My dilemma was this: I knew that later that day I was to dine with a dear sweet friend. She is a chef. We were going to a place famed for its beef flank and oyster pie. Do you see? Was I willing to abandon myself to a two-pie day? It’s just not the done thing. I had a decision to make and quickly. I had to eschew a pie, either the kidney or the oyster. Tough decision, I chose to live in the moment and allow the evening to take care of itself. I couldn’t predict whether the beef flank and oyster pie would still be on the menu that evening or whether my friend Angela might have to cancel. She might even have ordered the beef flank and oyster pie, destabilising my entire day’s balance of pies because it would contravene one of the rules and protocols I apply to eating out. These are:

1. You cannot have two fish or seafood courses. You must have meat or chicken, preferably as a main course (this rule does not apply to non meat eaters and/or vegetarians).
2. You cannot both order the same starter or main course. It is a pointless pursuit that halves your possible eating experiences.
3. If you have a cheese based starter you cannot then have the cheese plate for afters. Too much cheese.
4. Both diners must have still or sparkling water; it is not cost effective to have both since it encourages wastage.
5. You cannot have the same lunch as you have dinner i.e. no two-pie days.

Having reviewed these rules and protocols it’s frankly astonishing that I ever manage to order any food in any restaurant. I chose to cancel Tuesday night dinner and me and Angela had a tuna and onion sandwich and a glass of milk. Somehow, at home, rule number two is impractical.

I don’t mean to be rude or controversial, but cooking for vegetarians is an utter waste of time and energy and dinner party music. I have no idea what to cook for non-flesh eating friends. If the salad starter option was removed from my already limited repertoire I would be well and truly humped, as my wee brother would say.

At this point I need to clarify and codify the various interested parties in this debate. I will do so in a factual and non-partisan way:

1. Vegans. Ironically these are the ones I have most respect for, and whose food stance I best understand. Vegans are the hard-core followers of food-based belief. In amongst the smell of incense and soya milk I can see their logic. It is a logic that makes them look peely wally and smug but at least they are clear and concise in their proposition. Although they are highly unlikely to enjoy any sort of repast at my table, they will carry with them my respect, my respect and their empty bellies.
2. Vegetarians. Similarly, the fully-formed vegetarians enjoy some sort of sense, if not three full courses at my dining table. Their eating habits are definite if a little tricky to provide for. But the mayonnaise option is always a home banker, a dish lost on the non-dairy vegan. Home made mayonnaise with anything is surprisingly successful.
3. Pescetarians. It gets much easier to cater for those that call themselves fish eaters, even if I might struggle with their dubious moral standpoint. I mean, why is there one rule of acceptability for animals that immerse themselves in water and those that glide, trot or shuffle in the open air? Where is the logic in that?
4. Irrational eaters of food who base their meal choices on sentimental nonsense. While I respect and celebrate the nut-crunching and tofu-consuming vegans there is one group for whom I reserve most of my vitriol. Those that won’t eat certain animals because they are cute. I knew a man who wouldn’t eat duck because he thought they were sweet. Another woman eschewed lamb because she loved what she called “the gambolling fluffy white clouds”. One woman’s fluffy white gambolling cloud is another man’s perfectly cooked main course with roasted Jerusalem artichokes and a Beaujoulais jus.

I have no problem with people choosing what they want to eat and opting to forgo meat. But we are built to consume meat. That is why we possess canine teeth and why we invented spears and stuff. We are hunter gatherers, not nut and berry pickers. But we evolve and people feel the need to decline a delicious plate of meat. That’s fine. Just don’t expect an invitation from me.

I was lucky to have grown up in arguably the halcyon days of ice cream invention. There was a genuine revolution in the world of the frozen confectionery in the late Seventies and early Eighties. The landscape most noticeably changed with the introduction of the Cornetto. In our contemporary world of multi-flavoured Magnums, Solero’s and wheat-free, lactose-light ice creams, the Cornetto was as significant as punk, and Star Wars. What was this chocolatey, nutty, creamy creation that cost fifty pence? Bear in mind that, at ten pence a day, that was a whole school week’s worth of pocket money. How could I even think about blowing the entire weeks cash on a single, transitory ice cream moment?

I waited till my twenties before I ever brought a Cornetto to my mouth and by then I wondered what the fuss had been about. I came from the world of the modestly priced Jubilee. A Jubilee was a Kwenchy cup, a sugar-laden soft drink that was manufactured in a plastic container. Some bright spark discovered that by freezing these ordinary and unremarkable drink products they were elevated to a higher plane of existence and the Southside of Glasgow was full of school kids sucking on Jubilees. Quite why they were called Jubilees escapes me. They had no link to the events of 1977 or to the early works of Derek Jarman.

