Scotch Egg

“I’m entirely self-taught, motivated by greed,” says Claire Macdonald, proprietor of the Kinloch Lodge on Skye.  Her stomach rumbles loudly. “See?” she says with a sigh.  We are drinking prosecco before dinner.  The hotelier, chef and food writer’s interest in food began with a trip to Italy.  “Pa was posted to Rome as naval attaché when I was thirteen.” There followed two years of serious eating.  “We had a cook from Montepulciano, and for big dos we had another cook called Laura from Bari in Puglia.”  Claire’s favourite dish was calves liver. “We always asked for it the day before we returned to boarding school in England.  Calves liver with mashed potatoes, spinach with pine kernels, raisins and balsamic vinegar and roasted cippolini – the tiny little round flat onions.”  She continues fondly: “When we came back from Italy, Mummy would recreate the dishes.  Ma was a good cook who hated cooking.  She was happier to stick a fag in her mouth and get out into the garden.”

Claire Macdonald doesn't smoke and she loves cooking. You wonder how such a warm and dainty lady of the manor should have made it into the culinary pantheon. Lady Macdonald is wearing white linen trousers and smart flip flops, her toenails freshly painted fuchsia pink.  Her pale blue cotton shirt is buttoned tightly over her bosom. She is tanned to a flattering nut brown, her hair is a pretty ash blond and her skin is fantastic.  She runs a hotel?  I want to stay with this woman.  Just by looking at her you know that any Macdonald hotel will involve fresh sheets, flowers from the garden, immaculate dressing gowns and delicious soap. Claire Macdonald runs courses, writes cookery books and has become a champion of Scottish food.  Could she really show muscle in the kitchen? There must be steel in there somewhere.

“Paper actually.  We are made up of paper on one side, cotton on the other.  My ancestors were merchants.”  When not following her father around the world, Claire Macdonald was dancing her way around the Lune Valley in Lancashire, the eldest of three pretty sisters. Then on her way to the Northern Meeting when she was just 19, her date took her into a pub in Edinburgh and there she met her husband Gog, otherwise known as Lord Macdonald of Macdonald, High Chief of Clan Donald.  “By 22, we were married and Gog’s father died pretty soon after, leaving us four hotels.  Gog (Godfrey) was born and brought up on the Isle of Skye and his father was devoted to public service and living on this crumbling estate.  There were huge death duties. We sold one hotel immediately and another had burnt down though not comprehensively, unfortunately, so we were forced to rebuild.”

They couldn’t buy bread on Skye so they made their own.  “I couldn’t use fresh yeast, only dried.  When I was ten, Pa was posted to Norfolk, Virginia and I contracted a revolting blood disorder that caused an eruption of boils and I was fed fresh yeast every day. To this moment I can’t bear the smell. We made our own bread, every day.  Everything at Kinloch we made ourselves.  It was hard work.”

Their four children were born at Kinloch Lodge.  “When I arrived on Skye, I thought it was simply ghastly.  I had no idea of the geography.”   Now she thinks it’s the most beautiful place on earth.  Her writing came along by chance.  “A man came to stay and he was so nice and it turned out he was the editor of the Scottish Field.  He said, I’d like you to do a food page.”  At this point her stomach makes noises again.  “Listen to my rumbling tummy,” she says.  “After winning the Glenfiddich food writing award I was given a contract for two books.  Hugo [her fourth child] was three months old but Gog encouraged me saying,  You have to say yes to things if you possibly can.  It was so true and I’ve done it ever since. Unless you are doing something else you say yes. You write, you take on things.”

Last summer she went to Lyon to do two days of cooking demonstrations for forty French journalists.  “At that point I didn't realize that Lyon was the food centre of France,” she says, with a look of horror and surprise.  “I started each demonstration talking about how the best food in the world is that which is caught and grown and raised in Scotland. They fell about laughing.  Then we laid on the most amazing lunch bringing food from Scotland.  This cheese never came from Scotland, they said, and I said it jolly did.”  Pretty and self-deprecating maybe, but any Brit who will cook for forty French food journalists has guts.  

“I don’t think it’s possible for a Lancastrian to be accepted as a Scot,” she says, “but I do think it gives me license to say what I do about Scottish food. The Scots have an innate modesty.  They are not like the Irish who can sell their country through their food.  The Scots can’t and so that’s where I come in.  I only ever think of myself as married to a Scot.  I love Scotland.  Bless their hearts, they have made me ambassador of this and that, and they’ve given me lifetime achievement awards and they are so sweet to me.”

Claire’s daughter Isabella and son-in-law Tom run the Kinloch Lodge now.  All her children were brought up in the hotel kitchen and the experience has paid off. Kinloch Lodge won a Michelin star last year.  “Our chef, Marcello Tully, is a genius.  And darling Tom knows everything about wine. We have a Red Grape award too.”  Claire Macdonald twinkles and beams as if describing her grandchild.  Which she kind of is, given that she was the one who breathed new life into the Kinloch Lodge nearly four decades ago. As we go into dinner, Claire Macdonald says: “I’m hungry.  If you love food, you can cook. It’s simple.”