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A helicopter stutters to land on a lawn 60 feet from where we're cooking. Heads turn, but only briefly. We have more important fish to fry - red mullet to be precise. And we'll be eating them later as a salad with baby artichokes, rocket and saffron-tinted jelly. Every moment at a Rosemary Shrager cookery class is jam-packed. Switch off, however briefly, and you've lost the plot.
Equip her with a soprano voice instead of a balloon whisk and a boning knife, and she'd make a pretty good opera star. She has the manor of a benevolent diva, intensely self-conscious but passionate about sharing her enthusiasm. "I'm an instinctive cook," she says. "I cook by feeling."
A day's course at the school she set up this year at Swinton Park, a Victorian pile in the rolling farmland and moors of Wensleydale, is no easy ride. She hurtles her crew of would-be chefs through the culinary repertoire. From Italian meringue to mousse, from bread to butchery and from cauliflower puree to pea ravioli, it's a rattling switchback ride with no coffee breaks and no gossiping, bar the odd whispered aside.
Relationships between the group of 10 strangers have the dynamics of speed dating. Was it Robbyn who rolled out the focaccia with me and Jodi who helped me "prep" the artichokes, or was that Pat's daughter? It's so busy, so hands-on, that everyone mucks in and supports each other. Nobody shows off. Nobody puts up their hand to ask inane questions.
Those who do ask for help receive a sunburst of Rosemary's approval: "I love it when you're curious. That way I know you'll not forget."
Over and over she drives home the message that she's teaching us to cook for ourselves, rather than rehash her recipes. "Look at the mechanics," she insists. "Once you trust a process, you won't be frightened of adapting it." She once did a course for a group of home economics students - at the end of the session, they told her they'd learnt more in a day with her than in a term at college.
My favourite trick, among a host of good ideas, is cooking cauliflower in a water-and-milk mix, flavoured with bay leaves. Rosemary uses a little of it to thin out a cauliflower and parmesan puree, but points out that it makes an ideal base for a cheese sauce too.
We're filleting fish when Susan Cunliffe-Lister, co-owner of Swinton Park, brings in a Kilner jar containing a rose-coloured liquid. It bowls Rosemary over. Apparently, if you infuse heather flowers in syrup and add a squeeze of lemon juice, it goes a delicate, fragrant pink. They are planning on making it into a sorbet.
Susan has turned three acres of derelict walled garden behind the castle into a vegetable-lover's paradise. The artichokes are flourishing, sea kale has established itself along one wall and she has a massive patch of wild, alpine strawberries. Even a Tuscan cookery school won't be better supplied.
With a couple of TV series behind her, Rosemary has the credibility of a celebrity chef. She's a natural communicator. What's so attractive about her course is that she keeps us all to involved to feel in awe of her. It's only when we sit down to a late lunch, when the different elements have come together, that we realise what a good cook and teacher she is. We're all very conscious of tucking into a meal that we've prepared ourselves, and yet we know that, basically, it's all down to her.
Rosemary Shrager used to cook in paradise and now paradise is lost. Anybody who went, as I did, to Amhuinnsuidhe (pronounced Avensui) Castle, the magical, home of Jonathan Bulmer on the Isle of Harris, came away not only with their palate rejuvenated but bowled over by the wild beauty of the place. At dinner, you never knew where to look - at your plate of castellated crab or out over the Sound of Taransay. An island cookery school has a very particular atmosphere that is impossible to create in more ordinary surroundings.
Or is it? The Hebridean fairytale may be over now that Bulmer has sold Amhuinnsuidhe, but Shrager's cookery school has recently moved to Swinton Park, a castle set in 200 acres at Masham in North Yorkshire, owned by the Cunliffe-Lister family. With deer in the park, acres of walled vegetable garden and a Gothic orangery, the English country house does not come much grander. Shrager admits to crying "Eek!" on first seeing the size of the main house, now an extremely comfortable family-run hotel. She had been hoping for something cosier, but the Cunliffe-Listers soon reassured her.
