Monthly Archives: May 2016

Live Well Choose Quality Not Quantity -

Always Read the Label

I am confused.  We have been told that eggs and fat were bad for us, now we are told they are actually good for us. We were told that carbohydrates in wholemeal bread and pasta were good, now it seems with sky rocketing levels of diabetes and pre –diabetes carbs are bad for us. Crisps were evil and now spuds are more evil than a very evil...

Father’s Day -

Should you Ignore It? Or Are You a Grateful Child?

There is no rhyme nor reason to family feelings and the greatest tragedy in the English language is about children who have had enough of their father and wouldn’t mind him spending more time down in the proverbial garden shed. That of course is the play King Lear  which tells us that there is definitely no fool like an old fool, why...

The Great Scottish Pie War -

 Local Baker and Footba Club Go to War over Pie Name

Kilmarnock football club is struggling off and on the field and is now in dispute with their long term sponsor and supplier of match day pies – the momentous entity that is a Killie pie.

 For 13 years the club and baker have been harmonious about the Rugby Park, my mouth is watering writing about it, pie. But the local...

Butchers and Bakers Get Pie Eyed -

Pie in the Sky

The good bakers of Scotland and the great butchers are at something of loggerheads, and I don’t mean the village in Wales. The World Scotch Pie Championships have been beset by troubles that could get somewhat crusty. The row is between the Scottish Federation of Meat Traders Association and the industry representative body Scottish Bakers and it...

Trendy Gin Your Guide

The Drink of the Moment

Whisper it quietly in the mountains and glens, there is a new drink in town and it isn’t whisky. It is gin, the trendiest and most popular of spirits right now and of course it is almost as Scottish as whisky, as much of the UK’s production is here in Scotland.

Been Around

Gin is one of the earliest forms of distilled spirit, it is many centuries old and...

Historic Cottages Transport of Delight

Historic Botany Cottage Taken  to Inverleith

The Botanic Cottage which has been the place where nearly three centuries of Scottish botanists trained has been saved from demolition. The Botanic Cottage was built in 1766 on the former site of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in Leith Walk.

Stone by stone the historic cottage was taken apart and then rebuilt...

Scottish Tea for Two?

It Seems Scottish Climate Ideal for Tea Growing

Well I never, I was listening to Gardener’s Question Time when they said that the best place to grow tea in the world is Scotland, well you could have knocked me down with a Tunnock’s Tea Cake. And when I looked into it is true and they have medals and certificates and stuff to prove it. Mind you it isn’t cheap, the Queen sups the...

Father’s Day

It May Be an American Invention, But Don’t Get forgotten

Well with Mother’s Day and Mothering Sunday the females in the family get thought of twice as often as us men, but it’s us worth dropping hints to the missus and the kids about what would look nice in a gift wrapped present

Good Deals for the Man in Your Life

Now it’s not worth hoping for what the Americans call a big ticket item...

New Study Brings Yet More Doom and Gloom

Put That Sausage Down Man!

The doomsayers are at it again it seems. Scottish men, Crivens that’s close to home, are more likely to snuff it early because we eat too much meat. Well they talk about your “biological age,” well every Scots woman knows that we are permanent teenagers anyway, as opposed to our chronological age varies most in Scotland. We have become...

 Want to Look Younger- Have a Gin

Anti-A-Gin, a Dream Come True?

A hotel group commissioned a television presenter to make some gin that will restore your skin with a collagen supplement. How cool is that? If you were brought up on the works of the London painter William Hogarth and his pictures of Gin Alley it will come as a shock. GIN is GOOD for You! Or so claim food designers and culinographers...