Seasons on Harris (15 page)

“Well, okay, but—listen,” I started up again. “So couldn't you just clip on a kind of extra escape-prevention net over the main entrance when you're prawning and then remove it when you're on the other side of the island going after lobsters?”

Brilliant idea, I thought. But for some reason it didn't seem to impress Angus and John, and before we had a chance to continue the discussion, along came another one of those mini
Perfect Storm
waves that caught us all unawares and flung us about the deck like flotsam.

“Jeez!” shouted John.

“Whoa!” agreed Angus.

“Shoot!” came a third exclamation. From me actually. Not only had I collided scrotally with a particular hard and rigid bit of deck furniture but my bucket of precious octopi had just been flipped over and the delicious little darlings were off spinning overboard in furious spumes of spray. “There goes my dinner!”

“Okay,” shouted Angus. “Two more fleets and then lunch. Got some of MacLeod's sausage—goes great with slabs of cheese…”

And so off we went, farther out into The Minch, to continue the haul, dump, and sort process all over again while the gulls screeched around our heads and gannets dive-bombed the ocean voraciously for throwbacks in vertical, wings-folded formation. And when they tired of being bird-torpedoes, they started attacking the gulls, making them drop their pickings, which the gannets then snatched up just before they hit the water. The gulls were understandably annoyed by such incursions but were no match for these huge seabirds with their stiletto wings, piercing black eyes, and facial markings that made them look just like the angry, take-no-prisoners predators they were. The gulls screeched and wheeled and some managed to fly off with tidbits of lunch, but the gannets invariably won the game and perched themselves on the rolling swell, complacently digesting their ill-gotten gains.

Our own lunch came after another couple of hours of rhythmic hauling and sorting. Angus decided that he'd need to unload the empty creels that had been accumulating in their hundreds at the rear of the boat. So we headed out of The Minch swells and into a calm, cliff-bound cove where he kept a storage area on the quay.

Angus was right. MacLeod's sausage was indeed delicious after all those salt-spray soakings. It came in the form of thick, square slabs that turned brown and crisp in the frying pan on Angus's small two-burner propane stove in the wheelhouse. A square of succulent cheddar cheese, a little mustard, and a spread of spicy Branston pickle on whole wheat buns and we were off, wolfing the “pieces” down along with more scalding-hot tea and, later on, fat wedges of Christina's home-baked banana and raisin cake.

After a sprawling period of recuperation on the deck of
Harmony
, bathed in a warm sun away from the ocean breezes, the men decided it was time to unload the empty creels.

I, of course, offered to help again but realized that they were used to working to a strict, well-honed rhythm that would only be disrupted by an outsider, no matter how well meaning. So, leaving them to their labors, I wandered off up the cliffside and onto a broad sheep-dotted pasture. Wildflowers were scattered everywhere across the bright green grasses—daisies, sandworts, clover, lady's bedstraw, buttercups, primroses, and tiny, delicately colored “frog orchids.”

At the far side of the meadow a couple of croft cottages snuggled against a high bastion of exposed gneiss strata. Laundry was flapping in a gentle sea breeze and the faint aroma of something baking wafted across the grass. I followed the aroma toward the cottages until an elderly woman with tightly bunned hair and wearing a white kitchen apron emerged and stood staring at me as I loomed closer. Then she gave a quick laugh—a laugh of recognition. “Ah, I know you…I've seen y'face before.”

I smiled (I was also salivating from the delicious smells now pouring from her open front door). “Oh, no, I don't think so.”

“Oh, yes…I'm sure…Ah! I know. You were in the
Gazette
last week…or the week before. You're that writer chappie.”

Now it was my turn to laugh. She was right. A young journalist, Iain MacSween, from the
Stornoway Gazette
had spontaneously interviewed me while I was interviewing him about island affairs. And—voilà—a week later, there I was, splashed on the front page (in color, no less) prattling on about our traveling life, with a photograph taken in their office of me sprawled on a chair, tea mug in hand, Harris Tweed jacket rampant, and looking for all the world like some rambunctious bearded laird down on the island for a few days to bag a stag or two on the castle estate.

