Edinburgh Festivals, 2009

My fair city will once again play host to a variety of festivals in the coming weeks, so I thought I would dedicate a few blog posts to places of interest, particularly for vegetarians and vegans.

To kick things off, here's a list of the festivals which will be running - if I've missed any out, let me know. *

July 31 – Aug 9, 2009 Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival
I've never been to the jazz festival, shame on me. Some good stuff on this year, I should try to go to something.

Aug 7-31, 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival
The all-singing, all-dancing city wide bit of madness. I love the Fringe - you can often pick up free tickets to events if you just wander around the Royal Mile or Old Town, and venues range from eclectic and tiny to the massive Conference Centre.

Aug 5 – Sept 5, 2009 Edinburgh Art Festival
Art galleries around Edinburgh play host to this festival, which aims to showcase visual arts. A mix of old and new, painting, sketches, sculptures and the like. Some nice little venues here - 50 in total.

Aug 7–9, 2009 Edinburgh Mela
The Mela aims to promote Scotland as a culturally diverse nation, and it's a lovely mix of acts from around the globe, world cooking, fashions, shops, and crafts. I went last year and had to resist the urge to buy masses of fabric and bindis (I could have spent a fortune).

Aug 7–29, 2009 Edinburgh Military Tattoo
Marching bands, bagpipes, and all that jazz. I went when I was a child and enjoyed this, although it holds little appeal now. However, the queues for this are always amazingly long, and people seem to love it still.

Aug 13-16, 2009 Edinburgh West Port Book Festival
A fairly new, alternative book festival - see my other blog for details.

Aug 13-14, 2009 Edinburgh Interactive Festival
The main events are for delegates, but this incorporates the Dare Protoplay event which is free and great fun - you get to play demo games made over the summer by students.

Aug 14 – Sept 6, 2009 Edinburgh International Festival
Theatre, Opera, Arts etc - the high brow big sister of the Festivals.

Aug 15–31, 2009 Edinburgh International Book Festival
My favourite! Events on books, authors, illustrators, current affairs, etc, with lovely bookshops and a fantastic atmosphere.

Aug 28-30, 2009 Edinburgh International Television Festival
Another one mainly for delegates, and pricey at that. Great if you're in the business though.


To be continued...

*I've deliberately left out festivals running at different times of the year, for obvious reasons.

Strawberry millefeuille

Well, sort of. I had puff pastry and strawberries so looked up recipes which might use them. This recipe for a strawberry millefeuille took my fancy, and after adapting it to be vegan and adding a few pistachios to the mix we had a lovely dessert.

Too much red meat?

Saw this article on the BBC news website today and thought it might be of interest.

"Scientists have produced new evidence suggesting eating lots of red and processed meat damages health."

"The researchers, from The US National Cancer Institute, found those whose diet contained the highest proportion of red or processed meat had a higher overall risk of death, and specifically a higher risk of cancer and heart disease than those who ate the least. People eating the most meat were eating about 160g of red or processed meat per day - approximately a 6oz steak."

Read the full article here: the drastically titled "Death link to too much red meat."

Circus Elephants

I saw this on the BBC News site and thought would post it here:

"A circus is being criticised by the RSPCA for using elephants in its show.

The animal charity said the debut of three elephants at a circus in Nottinghamshire on Friday was a "body blow for animal welfare". "

What a shame - I can't see how this could ever be a good life for the elephants. Edinburgh Zoo doesn't even have elephants, as they don't think they would be happy there.

I remember when I was young (about 13) going to a circus, for the last time. We thought it would just be people performing, but there were animals there too, and it was really sad. If memory serves we left early. The circus is not my thing at the best of times, but wild animals being carted around the coutnry and forced to entertain seems very wrong.

The poor elephants.

Vegan Food Photos

Here's a slideshow of some of the vegan food I've made over the last couple of years...

New advert from the Scottish SPCA

There was an article on the BBC Website today about a new, very specific campaign on the part of the Scottish SPCA. They have released a fairly shocking new advert in newspapers intended to warn people that the RSPCA does not run in Scotland - so if you donate to them, you do not actually donate to animals in Scotland. This is a common misconception in Scotland - the RSPCA have nothing to do with Scotland's animal welfare, never have.




The RSPCA advertise throughout the whole of the UK and not just locally on TV, and SSPCA allege that they also advertised in Scottish supermarkets and radio. Shame on them if that is true!

I used to work for the Scottish SPCA and I remember this being a problem for them back then. While it's nice to see them trying to tackle the problem it does seem almost cruel in its execution, but I suppose that by making it quite as "hard hitting" they are grabbing headlines.

You can read the full press release from the SSPCA here.

In the meantime, here is a nicer poster from them:

Vegan Lemon Cupcakes

I had a bit of a sweet tooth yesterday (I don't normally!) and decided to do a bit of baking.

I used a recipe for Lemon Cupcakes from Vegan with a Vengeance as a basis (a great book, recommended buying!). I can't see a link to this online, so here is my (only slightly modified) version:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and put muffin cases on a muffin baking tray.

Dry Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Sieve together in a small bowl.

Wet Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup sunflower oil (they use canola oil, can't get that here)
• 2/3 cup sugar (they add 2 tablespoons more too)
• 1 cup soy milk (they use rice milk)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest

Mix these together in a large bowl.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until the flour is completely mixed in, making a smooth, kind of fluffy batter.

Fill each muffin tin 2/3 full and bake for 17-20 minutes.
(I'm a fan of poking a wooden skewer into cakes etc to see if they are done - if they come out with any cake mix on them, bake for a bit longer.)

When the cakes were ready, I left to cool on a wire rack and made some icing.

Icing was simple:

• 1/2 cup icing sugar, sieved *
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice (or thereabouts, depends how you like it!)
• dash of red food colouring (vegan stuff too)

Combine these and spread on the cupcakes when they are completely cool, then decorate with a few sprinkles of lemon rind.


Yummy.

* You need to watch with icing sugar (confectioners sugar) - sometimes it's made with egg here in the UK to refine it. I used unrefined stuff, which is off white so generally looks a bit nicer on things like this when dye is added.