Sunshine food with the family

At the weekend we enjoyed lunch in the garden for the first time this year. Can’t quite believe how beautiful it was. I’d prepared my usual Sunday lunch of Amalfi Lemon and Rosemary Roast Chicken – the same one we serve for Sunday Roast at Ristorante. We have it with raw beetroot salad and pomegranate seeds, radishes, olive oil and orange zest with a simple salad of crisp leaves and salad onions. Don’t forget the new baby potatoes with fresh mint and olive oil. Simple simple food.

If we’d eaten inside it would have tasted good, but eating it in the sunshine with our make do tablecloth on an old picnic table, it tasted sensational.

Pudding was meringues. Four egg whites with a pinch of salt beaten with double the weight of caster sugar added ever so slowly. In the oven at 150ºC for 10 mins then left for 30 mins at 100ºC. Serve with new season Scottish strawberries and whipped fresh Graham’s cream – sunshine in a bowl.

Ristorante and The Scottish Cafe have two of the best terraces in Edinburgh for al-fresco dining. If you haven’t a garden at home (Victor and I were married for almost 12 years before we had even a cabbage patch) then we have space to spare and space to share, just make sure you come early enough to get a seat.

We had my mother Gertrude for lunch as well at the weekend – all 87 years of glam! A little glass of bubbles at noon after Sunday mass kept her happy all afternoon. Mummy lives in Glasgow and we don’t get a chance to see here as often as we should or as often as we like. Having three generations around a dinner table is for me my greatest pleasure. So here’s to all those three generation moments that we have enjoyed and look forward to enjoying many many more of to.

Long many the sunshine and long may we have our generations together sharing food that always tastes better in the sunshine.