The season has ended, the hotel closed down, and the local roads no longer ferry guests our way. The last of the team has left this former manse. The kitchen has fallen quiet, and the familiar buzz of The Glebe Kitchen has settled into silence. This is the moment when the professionals retreat — and when I, the resident cook rather than chef, step cautiously (and slightly gleefully) back into their domain.
Every year, as October yields to November, we have what I call Cook-Up Week. It’s part ritual, part housekeeping, and mostly self-indulgence: sorting through remaining items in the hotel fridges, raiding the dry store, and transforming the odds and ends of a busy season into something nourishing — for whoever happens to be around, or for the freezers ready to welcome winter visitors. A last wedge of Highland Fine Cheese, a hefty collection of butternut squash and leeks, a pair of vac-packed duck breasts from the final service. This is the raw material of comfort food.
I am Cordon Bleu chef-trained, yes — a relic of a “just for fun” gap year as I decided which way to go after 25+ years in strategic communication. I can talk fluent classic cookery, price a dish in my head, and negotiate knowledgeably with our food suppliers. I make the occasional restaurateur’s intervention on a menu or pair wines to a dish, but I’m not — and never have been — a chef.
Chefs build structure and rhythm the way musicians build harmony: precise, practised, perfectly timed. They layer flavours with intent, balancing acidity against fat, salt against sweetness, judging heat until every element sings. I, on the other hand, scramble to play by ear. My recipes come from treasured cookbooks, rapid internet searches, culinary academy folders, and whatever happens to be sitting hopefully in the fridge or cupboard. If Nigel Slater would add a splash of cream, I’ll add two; if Nigella says six cloves of garlic, I assume she really meant eight. Consistency in the resulting dishes is something my kitchen has yet to encounter.
During the season I watch Trevor and his colleagues with something like awe. Their craft is deliberate, disciplined, and deeply creative — not just cooking but composition. Every plate that leaves The Glebe Kitchen carries years of practice and hours of quiet refinement: local venison paired with brambles, egg and ham refined as the most glorious Scotch Egg, sauces reduced to a silk sheen. My admiration for that skill is endless. Which is precisely why, once the last dessert has been served and the chef’s whites are laundered for the year, I rather enjoy lowering the standard to something altogether more homely.
This year’s Cook-Up Weekend began with a small comic drama. A supplier, bless them, forgot that our standing order had been cancelled until April — delivering not one but two sides of the finest Scottish salmon. For a moment I considered sending them back — but the temptation was too strong. They now lie in the fridge like a challenge, glistening with potential. Shall I poach one in white wine and herbs, or cure it with the last of the Polycrub dill and blackthorn sea salt for a touch of Nordic theatre? The truth is I’ll probably do both, purely in the interests of research, and throw in the occasional Lime and Coriander Salmon Kedgeree for a comfort supper (thanks, Nigella).
Then there was the large portion from a truckle of Arran Cheddar, equally unintended, equally irresistible. I’m pretending that it’s being saved for Christmas, but already I’m circling it like a cat around cream. Can I resist until December? Unlikely. Some temptations are simply not designed for endurance.
And speaking of indulgence — one of my chief delights each winter is reclaiming possession of the Thermomix. Back in 2015, when Richard and I finally decided to get married, he gallantly offered to buy me an engagement ring. As a cordon bleu student at the time, I replied, in perhaps my most cheffy moment ever, “I’d rather have a Thermomix.” He obliged. Not long after, when we arrived at Eddrachilles, I realised my pride and joy would have to be placed at the disposal of a rather lightly equipped hotel kitchen. So, each October, I reclaim it like a long-lost friend. This year we treated ourselves to an upgraded model, and I can’t wait to put it through its paces. Used properly, for a solo cook it’s like having the best ever commis chef — one that’s never late or hungover, never steals your fish, and never gives you lip. It even makes a decent Hollandaise or porridge, lump-free and perfectly behaved.
Of course, not every surprise delivery or gadget can solve the perennial mystery of surplus black pudding. We appear to have acquired a heroic quantity of it this year — far more than any sensible household could possibly consume. It has therefore become a creative challenge: breakfast fry-up, lentil soup, baked potato topping, even an experimental pasta dish that should probably never be mentioned again. There are limits to enthusiasm, even mine.
Yet that’s the quiet pleasure of Eddrachilles winter cooking. It isn’t about presentation or performance. It’s about rescue and reinvention — the alchemy of turning leftovers into something that feels generous and deeply satisfying. The professional kitchen runs on precision and timing; the winter kitchen runs on instinct and appetite. Both matter. Both feed us, in very different ways.
So over the coming months the food at Eddrachilles will look very different. Less “plated” and more “piled.” Bowls of soup deep enough to wrap your hands around, slow-cooked stews that scent the whole house, soda bread warm from the oven, baked apples filled with whatever spices I can find in the back of the cupboard. Meals that are shared rather than served, timings dictated by the rhythm of our shortened days, eaten by candlelight while the wind shakes the windows and the sea murmurs on the shore below.
And when March comes round again, I’ll hand the kitchen back to those who truly earn the title of chef. Trevor and his team will return with their calm choreography, their precision knives and refined flavours, ready to open another season. Until then, the kitchen is mine — smaller, slower, humbler, and very content.
There’s room in every kitchen for both craft and comfort, for chefs and for cooks, for flair and for heart. This winter, I’ll be cooking, not cheffing — and loving every moment!
Written by Fiona Campbell Trevor — Highland lady hotelier, seasonal cook, pet slave, and firm believer that butter improves almost everything.
