Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary
fuel that adventure
The Iron Age in Europe occurred between 1200 BCE – 1 BCE. I’ve rekindled my geocaching bug – well, my friend Julia’s rekindled my geocaching bug. In 2010 a crafty friend of mine (Julia – who blogs over at Jaydee’s Ramblings) introduced me to the wonderful world of geocaching. For those of you who don’t …
No electricity, no wifi – 48 wonderful disconnected hours. After our unfortunate attempt at camping on the top of Rona’s Hill, Shetland’s highest hill, for the Simmer Dim (summer solstice), my family (ie: my husband!) inwardly groaned when I suggested we go camping again, this time for the whole weekend. I didn’t bother checking the …
#24 Kayak into a sea cave. Complete. Earlier this Spring I completed my one star kayak training with the Shetland Canoe Club, meaning I was qualified to go out on trips with the club this summer. We’ve done a few small (5-6 mile) trips on club nights and I’m delighted to say that thanks to …
Simmer Dim – Shetlandic for ‘summer twilight’ Sometimes I have good ideas. Sometimes I don’t. I’m not sure where on the spectrum of good-bad ideas this camping trip idea lies – somewhere in between, perhaps?
Spelunking: the exploration of caves, especially as a hobby There are approximately 1679 miles of indented coastline in Shetland punctuated by the regular appearance of caves, most only accessible by sea, if they are accessible at all. The cave at the far end of St. Ninian’s tombolo is one of our family favourite haunts, but last …
A small quartered log and a few pieces of kindling can provide enough fuel for one meal. Regular readers will be aware that I contribute to Promote Shetland’s A Taste of Shetland food blog – a collection of recipes and stories featuring ingredients from the UK’s most northerly island archipelago, my home, Shetland. I am …
A whole lot of science and a little bit of cake. The beauty of waking up each morning, for me, is that bit after you dreamily return to reality and that subsequent anticipation of what might happen that day. It’s a new day! What adventures could possibly lay before you in the following 24 hours? A …
Going back in time to a Middle Devonian lake bottom! It’s the Easter Holidays. I completely forgot about the Easter Holidays until the Thursday before the schools broke up for the Spring Break. This meant that I had to take the kids to work with me (there being no childminders around where I live, and …
An adventure story involving an airplane! Have you ever had one of those days where you say to yourself (and anyone else who will listen) – I love my life! Monday was one of those days for me, when my adventures took me to Fair Isle, a tiny island midway between the Orkney and Shetland …
A fantastic Mother’s Day adventure out! The Muckle Roe lighthouse has long been on my bucket list of places to visit, by land, when I first saw it from the sea: an intriguing beacon of light warning sailors of the dangerous cliffs ahead and marking the entrance to Swarbacks Minn. I’ve explored the base of the …
I’m sorry, ye old weather gods, I’ve come to the realization that I have taken you for granted. I have paid the price of this negligence; the result of a mighty fine summer 2014 spent mostly indoors writing and trying to meet copy deadlines. I am truly sorry. This atrocious winter you have precipitated on me …
An adventure had in between hurricane force winds. No, this post isn’t about that film of the same name Between Weathers, which was allegedly supposed to have been filmed here in Shetland years ago (what ever happened to those plans?!); it’s about how we, as a family, escaped the confines of our house for one …
χάρτης khartēs – Greek for map I love maps, especially old maps. There’s something romantic and adventurous about them, not to mention the fact some of them can be beautiful works of art, like the one pictured above. Several years (2011 to be precise) ago I had a notion to make an old fashioned rag rug …
a place of honour, glory, or happiness : heaven I spent nearly three hours in Valhalla earlier this week. True story. This week I have been travelling the length and breadth of my island home seeking out foodie stories and photographs for a local magazine piece I am writing. I found myself drinking coffee and …
It took me awhile to come up with a photograph for this week’s Alphabet Photography Project by Charly over at PodCast. This week the letter is U. My photo was nearly “unusual” a photograph I snapped on my iPhone the other day while leaving a taster session at Hay’s Dock cafe restaurant for their special Shetland …
ideal for sipping from a tin cup on the rocky sea shore Hot soup sipped from a tin cup while sitting on the rocky shore watching the waves dance. What can be better than that? There are nine years between my eldest child and my youngest. This means it can be difficult to find something …
When we want a new bowl we head to the shop and buy one. If it breaks, we simply replace it. Just imagine if we had to do what the Vikings living in Shetland had to do – carve a new bowl out of the rocks! Shetland is home to the largest steatite (soapstone) quarry …
Puffins posing for the camera at Sumburgh Head, Shetland, this spring. Atlantic puffins spend most of their lives at sea, forming colonies on the rocky cliffs here in Shetland to breed in the spring and summer. They are dubbed the “sea parrot” because of their colourful beaks but did you know their beaks fade to …
A gorgeous marriage of chunky peanut butter and chocolate chunks – in a cookie! Salty peanut butter… Sweet, sweet chocolate…. Together in a can’t-eat-enough-of-them cookie! These delectable morsels were my fourteen year old son’s creation. He fancied making peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies and, searching through our recipe books and using the ingredients we had …
We’ve had some pretty glorious weather up here in Shetland this summer. Temperatures have regularly been hitting the 20’s, which, in Shetland, is considered a heat wave! On one fine sunny day we decided to go rock pooling at Leebitton, a place we’d never been before but we were told by a nature loving friend …
