“I think of it as a fairyland of deliciousness,” says food writer Bee Wilson, author of The Secret of Cooking, about Culinaris, a deli in Cambridge. In this issue, we have asked chefs and cooks to tell us about their favourite local food shops. Not so much their everyday food shops, but where they go for something special, a perfect sourdough loaf or a bunch of Vietnamese greens. They lead us to hand-churned butter in the Tyne Valley, water spinach and chrysanthemum greens in Islington and Chinese aubergines in Glasgow, and tell us where to find smokies in Devon, fabulous croissants in York and a van selling fish fresh from the boats in Derry.
The reinvention of the wine bar was well overdue and is probably one of the best things to happen to eating and drinking in years. New wines, new food, new attitude. Tomé Morrissy-Swan has been watching the phenomenon and brings us up to date with the latest and best openings countrywide.
We have a whole host of recipes for you including an extract from Georgina Hayden’s new book, Greekish. We love her sticky aubergine and pomegranate tart, barbecued sea bass with pistachio and caper pesto and her phenomenal feta and white chocolate baklava cheesecake. The recipes are here and we have an interview with Georgie where she tells us, lovingly, about cooking for her sternest critic.
I have a collection of recipes for you too, for those spring days that turn out a bit chilly towards the end: baked tomatoes with chickpeas and curry leaves; a potato, salmon and spinach pie; pork with apples and cider; and onion soup with cheese toasts. We also have lunch with the globetrotting Simon Reeve, and Esme Young from the The Great British Sewing Bee shares her Life on Plate. And Jay has been researching the what, when and why of food crazes and explains why they are actually nothing new, just perhaps a little more crazy.