Lentils, Easter desserts and Interrailing
Introduction
Going on the premise that a husband is for life but not for lunch, this week I made (gift link) from the Telegraph. We ate it with chunks of cold chicken one night and then, the next day, he boiled some eggs and took it for lunch to his volunteer gardening at Kew whilst I had mine at home with some goats cheese.
I have 157 notes on my phone at time of writing, in alphabetical order. I asked a friend the other day how many she had and the answer was one - a shopping list. Maybe I should write a post on how I organise my life, or maybe not.
One note is ‘Cook Easter.’ In it, are links to Gill Meller’s recipe for hazelnut and coffee profiteroles and Anna Tobias from Café Deco with rhubarb frangipane galette, from the Guardian (as well as lamb shanks with orzo). Also, Ottolenghi’s sticky date spiced carrots which I thought might go well with a lamb shoulder. I will also put that recipe in ‘Cook Carrots’.
‘Less is more’ is continuing and if I see anything online that I think I want to buy, I put the link in a note and then forget what it is and don’t want it any more. I get books out of the library; use them or lose them, is my motto, as public libraries are judged on the number of withdrawals, reservations etc.
Books
The Racine Effect by Henry Harris in the Times
with recipes for filet au poivre, slow-baked shoulder of lamb with garlic and mint jus, clafoutis aux cerises, asparagus à la polonaise, duck fat roast potatoes, and strawberries in beaujolais.
The Red Sea Cookbook by Madeeha Qureshi in the Independent
is devoted to Saudi cuisine with an interview and recipes for qahwa (Saudi coffee) and Hawaij sticky chicken wings with pomegranate BBQ sauce, mabshoor – Saudi lamb kebabs over charcoal and mutabbaq.
Peckish by Ed Smith in the Guardian
a book about chicken with recipes for garlic butter chicken balls with orzo and lemon and sage piccata.
Recipes
Three indulgent cheese recipes in the Sunday Times by Charlie Hibbert from the Thyme hotel and restaurant in the Cotswolds: sausage, spinach and smoked mozzarella-stuffed flatbreads, potato and cheddar pie, and baked chicory and ham gratin.
Easy curry recipes from the chef of the Tamil Prince in London in the Times including paneer butter masala, Thanjavur chicken curry and prawn varuval.
Georgina Hayden’s crab recipes in the Guardian, with crab cake banh mi with quick pickle, lemon and pepper crab carbonara, tenshinhan (crab omelette with steamed rice), hot cheesy crab and chive dip ‘n’ chips and crab and asparagus glass noodle stir-fry.
In the Observer, Nigel Slater’s kitchen diary includes a sticky fig pudding
The FT had an egg issue.
Travel
UK
The 50 Best Places to Stay in the UK for 2026 in the Times ‘that are worthy of a weekend break. This year’s list celebrates the very best new hotels as well as old favourites with something fresh to say.’ It includes Updown Farmhouse in Kent ,where we stayed last September for our wedding anniversary. Verdict- our room, one of the garden rooms, was tiny, the weather was awful so we didn’t swim in the pool, but the food and service were excellent.
Exploring the Northumberland Coast Path as well as Barters Book in the Independent is my idea of heaven with the sea, hills, books and not far from where I was born, in Newcastle upon Tyne. Although my mother, who came from Morden in Surrey, loathed the cold east wind.
How to spend 24 hours in Marylebone, London’s most stylish enclave, in the Independent
Walking in Beinn Eighe in the Highlands of Scotland and on the Welsh borders in the Guardian
Europe
What is Interrailing? Everything you need to know about passes, routes and more and the best budget European affordable sleeper train journeys to take in 2026, in the Independent.
Lily Collins’s insider guide to Paris in the Standard
This made me think again about travelling. You don’t have to stay at the Hotel Bristol as Lily Collins does but you can wander around the Marais, along the Canal St Martin and have a picnic in a park. It hit me when we took a trip to Portofino from Santa Margherita on a tourist boat on my birthday years ago. We were surrounded by private yachts idling in the Mediterranean but I realised it was the same sea we were sailing in and we were looking at the same views.
Ireland’s 100 best restaurants for 2026 from John McKenna and Sally McKenna in the Times. Another one to keep in the Notes section of my phone.
Why Trieste is one of Italy’s best food cities by Rachel Roddy in the Guardian. This is part of a new series, ‘Eat your Way Around’ and I am looking forward to more.
and a bacaro crawl of Treviso, ‘Venice’s elegant, under-the-radar neighbour’ in the FT.
Exploring Menton, where the French and Italian rivieras meet in the Guardian
The best things to do and places to eat in Jerez de la Frontera as well as the best things to do in Elche, which is 12 miles from Alicante, both in the Independent
Reading the papers
People ask me how I read all the papers. I believe in paying for quality journalism and my husband and I have digital subscriptions to the Times and to the Telegraph.
The Times gives you two free articles a week as a registered user and the Telegraph gives you access to one free article each week if you register an account. The FT gives a certain number of free articles
Local public libraries often have Pressreader which gives access to over 7,000 newspapers world wide for free or you can subscribe to it.
Your Easter meal sounds delicious. I never inter railed, but imagine many people will discover the joys of rail travel this year, as airfares literally go sky high! So many lovely things, thank you Kate xxx
Interailing with our paper timetables and Europe on a shoestring guidebook, sleeping on station platforms and overnight trains to save on the cost of hostels, living on bread and plastic cheese and sharing the cheapest pizzas we could find in Rome was my first experience of travel, and it was utterly brilliant. It opened the floodgates for a love of travel and discovery for which I will be forever grateful.