A week full of new experiences

The last week has been a busy and exciting week for Inside Out Chef and this is my first real chance to sit down and write something about it – it started with a photoshoot with CopperMango Photography to take pictures of products for afternoon tea, then the next day an invitation to make canapés, salads and pudding for ten and lunch for eight for Saturday, and the day afternoon, coinciding with my son’s tenth birthday, an invitation to participate in the BBC Scotland Kitchen Café – you can find the podcast here and the others in the series here.

As you might expect, since this was the first time I’d done something like this, I was wee bit apprehensive on the day, especially when I turned up and found The Proclaimers sitting having coffee – they kindly invited me to join them as we were all waiting to record shows. I was joined in Edinburgh by Fiona Burrell, Principal of Edinburgh New Town Cookery School. The hour of the live show passed enjoyably and far more quickly than I thought it would and any nerves I had before the start disappeared once we got underway. I returned home to help arrange my son’s birthday party and take him and his friends off to see the new Avengers Assemble movie.

Then the day after, it was the council elections and son was off school as it was being used as a polling station- a friend and her daughter joined us for lunch at Craigies Farm, where we had wonderful meat and vegetables. The kids went off and visited the lambs, piglets and chickens there. On our way back to the farm, we noticed that Craigies Farm have an extra service, a fish van from St. Monans every Thursday, so we stopped and stocked up on some fish.

The day after, I had a chance to do some food shopping for the meals at the weekend and made cheesecake and panna cotta. It was up early the next day, making the salads and the canapés to be delivered by the early evening. Fortunately I was able to take the next day off and go to afternoon tea at Teadelicious, which was held at a secret location in Leith. I think I might be able to post a picture or two of some of the delightful baking that was made for the occasion. The theme was “Retro Sweets” and I really enjoyed the dib-dab marshmallow and raspberry ripple marshallow and I think my husband really enjoyed the rhubarb and custard tarts that I brought back, and my son was really taken with the mint and choc chip cake.