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http://www.thelassogowrie.co.uk/, https://lassogowrie.sumupstore.com/category/fresh-produce-1, https://ratings.food.gov.

The Lass O'Gowrie - Scotland, The Victoria Hall, High Street, Errol (2026)

06/08/2026

| Day 6 |

Istanbul

One of the main hub airports with direct flights from Pristina was Istanbul via Turkish Airlines. Thanks to our nights in the Hyatt Thessaloniki, we earned enough loyalty points for free nights and decided that spending some of them in the Hyatt Istanbul would be an exciting adventure.

We did some research before we arrived and booked a food tour with a local lady, Selina, who organised cookery classes and tours of the local fresh food markets for tourists and students interested in learning more about Turkish cuisine.

We met Selina near the Galata Bridge and were immediately impressed with the itinerary for our day. Starting with the Egyptian Bazaar, we sampled fresh teas, coffee, herbs and spices around traders arguing over saffron. The sheer noise and throng of people in the bazaar may have put some other people off but with the expert guidance of Selina, we bobbed and weaved our way through the crowds. Next stop was the green market.

Towering pyramids of pomegranates, oranges, melons, lemons: the pride with which stallholders crafted their structures was phenomenal. Vats of dolmades, olives, sundried tomatoes, live rolling and baking of filo pastry, tomatoes the size of your hand. Peppered in amongst everything were small groups of stools where older men gathered to drink fresh tea delivered by younger men whirling around corners with gold metal trays. To this day in the cafe, we serve our mint tea using only a sprig of fresh mint leaves like we had in Istanbul. The smell of sh**ha and baked pastries, the cries of attention for you to visit a stall, the crash of boxes and the chatter of customers; it was utterly breathtaking.

It really struck us how different life was back home in Scotland. Things have progressed with a resurgence of farmers markets, but this was something on a scale and complexity that feels impossible to resurrect because of human behaviour. The quality was simply unbelievable at an absurdly low price. To describe someone as “rich” simply based on their ability to access this standard of produce was a worthy moniker. But in addition to the quality, it’s just “the norm” to shop at fresh markets so the demand is there to reward the effort and time involved in such huge operations. It’s not just Istanbul of course, all over the continent, all over the world, you can witness tremendous fresh markets that have stood the test of time based on generations of tradition and support through regular use.

The final part of the day’s tour was to hop on one of the ferry taxis across the Bosphorus river from the European side of Istanbul to the Asian side. Selina had booked us a table at “Ciya Sofrasi” in Kadikoy. Plate after plate after plate of an original mezze where small dishes are brought when they are ready and are designed to be enjoyed either on their own or in combination. A giant “balon lavas” a flatbread baked to order that puffs up like a balloon, presented to the table on a raised tray. The sheer gravitas with which food is presented is awe inspiring.

Owned by Musa Dağdeviren, Ciya Sofrasi has grown its reputation because Musa has travelled throughout Turkey to small villages and remote regions to recapture recipes and food traditions that have been lost over the years. Musa perfects these dishes and puts them on the menu to evoke food memories for diners who might not have eaten such a dish in more than a generation. Musa was featured in the Netflix series “Chef’s Table” that followed him as he travelled throughout Turkey and documented his process for speaking to local people, sharing meals, memories and conversations about the importance of food and flavour and how it differs from one village to the next.

Turkish food in the UK for the uninitiated is known for kebabs and a small range of generic dishes confused as Middle Eastern cuisine. Musa has recovered hundreds of lost recipes and has published cookbooks celebrating the diversity of his culture to give a clear message to the world that Turkish food is so much more. Rosewater, Lamb, Curd Cheese, Pomegranate Molasses, Cherries, Veal and Mint. Just as Scottish cuisine around the world has a stereotypical theme of haggis, deep-fried mars bars and shortbread, Musa is making an effort to re-educate an international audience about what real life in Turkey and a real dinner table in Turkey actually looks like!

Our lasting memory of food in Istanbul is the warm welcome and the incongruous link between the cost and quality of the dishes being presented. The essence of hospitality is not based on money and the best service is not just reserved for Michelin star restaurants. Food traditions and food knowledge are precious jewels for any culture that can be so easily lost. Let’s all make sure that Scotland doesn’t lose the most valuable examples of its food culture and let’s all make an effort to savour what us Scots are best known for: the warmest welcome and the best hospitality.

This is day six in our series sharing 31 Food Memories for the 31 Days of August. We would be delighted to have you join us for the journey so please like, share and follow. We’ve got a way to go and the more the merrier!

