Why Sourdough Won’t Be The Climax of Bread Month

Yes, one of mine I know, you were expecting Tom Cooks! Bread Month to come to a dramatic conclusion with a sourdough fanfare. I do appreciate that many of you get fairly excited about the stuff. And if we’re looking at the economic benefits of home made, making your own really scores here. Assuming you already…

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Deposit Return Scheme or Diabolical Ruddy Shambles?

In a previous existence I spent much of my time advising the licensed trade. When it came to law reforms affecting licensees, many hours were spent trying to persuade governments of the unworkability of many a scheme, and hundreds more ranting after those protestations were ignored. Lorna Slater MSP These days I live an untrammelled…

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Found A Buffalo?

Sounds like part of a bad joke, doesn’t it? Readers of a certain vintage will remember this one. – How do you know if you have an elephant in the fridge? – You can see its footprints in the butter. Sarah and Steve Mitchell Substitute buffalo for elephant and it works just as well/badly. In life, how…

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Bread Month and Review of Do Sourdough

Now I know this column likes to keep up with the seasons and, to a lesser extent, with food trends, but I had no idea it was blessed with the gift of prophecy. Readers of Tom Cooks! will be aware that for the past two Fridays we have been giving you joyous things to put…

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O is for Orange

I’m not sure that I really understand what genetic modification is. What I do know is that, even leaving genes out of the equation, mankind has been mucking about with its fruit and veg for centuries. Never more it seems, than with today’s hero, the orange. Given the ubiquity of the fruit, it surprised me…

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The Death of Fine Dining?

This article was influenced by two things. Firstly, there was the announcement that chef René Redzepi is to close his renowned restaurant Noma in 2024. Situated in the Danish capital Copenhagen, Noma has five times been voted the world’s best restaurant. And secondly there was the rather lurid headline in Sunday’s Observer that Jay Rayner…

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Ingredients and Gadgets – The Floor is Yours

How many of you know what this is? For nearly three years now we’ve been running the Chef Watch feature. Perhaps it needs a little freshening up – especially now that a certain lady in The Scotsman has not only adopted it, but also copied most of the questions. There is a certain sameness (if…

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Books for Christmas 2022

Less than three weeks to go. Admit it, you’re stuck for ideas aren’t you? It gets easier if you’re buying something for a food lover, but beware. I have cupboards stuffed full of interesting, but unopened packets of rare condiments, and we’re still working our way, very slowly, through the five mills of golden salt…

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The Customer Is Always Right? Part 1

The local GP and his wife enter your restaurant. The exchange between them and your waiter goes something like this. Table for two, please. We’ve booked. Smith. Yeah, I know. Mrs Smith, did you look in the mirror before you came out? What on earth made you think that top goes with that skirt? And…

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Wendy Barrie and A Lot of Slow Food

Take your life in your hands and hurtle down the vertiginous slope to Hawkcraig Point in Aberdour. There you will find the home of the force of nature that is Wendy Barrie, chef, food fanatic and ambassador for the Slow Food Movement Scotland. I’ve been slightly surprised how few people actually know of the Slow…

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Tom’s Food! Alphabet: N is for… Neep

Don’t start shouting that I’m cheating and that’s why you didn’t guess it. If managers of Scottish supermarkets are allowed to sit supinely (is that possible? – Ed) while head office decrees that they should label their turnips as swedes, then I’m entitled to redress the balance. And anyway N is also for navet, the little…

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You Can’t Make An Omelette Without…

French Style That’s actually true of many people. Never mind. The inspiration for today came from the chronicles of Mr C’s trip to Egypt. Among his many posts on social media, he commented on the (poor) quality of the omelettes served to him in a particular hotel. They were so poor that he felt he…

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Because We’ve Always Done It That Way

I’ve done a bit of teaching over the years. I enjoyed it, but living with an education professional made me realise that, as with cooking, there’s an awful lot more to it than the untrained amateur might think. A lot of it was in my specialist field of liquor licensing. Lectures, seminars and master classes…

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The Savoy Cocktail Book

Last week’s Tom Cooks! on the subject of the martini cocktail attracted more attention and comment than I anticipated. Some of you also expressed interest in The Savoy Cocktail Book, compiled by Harry Craddock, head bartender at the hotel’s American Bar. While the book is long out of print, an enterprising publishing company, Martino Fine…

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The Food Producers – Robin Sherriff of Koji Kitchen

Passionate. I must stop it. It’s just too Mills & Boon. Perhaps, but it’s easier said than done when you meet food enthusiasts, the ones who go wild eyed when talking about their produce, the ones who can declaim about it for hours while never, ever being boring. I first encountered Robin at a demonstration…

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Inverleith Food Festival

Well, it’s the opening day of the Edinburgh Festival. Last night we’ve been at Murrayfield, entertained by the National Youth Choir of Scotland and a troupe of gravity defying Australians, appropriately titled Gravity & Other Myths. What to do before the opening event? I’d passed Inverleith Park a day or two earlier, and had learned…

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Book Reviews – Red Sauce Brown Sauce: Dirt

RED SAUCE BROWN SAUCE A British Breakfast Odyssey Felicity Cloake Mudlark                 pp373               £16.99                                   It was Somerset Maugham who said, to eat well in England you should have…

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M is for … Mango

Mangoes in Antigua Prominent among the products of J K Rowling’s imagination were the food and the sweets beloved of her heroes and heroines. In particular I remember Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. It is significant that the good Mr Bott had no need to create an Every Flavour Fruit. It exists and is called the…

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