With August fast approaching, this blog has been rather Edinburgh-centric of late. 

Every man, woman and their dog in the catering industry is currently flat out trying to be ready for the numerous festivals taking place in the capital over the next few weeks.

And we've covered as much of that activity as we can.

However, as a breather from all the new Edinburgh openings, we thought we would look past the August madness and draw attention to a tasty new event taking place later this year.

Now in its tenth year, the Scottish Food and Drink Fortnight is a celebration of Scotland's world class natural produce. We're not prone to blowing smoke up our own skirts in Scotland but our shellfish, beef, soft fruits and whisky are recognised as among the very best in the world.

From 31st August to 15th September, pretty much peak harvest season, there will be dozens of food and drink events held all over Scotland as part of Scottish Food and Drink Fortnight. From cooking demos to food fairs and picnics, we will have a lot on our plate and the blog will cover it all in more detail nearer the time.

Right now, we wanted to point out a new strand of the fortnight: a Foraging Fortnight which takes place as part of the wider celebrations.

Wild food feasts

At this stage, the exact details are still to be revealed but the event promises coastal exploration and herbal wellness experiences, wild food feasts, fireside evenings and foraging talks.

Events will take place throughout the fortnight in Lanarkshire, Fife, Moray Speyside, Forth Valley and Loch Lomond and on Orkney.

Unless we do end up with a no deal Brexit then this blogger has no illusions about how realistic/desirable - or not - foraging is for most urban residents.

No-one is pretending that we can all spend an hour or so foraging before going to work in the morning confident in the knowledge that we have gathered enough food for a nutritious meal in the evening.

However, your blogger is equally as sure that a walk in the countryside is always improved by the prospect of something appetising to eat at the end.

More details to come.

Incidentally, the two pics used in this blog show fungi collected during a foraging trip we did with Monica Wilde in 2016. We blogged about it here and you can find out more about Monica's foraging courses here. We had a great day out.