Lindsey

Thank you sooo much for this, I have loved every word and picture!

Oh I have just fallen to the call of Ottolenghi, having got to the age when I donate most of the cookery books I lusted after a few years ago, this one really tickled my fancy. Am I overjoyed with it? Not as much as I had hoped, but my expectations were high. His are books for City dwellers I think.

How could you eat Marmite when you could be eating Bovril????? They have started producing a Cheddar cheese laced with Marmite and very scrummy it is too.

Am experimenting at work to try to make good old Scottish Stovies that look even semi presentable, these are just a theme on hash but boiled together rather than fried. The potatoes are softened in the beef gravy so a good stock foundation is important.

Boiling it up with a good mixture of water and washing soda works for me every time.

Having set my heart on making an Eve's Pudding on Sunday and being under a Severe Weather Warning, I was saddened to find I only had 2/3 of the required amount of butter needed for the sponge topping, but I suddenly remembered I had snapped up a reduced tin of Ghee earlier in the year. I used this in the sponge mix to make up the 1/3 missing butter and the result was really good. The delicious slightly crunchy topping of sponge straight from the oven stayed for the 2 day life of the pud, and the flavour was a more intense butteriness than with straight butter, texture of the sponge was lighter than usual but the flavour made up for this tenfold. I will use again and try in different ways. Any suggestions? Quite a large tin!!

LOL Blether you are, of course, right. Will take a few photos and post them - see if you recognise the place.

Thank you all for the good advice, I will let you know how it goes. Blether I have to decide on a few really good specials for the locals. Sadly this area is full of very lazy chefs(if you can grace them with that name) who steal nearly every special idea I have had at my present job, very annoying. EatNopales, you will find a huge range of oatcakes here, from hand made to factory made and every local baker makes his own version. There are a lot of very local breads with long histories and Beef soup in many forms is widespread. I take it you will be visiting Burghead the Pictish Capital? It is about 8 miles from where I will be so do pop in!!

More info: no passing trade as such, it sits on the beach literally at the end of a track but does have a boat yard/Marina attached so you really need to be going to the beach or coming to the cafe. The village of Findhorn is a very busy place and gets a high proportion of foreign visitors due to The Findhorn Foundation, many of whom are vegetarian. Business is pretty good at present but relies heavily on non repeat business in summer, very basic mostly frozen. Best sellers are the breakfasts and bacon rolls. Competition is where I work at present but that is a pub so there is room for both of us, we are serving fresh seafood mainly and the upper end of the market money wise. Target clientele in the winter, I would think, would be retired couples, day trippers to the beach, bird spotters. We are open from 9.30 to 5 at present. We do have great local suppliers and a bakery in the village which, however, is truly expensive so I will be searching for a good bakery in the nearby town of Forres, there are 3 all with their own speciality. We have good local cheeses, great but 'ordinary' vegetables, and fish of course. My main problem is that the kitchen is very badly designed and tiny, I have one domestic 4 ring cooker with oven no grill, 2 griddles, 1 single and 1 double deep fryer of domestic use size so would not be able to deep fry a whole haddock!!!! 1 decent microwave and a soup cauldron. I may be able to make the case for better equipment but not for a wee while. Blether - gorse bushes still there in profusion and still catching a goodly share of wee boy's kites LOL!!!

Interesting use of kippers!!! That did make me giggle but well worth a thought. Don't want to go off at a tangent until I see where things are going but just want to up the game a little, we do have a limited license and an even more limited kitchen. Am thinking on the lines of 'proper' crab sandwiches and the like. We are open all year so heavy duty warming stuff will be needed I think.

Actually that grinder is for black pepper, just come back from there with an almost identical one - most definately pepper!!!

I am taking over the running and cooking in an idyllic beach cafe in Scotland. My question is what would you expect/like to find on the menu? Mostly breakfast and beverage trade at present.

I third that!!!

No idea if this has anything to do with how you feel but for me the weather has a lot to do with how I go about breakfast. If I am in Turkey then olives, cheese, salad and fruit are a joy eaten in the sun, same in the more Southern parts of France etc. In the,ever, dreich grey of our lovely Island they do not taste good at all, more comfort is needed in the form of black pud and eggs, potato scones etc. Or, maybe because we have just woken up we need the 'known' before we face the 'unknown' LOL.

To be faithful to where I now live I would say Skirlie and Kale, quite delicious and truly next to nothing to make. To be true to my London roots I would say pease pudding with a slather of butter if you have it - yummy. The odd saveloy would not go amiss.

I love this book and I refer to it every time I want inspiration, not actually followed a whole recipe - Mea Culpa - but I use her base tagine recipe weekly for a vegetable tagine I make at work. I do have Middle Easter Cookery also and find the 2 books quite different.

Our favourite at home is 'cream of Sunday Lunch' which is made with all the leftover vegetables, must included mashed swede and carrots and any extra stuffing by choice, gravy of course and a good stock base. Another one is lentil and tomato with the addition of Nigella seeds which really do transform it from bland to interesting.

2 Le Creuset saucepans and a professional roller iron all left in a layby on the banks of Loch Ness, obviously the Monster is not house proud!

This recipe for Broccoli with spiced yoghurt sounds interesting, excuse the link I am tech challenged!!! Indian style broccoli with spiced yogurt

Everything looks so good, been very lazy lately - must pull my socks up!

A tiny fish and chip shop at the Kyle of Lockalsh looking out over the bay to The Isle of Skye and The Cuillins, a heavenly place, fish is not bad either!

I have many but the go to favourite is 'The Classic 1000 Indian Recipes' edited by Wendy Hobson. To my mind it covers everything you would ever want a recipe for from Peanut powder to the best Egg Curry recipe in the world IMHO

Dressing 3 x30 pound sackfuls of Cromer Crabs, the white meat in my hair was very fetching!!!!

OK just in the house 127, at work (mine own) 54, shed Oh Lord will get back to you on that one.

I rushed off with a Vorwerk Thermomix with extra spare blade and seal for - 50pence!!!!! This was in a boot fair and is still my best ever buy.