The Echo Observer

*                                          Pictures were taken 5 minutes into each meal From this  1 Week ago The chips cut and beautifully fluffy with a crisp outer shell. The peas, tasted like peas; sweet and green. The Scampi was crisp on the outside and lovely and moist on the inside, the taste on point with what you would expect. Having said that, the dessert was quite bad. The same desert, Chocolate Sundae was burnt and was inedible. To This  Today  Peas in picture 2 were not eaten (swallowed) and were pushed to the side with the scampi. There is a major difference in size of portions which might be equated to different chefs, or by the amount of people dining at this 'highly' recommended restaurant. Not sure where the high standards went but they are far, far away from the meals (yes plural) that were served . From the throw in the o...

Everyone loves a good coffee morning once in a while, whether its for the coffee, the raffle, the cakes or the socialising; you will normally find a large variety of people at these kinds of events. The time for coffee mornings and fundraisers has arrived! With many coffee mornings going in Elgin, let alone other places in the area how can anyone possibly attend all of them. Many coffee mornings, soup and sweets are advertised all over town so if word of mouth is how you normally hear, there are far easier ways. A list had been compiled below to help aid in discovery and add (if you're a tad like me) a little bit of activity to your day. Your local library, yes obvious indeed.... or is it? The library is not just for use of computers and the borrowing of books, and I don't mean in recent years it has diversified into the lending of DVD's, audio books and local eventry knowledge. As many people use the library, not only is it word of mouth but quite often flyer...

Who said Dreams don't come true? His artistic flare had been put on the back burner, now his talent is finding the light as Daniel Fairbairn, recently redundant from the oil industry, took a chance and has his first exhibition. His paintings are in acrylic paint and are on a range of canvases. His work is also printed onto table mats, coasters and cards. Daniel started painting when he was round about 7 years old and continued from there, his school choices reflected his talent, his goal to be an artist. Later on, he moved to more casual jobs his talent being benched for his spare time. Later on, after that Daniel started working within the oil industry for 15 years until being made redundant almost a year ago. With art pieces both privately owned and some in the Royal Infirmary in Aberdeen it's a real wonder how this person has stayed out of the light for so long. Though between working and having a family time is hard pressed and not easy to find. So he wo...

A dram of spirit in every glass! Kickstarted the right way. A Highland Celebration of heritage and history. A dram in each hand and a hearty smile. The whisky festival began with a bang! Whisky tours on for most distilleries for the festival almost every hour, some of the more specialised tours were booked far before Christmas and were twice a day. Along with some art exhibitions. With 91 thousand pounds worth of tickets being sold within the first hour of sales, it was obvious that the festival would have plenty of attention. With people coming from over 20 different countries to participate in Tastings to the local events. On Thursday, Aberlour was wet and rainy the spirits of those around the complete opposite.  With the scout Hall being used for the sale of whisky trinkets, whisky and other items given by distilleries the adventure started. Already packed in the morning barely 10 minutes in. The light reflected on tasting glasses, whiskies, panels of fired wood f...

The Spirit of Speyside is a local festival; in its essence a celebration of our local drink, culture and the tradition. This festival is as much for tourists as it is for the locals. This article is introductory to the Spirit of Speyside. This image is from the Spirit of Speyside Facebook page The whisky festival will be hosting a numerous amount of activities, stalls and events from; a pop-up crafts stall which is to be orchestrated by a lovely local lady and her friends (who are renting the shop for a few days from the owner) to an event at the Cooperage where there will be four highly skilled Coopers building a 190litre barrel in the fastest time possible. Here is the link for more information on the Guinness World record attempt at the Cooperage. Many videos have been created called The Faces of The Festival and can be found on this link for the Spirit of Speyside Facebook Page. These videos show some of the important people who are part of/contributing to the festiva...

Article by Jane Stone Food; is it something we take for granted, something we expect to have because of it being vital to living? I'm sure a lot of people remember the 'saying waste not want not' or 'children in poor countries would love to have a small portion of what you have, many of them don't even get that much'.                                                                    Picture from Moray FoodBank Facebook Page But we are missing what should be a problem being dealt with; that people from our country, one of the richest in the world has people homeless and hungry on our streets, some living in homes with no spare income for food. The food banks were introduced to help solve this problem; but surely the Food Bank should be a short term fix, helping people temporarily until they are able to supp...