Unable to justify the cost of a Cornetto, the most decadence I could indulge in was a thing called a Fab. Fab was well named. A raspberry base embellished with a creamy top layer and the pièce de résistance being a smattering of hundreds and thousands. Divine. Whenever the sun shone in Glasgow (often as many as three or four days a year) I would have a Fab in my hand and happiness in my heart. I decided to introduce my Californian colleague Jessica to the British ice cream, starting at the top with the Fab. Having been in the UK for four years she had yet to discover its delights. Since my sunshine inspired purchase last Tuesday the West Coast girl speaks of little else. She too agrees that the Fab is fab. Which is fab.

A staple of all Meditteranean cuisines and South-east Asian cooking, there seems to be no limit to the ways this beautifully deep purple vegeatable can be prepared. The Greeks fry it and serve it with the deliciously salty halloumi cheese; the Persian peoples roast it and create a rich, smoky dip called babaganoush; and my mum would either curry it or bathe it in a gram flour batter and deep fry it: god bless the aubergine pakora.

I have always had a love/hate relationship with the aubergine. There are few foods that can be as badly cooked and well cooked as the brinjal and it is this very unpredictability that makes the eggplant such a perilous choice of food. When they are well cooked few dishes are finer; equally a badly concocted bowl of slimy mush is enough to turn anyone’s stomach.

Lately in life I have sought out only the well-cooked version of the vegetable, insuring myself against disappointment. Aubergines and me have been getting on just fine. And for the past few weeks I have spent a lot of time with aubergines and I find myself mildly obsessed with them.

The other evening at dinner in a Turkish restaurant a friend and I ordered five dishes all of which contained aubergines, each cooked or prepared in a subtly different way from each other. A more delicious meal I have not enjoyed for some weeks. A few days later I found a comedy-sized version of the veg in an antique shop and having parted with the best part of twenty quid I now have over-large item on my mantelpiece. And I acquired a pair of aubergine shaped cuff-links yesterday. Methinks perhaps I may be enjoying this purple patch a little too much.

1. Kirsty Young
2. The British Ambassador in Paris
3. Potato Scone.

This seems like one of those parlour games you buy and play on Christmas Day and I defy anyone to put the aforementioned components in any sort of coherent order. It would be wrong for example to suggest that while snacking in my kitchen that Kirsty Young and the British Ambassador in Paris leapt out of a potato scone. Or that the British ambassador in Paris served a potato scone with the hand-painted image of Kirsty Young lovingly sketched on it in edible food colouring.

What did happen was that Kirsty Young and I, and eighty or so other guests, gathered in The British Ambassador’s residence in Paris for the final tasting of the BBC’s Great British Menu. It was at this most august of gatherings that me and the Kirsty lady had a heated and moving discussion about Scottish food. All manner of Scottish food. But it all started with pie…

In the midst of the meal we found ourselves being served a pie. As the only two Glasweigans in the room it was a blast from our pasts. And it was no ordinary pie, oh no. This was a crayfish and rabbit Stargazy pie, created and crafted by the remarkable Mark Hix, Chef Director at the Caprice group, designing menus for the Ivy, The Rivington and the Caprice. While the gourmands around the room marvelled at the curious “pie” Kirsty and I looked at the pastry with guilty pleasure. Pie was an old friend of ours, thanks to our Glasgow days. An old and well-loved friend. We devoured and discussed it.
We had to explain the most fundamental of pie facts to the gathered throng who seemed wholly pie-ignorant. They knew about every type of oyster, every type of caviar, every type of polenta; but they seemed pie virgins. They could never been accused of eating all the pies.

A Bridie for example was an unheard of food delight to the great and the good. The mere mention of Forfar further confused the already perplexed table. The Scotch Pie had to be described in detail and then drawn (in three dimensions) before its joy could be fully conveyed. The macaroni cheese pie drew howls of derision. Ms. Young and I found ourselves improvising and digressing and extrapolating into related areas of Caledonian culinary cornucopia: the King Rib aka The Mock Chop; the white pudding, the fruit slice, the deep fried Pizza slice. Kirsty and I spoke and searched at length for description, meaning and flavour.

It was as if we two became one as we argued passionately about the food of our Scottish childhood in the contemporary food capital of the world; we spoke with one voice, completing each other’s sentences and evoking each other’s memories. It was beautiful, truly beautiful.

