Day 1, Saturday 15 June, was all about cookery demos, Cellardyke artists, gingerbread streets and dancing.
After the boys returned from the inevitable golf match (at Craighead Links, Crail Golfing Society), we headed to Crail Community Hall for our first taste of the Crail Food Festival. We weren't alone - the hall was packed full of enthusiastic foodies, going round all of the stalls to sample and buy tasty local produce. The good people from the excellent Grill House restaurant (www.grillhouse-restaurant.co.uk) in St Andrews were having absolutely no trouble at all getting takers for their hot food samples. I however was having trouble getting to them in time before they all disappeared! A cookery demo by Craig Millar was announced. Craig is chef and owner of Crail Millar @ 16 West End restaurant (www.16westend.com), a great place right on the shore in the lovely East Neuk village of St Monans. The hall slowly emptied as the Chef's Theatre filled. We all went in except for R, who had identified this as the ideal opportunity to get the lion's share of the food samples (a cunning and very successful plan!). However he missed out on an entertaining, amusing and informative demo from Craig, as well as a taste of the finished product.
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| Craig Millar provides a cookery demo, Chef's Theatre, Crail Food Festival 2013 |
Hebridean sea salt and Israeli couscous were two recommendations I resolved to try at home. Craig also revealed he tends to go local by using Scottish rapeseed oil rather than olive oil - I'm with him on that. Some of Craig's recipes can be found in the Relish Scotland, Second Helping book, along with recipes from other great chefs based in some of Scotland's finest restaurants. I bought a (signed) copy of the book on the day for the rose cottage cookbook collection and would thoroughly recommend it.
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| Relish Scotland - Second Helping - book of original recipes from Scotland's finest chefs and restaurants |
Back in the main hall we had the chance to purchase a great selection of foodie treats from the Fife's finest producers on the stalls all round the hall. I ended up buying raspberry jam from two of my favourite farmshops, who had stalls there: Balgove Larder (www.balgove.com), near St Andrews and Ardross Farm Shop (www.ardrossfarm.co.uk), near Elie. You can never have enough raspberry jam in my book!
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Balgove Larder, farm shop near St Andrews - one of the stall holders at the Crail Food Festival 2013
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However the icing on the cake on that chilly afternoon was the warmly comforting hot chocolate from our local chocolatiers, The Pittenweem Chocolate Co (www.pittenweemchocolate.co.uk). To die for!
Time was ticking so we departed for Cellardyke to see some of the East Neuk Open Studios (ENOS) - more to come on this in my ENOS blog soon.
That evening we were back in Crail for more Food Festival fun - this time dinner and dancing. In just a few hours the Community Hall (an old church) had been transformed into a dinner and music venue. The hall was noisy, buzzing with chatter at this sold-out event. We shared a table with a Scottish family. The parents lived in California and were finding Crail rather cold in comparison! (More on this in Part 2!)
A three course meal followed. Starter and main course from Hatters & Co (www.hatterscatering.com), caterers at the Edwardian tearoom in Hill of Tarvit Mansion House, were quickly scoffed. However the highlight for me was definitely the dessert from Sucre Coeur (www.sucrecoeur.co.uk), creators of an entire gingerbread street which was displayed in the window of Crail Gallery. One of the band members (more on them in a minute) also serenaded us with a little ukulele number at our table while we ate.
Wine was provided by the St Andrews Wine Company (www.standrewswinecompany.com), who have a great wine shop in Bell Street, St Andrews. They select wines to have labelled as their "house white" and "house red". They were also manning the bar and doing a great trade in beer from the St Andrews Brewing Company (www.standrewsbrewingcompany.com), who created Crail Ale for a previous year's Crail Food Festival. It was so popular that they kept making it and it recently won a craft beer competition and will be available in Sainsbury's supermarket so more of us can get to enjoy it! Unsurprisingly that night the Crail Ale had completely sold out but R and I enjoyed the IPA instead and it went down very well indeed.
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Sweet treats. From top: East Neuk Street made from Gingerbread and Dessert, both by Sucre Coeur for Crail Food Festival 2013
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Dinner over and bellies full, it was now time for the music to begin. If, like me, you loved the soundtrack of quirky George Clooney film "O brother where art thou?" you would have loved the first local Fife band who took to the stage: Black Cat Jook Band. They transported us from Crail to the Deep South with their madcap bluesy sounds, even making what seemed to be a box with a stick and a piece of string into a quivering, deep bass. It was utterly impossible not to tap your feet along.
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| From left: Black Cat Jook Band, King Creosote's Band and Crail Ale |
Then it was time for a second local band with a bigger reputation: King Creosote (www.kingcreosote.com). With one of the band members hailing from Crail it was definitely a home crowd for them. They masterfully entertained us with a more mainstream sound, including a song about Crail which had the dance floor packed. The atmosphere was great.
When King Creosote's band finished their set on a climatic high the party was over. Off we went, weary but happy, to get some rest ready for Festival Day 2! My Part 2 blog is coming soon with all the details! .
Text and photos copyright Sara Scott 2013
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