][1]The Foodies Festival gets underway on Friday at Holyrood Park in Edinburgh and you can book two for the price of one tickets to the event through 5pm here.
Over the course of the three day festival, there are squillions of food and drink producers, masterclasses and chefs’ demos to enjoy along with multiple pop-up restaurants and bars.
Naturally, 5pm member restaurants are well represented with Fred Berkmiller of L’Escargot Bleu; Mattia Camorani of Hotel Missoni; Jacqueline O’Donnell, the indefatigable chef at The Sisters; Neil Forbes of Atrium, Blue & Café St Honore; Iggy Campos of Iggs and Paul Tamburrini of One Devonshire Gardens all taking a turn at the stove.
Perhaps most intriguing will be Matt Powell of Edinburgh’s Hotel du Vin who will be doing a turn with Abi Titmuss.
As always, a number of Fringe comedians are having a bash at cooking. While stand-ups are usually better known for their deft handling of Pot Noodles than pan seared sea bass, I’m sure that Brendon Burns, Jon Richardson and Stephen K Amos are all dab hands with a Sabatier.
Time Vine’s contribution might provide slightly more cause for concern. Your blogger interviewed him for Edinburgh Festivals magazine a couple of months back and his plans for his forthcoming cookery demo were a little off the beaten track.
‘A possible problem is that I can’t cook,’ he told me. ‘I don’t know if it is allowed but I may bring my own chef.’
Failing that, his back-up plan won’t have Jamie Oliver looking over his shoulder in worried horror but, like most of Vine’s ideas, it does sound like an absolute hoot.
‘Popcorn would be fun,’ he says dreamily. ‘I’ve often thought that a good game would be to put popcorn in the pan, pull on some boxing gloves and then you have to try and hit the corn as they pop out.’