05/08/2026

| Day 5 |

Greece

Neither of us had been to Greece on holiday before arriving in Kosovo, so to discover that it was just a five-hour drive south from Pristina was quite the revelation. Both of us grew up with relatives in the south of England, so longer car journeys were not unusual, but it would also involve driving through two land borders; something else to experience for the first time.

Over the years, Thessaloniki and Khalkidhiki in Northern Greece became our weekend escape and we ventured all the way down to Athens on one occasion. Greece was the closest accessible EU country and the easiest access to the ocean. The fresh sea breeze was a welcome relief from the landlocked heat of Kosovo summer and some much-needed milder air during the depths of Kosovo winter.

As an expat, you quickly developed a shortlist of favourite hotels, pools, beaches and restaurants and when booking direct on first name terms with the owners, you could usually pick up a room for a few euros, even in the summertime, although the slightly more luxurious facilities and a heavily discounted UN staff rate at the Hyatt in Thessaloniki were usually irresistible.

We think that we saw Greece at its best: before the financial crisis of 2010, before Brexit, before Covid. The food was notably excellent of course. We often ate at a restaurant on the outskirts of Thessaloniki that was right on the shore. We watched the boats land on the pier across the road and a basket of seafood was brought in the door and emptied into a giant tank of seawater. Enthusiastic restaurant owners fiercely endorsed their own specific tzatziki, claiming it was the best in the region and from a family recipe handed down over hundreds of years. Usually, by the time our table was on it’s tenth ouzo the standard of the tzatziki was of lesser importance, but we certainly had our fair share of amazing meals in that wonderful country.

We were struck by the authentic food heritage that was shared with us as tourists. Sometimes Greek food is seen as a cliché in holiday resorts and some UK tourists just want to seek out the nearest British Pub for a full English; but the pride the Greeks take in producing fresh food is quite astonishing. Multiple generations involved in the family restaurant business, centuries of food tradition, olive trees older than anyone still alive, whitewashed walls, tiny village churches, bright purple bougainvillea and, of course, street cats with every meal!

During our 2006 trip to Athens, we managed to bag a table at “Spondi”, which had earned Greece’s first ever Michelin star in 2002. We booked in for the “degustation tasting menu” with matching wines and settled in for a nine course culinary extravaganza over four hours. The standard of service was exquisite. At any point, if a customer moved through the restaurant, all the staff turned and bowed, which made going to the loo relatively entertaining.

Three starter courses, three main courses and three desserts with palate cleansers in-between. A wine for each course and by the time we reached the dessert part of the evening we were quite delirious; either with sheer excitement from the calibre of food or being on the verge of some sort of food coma. At one point, Ali took a wrong turn on the way to the loo and ended up in the see-through glass wine cellar in the middle of the restaurant feeling her way around like Han Solo in carbonite. Thankfully, because all the staff had bowed to her on her way there, they were quick to rescue her and guide her delicately to where she needed to be.

One of the dessert courses was a blackberry ravioli. A see-through, glistening sheet of blackberry gel fashioned into a ravioli pocket with a sphere of mint and lemon coulis inside that burst as you ate it. The second dessert was served in a bowl that was surrounded by dry ice billowing out as it was placed in front of you. The final dessert wine rendered us beaten and we had to take a seat outside in the fresh air to gather ourselves before settling the outrageously underpriced bill by today’s standards and barrelling down the hill to our hotel.

To see both sides of Greek food and hospitality was such an eye-opener. From the oldest tavernas boasting heritage and family tradition to the cutting-edge techniques in Spondi, Greece has a very special place in our food memories.

It opened us to the idea that restaurants and cafes really are family affairs and relaxed dining was the way to go. Lunch was something to be celebrated, enjoyed and taken in large groups before the siesta. Dinner is much later in the evening, usually because it’s slightly cooler, and children stay up far beyond what would be considered bedtime in the UK.

Sunday brunch is a phenomenon at the Hyatt in Thessaloniki and Easter weekend is a huge affair; to our eyes the largest holiday celebration of the year based on special events, shop closures and family gatherings. The regular year-round Sunday brunch is an amazing affair for just €30 but if you timed it right and visited for the one at Easter, you were lucky to get a table. They served a dish of slow roasted lamb on a bed of orzo with herbs and tomatoes and if you paid your €30 and just ate that, you would feel like you’d won the lottery.

One day we will return. Just to check that the tzatziki is as good as it used to be. And it will be. Because they will tell us so.

This is day five in our series sharing 31 Food Memories for the 31 Days of August. We would be delighted to have you join us for the journey so please like, share and follow. We’ve got a way to go and the more the merrier!

04/08/2026

| Day 4 |

The Departure

Returning from London freshly engaged, you might think that thoughts would turn to planning an engagement party and the wedding itself.

