Last month we visited The Edinburgh School of Food and Wine with health and fitness guru Amanda Hamilton. Amanda is a nutritionist, broadcaster and journalist, she also runs a weight loss website AmandaHamilton.co.uk where she posts diet plans, exercise regimes and other hints and tips to help members stay fit and healthy.

Together with chefs Steve Brown and Libby Andrew from ESFW, KingFilm produced a series of healthy recipe videos for Amanda’s website to help members along with their diet plans.

Recipes included: Raspberry & ginger fool, Magic chocolate mousse with caramelised figs, Lemon polenta cake, Chicken challenge, Chocolate torte, Pear and ginger breakfast muffins, Posh ‘Beans on Toast’. And interviews with Chef Libby about cooking with an intolerance to certain foods, and cooking for children.

Follow Amanda on Twitter here.
And follow Edinburgh School of Food & Wine here.

Marc @ KF

Victor and Carina Contini (of Centotre and The Scottish Cafe, Edinburgh) have just taken on a HUGE project. Their plan is to restore a Victorian garden that has never been used for any food production into their very own Kitchen Garden.

It has always been the family’s dream to grow their own produce for the restaurants. Now an opportunity has arisen to make that happen. The Coninis are moving out of town to give their children some more space – and at the same time, have gained a one-acre site in the heart of the Esk Valley Conservation area. With the help of their friend and supplier Graham Stoddart at Cuddybridge Apple Juice and Erica Randall, their newly-appointed Head Gardener (formerly of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh), they’re going to bring the dream to life and start growing their own produce for Centotre and The Scottish Cafe.

KingFilm were onsite from Day 1 to capture every part of the Continis’ journey. Here’s our most recent episode (above). With help from a dozen extra hands (students from the Royal Botanical Gardens) the team are really starting to see the garden start to take shape. We revisit the site every few weeks to catch up with the team and see how things are progressing. Carina’s aim is to have produce coming out of the ground by June/July this year.

You can catch up on the first and second episodes on the Centotre blog.
And follow the progress on Twitter here.

Marc @ KF

Back in February we worked with The Scottish Salmon Producer’s Organisation to make a short film showing the day-to-day life of Scottish salmon farmers.

The SSPO is at the centre of salmon farming’s industry-wide initiatives and public communication, acting as a trusted source of information on the processes and product. Scottish farmed salmon is worth £400 million to Scotland in exports alone, however the Scottish Government is trying to introduce even more regulation which could put the industry’s future at risk and make workers personally liable if anything goes wrong.

We visited the Wester Ross Salmon Farm and Ullapool Smokehouse in North-West Scotland to talk to workers in the industry (see video above). Part of the shoot involved us lying face down on the off-shore farm gangway with our camera waiting for the fish to jump clear of the water. I really was amazed at the quality of the fish, and it was great to see how passionate the workers were about caring for their product.

Marc @ KF

Last month we shot a promotional film for the Proud to Farm Scottish Salmon campaign. The short film features celebrity chef Nick Nairn talking to industry professionals about the future of Scotland’s greatest food export, and how it could be at risk if proposed new legislation gets the go ahead. The Scottish Government’s Aquaculture Bill would impose a host of new rules and regulations on the salmon farming industry which is already one of the most heavily regulated in Britain.

KingFilm and Taste Communications went with Nick to a salmon farm near Oban to see the farmers at work. Nick finished by cooking us a delicious salmon lunch with a fish caught earlier that morning.

You can follow the campaign here
And Nick here

Marc @ KF

Back in February we worked with The Soil Association Scotland to produce a short video outlining what they do within Scottish schools.

A little bit about The Soil Association…
The association was founded in 1946 by a group of farmers, scientists and nutritionists who observed a direct connection between farming practice and plant, animal, human and environmental health. Today, they are the UK’s leading membership charity campaigning for healthy, humane and sustainable food, farming and land use. Their work in schools, through the Food for Life Partnership, shows that it is possible to transform food cultures for the better – improving the life and health chances of thousands of children.

KingFilm visited Stirling Council and a local primary school to talk to councillors, teachers, kitchen staff and children to hear their thoughts on the improvements that have been made to food in schools taking part (video above).

Follow Soil Association Scotland on Twitter here.