“You've got a good memory,” I mumbled, feeling rather bashful.

“Och—a face like 'at y'dinna forget s'fast, d'y'ken!”

“Ah,” I said, not sure exactly how to interpret that remark.

“An' wh'y'doin' in these parts. Are y'hikin' about a bit?”

“Oh no—no. I'm just up from the quay. I'm on Angus Campbell's boat. They're unloadin' some creels…we've been out in The Minch.”

“Oooh—bit rough today, I'm thinking. Well—listen—d'y'have time for a wee spot o' tea?”

I rarely refuse such spontaneous invitations (islanders tend to be offended if you do), but I knew that Angus would be anxious to get back out to complete the hauling. There were still four more fleets to “service” and I had no intention of delaying them.

“Ah—I'd love to but…well, y'know fishermen. Always wanting to be back out there…”

“Well, how many are y'then?”

“There's four of us—three fishermen and this novice!”

“Och, well y'just wait here a minute and let me see what I can find for y'all…”

A few minutes later I was back at the boat bearing a foil-wrapped parcel for my friends.

“Jeez!” laughed John, as I opened it to reveal an enormous square of just-baked fruitcake, still steaming from the oven and cut neatly into portions by the generous lady up at the croft. “Y'jus' wander off and return with wonders like this! Y'must be our token of good fortune!” (This latter said while spewing crumbs from a mouthful of soft, warm cake.)

“Ah,” added Angus, “so m'be y'll be our token when we get back out there and try to haul up a better catch than this morning's…”(more flying crumbs).

Duncan, as usual, just smiled. But his silence at least enabled him to wolf down a second square of cake long before any of us had finished our first.

I wish I could have indeed lived up to my status as a potential “token,” but—no artistic license allowed once again—the afternoon's haul turned out to be even more meager. However, despite that, we still managed to hand over twelve boxes of langoustines to the refrigerator-van man and then we all sat together on the quay at the end of the day sipping drams from a bottle of Glenfiddich I'd brought as a thank-you gift.

Angus finally became a little more talkative as the whisky washed away some of the disappointments of the day and told me about a “pet project” he was currently completing.

“I think it'll work out—I hope so 'cos it's costin' enough. Y'see I've designed this boat—a high-speed beauty—and I want to take people out on day trips to the island of St. Kilda.”

“St. Kilda! I've been told that's a nine-, ten-hour trip. One way. Fifty miles or so…”

“Tha's right. It is—or was. Until now. But a' think I'll be able to do it in a couple of hours if it all works out right. An' a' know I'll find people who'll want to do that—they're always askin' how to get out there. It's a place that fascinates visitors. Fascinates me too when we go lobsterin' out there. There's nowhere like it…”

“I know. I've read a lot about it. Strange stories about the small community that once lived there. So—when do we leave!?”

“Och, soon—soon. It's not quite ready yet…” Angus laughed. It was good to see him laughing again after his hard, and disappointing, day of hauling.

“Well, sign me up. I want to be one of the first to go with you.”

“Okay—consider yourself signed up!” and he spontaneously raised his glass in a toast. “An here's a wee bit o' Robbie Burns f'ye:

I couldn't quite understand all the broguish subtleties, but it seemed to possess the celebrate-what-you-have
Rubaiyat
spirit of “a glass of wine, a loaf of bread—and thou.”

There was a silence—a most companiable silence—and I rummaged through my brain for a toast-worthy response. “Ah—I've got it—I think it's a translation from the Gaelic. Roddy MacAskill once said it to Anne and me and it kind of sums up my thanks to you all for letting me be a shipmate—if unfortunately not a token of good fortune—for today. It goes something like:

We all raised our glasses, chinked them together, and downed that silky single malt nectar. High overhead a golden eagle circled on the spirals while the setting sun burnished our faces.

