'Underground' Farming?

 Hello!  And, sorry for not posting for so long.  What with Christmas and New Year and everything, it's all been a bit hectic just recently and I'm afraid to say the blog has taken something of a back seat.  This hasn't been helped by the loss of my digital camera owing to an unfortunate incident involving a plastic carrier bag and a half-drunk cup of coffee.  Suffice to say, the digital camera is no long with us.  I'm working on buying a new one so I can get back to blogging properly, but in the mean time we'll just have to stick to words.

 I came across this article in The Guardian today:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/23/diy-food-producers

 The idea of 'underground' food producers is really interesting and not something I've come across before, but I think this kind of cottage industry endeavour is exactly what the country and in particular the countryside, really needs right now.  Although, by the sound of it many of the people mentioned in the article are from an urban environment, but still, this has to be a move in the right direction.  I would love to try out some of these things myself, such as making cheese or curing my own ham, but I just don't have the space at the moment.  I am working to find a solution to this though and if successful, it should certainly give me a bit more to blog about.

 I feel I can't post to my blog at this time of the year without mentioning Burns Night, which is coming up on the 25th January.  Whilst this is a big thing in Scotland where people are keen to celebrate the work of one of their national heroes, Robert Burns, it's very rarely heard of down here in England.  So I was rather surprised to see one of my local butchers having a large banner advertising Burns Night and encouraging people to order a home-made haggis for the occasion.  I don't know how successful this will be, judging by people I've spoken to down here, many are reluctant to try haggis because they've heard that it's disgusting.  It doesn't even seem to matter that they have no idea what goes into it!  It's a shame, haggis is really very nice and I would encourage anyone who hasn't tried it before to give it a go.  And, what better occasion than Burns Night?

Edinburgh

I recently had the opportunity to visit Edinburgh, where many moons ago I used to live.  I'm one of those people that is really bad at getting around to doing all the tourist stuff when I live somewhere, so going back as a visitor gives me the chance to do just that!  As a tourist, I felt the one thing I really had to do was to visit Edinburgh Castle.  It was really interesting and well worth the £11 entrance fee in my opinion.  Here are some pictures.

The approach to the castle iteself:

 This is a view over the city towards Arthurs Seat, taken from the castle:

 More views of the city:

 Of course, I couldn't really write about this visit here on my blog without mentioning food in some way or another! So, here we are, I had lunch in the Queen Anne Cafe, which was really good.  Since I was in Scotland and doing the whole 'tourist' thing, I felt I had to have the haggis, with neeps and tatties:

 

 It tasted as good as it looks!  I lived in Scotland for some time, so I've had haggis before, many times.  I have to say that I rather like it.  All I can say is that if you've never tried it before, do so if you get the chance!  Here, the haggis itself is at the bottom, under a layer of tatties (mashed potato) and neeps (mashed turnip).  People often worry about what haggis is made of - commenting that it's all the disgusting parts of the sheep, but personally I consider the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys to be some of the more flavoursome parts.  All of this is mixed with oats and herbs and spices and well, really you'll just have to try it for yourself.

 Edinburgh is awash with tea shops - several of which are new since I was last there.  I have blogged about the botanical gardens before, but they have recently opened their new West Gate building, which houses a really rather nice resteraunt.  Having been terribly well fed every morning at my bed and breakfast, all I could face on this particular occasion was a cream tea, but it was really very good:

 Perfect.