Jamie Oliver set open new restaurant in Edinburgh

By Oliver Farrimond

CELEBRITY chef Jamie Oliver is set to open a new restaurant in Edinburgh within the next year.

The Naked Chef intends to add the new eatery to his string of popular restaurants once a suitable location is chosen.

The restaurant should open in mid-to-late 2011, and follows the successful opening of Jamie’s Italian in Glasgow during July of this year.

Peter Berry, spokesman for Jamie Oliver, said the chef hoped to be launching next year, depending on how long it takes to select a suitable site.

KT Tunstall announces only summer date – on a pig farm

By ALEXANDER LAWRIE

SCOTS pop princess KT Tunstall has just unveiled her only summer festival appearance this year – on a PIG farm.

KT will play hits such as Suddenly I See at the ‘Harvest at Jimmy’s’ festival to be held on the Suffolk farm where the popular BBC2 show Jimmy’s Farm is filmed.

The Fife-born star joins acts indie Athlete, Badly Drawn Boy and Mercury Award nominee Seth Lakeman in the festival line-up which will combine award-winning chefs and food with live music.

Tunstall is all set to perform a semi-acoustic set which will see her play her chart hits alongside new material from her forthcoming album.

Scot who took whisky to the States

By Alexander Lawrie

AS AMERICANS celebrated the anniversary of George Washington’s birth yesterday (22/02), Scots should have raised a glass or two to the man who is regarded as the ‘Father of American Whisky’.

Fifer James Anderson is credited with introducing whisky to the Yanks after he emigrated there in the 1790s.

The Scot landed a job with former US president George Washington and the pair set up the States’ first distillery together.

Now another whisky company has sprung up in the very house Anderson and his family set sail from over two hundred years ago.

The Spencerfield Spirit Company produces and distributes two brands of whisky across the world – Sheep Dip, a blended malt, and Pig’s Nose, a deluxe blend.

And the fledgling company is already making waves in the whisky industry by appearing in the new Jamie Oliver magazine, selling over 60,000 bottles of their product a year and having A-list Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland as a fan.

Born in 1745 – the year of the second Jacobite Rebellion – James Anderson emigrated from Inverkeithing in Fife with his wife and seven children in 1791.

The Scots farmer and distiller set sail from Spencerfield Farm on the banks of the Forth and when he arrived in the US six months later he began his new life farming in Virginia.

By 1795, Anderson was distilling whisky near Fredericksburg, Virginia, and two years later he started working for America’s first ever President, George Washington, at his Mount Vernon plantation.

Within weeks of arriving at Mount Vernon, Anderson had convinced his new employer to open up his very own distillery.

And by 1799, Washington was producing over 10,000 gallons of rye whisky a year in a state-of-the-art distillery.

Historians believe that Anderson used larger distilleries in Scotland, such as the one at Spencerfield Farm, as a model for the Mount Vernon operation.

Washington’s own correspondence records: “Mr. Anderson has engaged me in a distillery, on a small scale, and is very desirous of encreasing (sic) it: assuring me from his own experience in this county…”.

And personal letters also reveal Washington’s respect for Anderson – although it is thought the two men did have their differences.

On 11 June, 1798, Washington wrote: “I believe you are a man of strict integrity; sobriety, industry & zeal.”

Today, the Mount Vernon distillery is widely-regarded as a US national historic monument, and Spencerfield Spirit is proud of its deep-rooted association.

Wife Jane, 51, said: “We are extremely proud of our association with James Anderson and all he contributed to the Scottish whisky industry.

“There’s no doubt that it was he who introduced the drink to the US.

“There were small distilleries all over Fife at the time and he obviously saw an opportunity when arrived in Virginia.

“His stroke of luck occurred when he managed to get a job on Washington’s farm and, seemingly, the pair became quite good friends.

“We’ve been in business for just over three years now and to be honest we had no idea about the connection until we started looking into the history of the house.

“It was such a wonderful surprise to discover the truth surrounding the house and the influence Anderson has had over the promotion of our national drink.

“It seems apt that we have set up our business here and hopefully we can go on and have as much success as Anderson did.

Spencerfield House has long had a connection with whisky as in 1651 Oliver Cromwell and his troops were billeted at the farmhouse after routing Scottish Royalists at the Battle of Inverkeithing.

As they celebrated with a dram or three, the soldiers accidentally set fire to their own gunpowder kegs – blowing the east wing of the house clean off.

The house was ransacked before the soldiers left, and according to the historian Reverend William Stephen, they departed with “a great quantity of silver plate, arras, hangings, carpets and other household plenishing”.

Elderly residents given “nutrition champs”

By Cara Sulieman

ELDERLY people in some of Scotland’s care homes are to be given their own healthy eating gurus.

Staff in 50 of the country’s care homes have been trained to overhaul the dining experience for thousands of residents.

Susan Polding-Clyde

And the group of health professionals are being dubbed “nutrition champions” as they set about redesigning kitchens and dining rooms in care homes.

Some unusual schemes have been brought in to make meal times more enjoyable and nutritious for residents.

Some care homes now place laminated menus and flowers on the tables, making the dinning hall feel more like a restaurant.

And in other homes, meal times have been moved to make sure they don’t clash with other appointments.

Elderly residents have been involved with the changes, and are pleased to have a nicer brighter environment.

One resident at Brookfield Residential Home in Carnoustie said: “It is much more bright and cheery now, we are all very proud of our new dining room.”

The “nutrition champs” went on a course organised by the Care Commission to learn about the importance of the individual.

Nutrition experts from all over Scotland came together to help the champs improve food and mealtime.

They included boffins from NHS Scotland, Glasgow Caledonian University, Queen Margaret University and the Scottish Government.