Marc @ KF

The first episode features award-winning renowned Head Chef Mark Greenaway. He has received acclamation nationwide following the opening of Restaurant Mark Greenaway at No.12 Picardy Place in February 2011. In January 2012 Mark was the only Scottish chef to be newly awarded 3 Rosettes from the AA for his outstanding cuisine. The ‘Rising Star Chef of the Year’s’ modern style of cooking with a traditional twist is confident and assured, using only the best local and seasonal produce. Mark’s menus are always intriguing and presentation is clean as well as pleasing to the eye as it is to the palate.

We coincided the launch of our first episode with Mark’s television debut on BBC’s Great British Menu. We were all invited along to a fabulous celebratory night for Mark at his restaurant where he served up the starter he had cooked on GBM. You can read about the night here at the Total Food Geek Edinburgh blog.

Our next episode will feature Chef Neil Forbes from Cafe St Honore.

Follow Mark on Twitter here.

Follow Total Food Geeks here

Follow Cook That! here

And Like us on Facebook here too

Marc @ KF

The UK’s first Game Chef of the Year has been crowned. As the season draws to a close, the title was awarded to Brian Grigor from Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel following a nationwide search for the most talented game chef. KingFilm and John Duncan Video joined Taste Communications at the final of the competition, hosted by The Cook School Scotland & Braehead Foods, to capture an overview of the day.

Game sales are booming at the moment and competitors were challenged to come up with an innovative starter and main course. Brian won with his entry of Red Leg Partridge Pithivier followed by Roe Doe Head to Toe. It included meat shot by his father who is a gamekeeper on a Border’s estate. Judges of the final included Michelin starred chefs Tom Kitchin and Martin Wishart along with Ian McAndrew from Blackaddie House Hotel and Kevin MacGillivray from the Federation of Chefs. Following the success of the first Game Chef awards Braehead Foods have already committed to repeating the competition again at the end of this year.

Production: KingFilm Productions & John Duncan Video (2 x Canon 60D, Lenses: 17-55 EFS Canon, 17-85 EFS Canon, 50mm 1.8 Canon)
Music: ‘Dropping Out Of School’ by Brad Sucks

Marc @ KF

Cook That! is a web series where each week we will talk to a different chef about all things food. Sure we’ll ask them the basics; where they work, their favourite dishes, etc but what we’re really after is the nitty gritty details about what it’s like to work with food as a career. Every episode is delivered to our Facebook page, Youtube channel and Cook That! website (as well as lots of Behind-The-Scenes photos and videos).

So far we’ve worked with four great Edinburgh-based Chefs; Mark Greenaway, Head Chef at Restaurant Mark Greenaway, Neil Forbes, Scottish Chef of the Year 2011, Chris Griffett, private caterer at The Pickled Fork and Karen Higgins at Channings Hotel.

We’re so happy with the response from the food community in Edinburgh, our communication with our chefs, food bloggers, sponsors has almost entirely taken place over Twitter. We also met up with Total Food Geeks – Edinburgh to shoot a Christmas Special, exploring the German Market on Princes Street coming up to Hogmanay.

We’ve got so much planned for Cook That! in 2012, more fantastic chefs and lots of excited challenges and features. We’re currently in post-production for the first four episodes but they’ll be coming online one-by-one in the next month.

In the meantime, don’t forget to go over to our Cook That! Facebook page and Like us there.

You can also follow all our foodie updates from our Cook That! Twitter.

Marc @ KF

Terra Madre is a network of food communities, each committed to producing quality food in a responsible, sustainable way. Terra Madre also refers to a major bi-annual conference held in Torino, Italy intended to foster discussion and introduce innovative concepts in the field of food, gastronomy, globalization, economics. Terra Madre is coordinated by the Slow Food organization.

Slow Food is an international non-profit organisation which addresses people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. Slow Food encourages us to take a little more time to understand and appreciate the food we eat, highlighting the basic philosophy that eating good food can, and should, be a pleasure.

Slow Food Edinburgh organises monthly events, including informal “Slow Suppers”, cooking demonstrations, tastings and themed meals. The aim of these and other local projects is to raise our awareness of good local food. It also hopes to rise to the challenge of Scotland’s suspect food culture by inspiring better shopping, convivial eating, simpler cooking and encouraging everyone to discover more about the wide array of good food grown and produced in Scotland.

Marc @ KF

With Head Chef Phil Lewis and his team, our goal was to produce five short recipe videos to help your Christmas dinner go off without a hitch. These included Perfect Roast Duck (see above), Brussel Sprouts, Parsnip Soup, Traditional Pork Stuffing and Strudel for dessert.

Check The Cook School website to see videos of all the Christmas recipes.

Marc @ KF