Cookery school guests will sleep in the hotel but will be otherwise based in the 18th-century stable wing, a picture-perfect building topped off with an original Harrison clock. Here they will cook, eat, lounge, drink, gossip and be subjected to Shrager's intensive, high-voltage teaching.
Being separated from the hotel will be a good thing for any guests who have come seeking a quiet time, because Shrager is as unstinting on noise as she is on the finest ingredients and the best techniques. Her laugh is gloriously uninhibited and she encourages her students to enjoy themselves as much as she does. "People want to have fun as well as learn," she says, as she basks in the afternoon sunlight pouring through the windows of the new cookery school's dining-room.
The stable wing is being done up to Rosemary's specifications, sponsored by a litany of kitchen legends: Aga - Rosemary's will be racing green - Neff, Lacanche, Furi Knives, Le Creuset, Magimix, Kenwood. Shrager is so excited that she scarcely draws breath. Once memorably described as "the cook from central casting" because she is large in both physique and personality, she does not dwell on the island she has lost but on the great estate she has gained. "No midges here," she says, as she bustles about chatting to the workmen. "We will be able to eat outside. Also, the kitchen is much bigger." I am swept along in a tidal wave of enthusiasm that makes even me, the most reluctant of cooks, fancy having a go.
When she kicks off her shoes and we eventually sit down, it occurs to me that, actually, Shrager is not the cook from central casting. She doesn't have the ego for that. Graduating from art college as "the worst artist in the whole world", she was doing the technical drawings for the lavatories at John Tovey's Miller Howe Hotel in Windermere when she realised that she cared nothing for loos and everything for kitchens.
She taught herself to cook from books and pestered chefs when she got stuck. "They always said, 'Start again,'" she says cheerfully, "so I always did." Despite stints working for Pierre Koffmann and Jean-Christophe Novelli, her lack of formal training makes her curiously shy. Her reputation seems to surprise her, and praise for her creations makes her blush. "I always feel that because I didn't go to college, I have something missing," she says.
Well, she is wrong, for when she approaches a kitchen or talks about food, Shrager's eyes glint like those of a steeplechaser approaching its favourite racecourse. She dreams about food, and the thought of all the fish just over the horizon at Whitby makes her voice rise several octaves. Bouillabaisse is on the menu for day two of her first programme, which begins in June. Scallops will still be sent down from Harris but dishes will also rely on local produce.
The promise of vegetables and fruit grown in the garden sets Shrager off on another train of thought. Her "classic food with a modern twist" includes a great love of preserving and, before I know it, we are mentally pickling lemons. For Shrager, the point of food is to nourish and to please. I have seen a table of discerning gourmets silenced by her chicken and potato pie. At Amhuinnsuidhe, the call of the hills and sea were rather distracting. Here in Yorkshire, the natural beauty is of a different, more homely kind, complementing the fantastic spectacle that is Shrager at work.
Leeds/Bradford airport and the Al may not sound as romantic as Stornoway and the road to Hushinish Point, but the Yorkshire Dales can more than hold their own. It says something about Rosemary Shrager that many returning "cookery coursers" will find that although the geography has changed, the personnel remain the same, with Bridget Miller Mundy still doing front-of-house and other familiar faces grinning from the prep kitchen. Some island magic has, it seems, followed Shrager down to Swinton's rolling acres.
Amhuinnsuidhe's residential courses are run by no less distinguished a group of artists - Tim Fargher, Hugh Buchanan and Caroline MacAdam Clark - but the atmosphere is more painting holiday than school, as befits its setting in a baronial shooting lodge, built in 1867 for the Earl of Dunmore. The laird today is Jonathan Bulmer, who has refurnished much of the interior with a connoisseur's eye. He has introduced good paintings and porcelain, stocked the cellars with the finest vintages, and put the famous chef Rosemary Shrager in command of the kitchens. The atmosphere is that of an industrious house party, with the attraction of one of Scotland's finest sporting estates on the doorstep.
