From Invergowrie to Edinburgh: food columnist Murray Chalmers reflects on some of his favorite places for food lovers to visit and why it’s more productive to run Dundee’s first pop-up dining spot with his sister.
Although we have tried our hotel industry to suffer as much as we have been able to, many of us have had to reluctantly reduce our food on site recently.
A mixture of new rules, other opening hours in various institutions and a build-up of infections has left many speechless and frightened. While I share the considerations and fears of a kneeling industry, I must also say that I appreciate and respect the difficult decisions made through the Scottish government.
I mean, do other people think they would intentionally jeopardize jobs and the economy at large if public aptitude wasn’t so seriously at stake?
As it is now part of a higher-risk organization (61 years or older), I do not turn the cube around my physical condition through the state too close to a bar, as I would not in the cooperative.
Covid is worth paying for a pint and a little joke and I’m not willing to threaten him, even though the law says everything is fine and some parties to the conflict seem to think that anyone over the age of 60 will be a component. of a consumable herd.
So no, the only thing that happens here are, hopefully, frogs, while warriors with loose passes are still breathing, we will have to fight this kind of age discrimination that, according to logic, would already make us look like a surplus in relation to the demands of society.
Not me, man! I’m like that. My life. My choice.
However, I went out and enjoyed meals as appetizing as socially distant, adding a snack just in the afternoon at Post House Coffee Co in Invergowrie.
Here you can eat outdoors in a series of quasi-grassy shelters through hunting with a sign on the front that says ” try to pray ”. I pray, but I’ll have to admit that the hobthrough fruit cheesecake served at the post office has been fulfilled. a more grumpy non-secular desire and, at the same time, provides an incredibly sustainable sugar high on the market.
I also went to buy groceries at Edinburgh’s brilliant Valvona and Crolla (before the dot structure was announced), where eating cakes in your gorgonzola is as revolutionary a treat as you can have for thirteen euros, until you befriend the store. Valpolicella very smart.
Obviously, I’m frivolous because there are few life-changing things like sickness or living in poverty and having to use a food bank; However, you don’t need to be on the river to know it’s rainy and deep.
This reckless habit of spending thirteen euros on a small piece of wildly flowing curtain would possibly have marked me as a millionaire tattooed with new money, because the next incident in Valvona’s nirvana was the assistant who introduced me to one of the last two desperate black cakes. a pot.
I went to incredibly serious truffle markets in southwestern France, where traders treat selling their reserve as seriously as the French take their three-hour lunch break and the right to take a holiday during the month of August.
There are scales that can go up 10 euros to the charge if they drop a loose hair, there are anxious sitting dogs, waiting to see what the loot of their efforts will look like in the truffle inventory market, there is a sense of gravity that even a fundamental wisdom of the French language and psyche cannot penetrate because the cakes and the narrative that surrounds them are also more elemental than the earth.
Anyway, a truffle – the litter hen, the shrimp in the rock pool – so small that it charges “only” 20 euros but, as I probably would have provided only a breath in the wind of a sensory blow, I left it, remembering the maxim of a decadent friend that everything he values doing is worth it.
Edinburgh is where I go when I want a little more urban life than Dundee.
I have been at this very hour since 1976 and I love it: the possibility of stretching the wings and also of being a stranger in a charming city that has much to enrich the soul.
And the food! This time, of course, most of the options were closed, but fortunately there was joy and this was achieved through art and brilliant chef Barry Bryson.
This ultimate culinary fun took place on the outskirts of town, in the fantastic Jupiter Artland, a glorious collection of fresh art at Bonnington House Park.
Among 120 acres of forests and meadows, you can find an impressive art collection, adding works by Anya Gallaccio, Cornelia Parker, Andy Goldsworthy, Nathan Coley of Dundee, Antony Gormley, Marc Quinn, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Anish Kapoor.
Each detour brings something new, from charles Jencks’ ‘Sculpture Garden Cells of Life’ arrival to Nathan Coley’s remarkable In Memory Cemetery at the end.
After a few hours exploring the artwork, it’s lunchtime. Our stopover took position towards the end of Barry Bryson’s three weeks as an emerging chef here and after dinner so well, I can only hope he comes back. they say he can take a position around Christmas.
I met Barry in January, when he hosted a brilliant Burns dinner at the implausible confines of Waitrose in Milngavie; Since then, I have noticed that this wonderful leader responded to the pandemic with a pictorial ethic that is as determined as it is inspiring.
Pop-up restaurants and collaborations are something I know a bit about because my sister and I did one in Dundee a few years ago. Never more! Apparently our dining rooms in Dundee were the first pop-up to take place in Dundee, and if that’s true, I can see why no one else has tried.
Although we have the help of the fantastic Gillian Veal and a lot of help from the big and intelligent of the city, it is fair to say that the wheels of our cart lacked some gears.
The logistics of a collaborative pop-up is complex because it integrates a new concept into an area that was not built for it.
The first calamity that occurred when my sister turned on the stove and without delay caught fire.
From there, it was a catalogue of tension that required herculous efforts to bring that fucking display to the road before the curtains and hosts fell after the pudding.
Some memories of random nightmares are trout on the menu, but the fishmonger didn’t have trout, no plates, so I ran to TK Maxx to buy more, the glasses weren’t blank enough, I ran to Fife and put them all in my dishwasher. , insufficient bowls, so a friend of artist Kim Canale had his main course in one of my own cereal bowls.
We ran out of vegetation, which meant I was heading to Matthews Foods, where I almost stole the last pak choi from other people’s baskets, my sister status in the middle of a place to eat empty shouting the words “torchons” over and over again, like a mantra for evil – and in spite of all I, host and greeting , running towards the car to retrieve my sister’s clothes. Array releasing his bra and panties from the bag when other people started arriving.
Delicious food. Needless to say, Barry’s Jupiter pop-up is perfect.
First of all, the permanent area is captivating: an excellent shade of rose that lifts the minds (ignore the initial skepticism that coffee is called Café Party, which is as bad as it seems, because it carries the call of the artist Nicolas Party, who designed it so brilliantly).
What you want to focus on is the food, which is excellent.
He may have eaten everything from a list that included the maximum creamy beef stew with smoked bacon, tomato and fennel (9 euros), Barry’s famous salmon, ginger and scallop meatballs served in a bird miso broth with fennel and chili flakes (9 euros), a Caesar salad with hot roast bird (9 euros) and only the cake with the hot roast bird (9 euros) Array served with a new green salad (8. 50 euros).
My special lamb tagine (9 euros) perfection, while the fries we shared David and I were a delight.
The service was impeccable. In truth, that delight in the midst of a pandemic was notable for many things, one of which is that a menu like this (dishes you really need to eat, made with wonderful ingredients and cooked with great success) is incredibly difficult to find. .
As the hotel industry struggles, it is wonderful to see this example of a collaborative company actually shine through adversity.
Valvona and Crolla, 19 Elm Row, Edinburgh EH7 4AA. Tel: 0131 556 6066. w: valvonacrolla. co. uk
Jupiter Artland, Bonnington House, The Steadings, Wilkieston, Edinburgh EH27 8BY. Tel: 01506 889900. w: jupiterartland. org
Jupiter Artland is closed lately, but check for updates.
Barry Bryson, Instagram. chef. caterer. edinburgh. w: cateredinburgh. com
Practice the new point formula and only if necessary.
‘Opportunities like this give me a lot of hope’: Fife chef Barry Bryson opens up an emerging café in an outdoor gallery
Murray enjoys a glorious culinary day at Carse of Gowrie and the coronation is an old abdominal laugh with new friends.
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