A fine day for Foodies

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candy, churros, cider, food festival, foodies festival, jerk chicken, mark greenaway, oyster, oysters, seafood

The sun shone on Inverleith Park for this year’s Foodies Festival. After an initial wander around the labyrinth of stalls, which offered everything from Arbroath smokies to homemade lemonade, I decided to pay a visit to Mark Greenaway’s stand for a spot of lunch.

The choices were lightly smoked pan seared hake fillet, pea salad and tarragon dressing OR 11 hour slow roasted pork belly puffed crackling pomme puree and toffee apple jus. I opted for the latter and happily devoured it whilst lounging on one of the deck chairs in the sun. My friends tucked into some deep fried chocolate yumminess thanks to our old pals Churrio.

To cleanse the palate I treated myself to an award winning Black Dragon cider, courtesy of the Natural Cider Company. Although the tipple wasn’t to everyone’s taste, I enjoyed the aromatic, strong oaky flavour. With 16 different types of cider to choose from, it would have been rude not to, so I followed this up with a Pheasant Plucker, which was cloudy, bubbly and sweet.

I spotted an old chum Emma, who I used to work with at a retro sweetie shop many light years ago. Turns out Emma’s taken the helm at Love Candy, and if you fancy a Refresher Bar, Sherbet Dib Dab or some blueberry liquorice, get yourself down to her cutesy little shop on Hanover Street.

As someone who a) writes a food blog and b) loves all forms of seafood, I probably shouldn’t be admitting this. But I will – I’d never had an oyster before. So I jumped at the chance when I spotted the Caledonian Oyster Co. Farmed in Loch Creran, I don’t think I could have found a better one to lose my oyster virginity too. It tasted exactly as I’d imagined – salty – but the consistency was much softer, and the aftertaste was truly exquisite.

We finished the day with some Jerk Chicken from the Backyard Company, whose stall pumped infectious reggae beats into the late afternoon.

Compared to the Foodies I’d visited a few years ago, the festival really seems to be coming from strength to strength – with more stalls, more variety and more people visiting.

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Brew at the Bog – a rather tasty Brewdog festival

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beer, Bogbain Farm, Brew, brew at the bog, Brewdog, churros, edinburgh, festival food, Inverness, Madrid, music festival, Spain

It was an unusually chilly 5th of May, but that didn’t stop us packing up our camping gear and heading up north to the first ever Brew at the Bog festival at the lovely Bogbain Farm, just outside Inverness.

Now I could tell you about the scrumptious beer, my new found love of red ale 5am Saint, how we danced away the cold (almost), the relatively unknown new bands I discovered and what a quirky, unique venue the fairy-lit Bogbain Farm was.

But this hungry weasel had something else on her mind – churros.

Churros come from Spain and when I lived in Madrid I loved nothing better than a 5am jaunt to the famous San Ginés Chocolateria for a post-party snack.
Strips of fried pastry, covered in sugar and accompanied by a pot of thick, melted hot chocolate for dipping – what’s not to love? So when I clocked the Churrio stall at Brew at the Bog my heart did sing a little.

Without exaggeration, the churros were just as good as those I had coveted in Spain. The dipping chocolate was just the right amount of bitter to balance the sweetness of the churros themselves and so warming to my already-numb hands. The only difference was that Churrio had added some cinnamon to the churro batter, but this worked really well.

Another charming dining option was The Tea Posy – a welcoming little caravan serving some much-needed hot drinks and delicious looking homemade cakes.

After hours of dancing, we finished the night with some much-needed fish and chips, and of course the Edinburgh girl in me had to go for salt and sauce.

It would have been great to see some food on offer made with Brewdog beer itself but as this was the inaugural Brewdog Festival perhaps I was expecting a little too much. But, hey, there’s always next year…

For coverage of the ACTUAL BEER check out the wonderful musings of aletotheking.