Alas no.

A few weeks after getting the ring, Ali left the country.

Mutterings of “this isn’t going to last” and “she’s running away” were understandable but somehow, we knew that we were doing the right thing. Ali had been offered a job as Chief of Procurement with the EU Division of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and found herself on a plane to Pristina leaving Bob in Edinburgh with our cats, Mulder and Scully. It was just a six-month contract, nothing to worry about.

Anyone who has ever survived a long-distance relationship will understand. But this was before the days of facetime, unlimited internet access, Skype was new and the real test was whether or not the connection would drop on the satellite phone and the electricity in Kosovo would stay on long enough to have anything like a decent conversation. The days when you had to wait for the delay and echo on the line and not talk over each other.

But six months turned into a year. A year turned into four years and by way of Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, a new raft of EU/UKDFID jobs were created that facilitated Bob’s arrival in mission. Back in Edinburgh, Bob’s work in the Scottish Court Service and the Faculty of Advocates helped pave the road to a new role in Pristina alongside the international judges and prosecutors processing a backlog of trials handling war crimes, land disputes and human organ trafficking. It’s never easy to put into words what we both experienced overseas and somehow it seems easier to gloss over the horror with fonder memories of friends, food and flights. No, we didn’t do it for free, but the darker side of work in an international mission definitely comes at a cost.

On the upside, the following six years facilitated our international travels and food experiences that wouldn’t have happened had it not been for us spending time in a foreign land at the expense of time with friends and family back home. As a result of Kosovo’s diaspora, the airport in Pristina connected flights from an impressive range of international locations to aid connection of families that had been torn apart during the war.

International travel also meant international food and what followed formed the very foundations of our interest in hospitality. Working alongside colleagues from every nation in the world afforded us the unique opportunity to experience traditions, cultures and cuisine that opened our eyes to something that we may never otherwise have experienced.

The narrow focus of mission life lends itself to the sharing of pride in your home nation (think a ten-year tour of the tartan army in Boston!!) and, thus, the hosting of dinner parties became second nature to brag about where you were from. American BBQs, French wine, Italian feasts and Danish drinking: we were spoiled for choice and took full advantage of this newfound social life that came with flaming bells and screeching whistles.

In return, Ali was quickly adopted as designated mother for mission strays and Bob became barman. This was where Ali’s millionaire’s shortbread was born (Daim Cake as the Danes called it) and also where we realised that Fernet Branca was quite literally the work of the devil thanks to a “pour off” between Bob and the Danes.

Food and drink became the overwhelming connection that surpassed language and cultural barriers to bring people from every corner of the world together for one evening at a time, allowing us to forget what we were either running away from or hoping to find.

It taught us that food and drink really does build bridges. When we did eventually return home to Scotland ten years later, we promised ourselves that we would do something for us, something for others and something for those who might otherwise be forgotten.

This is day four in our series sharing 31 Food Memories for the 31 Days of August. We would be delighted to have you join us for the journey so please like, share and follow. We’ve got a way to go and the more the merrier!

03/08/2026

| Day 3 |

The Engagement

September 2004 and Bob whisked Ali away to London for a surprise weekend to celebrate her 30th birthday. A meticulously planned itinerary of foodie delights: it was Ali’s idea of heaven.

Lunch at the River Café was a definite highlight followed by a visit to a wine “museum” experience called Vinopolis on the south bank of the Thames that is sadly no longer open. For the (quite frankly) absurd price of £20 we travelled around the world indoors sampling sixteen wines from various countries and discovered a trove of information about grape varieties, optimal growing conditions, bottling, maturation and the flavour profiles that present in your nose and on your palate. For the additional steal of £5 we included three champagnes from the French region, a tutored tasting, two gin cocktails in the pop-up Bombay Sapphire bar experience and a flight of absinthe. We thought we were doing quite well until the absinthe humbled us and we spent the rest of the evening trying to remember the name of our hotel and wondering if we would ever see land again.

The morning of Ali’s birthday arrived, and we gently made our way to a new branch of Carluccio’s that had opened in Smithfield. The meat market was already at the end of its day’s trading having been up and at it since dawn. The final trucks were being loaded, shutters clattering down, pavements being hosed and there was more yelling and shouting than we felt was entirely necessary given our fragile state.

But turning the corner to where Carluccio’s was located, opposite the Smithfield Rotunda and the Peace Memorial Fountain, we left the hubbub behind and took the welcome opportunity of an outside table for some restorative fresh air. The “cioccolata Fiorentina” came highly recommended by the waiter: a cup of thick, glossy hot chocolate made from shavings of the finest Italian chocolate and accompanied by a freshly squeezed orange juice and a pain au chocolat the size of our head, we graciously decided that we might, actually, make it through the day.

