My top tips for the Edinburgh Foodies Festival

It was a lovely sunny and warm day today in Edinburgh for the 10th Anniversary of the Foodies Festival.  Here are a few highlights, the festival continues tomorrow and is well worth a visit.

I was delighted to see the lovely Jillian McEwan of Fresh Food Express was attending.  Make sure you visit for lovely fresh fruit and Walter Gregory's Tonic Water from Summerhouse Drinks.

So now you have your tonic water, you need some Gin to go with it.  There are a number of purveyors of gin at the festival, but Daffy's Gin was particularly good and the staff were very helpful.

Too much booze early in the morning!  Time for some lunch, we enjoyed the chicken fajita wraps, substantial and at £5 very good value.  There are lots of different types of foods available at the festival, something for everyone and more vegetarian options than when I was there two years ago, although it is still heavily dominated by burgers and roast meats.  I was really disappointed to see that the Arbroath Smokies stall wasn't there and heard that it had been banned for health and safety reasons, although the BBQ stalls were creating plenty of smoke!

We only managed to one of the demos in the Aga Rangemaster Chefs Theatre, Michelle McManus was an able host for the show, asking appropriate questions and keeping the show moving along. The chef here is Marcello Tully from Kinloch Lodge in Skye.  The food he made was excellent although he is obviously not used to demonstrating and was also handicapped by domestic equipment rather than a chef standard food processor.  However, he created a fabulous salmon mousse which he served in different ways including made into a roulade in a spinach pancake (see below).  He also made a clever strawberry dessert which I think I may try to recreate.

Back to the producers stalls and we were very impressed by the cheeses at The Devenick Dairy from Banchory, Aberdeenshire.  An excellent deal of £10 for three pieces of cheese and a pack of oatcakes, how could I resist!

Be sure to visit Summer Harvest to try their delicious Scottish cold-pressed rapeseed oils, salad dressings and vinegars. The staff are helpful and knowledgeable, and once you taste the products you will want to have them in your kitchen.

 We were impressed by the scallops at The Hebridean Food Co, not impressed by the price of the macarons!  Nice to say hello to Chris at Perthshire Oatcakes.

Last but by no means least, do not miss a visit to The Brownie Bar, these gooey brownies are £2 each but half of one is almost too much they are so rich and delicious, so we felt they were really good value and well made. The good news is, that you can also buy them online.

My tips for a great trip to Foodies Festival:

1. It gets much busier in the afternoon, arrive early.
2. Go to registration as soon as you arrive and register for the theatre sessions.
3. Take a picnic blanket, so you can sit comfortably on the grass.
4. There are long queues at the ladies toilets - use the gents!
5. Take a rucksack, those bottles of gin and oil are heavy to carry.

Many thanks to Foodies Festival for inviting me to the festival.