The Care Commission’s Nurse Consultant, Susan Polding-Clyde, was involved in the training and compared the scheme to Jamie Oliver’s over-hall of school meals

She said: “We have already seen how campaigns by the likes of Jamie Oliver can have a dramatic impact on the eating habits of schoolchildren and adults, so it’s very pleasing to see our own nutrition programme working with older people.

“Simple steps such as presenting food more attractively, offering more of a choice on the menu and being more adaptable must be encouraged.

“For many people in care homes, meal times can be the highlight of the day so it is vitally important that mealtimes are seen as both enjoyable and as a social occasion.

“The Nutrition Champions are now armed with the ideas, knowledge and confidence to make a real change to nutrition practices in their homes.”

“Wacky” baker sends invention celebrity chefs

By Michael MacLeod

A SCOTTISH cake maker is hoping to mix it with millionaires with a “revolutionary” take on the wooden spoon – which he insists is NOT a spatula.

But Dragon’s Den won’t be seeing an appearance from “Spon” inventor Neal Robertson – he’s worried they’d laugh at him for being “too wacky.”

Instead, the 51-year-old Fife tearoom owner is sending his double-backed spoons to celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Nigella Lawson in a bid for the baking big time.

“Proud as punch” with his creation, Neal said: “It took me 12 years of making cakes to come up with this – I’m just annoyed I didn’t think of it sooner.

“It’s heavier than a spatula, so it’s not a spatula, neither is it a spoon – it’s a Spon.

“Scotland gets enough wooden spoons in sport – I’m just doing something useful with them.”

Fed up scraping cake mix out of wooden spoons, Neal’s Eureka moment came two years ago.

The Spon has two flat sides, and as well as solving the problem of clogged up cake mixture, its inventor says produces a smoother mix resulting in lighter cakes.

Now he’s got it patented and manufactured in China, and has 18,000 to shift.

He said: “Cakes look and taste a million times more professional when you use a Spon.

“Now sieving flour is history – just chuck everything into the bowl at once and you can mix it all in one go.”

Ikea’s quirkily named products inspired the Spon’s name, and it’s already proven popular with customers.

He took his first delivery on Monday and already has 120 advance orders – most of which are for bulk batches of Spons, selling at £5 each.

So far his customers have mostly been “women’s rural types,” but the Tannochbrae Tearoom owner hopes to win over a younger market.

He added: “When you tell people they can cut down on washing up, they perk up.

“You can use it on anything from browning mince to porridge, soup and scrambled eggs, and none of it will get stuck in the spoon.”

Fame isn’t Neal’s game though, saying he’s happy to leave that to celebrity chefs.

“As long as they use my Spon I don’t care if I make a million from this or not.

“There was a while where I wondered if the idea was a bit too wacky and I thought Dragon’s Den guys would probably laugh at the idea.

“But now I think it’s a brilliant idea, because it could revolutionise the way we bake, cook and wash.

“I’ll send some to Nigella, Nick Nairn, Gordon Ramsey and Jamie Oliver and see what happens.

“I’ll make my investment back with these orders, so anything else is a bonus.”

Hannibal Peckter returned to charity 088

By Alexander Lawrie
 
A HEN re-homed after being saved from the slaughterhouse has been returned to the charity that rescued it – because it kept attacking its new owners.
 
‘Hannibal’ was one of over 600 chickens picked up by the Battery Hen Welfare Trust last weekend as the charity saved the lucky birds from being made into animal food.
 
But after being taken to her new home, Hannibal was so distressed she kept biting her new owners as they tried to feed her.
 
The family has now been forced to hand her back to the charity claiming they cannot keep control of the vicious hen.
 
Last Saturday, 628 battery hens were delivered to farm near Callander, Perthshire to experience their first taste of freedom.
 
Scores of animal-loving families from all over the country arrived to collect between two and 12 hens each, much to the delight of the charity’s Scottish co-ordinator Jim Duff.
 
He said: “We managed to re-house all 628 hens last week, but unfortunately one family was not too happy with their bird.
 
“When they got home, they tried to get near Hannibal to feed her but she kept lunging at them and trying to peck them.
 
“Hens might be quite small, but their peck can be really painful.
 
“Since she came back to us, there has been one occasion where she went for the dog.
 
“The other hens know to keep well away from her, but apart from that she has been as good as gold.
 
“As I’ve got a few hens myself, I’ve decided to keep her.
 
“As a rule, I don’t tend to name them but after witnessing her vicious streak, we’ve christened her Hannibal Peckter.”
 
Battery hens lay up to 320 eggs per year for the first two years, but that average drops drastically as the hen gets older.
 
The two-year-old hens are usually sold on for dog and cat food for as little as 20p each, and are subsequently replaced by the farmer with a new, younger model.
 
Instead of sending them to the abattoir, the Battery Hen Welfare Trust (BHWT) buys up as many of the birds as possible and gives them away to caring bird-lovers in exchange for a small donation.

Mr Duff said: “The main aim of the BHWT is to see a diminishing demand for eggs from caged hens and to increase the demand for free-range and organic.
 
“We are staunch supporters of the British egg industry and support all farmers within the egg industry.

“We fully understand the financial constraints farmers are under and are no way criticising them.

“We are also very happy to pay the farmers the going rate for the hens.”
 
The charity was set up in 2005, and was initially established in order to raise awareness of the 20 million hens currently kept in cages in the UK.
 
Jamie Oliver, a patron of the Trust, said: “The BHWT has passionately defended the farmers believing they’re just stuck between a rock and a hard place.
 
“I don’t want to rant at the farmers either, it’s more about encouraging people to buy from stock that’s been reared as naturally as possible.
 
“From now on, when you buy your eggs have a look at the box to check they’re free range and feel free to ask at restaurants about the type of eggs they’re using.”