The evening’s location was still a mystery but when the taxi pulled up outside Jamie Oliver’s restaurant “Fifteen”, Ali knew she was in for a great night. Jamie Oliver had launched his own training academy that took fifteen homeless young people off the streets to put them through a year of training in the world of hospitality. It was the subject of a Channel 4 documentary series and naturally had its ups and downs. The opening of the restaurant marked the pinnacle of the team’s training and it was our first experience of a “tasting menu”. A number of dishes were presented over the course of the evening, but the memorable dish was the very first one. Scallop Crudo – a Chinese soup spoon holding a pristine, raw, seasoned scallop, topped with blackcurrant puree and shiso leaf. One simple bite that simply blew your mind.

Ten courses later and we were merry, flushed of cheek and absolutely stuffed. Just as the waiter appeared to offer the bill and Ali was rubbernecking in the kitchen to catch a glimpse of the man himself, she turned around and noticed a small box in the middle of the table. The simple words of “will you spend the rest of your life with me” and the presenting of a ring, rendered Ali a blubbering mess.

Bob did well. A carefully chosen ring from a range by Swarovski until such times as Ali “chose her own”. This lad knew what he was getting into right from the start! The two ladies on the table next to us joined in the tears and as we stumbled out the door that night, little did we know what lay ahead of us as a newly engaged couple. And yes, he asked Ali’s dad beforehand because Bob knew that she was a daddy’s girl first and foremost.

This is day three in our series sharing 31 Food Memories for the 31 Days of August. We would be delighted to have you join us for the journey so please like, share and follow. We’ve got a way to go and the more the merrier!

02/08/2026

| Day 2 |

Bosnia, Croatia, North Macedonia

Perhaps, the best stories actually start with going backwards.

Before Ali met Bob, she spent half a decade in the glorious employ of the National Audit Office. Part of her year was spent overseas, auditing the United Nations’ Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO) in the Former Yugoslavia and the other part was spent auditing Scottish Government departments such as the Scottish Prison Service.

Pretty gritty stuff but the whole experience was somehow pulled together over food.

For many years, Ali audited the food contracts for every prison in Scotland and gained invaluable experience of the difference between dinner parties at home and catering for thousands of inmates, three times a day, seven days a week.

The budgets for feeding prisoners back then were just over a pound per person per day and the pressures to spend as little as possible was huge. Every penny had to be justified and the prospect of a roast dinner on Christmas Day usually made the national press. In contrast, overseas, Ali was tasked with tracking down millions of dollars of assets, donated or funded by UN member states to the former Yugoslavia, some of which seemed to mysteriously “disappear” overnight without any repercussions.

The memories of eating in post-war Sarajevo and Zagreb are something that are quite difficult to describe. Sarajevo public dining was dominated by the international community and the mafia. Most evenings were spent in the Irish bar: a dystopian pretence that we were really still at home all along. Occasional forays into the native restaurant scene were only with the approval of the full-time international staff who had vetted local institutions to declare them safe.

The main focus was meat. Mixed meat and sometimes “mystery” meat. Huge allowances were made for the very privilege of being able to eat out in a restaurant at all, so complaints were few and far between. But that didn’t stop us seeing the funny side to some of the encounters. A request for a side of vegetables one night resulted in our table being presented with a plate of peas. Just peas. On a dinner plate, rolling around like marbles. We were so astonished with the waiter’s ability to carry them safely to the table without spillage that we ate them without another word. The local salad was “shopska”, originated from Bulgaria but had been commonly adopted. On one occasion in Zagreb, the cucumber seemed to have been soaked in formaldehyde, but it was politely assigned to a napkin and hidden in a coat pocket.

We regularly ate in a local restaurant in Skopje and were astonished to find lobster and fresh seafood on the menu in a land-locked country. The grand décor included a floor-to-ceiling marble statue in the centre of the room, a waterfall and various over-sized plants beside the running water. The entire ceiling was mirrored and smoking was expected, ci**rs freely offered.

After six nights in a row, we all noticed that there were a series of tables around the outside of the room with two men on each table. A woman would arrive at the restaurant and join their table and be bought a drink. A few moments later the woman would leave with one of the men and money would change hands. One of the waiters told us that the seafood had been smuggled in that morning from the coast of Albania. On our final night, the owner joined us for our meal and declared us to be the finest examples of international guests and insisted on preparing us his chef’s ultimate dessert.

