Karon Grieve

Author, food photographer, presenter

Archives for April 2018

Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas

by

Kirsties handmade ChristmasIn 2017 I was surprised, thrilled and honoured to be a finalist in the TV show Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas on Channel 4. I say supervised because I hadn’t actually entered. I was in the Hamper Class and the idea was to create a Christmas hamper on a theme with five foodie items inside. This was in September and I was just back from Crete and heading off for a couple of days in France. I had to come up with a theme and ideas for contents pretty damn quick as they wanted to come and film at my house as soon as I returned from France.

I chose the theme The Auld Alliance, the bond between Scotland and France that dates back to the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie and a bit of ganging up against the English. The idea being to have two Scottish items, two French and one that was a combo of both countries.

To this end I came up with Bordeaux Jelly (red wine jelly) (recipe on my Larder Love blog here), homemade goat’s cheese balls with herbs de Provence and pimente d’espilette (similar recipe for Labneh with herbs in oil here). Well that was France taken care of, now for Scotland. I just had to make my Scottish minty macaroons (recipe here) and it wouldn’t be a decent hamper without some hooch, so I came up with my own version of Drambuie and spent bloody ages making labels for the bottle to look like their iconic labels and called mine Scotch Mist (here’s the recipe). For the fusion piece I made oat and almond crumble crackers which were basically oatcakes but with almonds (recipe here).

Anyway when they were filming at my house (instant clean up involved here and decorate kitchen for Christmas) I had to make the goat’s cheese in the herbs de Provence about eleventy billion times (okay a few times) till it looked right on camera.

Anyway I then jet off back to Crete and come back a few weeks later in October for the final filming down at Kirstie’s place in Devon. Everything was ready. My hamper all ready to be decorated, the hooch, sweets, cheese and jelly all done and ready to go. I just had to make the crackers on the day. Well I flew back from Crete on the Friday, spent the day at dentists panicking over broken veneer and then tried that recipe again and again over the weekend. I’d made these things loads of times before but for some reason they just didn’t want to work for me and I threw out dozens of the damn things.

Come the Monday I flew down with my case packed with festive goodies and had a great time with the other ladies in my class and the gang who were also filming on the same day making Christmas stockings. The location was marvelous, we all got on really well and Kirstie was always friendly and chatty. Alas my sodding crackers let me down yet again. I called them crumble crackers and the word crumble was the operative one. The damn things just broke apart when they came out of the oven.Karon Grieve Kirsties Handmade Christmas

The girl who won (Tiffany) was lovely and had made a foraged hamper with hand carved knives and spoons and labels all in wood. The other entrants had a child friendly hamper for kids to make their own goodies and even a tiny bottle of gin for the knackered mother, and an Anglo Indian fusion basket in a giant wicker tea cup. We really had a diverse group of hampers.

It was party time after the shoot back at the hotel with the Christmas stocking gang and I’m afraid what was left in my hamper got scoffed that night. At least I came back with luggage a lot lighter than when I set out a few days before.

A few days later (22ndOctober) I flew back to Crete and found myself the only person on the plane and caused a media frenzy.

My part of Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas was on TV on 18th December so I just made it back to Scotland in time to see the show and relive the horror of those crackers all over again!

 

 

The Girl On The Plane

by

Karon Grieve flightOn 22nd October on my 19th flight of the year I found myself the only person the the flight to Heraklion from Glasgow. It was the last flight of the season so I knew there would only be a few people on the outbound flight as it was basically going out there to bring back the last of the holiday makers so would be full. I was a tad surprised to be the only one on the plane and it was terrific fun, my own private jet.

Anyway that wasn’t the best, or indeed the end of the adventure, it was merely the beginning. When I was on the beach the next day I send a quick email to a journalist in Glasgow and he phoned me right back asking for a photo of me on the beach and saying it was a fun story and they might get it into the paper at the weekend. Well it was obviously a slow week as they put it into the paper the very next day as a full page spread and a LOT of other newspapers immediately picked up on it.

Suddenly I was in the middle of a media maelstrom and was being interviewed for newspapers, doing radio interviews and even TV interviews via iphone for TV channels all over the world.

The story went viral and I even ended up trending at number two in the world, only beaten by Robbie Williams who wasn’t well at the time. I had impressed Teenager at long last, especially when I popped up as a question on Have I got News For You that week.

They’d all said I was a novelist in the articles etc and I was indeed in Crete trying to rewrite one novel and start another. This was my grown-up gap year, me escaping the nest before my beloved Teenager left for university. My thinking as if I left first it wouldn’t hurt so much when she did. Anyway I was backwards and forwards to Crete all summer, even flying home to appear on Kirstie Allsopp’s TV show Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas.

But back to the writing, I was struggling with the book and just couldn’t get to grips with it, nothing was working and all this media attention gave me the idea to write a funny diary of my year in Crete. My grown-up gap year in Crete. I poured over my diary and all my Facebook posts and pulled them together and did a whole load more writing to produce a 300 page book.

Coming back to the UK the week before Christmas I started sending it out to agents. It wasn’t picked up and I am so grateful for that. What I didn’t get a book deal and I was grateful? Yes, because I know now that it was all a learning curve last year and the beginning of this year. I’d faced some of my worst fears and I survived, I had an amazing adventure that actually brought my daughter (always referred to as Teenager) and I closer. I realised that I didn’t want to share this as it was, but it was all there, all the memories, all the ups and downs and fabulous amazing times. It will be great fodder for a novel, ramped up and made funnier. I was glad that the outside world wouldn’t get to read it as me, it was just too personal.

So that’s why The Girl On The Plane (My Failed Grown-Up Gap Year In Crete) has ended up being research. I learned so much last year about myself more than anything else and that sort of research is worth it’s weight in gold.

Talks & Demos

by

Karon Grieve talks and demosI got lucky in the talks and demos department. It all started back in 2006 when I started doing the Country Living magazine fairs in Glasgow. At that time I had a herb crafting business called Dream Acres where I made and sold all sorts of herbal goodies from air fresheners and herb blends to sleep sacks and pot pourri. I would take a stand at these big fairs and so envy the people who did the talks and demos in the lifestyle theatre, crafting classes and most especially the food theatre. I dreamed of doing that type of thing.

Roll on a few years and its 2009 and I managed to wangle my first talk in the lifestyle theatre talking about how to make herbal home fragrance for Christmas. In 2010 I had my first book published, So Easy Herbal and was asked to do cooking demos in the food theatre, wow I had hit the big time as far as I was concerned. I also started to teach craft classes at the Country Living Fairs as well. From then on I did all three areas of the show every year.

I also approached other organisations that held big events, Like Scottish Homes & Interiors. Then people started to approach me and I found myself a regular at the big Gardening Scotland show in the spring, Edinburgh Foodies festivals, Scottish Food & Drink Show and also smaller foodie festivals.

Right back in 2010 I offered myself up on the WRI (Woman’s Rural Institute) circuit to do talks and demos for them andd sold my books at these events as well. Over the years I have done these all over Scotland and even on the beautiful island of Bute as well. To me to event is too big or too small and I’ve done gardening clubs and groups all over the place.

Show and tell is very much my thing and when it comes to cooking demos I love to show people that if I can make any of my recipes on a stage in front of say 100 people they can easily do this at home in the comfort of their own kitchen. My whole ethos with cooking is making things easy and fun and I hope I put this across in my talks and demos.

I’d certainly say that doing talks and demos is the best way to get your books out there to people face to face. You are there to show how to do things and answer questions to. It makes you far more real to people and gives them the confidence to actually have a go at making your recipes too.