CateDevineWriter

I had the absolute honour and privilege of speaking with Andrew Fairlie - whose eponymous restaurant at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire is the only one in Scotland to hold two Michelin stars - at his home on November 5, 2018. A short version of this interview was published exclusively in The Times on November 6, 2018. Andrew died on January 22, 2018. I’ve added my appreciation, published in The Herald. More…/

Until my first trip down the (potholed) A77 I was unaware of the unique attraction of Wigtownshire and that fact that it’s a foodie destination - albeit a rather uncelebrated one. My visit pre-dates the Stranraer Oyster Festival and the newly launched Ethical Dairy, which are helping attract more attention to its foodie credentials (and which I write about in a separate post) ….more/

Scotland is braced for a record one million+ cruise tourists in 2018. Up to half of them will eschew the on-board lunch and organised excursion in favour of the "authentic individual local experience" and local hospitality in towns and cities. So what does this mean for Scotland's food tourism ambitions? ... more/

It's got a gorgeous name, a fabulous colour - and a pretty high ABV. Welcome to Scotland's first absinthe, to be known as Marmichan (Scots for wicked fairy) when it launches in October ...more/

They taste surprisingly mild and not fishy at all. "Like mellow scrambled eggs," is how chef Pam Brunton of Inver restaurant described Gigha Halibut roe, the newest addition to the Scots larder, which she introduced live on BBC's Saturday Kitchen. ...more/

Legendary chef Albert Roux OBE was in Scotland to support Scots potato farmers who are hopeful their Ayrshire Early Potatoes will be granted PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) status by the EU as early as next week. Final changes to their submission were made last Tuesday [June 13] ... more/

A dessert-only menu sounds like a sugar-addict’s dream. And when I heard the concept - more common in Europe than the UK - was making its Scottish debut in Glasgow, thanks to pastry chef Helen Vass, alarm bells rang. After all, the city surely has the sweetest tooth of the entire nation, not to mention diet-related health issues like obesity and Type 2 Diabetes. Was someone having a laugh? ...more/

It seems more of us are eschewing alcohol, even in fine-dining restaurants. I got to witness the evolution of Scotland's first tea-paired menu at The Gardener's Cottage restaurant with tea expert Erica Moore of eteaket ... more/

It was quite a thrill to meet Emily Roux and hear her views on the feminisation of her industry. The 25-year-old daughter of MIchel Roux Jr, chef-patron of Le Gavroche in London's Mayfair, and grand-daughter of Albert Roux OBE was in Scotland to present her first stand-alone menu at the ICMI-run Crossbasket Castle on the outskirts of Glasgow ... more/

The editor of Observer Food Monthly prises open his past to encounter secrets that have bothered him all his life.

He believes in miracles. "I think I almost am one," he writes.

Reading his haunting memoir, it's hard to disagree.

more ...

Scotland, where food tourism is still in its infancy, has a lot to learn from the EatJersey festival of gastronomy, which I was lucky enough to experience first-hand ... more/

Two women have seen to it that Syria doesn't lose its ancient food culture even as its people flee and disperse. ...more/

Tom Kitchin, chef-patron of The Kitchin, one of Scotland’s 12 Michelin starred restaurants, recently became the first Scots chef to launch a pop-up restaurant at Harrods.

He told me Scotland could sell itself better as a food destination, and that going to London was a way of attracting attention to the vibrant world-class scene here.

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Brexit could scupper plans for the first abattoir on Skye in more than a generation.

The micro facility, for which local crofters, farmers and chefs have been campaigning for decades, has finally been granted planning permission for a site in Portree. Once built, it would allow small-batch Isle of Skye-labelled lamb, beef and pork from rare and native breeds reared on the island to be identified on menus and marketed worldwide for the first time. This includes Hebridean lamb, Soay mutton and Highland beef.

Now, however, the UK’s plans to leave the European Union have put in doubt vital EU funding for the £1.5m project ... more

With the global health crisis apparently running out of control, it’s easy to assume the food industry is as flabby as most of the people it feeds. As I recently discovered, however, work is ongoing behind the scenes to address the UK's dire health statistics which show that two-thirds of adults and almost a third of children are obese or overweight, and around 5% have Type 2 diabetes (80% of whom are obese).

Scotland’s growing army of small-to-medium food and drink producers is busy liaising with academics and scientists to voluntarily find ways of reformulating existing and future products so they contain less sugar, salt and fat. Their work is both enlightening and encouraging.

Whether such measures will make the slightest bit of difference remains, however, a moot point ...more/

In some ways, they're a match made in heaven. The browns, greys, yellows and creams and reflected blue hues in their shells seem like a visual echo of their wild Hebridean habitat. And they're being foraged and prepped by a local entrrepreneur for top city restaurants.....more

I was commissed to write a piece about how cookbooks have shaped the way I cook at Christmas. As I pondered what I was going to say, I met a friend who said she'd chucked out all her cookbooks in favour of using the internet. For me, though, going online may be a quick fix, but it precludes the joy of grazing more.../

Attempting to throw a bread sandwich from the 20th floor of a high-rise flat may not be an entirely successful way to feed hungry children, as Adam McNaughton’s famous 1960s Jeely Piece Glasgow folk song says. But a new bakery in one of the last remaining high-rise blocks in the city’s notorious Gorbals area is feeding hungry residents from the ground floor up....more

Scotland has long been recognised as the sole producer of premium Scotch whisky, with the first written record in the Exchequer rolls of Scotland dating from June 1495. In more recent times the country has become the biggest producer of gin, with its distillers outperforming their counterparts in England to produce 70 per cent of all gin made in the UK.

Now there's a new spirit coming from the Scottish countryside, thanks to an abundance of apples ... more

I must admit I didn't realise that many supermarket and take-away soups don't contain nearly as much veg as you'd think. This became apparent at the first-ever National Vegetable Summit in Edinburgh, a UK-wide event held simultaneously in London and Cardiff, when some of the UK’s top retailers and public service caterers pledged to increase the volume of vegetables they offer, and support it by better promotions, to help combat declining vegetable consumption in Scotland ...more/

Richard Lochhead MSP, the former cabinet secretary for food and rural affairs and the environment, has written to WH Smith to ask them to consider stocking Scottish bottled water alongside French and English. I wrote about this exclusively for The Times and STV News picked up on it, with a response from Jackson Carlaw MSP. According to the STV story he thought the whole idea was a "ludicrous grievance". But when the UK bottled water industry is worth £2.1bn and the competition between brands has never been keener, shouldn't Scottish water be up there with the others?  more …/