âHow can a person think clearly, let alone run a country, on an empty stomach?â asks Rachel Cooke in her column this month. I am with her on the importance of breakfast, and not sure I could even function without it. It is currently fashionable to delay the first meal of the day as a way to maintain a steady weight. Yet despite a penchant for tucking into âthe best meal of the dayâ, I have maintained the same weight for donkeyâs years, barely nudging the lower end of a healthy weight for my height and age. In my world, a day without breakfast is as totally unthinkable as it is for Rachel and probably always will be.
As well as the joy of breakfast, we have wonderful chicken recipes from Sam and Sam Clark of the long running and much-loved Moro. They are celebrating the whole bird with suggestions for roast wings with lemon wedges, whole garlic cloves, oregano and cumin; stir-fried fillets with fresh ginger, green chilli, coriander and tomatoes; and a roast chicken with garlic cloves and wild mushroom gravy. All of which I would be tempted to tuck into at any time of day.
OFMâs annual 30 â âeverything we love about food right nowâ â is an even more eclectic list than usual. Expect hymns to âMalaysian heat and juicy winesâ, multi-stage crisp potatoes dishes including some that are âsteamed, crushed, air-dried, fried, fried again and dressed in roasted habanero vinegarâ and âbeef fat-dressed fingerlingsâ. Oh, yes please. There is Nepalese cooking and mini cocktails; pocket-sized food guides and a celebration of snails; Jamaican jerk sauces and vegan fine dining. While I am loving the idea of dinner in a renovated croft, wolfing Polish doughnuts and singing the praises of sustainable Welsh seafood.
âIâll never look at a dining room in the same way again,â writes Jay Rayner after eating lunch with Jamie Hale, who exposes the difficulty of visiting a restaurant in his wheelchair. As they tuck into chicken en croute and rump steak at Jamie Oliverâs admirably wheelchair-friendly Catherine Street restaurant, Hale points out that âthe biggest issue can be simply getting inside, courtesy of one or two stepsâ.
We also have words with James Blunt and Angela Hartnett.