Haggis-Free Zone

Lady Macdonald espouses eating what's local and what's in season. "Now we're emerging into spring and I'm looking for a new twist on chicken salad." She looks over the recipe, silent for a minute, giving me time to look around at the family portraits gazing down at us from their heavy frames, and the prints of vegetables and fruits on the walls. The room is a mix of very old and very new, but it's a mix that works, exuding the warmth of a country kitchen without the kitsch.

Outside, the still-leafless trees, whipped by a wind off the water, are flailing the roiling sky in a bleak display of winter. Small, restless waves slap the shore. In the distance are Skye's famous Cuillin Mountains, their jagged 3,000-foot peaks like broken teeth gnashing at the clouds.

The island, 45 miles long and 25 miles at its widest, has a population of 8,000 and more sheep than people, more miles of stone wall than road. The houses outside the villages are few and far apart, as if the country had been recently colonized and was in need of more settlers. Kinloch Lodge sits alone at the foot of Kinloch Hill on the edge of the loch. From its windows, no other houses are visible, just that wild blend of mountains and moorlands and water that gives this western part of Scotland its majesty.

"I cooked the chicken yesterday and cooled it in its stock to keep it . . . ." Lady Macdonald's voice brings me back inside. She pauses. "Oh, I hate this word . . . moist." She frowns. "Ah!" The face lights up again. "Succulent. That's better, isn't it, Mint?"

"Much better," says Minty.

Lady Macdonald begins to shake chili powder over the chicken, then pauses, can suspended. "I love chili, don't you? It's addictive. I'm sure you all know this -- it releases endorphins in your brain. We can achieve that euphoric state of mind legally by adding a dash of chili to everything." A lavish smile.

She rustles around in a drawer. "What's my wrapping ribbon doing in this drawer, Minty?"

"I don't know," Minty replies, staring calmly down at the offending ribbon.

"I'm just as bound to find it in the fridge," says Lady Macdonald, laughing and closing the drawer with the ribbon still inside.

The chicken salad is finished and Lady Macdonald holds it aloft for all to see. "I've got it surrounded by a completely unfashionable hedge of curly-leafed parsley," she announces, looking thoroughly disgusted. "But I couldn't get flat-leafed anywhere. Not even in Inverness" -- the nearest city, 100 miles away.