The leading Scottish watercolourist Hugh Buchanan was in residence the week I visited, a seasoned tutor with a wealth of invaluable advice. Mornings started in the rod room (which doubles as a studio) with a practical demonstration and critique of the previous day's work. Glorious spring weather soon lured us outdoors, where we practiced plein air techniques on hills and beaches, or sat beside a sheltered anchorage studying boats and their reflections on water.
What better subject for the artist than this blue-rimmed landscape, with its bewitching extremes of wind-scoured rock and flower-strewn machair? Tim Fargher's landscape masterclasses flourish on this colourist's palette, while Hugh Buchanan's medium is ideally suited to the lucid Hebridean light. When it rains, the castle interior provides endless inspiration, with its changing scale and sculptural detail. Long windows overlooking the Sound of Taransay admit sudden, unexpected shafts of light.
'If you get bored of painting, you've always got seared scallops with scallop and prawn tortellini drizzled with a red pepper and spicy sauce to look forward to', declared our teacher. Anywhere else I might have doubted his priorities, but at Amhuinnsuidhe there is no getting away from it, the cuisine eclipses all.
There is quite simply no finer food in Scotland. This is not just because venison, lamb and shellfish abound locally, and fresh garlic, morels and fennel are flown in regularly from abroad. The key to Amhuinnsuidhe's reputation is its irrepressible resident 'Castle Cook', and her highly successful cookery school. This runs concurrently with the painting courses, providing a brilliant solution to the catering. Extravagant feasts cooked under her energetic supervision make their way from the castle's nerve centre to the panelled dining room at least twice a day.
"NAY that's the bolt. This one's the trigger." There was just a hint in Kenny the stalker's twinkly blue eyes of what he was doubtlessly thinking something probably along the lines of We've got a right one here and then he laughed uproariously. The game was up. The only woman in this assembled stalking party. I was also a novice. I didn't own so much as a deerstalker, let alone Madonna-style tailored plus-fours.
Wham! The air-splintered and the force of the ammunition threw me against a hummock in the bog.
"Hmm, you've hit it," announced Kenny. "Not bad for a beginner."
This was target practice, an essential prelude to stalking, as much for the deer's sake as the stalkers'. We were shooting the hell out of a cardboard box above Lady's Loch on the Isle of Harris.
Our party was from Amhuinnsuidhe (Aven-suey) Castle, the home of the snazzily tweeded Sebastian Bulmer, the third member of our shooting party, and his father Jonathan, heir to the cider company.
The castle's chef, rosemary Shrager, had commanded me to bring back a good beastie, skinned and ready for the kitchen. To my horror, a hind and yearling that looked horribly like Bambi skittered gracefully across the track but, muttered Kenny: "They're no good to us, it's the old stags we need."
The Isle of Harris is awash with red deer. It's a wilderness of mountain and glen, peppered with ancient crystalline rocks and cratered with small lochs, where you're likely to see an abandoned whaling station as a crofter's cottage; Gaelic is the favoured lingo and Sabbatarianism strictly adhered to. Not long ago, a local bobby confronted some disconsolate youths kicking a ball down the lane. "I'll have to take that, I'm afraid. It is the Sabbath, you know."
Culling, except of course on Sundays, is certainly not frowned upon.
This season, the Red Deer Commission has ordered 45 from this particular estate to be shot. Old stags are culled in October, then the hinds throughout November.
Kenny, a double for Harold Wilson in sage plus-fours, led us along Loch Ulladail, over glistening slabs of rocks, through rain-soaked bracken and mud that sucked at our boots, and peers gloomily at the roll of grey mist topping the Stone Ulladale mountains.
The walk resembled a complicated version of In Grandmother's footsteps, with Kenny frequently crouching while we copied. Time after time, our stalker folded his body against a rock and out came the spyglasses. It reminded me of chess. You move in, and then a hare bolts. Off shoots the deer and it's back to square one. Even the mocking shriek of a golden eagle can alert your pray. There's no talking. And you might have to lie flat in a puddle for half an hour.
The Bertie Wooster look is not just to appease the foppish exhibitionists. Harris tweed, I learned, is resilient to a good soaking. The colours can help you blend in with the hills, too.
