Daffodil Soup London

So I am in the wilds of the northwest of Scotland this week, which I'm afraid is still a dire destination for a foodie ... yes there is lovely smoked salmon and the occasional kipper, but on the whole what is available to visitors (outside of chef-driven exclusive luxury lodges) is deep-fried stodge. The Scots are not unjustly famed for their oats porridge but they also invented the deep-fried Mars bar. From the window of our holiday cottage I can see Loch Sunart lazily lapping at the shore in the early evening sunshine - at this time of year it never truly gets dark and last thing before going to bed I look out on the silvery ribbon of water and hope to see an otter (I have done before, not yet on this trip). So we're back to basic self-catering holiday food: one-pot chicken casserole on our first night, which always pleases me in its deep chickenness. Plus, the first time David cooked it for me I knew I wanted to live with him forever. It's slow food but takes only minute...

I have so far resisted the urge to write about food and contribute recipes, knowledge and hopefully humour to the blogosphere and confined my posts to Facebook and Twitter (@daffodilsoup). But increasingly I find I have more to share and instead of just greedily "consuming" well-crafted contributions from others I am gonna do this thing! I am concerned about continuity and quality - I have felt the pain of bloggers crippled with writers block or, simply, exhaustion. I have my fingers crossed, so here goes. I am a trained chef, I cook for a living, I am self-employed and work from my home kitchen mostly, although I do undertake assignments in professional kitchens and so, hopefully, know of which I speak. I also have an Advanced wine qualification from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET), and teach wine appreciation and offer food-and-wine tastings as part of Daffodil Soup . As a former journalist I tend to cast a very critical eye over most things, especially restaur...