Islay Home Baking is the Best

I found a very nice article in last weeks Ileach about the number of festivals on Islay related to the fabulous home baking that is offered during some of these events. I can remember a spring fair at Bruichladdich hall in May this year where a number of artists on the island got together to sell their (self made) things. At the time we arrived it was somewhat quiet, it was on a Saturday, but we enjoyed all the things on display and even bought a couple of items. After we made our round we had a look in the room next-door and found tables packed with home baking, enough to feed the entire island. We decided to have a coffee and try a few home baked things and they were absolutely fabulous. Afterwards we weren't sure if this was the spring fair or the home baking calory fair, but we had a good time (lunch) anyway. To let you in on a little secret you can find the article from the Ileach called "In Praise of Home Baking" below: Continue reading.....
Islay now has an impressive calendar of festivals, starting with Feis Ile and the Festival of Malt and Music, we also now have the Black Bottle Islay Jazz Festival, the Stormcats Tope Fishing Festival, Feis Ogridh Ile, The Islay Book Festival and now the Small Islands Film Festival. You would think that the island would be suffering from a sort of festival hangover - but not a bit of it, festivals are great and in the opinion of this ardent festival junkie, the more the merrier. We particularly like festivals that relate to really obscure things - how many people on Islay knew that Loch Indaal is home to little-known sharks called Tope before the Tope Festival came along? If your average Jazz fan had been asked ten years ago to suggest the daftest venue he could think of to play host to a jazz festival he may well have suggested a small island off the west coast of Scotland. For apparently this is a small island - it must be because we are now to play host to the Small Islands Film Festival - another excellent idea which is to be based at ICCI - Screen Machine and all. Last weekend it was the turn of another wildly ambitious undertaking - the Islay Book Festival. How many of us actually read books at all - let alone would wish to go a festival about the things...? The answer is loads apparently because Port Ellen Primary School resembled a seal colony during the mating season at times last weekend, with shoals of children being herded by flocks of grown-ups to witness readings by a line-up of authors that would turn heads in London let alone Lennox Street. And that was just for the kid’s stuff - not only were you likely to end up eating lunch with Mairi Hedderwick, there was at least one, if not two, Iain Banks’s wandering about signing autographs and eating sticky buns. It was all a bit surreal.

Happily there was at least one, if not two, films being made of the whole thing so it was all recorded for posterity. What exactly is it that motivates internationally famous artists to come to Islay festivals? There is another bunch here this weekend for the Jazz. OK, the whisky has something to do with it, and the view from your average Islay window is often a cut above anything found in luvvieland, but the truth is that they can buy the whisky at their local Oddbins, and there are more than a few spots in Scotland with a decent view. Your correspondent is convinced that the big attraction is actually the home baking. The spread laid out at the book festival was to die for. Fabulous coffee walnut, dreamy Victoria sponge and a fruit loaf that I can still taste now. The richness of the fruit, the slight bite of the crust, the explosion of flavours on the palate. You remember those meringues that combine an explosive exterior with a slight chew in the middle? Stuffed with cream? Gingerbread that tastes of dark, rich outrageously ginger ginger? Well there is going to be another spread like it in Portnahaven this weekend, and, unsurprisingly, the stars have booked their places at the table already.

Tag: home baking festivals