Rain frequently messes up proceedings. Sensible stags retreat under cover, so it's not uncommon to get only one day's stalking, but then this is the beauty of Amhuinnsuidhe. You can relax by the drawing room fire, play billiards, take Sebastian's spirited spaniels for a walk, even join Rosemary's cookery school.
Students house-party members who have not opted for the outdoors help prepare meals. The standard is more haute than house party, and because it was prepared by fellow guests, dinner would soon degenerate into playful backchat as we tried to guess which chef was responsible (helped along by quantities of Margaux, Pomerol and Chablis)
Amhuinnsuidhe was built in 1868 as a wedding present for the Countess of Dunmore. In my room, restrained chintz and Scottish watercolours, I was lulled to sleep by the howling wind and roar of surf, waking to moody skies hovering over the silhouette of Taransay. "No stalking today I'm afraid," would come the message from the downstairs. I was beginning not to care.
On that one day deemed fit for stalking, we did spot a couple of stags, antlers waving behind giant boulders like branches. Other guests on the far side of the loch had better luck. "I got one from about 100 yards," one told us over dinner. "Right in the neck." He savoured a morsel of venison thoughtfully.
Maybe our stags sensed amateurism. "Blast! They've got wind of us," Kenny has cursed, unloading his rifle. Secretly, I was rather relieved.
For all its remoteness, Amhuinnsuidhe is no spartan sporting lodge. There are gun and rod rooms galore, a billiard room and library for rainy days and boozy nights, but this castle was clearly designed with ladies in mind. It boasts spacious bedrooms, elegant dining and drawing rooms, magnificent views. You really appreciate the comfort of a centrally heated, draught-free castellated mansion after an arduous day chasing deer or battling with salmon and midges The pleasures of hot peaty bath, good table and cellar are unbeatable.
Food and music are two of Jonathan Bulmer's passions. Judging from his excellent cellar, so is wine. At Amhuinnsuidhe, at least a couple of times a year, he manages to combine all three in an exceptional manner, for the benefit of paying guests. In the music room, before dinner, the adagio of Beethoven's 'Geister' Trio draws to an eerie close. Rose-tinted sunset has suddenly given way to Hebridean dusk. This is chamber music as it was intended. Afterwards everyone gathers round the dining room table for the evening's Grand Finale, a superlative dinner masterminded by Amhuinnsuidhe chef, Rosemary Shrager.
Amhuinnsuidhe is not like a hotel. From the moment you arrive on the island, you are treated like a cherished family guest. Everything on the music weekends is inclusive - music, all meals, fine wines, champagne, port, whatever you care for. Bridget Miller Mundy offers excursions and whisky tastings, wellies, warmth and charm. And since payment is in advance there's no need to discuss such vulgarities as cash, or bar bills. You can tell that Jonathan Bulmer enjoys having a houseful of people doing their own thing. He is unaffectedly delighted with his entrepreneurial role in such wonderful music making, and proud of his inspired chef.
Last weekend I went to the Outer Hebrides and have returned stunned. We are so used to flying south for holidays that to fly north and discover paradise comes as little short of a miracle. I came courtesy of Jonathan Bulmer, the owner of Amhuinnsuidhe Castle who, to keep the castle socially and financially alive (which means employing more than 25 people) has created the perfect holiday for the discerning tourist.
One option is to do a cookery course with the celebrated Rosemary Shrager whose gift is to produce food as glorious and unexpected as the views. But there is also painting and, my preferred option, a weekend of chamber concerts given by a piano quartet led by Peter Manning (violin) with Philip Dukes (viola), Josephine Knight (cello) and Liz Burley (piano). Listening, in the comfort of Amhuinnsuidhe's grand hall, to the Mendelssohn D minor piano trio and the Schumann piano quartet in E flat accompanied by the low keening of the wind and the shushing of the waves, a glass of champagne to hand and the prospect of Rosemary's scallops and duck breasts ahead, creates a special kind of holiday spirit.
