“Claire Macdonald is infectiously enthusiastic”
Philippa Davenport
The Financial Times
ALL ABOUT CLAIRE
Award-winning cook and food writer, Claire Macdonald is Scotland’s foremost ambassador for the revitalised traditions of highland hospitality.
Her reputation stretches around the globe thanks to a raft of best-selling cookery books, her radio broadcasts and television appearances, and a hectic international travel schedule. She lectures throughout the English-speaking world, presenting informative and hugely entertaining cookery demonstrations in North America, Australasia and the British mainland – as well as in her own kitchen at Kinloch on the Isle of Skye.
Like so many great cooks, Claire is self-taught – her enthusiasms and expertise echoing that of culinary icons such as the late Jane Grigson. Flavoursome, wholesome and hearty, Claire’s recipes are easy-to-follow, straightforward, and realistic – quintessentially Scottish in flavour, but truly international in appeal. Her seventeenth book, FISH, was published last September by Transworld, and her latest television series, Claire Macdonald’s Seasonally Scottish, aired on the UK Food channel throughout 2006.
The Scottish Larder
Claire combines a tireless advocacy of local produce with a food literacy extended by travel and experience. Yet, while she may use Sicilian lemons or Indian chillis to add zest and zing, the absolute fundamental of her craft is Scotland’s own rich seasonal trove. From Clyde Valley tomatoes to the berry crops of Angus, from line-caught salmon, to game, lamb and beef, Claire’s work celebrates all that’s exceptional about seasonal ingredients cultivated, caught or reared in Scotland.
She is the energetic Patron of Scottish Food Fortnight and The Association of Scottish Farmers’ Markets. Claire’s tireless advocacy of Scottish produce was marked, during 2005, in the presentation of a special Lifetime Achievement Award by the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland.
Home and Hearth
Mother of four, Claire (58) is married to Lord Macdonald, Godfrey Macdonald of Macdonald, High Chief of Clan Donald. For over three decades, the Macdonalds have run their Isle of Skye home, Kinloch Lodge, as a unique luxury hotel. Characterised by blazing log fires, ancestral portraits and sofas piled high with cushions, Kinloch is equally renowned for its fine food and marvellous cellar, as for its truly magical setting on the shoreline of Loch na Dal.