or six hours and not be the least bit stiff the following day, so maybe things aren’t as bad as I think they are.
Do you get your five a day?
We live in the middle of an organic farm, so we have lots of lovely fresh vegetables. It wouldn’t be unusual to have three or four vegetables in the evening. We have our own eggs and milk, and we make our own butter, yogurt and cheese. It’s part of what we are and what we do. I love free food, I’ve foraged since I was a child. That’s important because so much of our food nowadays I consider to be seriously de-natured and nutritionally deficient. Where other people see weeds, I see dinner.
Do you worry?
I couldn’t be described as a real worrier. At one stage of my life, I had a wonderful chat with somebody who explained to me that it’s all thoughts. You can be miserable for the entire afternoon or you can just get up and get on with it. I know that worrying is not going to flipping solve it.
What do you do to relax?
I travel a bit. Also, I go down to the end of the garden and sit by the pond and listen to the birds. Just watching the ducks and the geese chasing each other, I find that switches you off.
What’s your unhealthiest habit?
I often eat late in the evening and would quite often go straight to bed after that. I’m not interested in fast food . . . I don’t enjoy it. Life is too short to eat something horrible.
Darina Allen’s book, Irish Traditional Cooking, is published by Kyle Books.