If you go nowhere else, go to the Western Isles. No one could leave them with anything but magic in their soul. This is Scotland at its very best. It is hard to convey the island's wild appeal or the outstanding quality of every second spent at Amhuinnsuidhe, either on days when both sea and sky sparkle like diamonds or times when the Atlantic roars and the clouds scud through horizontal rain. But the juxtaposition of the comfort, civilisation and professionalism of the castle's service with the raw untameability of the elements outside is matchless.
The scenery defies description; water, sky, reflections, rounded hills, silence and stillness hanging like dust in the air, unpolluted and sweet... From the start it was clear that Rosemary's knowledge and love of food are grounded on enormous authority. The irrepressible enthusiasm, with constant explanations, hints, instructions all given with absolute joy in her metier, was so infectious that even the most timid among the group lost their apprehension...
I had a lovely room on the second floor facing the sea, with every comfort imaginable and heart stopping views. One would be hard pressed to find the equivalent in any hotel and I would rate it worthy of Michelin inclusion in the highest category. The sea is coloured like that of Bermuda, but mercifully free of tourists...
It is worth the trip and every penny spent. The air is fragrant, you can walk the unblemished hills and enjoy the many visual delights with no traffic, no noise, the serenity of the house and seamless service.
The welcome was in true Highland spirit. The castle's owner Jonathan Bulmer, whose charm, elegance and sartorial style are legendary, greeted us and whisked us off in his inflatable to remove the last vestiges of metropolitan stress.
Within minutes of strolling down the silver sands and gazing out into the azure waters of the Taransay Sound, we felt ready to meet Amhuinnsuidhe's other great secret Rosemary... Think Joyce Grenfell meets Dawn French with a bit of Patrick Moore thrown in and you get some impression of the formidable woman who runs one of the best cookery schools in the world. She has the finest ingredients and the best view from any kitchen I have seen... Rosemary believes cooking should be a sensual experience. You have to eat with your eyes and cook with passion, she says. Her classes are hugely entertaining and even the most daunted amateur will be encouraged by her repertoire...
In the evening the house guests sat down in a stunning panelled dining room overlooking the sea and prepared to be seduced by the delights of the cookery school and Jonathan's marvellous cellar... Heaven is a place called Amhuinnsuidhe.
You would have to be a curmudgeon not to enjoy one of Shrager's courses. She is a huge woman whose voice, hips, personality and passion for food call out for a castle to contain them. And what an impossibly romantic one it is: Amhuinnsuidhe, privately owned by Jonathan Bulmer, sits right on the sea in Harris, one of the wildest and most remote Hebridean islands.
It nestles beneath russet coloured hills which are spattered with granite rocks and dissected by icy rivers that tumble from inky lochs through the white sand beaches to the sea... Amhuinnsuidhe is elegant and comfortable, intimate rather than grand. It is an easy place to feel at home in, and nowhere more so than in the big yellow kitchen where 12 of us plus Shrager gathered each morning...
Shrager's course, which she insists is about techniques rather than recipes, is aimed at cooks of all levels of experience... She was letting us loose on the finest ingredients: after the quail came lobster, langoustine and crab so fresh they were breathing, then rivers of top quality chocolate which we moulded into handmade confections... In addition to recipes, Shrager gave us handy hints... She fed us esoteric information...
She worked us hard but and this was the real joy nothing was compulsory. We were first and foremost on holiday, so if you wanted to slope off and snooze or catch a salmon rather than fillet it, you are welcome to do so... It felt like being at a well run house party: cosy, convivial and enormous fun.
Rosemary Shrager is of the jolly, Fat Lady school: no nonsense and let's stuff a chicken leg with chicken liver and rosemary, or wrestle with a loin of venison... A lesson with Shrager is a culinary roller coaster ride, accelerated by a barrage of advice and liberal scoldings.
We're talking curing duck breasts here, braising halibut and concocting rich wine sauces. And rich means rich: the reckless splashing of disconcertingly good wine, the best extra-virgin olive oil and cream produced by an entire Jersey herd. Butter, mercifully, is unsalted. Reduction, reduction, reduction is the only way to make a sauce and only the best will do, says Shrager.