It had been a very good day—at least for me. And the prospect of another day with Angus on his St. Kilda project seemed even more enticing…

C
OMPILERS OF TRAVEL GUIDEBOOKS
and “best hotels and restaurants” publications, complete with all those stars, rosettes, and purple-prosed accolades, have not had a particularly easy job when gathering tempting “must go” material on Harris. All, naturally, have celebrated the island's long and fascinating history, its enduring Gaelic heritage, strict Presbyterian mores, and, of course, the dazzling array of earthscapes—from majestic mountains to wild, lunarlike wastes and those eye-candy arcs of gleaming golden sands along the west coast. But when it comes to the more pragmatic elements of accommodations and eateries, enthusiastic verbosity occasionally falters and certainly diminishes. For the simple reason that, despite the island's increasing reliance on tourism, the options still remain rather modest here. To whit: three smallish hotels (Harris, Rodel, and MacLeod), four guesthouses (with a total of fourteen rooms), and twenty-three or so bed-and-breakfasts (fewer than forty rooms). For those looking for extended stays, there are admittedly around fifty “self-catering” cottages, plus a couple of hostels and scattered camping grounds, but no single serious independent restaurant outside the hotels and guesthouses.

When we first visited Harris almost twenty years ago, the scene was even more frugal and the only place that seemed to generate any attention and accolades was Alison and Andrew Johnson's Scarista House. I believe, in those days, they offered only three rooms, and although it was
a little expensive, I remember Anne and I managed to scrabble together sufficient splurge funds for a two-night stay. At that time Alison was still writing her intriguing book describing how she and Andrew, virtually by themselves, had taken this run-down old minister's “manse,” set high on the moor overlooking the magnificent sweep of Scarista Bay halfway down the west coast, and transformed it from a “chicken shit–filled wreck” into one of the most celebrated guesthouses in the Western Isles.

Alison's popular book
A House by the Shore
put not only Scarista House but Harris itself on the hidden-gem-hunters' shortlists. “I was very surprised at first by all the attention,” Alison told us later with beguiling modesty. “It was a pretty ordinary story of how two neophytes like us with no knowledge of building construction or hotel management almost bankrupted and bludgeoned ourselves into oblivion.”

When Anne and I first stayed there, work was still in progress, but all we remember were cozy, comfortable bedrooms, glasses of sherry in the evening by the peat fire in the library, and superb multicourse dinners concocted by Alison from the best and freshest of island produce and served in an intimate, candlelit dining room overlooking the bay and hazy Taransay Island. Her soups, including a classic
cullen skink
(a silky melding of smoked haddock, onions, potato, and cream), and her entrée of lobsters in a cognac, lemon, and tarragon sauce, were five-star marvels. And indeed, in subsequent years, Scarista House received a welter of awards from just about every guidebook and travel magazine around.

Eventually the weary couple moved on to other adventures in Harris, but today the current owners, Tim and Patricia Martin, have kept the standards high and even added a couple of additional rooms and self-catering cottages. One would have thought that Scarista House might have spawned a host of eager imitators ready to capitalize on Harris's increasing popularity. But strangely, with the exception of the elite “hunting party” accommodations and gourmet fare at Amhuinnsuidhe Castle on the road to Huishnish, there are still only two other similar guesthouses: Leachin House, on the outskirts of Tarbert, which has attracted a loyal following, and the MacAskill family's Ardhasaig House, just down the hill below our cottage, which has in three short years become a focus for Katie MacAskill's remarkable culinary triumphs.
Guidebooks gush and stars galore adorn hotel and restaurant reviews that celebrate this “white-painted hundred-year-old croft with a beautiful situation at the head of a sea loch on the western side of the island.” One reviewer ecstatically recalled: “a superb dinner comprised of carrot and red onion soup with ginger and garlic; Parma ham and fruits; local
trout with lemon and almond butter; Cloutie dumpling with crème Anglaise and coulis.” The reviewer was also enamored of “excellent breakfasts with abundant choices including porridge, venison sausages, sauted lamb's kidneys, black and white pudding and oat cakes.”