And then disaster struck. I got carried away with my own rhetoric and found myself singing the praises of the roll and potato scone, and the love of the carbohydrate delight I had never shared before in open play. I looked hopefully at Kirsty Young. But my hope was dashed; completely and utterly dashed. The intense look of food love that had inhabited her face melted away into crushing disappointment. She could make no sense of a roll and potato scone; none whatsoever. I was humbled. I felt cheap. I felt dirty. But mostly I felt hungry…

Since Bruce and I are two ex-pats in London, my mind automatically sets to reminiscence mode; isn’t that what all Scots who are not in Scotland do?

When I was a student at the University of Glasgow my breakfasting cafe of choice was a wee place called the Grosvenor Cafe on Ashton Lane. I used to leave the house telling my dad I was off to the Grosvenor. Years later I found out that my father imagined me sat like a king in Rocco Forte’s Grosvenor Hotel on The Great Western Road holding court as i blew my student grant on smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, doused with truffle oil. Nothing could have been further from the truth…
The Grosvenor Cafe was an institution, one of those glittering jewels of Glasgow life. Run by Italian Glaswegians it was an awkwardly shaped, wee cafe, an homage to Formica and PVC. Booths lined either side of the tiny space and there was always, always the smell of freshly made soup. It was the aroma of Clara’s minestrone that first lured me in; still the best minestrone I have ever tasted and the reason I would flirt with her for years to come. The occasional visit soon become a regular daily occurrence, which soon became a twice then thrice daily habit. People used to phone me at the Grosvenor. Lilliana, the owner’s wife and Clara’s sister –in-law would often have a good wee blether with me over a Lambert and Butler, worrying about her family or the business or the world. And there was Clara’s husband, a strong, silent man; a man with kind eyes and a smile that you really felt that you had earned.

The thing about the Grosvenor was that it was cheap. Very cheap. Yet the food was delicious. Burgers, filled croissants, fried egg rolls. And the coffee! Milky sweet Italian coffee, before the word latte was ever barked in the multinational high street coffee conglomerates of the world. I courted in the Grosvenor, I made friends in the Grosvenor, I hatched plans in the Grosvenor. I loved the Grosvenor.

And the reason for my heartfelt reminiscence to big Bruce frae Rutherglen, as he’s about to sign away fifty quid for two plates of Benedict’s eggs? The Grosvenor £5 Challenge. We used to have a pact, me and my friends at University. If any of us could, at one sitting, consume £5 worth of food (food only, no drink) then the others would foot the bill. In three years I do not know and have not heard of anyone who succeeded. Many tried and many failed; others simply couldn’t contemplate two egg burgers, three bacon rolls, two bowls of soup, a tuna filled croissant, a doughnut and ice cream with nuts (aka BenLawers) and a chocolate brownie. I came close once; in 1991. £4.36. But that was in the pre-Atkins days, before carbohydrate awareness.

And here I am in that lovely big London hotel in 2007, but my heart and my head are in the Grosvenor Cafe in Ashton Lane, circa 1988.

Ordinarily I would put my suet away in early march, leaving it until the chill winds of October required its warming, rich textures. But suet in hand, last week I spent the best part of four hours constructing and cooking a steak and onion pudding. Delicious. I can think of few things more warming, more rib-tickling delicious than a pudding that has steamed away for hours on end, filling the kitchen with its promise of tender, melt-in-the-mouth meat and delicious oniony gravy. I have in the past included the kidneys, not offal to everyone’s taste.

Once, wondering why nobody makes steak and liver pudding, decided to try one. Four and a half hours later as I chewed on plasticised liver I realised why no-one had bothered. I have dabbled with Ale and Guinness gravies respectively, and have even tossed a few oysters in. I think in the world of the steamed savoury pudding there is little I have left to try. The cardinal rule however, and I really should know better, is not to assume that three and a half hours of steaming is enough when the recipe states quite clearly that the pudding should steam for at least five hours. The meat wasn’t melt-in-the-mouth. It was tasty enough, but not quite perfect. The suet crust was delicious however. One day I shall learn the virtue of kitchen-based patience.

Let me be clear: this is a recent bean-based love affair. I was not always that taken with them. There dull greenness was slightly off-putting as was their tough outer covering. My love affair began when a chef friend of mine informed me that this dull green, tough outer jacket could be removed to release a vibrant, succulent, jade-coloured jewel of flavour. How right he was. From that day on I have been enthralled by the broad bean, it has answered my every vegetable question, save one. Why a broad bean? Broader than what other bean? And why was that other bean not called a narrow bean?