That evening, in Amhuinnsuidhe's panelled upstairs dining room, the duck breast is transformed into exquisite, wafer-thin slivers, the halibut is heavenly and the raspberry mouse leaves one floating.
Seven of us, amateur but enthusiastic cooks from Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and the United Sates attended the five-day course... We were met at the front door by Shrager and the charming Bridget Miller Mundy, who oversees the course. They welcomed us like returning family... Six to seven hours a day of cooking was a lot, but Shrager believed cooking should be fun and made it so.
Her enthusiasm pervaded the kitchen. At some point during every lesson, she'd take our pulse: Did you enjoy that? Wasn't that wonderful? We did and it was... Shrager's course is old-fashioned cooking at its best with no regard to calorie counting...
Jonathan Bulmer coordinates each meal with numerous fine wines and students have the unusual opportunity of living in one of Scotland's great houses as guests of the owner. Indeed, Bulmer treated us like old friends, eating meals with us, popping champagne at the least excuse, and participating in rousing games of postprandial Ping-Pong...
When we had a chance to retire to our rooms we were in luxurious surroundings. Many of the eight bedrooms, all elegantly decorated, had a view of the sea and each had its own bath. The service was better than the best hotel...
In addition to the cookery classes, Bulmer opens his home several times a year for painting courses, chamber music weeks and fishing and deer stalking holidays. Perhaps I'm a better watercolorist than a cook; at least I have a reason to go back.
A turreted vision appeared, Amhuinnsuidhe Castle, anchored at the head of its own bay, with a manicured lawn and with a line of cannons aimed out to sea. Rosemary Shrager met me at the door with a hug like a grizzly bear uprooting a tree. Shrager is the castle's resident cook and leading light behind what I've now decided is one of the best cookery courses in the world... I can now do things to a skate which would astonish even a fishmonger...
Rosemary Shrager, ebullient, big-hearted, noisy, breathlessly enthusiastic and very funny, describes her style as classic cooking technique but with a modern edge and she makes much use of Scottish ingredients... One of the joys of this sort of cookery, I soon discovered, is never having to do the dishes...
Jonathan Bulmer, who owns the castle, and who always joined us for dinner, had all the essential attributes of a first class host, including a superb cellar and a generous hand with the decanter, all included in the cost of the course...
It's hard to explain how beautiful the Western Isles can be to anyone who believes these outer edges of Britain contain little more than rocks and turf... I left Harris with a heavy heart.
"My courses aren't for the faint hearted," says Rosemary Shrager. She was right... "I love it when people are scared. Because then they actually learn something." ...
In truth Amhuinnsuidhe makes almost too good a setting... Though it was plain we were on holiday and could skip classes, few would opt to miss one of Rosemary's daily performances as she marshalled us into creating lunch and then constructing dinner. She's an extraordinary woman; ebullient, funny, enthusiastic, frighteningly intense, with a voice which will knock you off your feet...
The only time she met her match was when Effie Morrison, from a nearby village, came to demonstrate how to make Hebridean scones, oat cakes and her celebrated clootie dumpling, a traditional steam pudding. So impressed was a manager from Stringfellows who attended the course earlier this year, he was determined to take her back to the London nightclub with him. He just fell in love with her clootie dumplings, said Rosemary, conjuring up an appealing image of Hebridean home-baking being passed around the nightclub.
At either end of the fishing and shooting season the castle now dances with the music of drawn kitchen knives as enthusiastic amateurs are taught how to master difficult dishes from brioche to pernicious lobster by this almost frighteningly enthusiastic culinary guru. The courses last a week and about fourteen pupils at a time take lessons from Rosemary.
However, they don't just come to Amhuinnsuidhe to cook. There are trips to Luskentyre, Taransay, the Callernish Stones and Tarbert as well as to meet local weavers and fishermen. Classes in painting are also popular and Rosemary tells me that everyone who comes here just loves it. I can believe it. The sun shone brilliantly and the sea glistened bewitchingly as the Gazette van made its way down to Harris last Friday...