Amhuinnsuidhe Castle

Diminutive Katie, thirty-five years old, and Roddy and Joan's second-
youngest daughter, blushes a little at all the attention but told me that “it's what I've always wanted to do. I also wanted to live here on-island and not go to the mainland like so many of our youngsters have to do nowadays. I had to leave for a while to get my diploma at the Edinburgh Food and Wine Institute and then learn the ropes in a large turnover kitchen. I chose the Glasgow Hilton and worked with James Murphy, the executive chef. And then I worked with Andrew Fairlie before he became one of Scotland's most famous chefs. And I mean worked! You really have to focus in places like that and be very organized. When you're serving over two hundred dinners a night you've got to produce or you very quickly end up ‘in the weeds'! Here in my little guesthouse the numbers are obviously far less—one seating for twenty is about our maximum—but then, there's only me and sometimes two staff for prep and serving, so I'm running the whole show from the little ‘amusées' I always serve before the four-course dinner, to the petits fours with the coffee after dessert. Oh, and I help Dad and Mum with the shop too!”

And indeed she does. Many times in the early-afternoon gap between serving breakfast and prepping dinner, I chatted with her at the shop across the road from our cottage while trying to find inspiration for one of my own “improv” dinners for Anne and me.

“You love cooking, don't you?” she once said.

“I guess I always have,” I admitted. “Ever since my mother and father—they ran a shop too, you know, in Yorkshire—let me fend for myself when it came to meals during the day. I think I was the first person ever to cook rice in our house. And when I started carting in bottles of oyster sauce, Indian mango pickle, Thai curry pastes, and all kinds of other exotic stuff, my mother thought I'd gone a bit bonkers, but she always kept popping into the kitchen from the shop for a taste and a nibble.”

Katie smiled. “That's a great way to get started. Just experimenting and tasting…”

“It was the only way to keep myself interested. If I knew exactly what a dish would taste like because of a recipe or the fact I'd done it a dozen times before—I'd lose patience. I needed to surprise myself—just like going into a restaurant and not knowing exactly what you'll be served. I loved that anticipation. I loved to learn new ways of blending
flavors—inventing entirely new dishes. Fusion cooking, I guess, although fusion's got a bad name nowadays. Too many chefs using too many ingredients all at once. I still believe in keeping things relatively simple—clean, clear flavors—but also a little unpredictable. I love it when someone says, “Wow! That's a great sauce! What's in it?” My only problem is I don't usually keep notes, so I have a helluva job trying to tell them.”

Katie smiled, nodded, and then said exactly what I'd been hoping for: “Well, maybe you'd like to pop down to my kitchen one night when I'm doing din—”

I didn't hesitate for a second. “How about tonight?”

Katie laughed and her pretty dimpled face turned pink. “I…all right, then…tonight. I've got about ten in and it won't be too crazy…no, tonight's just fine.”

So, at 6:00
P.M.
, there I was, strolling down the field from our cottage to the guesthouse. (“Actually it's a small hotel now,” Katie told me. “We've just added a sixth room, so I've been upgraded!”)

Her “small hotel” is immaculate. Roddy supervised its extensive renovation and expansion from a dilapidated crofter's cottage to the little gem of today, complete with cozy lounge and bar overlooking Loch Bunavoneadar and the North Harris hills, and an outdoor patio for summer evening gatherings if the midges aren't biting.

