About the Forage Rangers
The Forage Rangers is the result of a serendipitous meeting in a primary school playground of two women with a love of food and the outdoors, and a large quota of maternal guilt that their children might grow up with no real connection to the countryside and to where their food comes from.
They wanted to create for their families, some adventurous memories of childhood, like they were lucky enough to have, and instil a love of fresh food and cooking along the way.
Both were brought up in the Borders and share sunny memories of childhoods on rambling farms, late-summer weeks collecting bags full of brambles from hedgerows after school, or pilfering ripe figs and gooseberries from parents' fruit cages, but they only became friends five years ago after bumping into each other in the playground of their children's school in Edinburgh. As Xa says, ''I remember one day sitting in Fiona's garden in a patch of sun when she asked if I would like a cup of mint tea. I'm blowed if she didn't walk to the end of her garden and start picking leaves off this plant. She put them into a cup and, actually, the tea tasted fantastic. I asked myself why I wasn't doing the same because it tasted so much better than a dried up old tea bag.''
About Fiona Houston:
Fiona started her career as a journalist at the New York Times, and has also worked as the Scotsman Correspondent in Washington. In addition she has written for The Washington Post, the New York Post, and the Daily Record. She was nominated for the US National Magazine Award by Men’s Health magazine for her feature article on education. She learned to cook in her mother's farmhouse kitchen in Dumfriesshire and at Cordon Bleu.
To learn more about Fiona click here.
To see more of Fiona's writing go to:
About Xa Milne:
Xa is also a journalist. She worked on Fleet Street for several years for the Independent, and then as a columnist for the family page of the Scotsman before taking a sabbatical to raise a family of three boys. She learned to cook with AA Gill.
To see more about Xa click here.
About the Photographer - Chris Watt: The photographs for the Forage Rangers column and the book are taken by our intrepid photographer Chris Watt who boldly accompanies us all over the country.
Chris is a highly experienced news photographer who has covered the action in hot-spots such as Northern Ireland and Kosovo.
His awards include:
Trinity Mirror - Photographer of the Year;Trinity Mirror - News Photographer of the Year; Picture Editors Guild - Special Award for Photographer of the Year.To see more of Chris' photographic work go to:
About the Illustrator - Olivia Doherty: The illustrations for the book "Seaweed and Eat it" are the work of Olivia Doherty, a professional artist, who was born in Edinburgh and went to school right next to beautiful Inverleith Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Olivia now lives and works in Melrose: to see more of her work go to: www.oliviadoherty.com
Forage Rangers
