Puglia, watermelon and courgettes

July 29 2024

Georgina Hayden’s recipe for grilled watermelon breakfast salad

Introduction

I’m back with a new tablecloth but with the same ethos of a seasonal, inspiring and life-enhancing newsletter. Going forward, there will be a fortnightly edition with news from the UK broadsheets on cookbooks, affordable restaurants and travelling independently and imbetween, a cookbook review, recommendations on a particular area or our new allotment which has indeed been a challenge.

Recipes

I photograph the recipes on the kitchen table or in the garden just before I serve them.

Summer has finally arrived and watermelon and courgettes are on the menu non-stop. A whole watermelon needs plenty of ways to use it and a new one was Georgina Hayden’s recipe for grilled watermelon breakfast salad from her book ‘Greekish’ which I’ve been cooking my way through since it came out.

The recipe was featured in an article in the Observer on the best easy summer salad recipes and I made it for lunch (without caramelising the watermelon, offered as an alternative). It’s on a feta and yoghurt base with toasted sesame and nigella seeds. I also made Nigel Slater’s watermelon with baked halloumi and basil, but I fried the halloumi instead of putting the oven on for half an hour. Finally, Nigella Lawson’s watermelon, feta and black olive salad which I make every year and can get on the table in minutes.

Rosie Sykes’ slow-cooked garlic courgettes with bulgur pilaf

I have always wanted to be one of those smug people with a glut of courgettes and now I am that person as the allotment keeps on giving. I made Nigel Slater’s courgette and mozzarella tart from the Observer and Rosie Sykes’ slow-cooked garlic courgettes with bulgur pilaf from the Guardian, which we ate cold the next day as well. All of Rosie’s recipes are so brilliant, as is her book, ‘Every Last Bite.’

There’s now a special Note on my phone called ‘Cook Courgettes’ where I add more recipes when I come across them.  Rachel Roddy’s recipe for frying pan courgette parmigiana, also in the Guardian, is on there now for this week.

Courgette and mozzarella tart, melon with baked halloumi and watermelon and feta salad

Books

Dinner by Meera Sodha

with recipes in the Guardian for 18 carat laksa, chilli braised aubergine, simple tomato dhal and Sunday kitchari. 

One Bake, Two Ways: 50 Crowd-Pleasing Bakes With An All-Plant Option Every Time by Ruby Bhogal

with an interview and recipes in the Independent for chai plant based custard creams, a cherry and almond pie and a vegan ginger cake.

Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons by Diana Henry

is being reissued with recipes in the Telegraph for socca with sardines, roast tomatoes, and olive and parsley salad, jewelled Persian rice and ruby grapefruit and Campari granita. 

She writes, ‘nearly all the ingredients and dishes that, for me, were special are from Spain, Portugal, the southern regions of France and Italy, the Middle East and north Africa. You’ll find Ottoman influences, recipes from the Berber tradition and distinctive Catalan dishes. The only prerequisite in putting this book together was that every dish had a kind of magic.’

I looked back at my old copy and made the bulgur and spinach pilaf with chilli-roast tomatoes, a recipe I love.

Restaurants

This isn’t going to be totally comprehensive from now on, but will include the accessible and the affordable in central London and in areas where you might go on holiday.

Itamar Srulovich of Honey and Co has written a ‘What the friggitelli? A short dictionary of the year’s most fashionable food’ in the FT which made me smile. Do you feel stupid when you don’t know and you think everyone does already and you have to Google it discreetly under the table? I have just been away to Dorset and didn’t know what ‘Rachel’ was, which was on the menu in two different restaurants. It’s not cannibalism of any of my friends called ‘Rachel’ but a goat’s cheese.

The top Michelin restaurants in London in the Standard that offer more affordable options and the best lunch deals in the Telegraph including Bocca di Lupo and

In the Guardian, Grace Dent went to Albert’s Schloss, London W1 and thought

‘It’s really much, much better than it needs to be, especially this close to Leicester Square and good for a group or a little party.  ‘ It’s not cool, it’s not going to appear in any lofty, food scene guidebooks, but it’s clean, welcoming, and has friendly staff and nonstop giant pretzels. I had more fun here than I’ve had at many a Michelin-starred restaurant.’