Three bottles of wine and an hour later, the doors to the kitchen swung open and a trolley on wheels appeared, followed by the entire kitchen brigade. There were indoor fireworks on the trolley and a large meringue-like structure the size of a sheep on the top of the trolley. It was on fire.

Underneath were about twenty pancakes filled with ice cream, three kilos of fruit, syrup and fresh cream, topped with flambe meringue. The staff were singing. The owner was clapping. All the waiting staff joined to sing along and then stood and watched while we ate. Ali awoke the following morning and found pancakes in her handbag. She left Macedonia on a flight the next morning and Ali’s barely eaten a pancake since.

This is day two in our series sharing 31 Food Memories for the 31 Days of August. We would be delighted to have you join us for the journey so please like, share and follow. We’ve got a way to go and the more the merrier!

01/08/2026

| Day 1 |

In The Beginning

When we first met on the 21st of September 2002, we were both almost three decades into our lives and food had sustained us in varying shapes and forms – albeit in starkly contrasting ways. Ali had a complicated relationship with food that fluctuated between consuming only milk and toast for an entire summer, the cabbage soup diet, becoming a taekwondo champion and downing a full 16 inches in Pizza Paradise at 4am in Edinburgh. Bob on the other hand successfully survived on Pot Noodles and Clarks Bakery for the best part of his twenties and had decided he would never eat another tomato for the rest of his life.

Ali had the edge on feeding anyone and everyone. The designated family caterer and cake maker, she’d already competed in two successive Masterchef regional finals, met Jamie Oliver, hosted monthly themed dinner parties and catered for 250 at a ceilidh. For one such themed dinner party, she enrolled in a three-week Mexican night school to perfect the art of guacamole and tacos so she could host “Cinco De Mayo” as authentically as possible.

It was the time of gastronomic alchemy. Foams, dehydration, sous vide, spherification, the core classical processes were being pushed into the 21st century and Ali was here for it. Included in this obsession was the curation of a staggering library of cookbooks and she devoted bookshelves to Larousse, River Café, Jamie Oliver, La Cucina, Conran and, of course, Delia’s anthology amongst many others.

Through a series of rapid dates, Ali successfully infected Bob with the obsession and once he had voluntarily read – cover to cover- every one of Ali’s 150 cookbooks, she decided he had sufficiently proved his worth. He declared the “Conran Cookbook” (1997) to be the greatest publication of all time and to this day, it’s one of our most heavily thumbed.

The second phase of the campaign involved Ali cooking for Bob. It was a simple plan, but when well executed provides an impossible web for the prey and escape is virtually impossible. Ali had learned an astonishing technique for hand lubricating a roast chicken in butter, resting it to perfection and serving with sweet carrots and pesto parmesan mash. Bob’s fate was sealed. Pesto parmesan mash for the win.

Little did we know, food would ultimately become the absolute focus of our daily lives. Something that began as a love affair over shared, home-cooked food, took a detour through an international arena for ten years and ended up back home feeding others.

This is day one in our series sharing 31 Food Memories for the 31 Days of August. We would be delighted to have you join us for the journey so please like, share and follow. We’ve got a way to go and the more the merrier!

31/07/2026

Lucky cows! Come along to with us to get some fresh juice 😍🐄 They're back into production after their move to the new farm so head over to our website or link in bio on IG to get your hands on some amazing milk ❤️

25/07/2026

Welcome to the world Thyme 🐄😍

Our pals at TheWeeDairy have been on the mooooove this week to pastures new. Just a short hop eastwards across the M9 but mum Rosemary is clearly happy with the new gaff and decided her first day was the perfect "Thyme" to introduce her wee one to the world. When we said they were having a WEE CALF when we didn't have milk last week during the mooooove we didn't think they would take it quite so literally 🤗

Milk supplies are back on Friday 31st so get your orders in now for the best coo juice in the world that won gold at the Highland Show 2026 🙌🏼

24/07/2026

We've been following (stalking) these guys for ages and we eventually made it happen 🙌🏼🙌🏼 Welcome Goat Rodeo Goods 🤸🏼‍♀️🤸🏼‍♀️

Absolutely stonking pickles 🥒 and salts that are AMAZING on literally anything but we recommend the "Better Than S*x Roast Potato Seasoning" 😎 and "The Pickle Tickle" to spruce up your salads as well as the "Big Dill Energy" for just absolutely smashing them straight from the jar 🤣🫠

Let's make this happen people and get some pickle in your life ❤️🤟🏼❤️

24/07/2026

Absolutely gigantic meringues on this weekend. Raspberry Ripple. We fill em on demand with fresh cream, fruit and sauce 😱

Bobs noggin for scale 🤟🏼

The Lass O'Gowrie - Scotland

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