Rosemary's cookery school was always a favourite dream and it quickly became clear that Amhuinnsuidhe was just the place for it. An idyllic location, accommodation, staff, the very best local produce...
"I've always wanted to teach cookery," says Rosemary. "I've learned the hard way and it's taken me years. I just find it a pleasure to show people how it's done. It's almost like being on the stage I get a kick out of it. It's really important to enjoy what you are doing. I try to give people the satisfaction and the pleasure that I have. The nicest thing is to see people enjoying what they do and see them enjoying eating what they've cooked."
Passionate about food, Rosemary Shrager has gained a large following, and it is her mission to convey her pleasure to others, along with shortcuts to techniques that have taken twenty years to master. It soon became obvious to her and to Jonathan Bulmer, that they had all the necessary ingredients for a cookery school: a beautiful, remote and relaxed location, her enthusiasm, his marvellous cellar and an endless abundance of delicious local produce...
On good days, the weather can become positively Caribbean: then it seems a crime to stay indoors. Delicious picnics are hurriedly packed and everyone heads for a breathtaking beach, such as Luskentyre, where silver sand stretches for miles and the occasional seal bobs up to peer at those intrepid enough to swim.
It is said that the only pre-requisite for wanting to visit the Hebrides is to have been there before I found it an elemental experience.
Why go to ultima Thule to learn how to cook? So I arrived expecting pretentiousness and disappointment. I could not have been more mistaken. There were about ten of us, mainly strangers, all wondering in a polite way how we would fare in one another's company for the next week. But our reserve was instantly broken by a combination of cocktails and a cook.
Rosemary is the cook from central casting. She is roly-poly, noisy, cheerful roaringly enthusiastic... She does all this without intimidating the guests on the cookery courses. It is made clear from the outset that they are volunteers on holiday. But Rosemary's joy in her craft was so infectious that everyone rushed to participate.
The castle is surrounded by the living larder of the hill and ocean... She teaches her pupils how to make those ingredients sing. Their efforts are, of course, further encouraged by the knowledge that within a few hours they will be eating what they are preparing. The meals at Amhuinnsuidhe were of the highest class: an easy two rosettes, with individual dishes and indeed meals fully worthy of the third...
By the end of the week, Rosemary's pupils had flourished under her tutelage. You could hear them talking excitedly about future dinner-party menus, though wondering how on earth they could recapture the freshness of her ingredients.
It is not necessary to want to learn to cook to come to Amhuinnsuidhe; people also come to paint, or fish, or just relax; there are also musical weeks. Equally, wives can cook while husbands kill things. But whether or not you help prepare it, you eat Rosemary's cooking at meals and there is no finer food in Scotland. I do not believe that there is a better cookery school anywhere, or one more beautiful, or one which provides finer meals.
Rosemary Shrager is one of Britain's great cooks... She is expansive, generous, voluble, enthusiastic, totally unpatronising and great fun... On the first day, Rosemary reassures her class: I'll tell you what we're doing each day, but if you already know how to make gravadlax or stuff a squid or just feel like walking, or fishing, or staying in bed well, that's fine. Please yourselves. It's supposed to be fun!...
Classes happen in the morning and the early evening. The afternoons are free for snoozing or exploring the unspoilt wilderness, spotting circling eagles and shy deer. One day, there was tea with a kindly tweed-weaver, who dyes her own yarn with lichens from the hillside. Another afternoon, there was a long, sunny picnic on the island of Taransay, with nothing but sheep and seagulls for company, returning sunburnt and relaxed.
At first sight, this holiday seems pricey, but it is genuinely all-inclusive. You can drink as much as you like and live like a lord. The castle is comfortable, luxuriously furnished, scented with flowers and decked with antlers and sporting prints.
Working in Shrager's kitchen is a little like going to the funfair and opting for the white knuckle ride: nerve-racking if you spend too long thinking about it, but exhilarating once you're there.
The Amhuinnsuidhe course is designed to teach guests classic English cooking using French techniques. "I am certainly not trendy no frills or fuss but I like to think I'm up to date," she says... "The whole point of coming up here is to enjoy the marvellous produce."