She also went to Tollington’s, London N4 where she said the ‘chips bravas’ were the best she’d ever had

In the Observer, Jay Rayner liked Julie’s as have other critics.

In the Standard, Jimi Famurewa liked Tollingtons  in London N5 and the tacos joint, Lucia’s in Hackney.

In the Telegraph, William Sitwell was at The Hero in Maida Vale, London W9. It’s run the same people as The Pelican in Notting Hill where I’ve been for a meal in the bar and really liked it ,and The Bull in Charlbury, Oxfordshire. where I haven’t been and would like to.

He said, ‘The interior is beautiful, the food delicious – all praise for this pedigree boozer is warranted.’

He was also at the Georgian restaurant Kinkally in London W1 where ‘he went for dumplings but preferred all the other bits.’

In the Times, Giles Coren nominated the Horse and Groom at Bourton on the Hill in Gloucestershire as ‘almost certainly England’s best pub’ but added ‘Terms and conditions apply and, no, I haven’t been to your local’

and also two Chinese restaurants, YiQi and Tao Tao Ju in London, WC1.

Travel

UK

The Guardian wrote about favourite places to eat at the seaside including my favourite, Dungeness Fish Hut, my favourite and also vegan fish and chips in Brighton which must be peak Brighton.

I trawled through all the comments so you don’t have to, and made a mental note of Crabshack in Worthing, the Beach Cafe at Eastney Esplanade in Southsea, the Brew Cafe in Pokesdown in Bournemouth, Glorious Oyster, Instow Beach in Devon, the Fish Shack in Amble, Northumberland,

In Scotland, EE USK - an amazing seafood restaurant on the pier in Oban, Green Shack, aka Oban Seafood Hut, Mara, an oyster shell's throw from the sea in Corrie, the prettiest village on Arran, Cafe Fish in Tobermory on Mull, the Seafood Cabin at Skipness on Kintyre and The Nook on the Isle of Gigha

and the Seafood Shack in Mumbles in Wales.

Walking the St Cuthberts Way in Northumberland which goes from Melrose to Lindisfarne in the Sunday Times 

The Gormley Time Horizon at Houghton Hall in Norfolk in the FT, featuring 100 life-size sculptures.  ‘Some works are buried, allowing only a part of the head to be visible, while others are buried to the chest or knees according to the topography.’ More details here.

‘Scotland in miniature’: why the Isle of Arran is perfect for a family holiday in the Guardian,  

A guide to the Isles of Scilly in the Telegraph. 

Europe

A cheat’s guide to eating and drinking your way around Paris in the Standard.

Four unsung Paris museums to visit in the Guardian including the one I always recommend, the Musée de La Libération de Paris. It educated me, moved me and made me cry. The descent underground into the old Resistance command centre made me understand what the cliché about the hairs on the back of the neck standing up was all about.

Musée de la Libération

Alastair Sawday gives best places to stay in France and how to visit the Champagne region in the Times.

A gastronomic tour to Marseille in the Guardian where ‘an American food writer guides us around the ‘no fuss’ cafes and restaurants that embody France’s oldest city.’

A guide to St Tropez in the Telegraph.

In the Times, a section of the path on the CinqueTerre in Italy has reopened. We did this twenty year ago or so and it’s great, lots of steps which we all remember in the heat, so maybe go off season these days as it’s become a lot more popular.

In the Independent, they say go to Lecco on Lake Como as it’s quieter than Bellagio or Como. 

Italy's four coastal regions in the South, Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia and Campania with ‘glorious beaches, historic towns and pretty villages’ in the Telegraph and Puglia for a family summer holiday in the Independent.

Chia in Sardinia, a ‘barefoot seaside village’, from flying into Cagliari in the Independent.

Naples in the Sunday Times.

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. Sometimes my husband buys a Times on Saturdays or I buy a Guardian and I buy the Observer when it’s Observer Food Monthly.  Occasionally, I ask a friend to save an article for me.

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.

Please like or comment as apparently this increases visibility. I would really welcome any feedback on what bits you like and find useful.