Failing to be a Coronation free zone

April 24 2023

Margot Henderson’s aubergine and chickpeas

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Travel

UK

The overlooked Welsh Marches, that the Victorians called the ‘Switzerland ‘ of Britain are in the Telegraph and Suffolk is in the Times as an underrated county in the UK. Houghton Hall, in Norfolk, has an exhibition by Sean Scully ‘Smaller than the Sky’ this summer in both the grounds and the house, from April 23 to October 29. There are permanent pieces by Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread and James Turrell in the grounds too.

A guide to Windsor and the ten best things to do in London in spring in the Independent and the garden at Highgrove in the Telegraph. I have now lost my pledge to keep this newsletter a Coronation free zone.

Best road trips in the UK including the North Coast 500 and a route through the Yorkshire Dales are in the Independent. Other Scottish routes include the North East 250 in Aberdeenshire, The Kintyre 66 in Kintyre, The Coig in Ayrshire, and the Southwest 300 around Dumfries and Galloway.

Europe

I always look at Sawdays when booking somewhere to stay in France but the Times has the most ‘French’ places to book on every budget.  Some of them fit the affordable and accessible credo of this newsletter and some of them don’t.  A hotel at Canfranc Station in the Pyrenees is in the FT, as seen on many a railway travel programme, and I’ve just booked a night here as part of our summer holiday as a birthday treat. I started this newsletter for inspiration and it’s giving me plenty myself.

The Telegraph explains why Sicily topped their survey of the best Mediterranean islands last week and where to see a solar eclipse also in the Telegraph includes  ‘The Atlantic Eclipse 2026’. On August 12, 2026 the UK will get a 90 per cent solar eclipse but the best view will be in in Northern Spain between Valladolid and Burgos or alternatively Iceland where it might be cloudy and you won’t be able to see anything.

City guides for Bergamo in the Telegraph and Basel in the Sunday Times.

Restaurants 

In the FT, Tim Hayward was in Bilbao at Restaurante Victor Montes and declared  ‘no one understands steak like the Basques, ……serving near perfect T-bones, sirloins and txuleton beef.’

In the Guardian, Grace Dent went to the Mexican restaurant Zapote in London EC2 and says it’s ‘a place to have up your sleeve whenever anyone mentions “going up Shoreditch.’

In the Observer, Jay Rayner visited Cavo in London WC2 and thought it ‘utterly unremarkable’. He gave it such a depressing review such that I don’t think anybody would ever want to go there.

In the Standard, Jimi Famurewa reviews the Parakeet in Kentish Town, London, NW5 and writes ‘it’s thrillingly anachronistic, it is quintessentially London, and if you approach to join its growing, appreciative flock on a busy Friday night, there’s every chance you’ll hear it before you see it’.

In the Telegraph, William Sitwell thought Humo in London W1, was a ‘heady cocktail of complex, sublime cookery’. At £366 for two, excluding service, it should have been. 

In the Times, Giles Coren went to Rambutan in London SE1, opened by chef Cynthia Shanmugalingam, who has written a book of the same name, and loved it, especially the rotis.

Recipes

Ottolenghi created an Indian-inspired vegetarian feast in the Guardian with aubergine and mung bean curry with coriander cream, and herby ghee rotis with preserved lemon pickle. There’s also potato, spinach and peas with spicy tomato oil and yoghurt which can be made from ingredients you have at home, and as I have leaf spinach and peas in the freezerit’s one for this week.

Margot Henderson writes about the recipes she’s serving in her new pub, the Three Horseshoes in Batcombe, in the Times, including aubergine and chickpea stew (see above), leeks gribiche, chicken, leek and tarragon pie, braised courgettes, saffron and lentils, crème fraîche cake and apples, and lemon posset. She says ‘It’s just straightforward family food. My food is always simple.’ And I would add delicious.

 In contrast, Clodagh McKenna in the Sunday Times says take the stress out of cooking and bring in the joy and thinks we can all spend an hour getting dinner ready with recipes. She gives recipes for spring chicken pot pie, ricotta dumplings with buttered peas and asparagus and Moroccan spiced lamb cutlets with minty lemon bulgur wheat. The trouble is if I tried to make ricotta dumplings on a weekday evening or a chicken pot pie with 18 different ingredients,  the joy would very much go out of the equation.

Honey & Co give a recipe for invisible apple and poppy seed cakes in the FT and say ‘if you like fruit cakes that are more fruit than cake, this is for you.’

Eleanor Steafel writes about flavoured salt and demonstrates the use of one with a recipe for crispy cumin salt potatoes with pickled chilli yoghurt, tossed in a salt made with cumin seeds, nigella seeds and pink peppercorns in the Telegraph.

There’s also Diana Henry’s leeks, goat’s cheese and spelt salad with lemon and elderflower, which sounds so blissfully springlike. Then there’s also her poached chicken salad with nectarines, tomatoes, French beans and basil mayonnaise. Finally from the Telegraph, Xanthe Clay's five recipes for a Coronation lunch including Glamorgan sausage rolls and sesame soy lamb skewers. Note the second broken promise of my Coronation free zone

Mark Hix’s shellfish recipes for potted shrimps on toast, marinated scallop salad and spaghetti with lobster in tomato sauce are in the Telegraph . He treats shellfish like quality cuts of meat – eating them now and then to appreciate their luxury value. 

Finally, some vegetarian and vegan recipes with Georgina Hayden’s mushroom and caramelised onion bougatsa in the Guardian which sounds excellent and you could use always butter and cheese in it instead of the plant based versions if you were not vegan and lentil dumpling wraps with rhubarb pickle by Tamal Ray. Nigel Slater’s watercress soup and Caerphilly cheese palmiers and carrot soup with carrot leaf pesto in the Observer.

Books 

Fish for dinner by Nathan Outlaw

with an interview in the Independent and recipes for green gazpacho with crab and walnuts, grilled gurnard wrapped in pancetta, parsnip and parmesan mash, lemon and sage butter and soused red mullet with grape and chickpea and celery herb salad.

Two Magpies Bakery by Rebecca Bishop

There are six Magpie cafés in Norfolk and Suffolk and one central bakery now and the author shares recipes for spiced double chocolate cookies, black sesame, caramel and miso financiers which sound good and cheese and chive scones which she says taste cheesier as they have caraway seeds in them.

The Mere at Thorpeness in Suffolk .