Katie's kitchen is something out of a “how to design a perfect restaurant” handbook. It is spacious, well lit, airy, and abundantly equipped with stainless steel ovens, warmers, prep counters, serving counter, and huge sinks at either end of a stove with eight high-velocity gas burners. This is a truly serious hotbed of culinary creativity, and Katie is a truly serious chef. Fortunately, her approach is tempered by disarming smiles, occasional fits of giggles, and an inbred intuition on pacing and mood—all vital ingredients of a good kitchen. She is constantly asking Catriona, her assistant and server, about her guests: “Are they enjoying it?” “Are they happy?” “Do they need a bit of a break?” “Are they still hungry—should I do a few extra veggies?”

This is a place where the guests, and not the kitchen regimens and protocols, definitely come first. She tries to discover their likes and dis
likes and designs the nightly menu accordingly, along with a few gastronomic surprise “gifts,” such as hors d'oeuvres or homemade petits fours that may reflect items guests had previously complimented during their stays. And she is the recipient of many compliments. You can hear the “oohs” and “ahs” as dishes sally forth from the kitchen into the adjoining intimate dining room. Little comes back. Most plates are scoured clean, which in itself is one of the best compliments a chef can receive.

Occasionally, at the end of the meal, a guest will ask to speak to Katie personally in the kitchen. The evening I was there an elderly gentleman smartly dressed in tweed jacket and striped silk tie and speaking in a slow American drawl entered and stood, eyes sparkling with delight, by the serving counter.

“Miss Katie,” he began, with a beguiling smile, “I'd just like to say that this is the first time my wife and I have ever visited your restaurant. And although we've been coming to the Highlands for many years and dined just about everywhere worth dining, this has been—without any shadow of a doubt—one of the finest meals we have ever had. By far, young lady, by far. From your first little crostini with the pâté we knew it was going to be real special. And real special it was. We ate everything—every drop of sauce—everything. And we just wanted to say thank you—truly thank you—for an experience we shall never forget.”

Katie, standing demurely by the stove with her little chef's hat on and crisp whites, blushed (Katie blushes quite a lot), grinned, and said how pleased she was that everything had gone so well. I sensed she was not unused to such praise, but she accepted the man's thanks with beguilingly modest grace.

“You'll go far, Miss Katie,” the American guest said as he turned to go. “We'll be hearing a lot about you and your cooking—of that I'm real sure.”

And then he was gone, leaving Katie still blushing as she quickly turned her back and busied herself at the sink. Catriona said, “Oh, Katie—wasn't that so nice of him?”

“Och! It was only a regular dinner,” she said softly, but then she turned and I knew that compliments of that kind touched her and made her work here richly rewarding.

And what did her “regular dinner” of that evening consist of? Well, when I arrived three dishes were already slowly maturing on the stove. Two were soups—a carrot and parsnip blend and a cream of fennel—and a wild mushroom medley risotto.

“Help yourself to a spoon and test,” Katie said. “I'm still open to suggestions.”

In the case of the two soups I could think of nothing that would enhance the silky-creamed purity of their texture and flavor. They tasted just as the menu described them—no tricks, gimmicks, or muddied mélange of ingredients. The distinctiveness of the selected vegetable flavor was the whole point of these creations.

As for the risotto, it was still at the very al dente stage but the flavors of the four different types of mushrooms Katie had used were permeating wonderfully. “Maybe it just needs some more…”

“…stock,” said Katie, and poured in a couple of cups of her made-fresh-daily chicken stock. “And wine…,” and in went a generous swirl of an elegant New Zealand chardonnay. “Anything else?”

“Well, it's got a way to go yet…,” I said hesitantly. Cooks may invite suggestions but not necessarily always welcome them, so I was a little cautious in my comments. “But I remember in southern Italy some of the mammas would add a handful of grated parmesan during the cooking. Some sprinkled it on just before serving.”

Katie laughed and lifted a cloth partially covering a chopping board to reveal a heaping mound of freshly grated parmesan. “I do both,” she said. “Some goes in while it's still cooking, and some at the end as a garnish!”