Winter walks, the store cupboard and a lot of soup

January 9 2022,

Lemon ricotta pancakes with pistachio crumb and strawberry compote

INTRODUCTION

This is a bumper edition as I had a break from the newsletter and social media over Christmas and the New Year but I kept a note of interesting articles and I’ve put the best in here. Some of the regular newspaper features didn’t run because of end of year specials. I’ve happily skipped over New Year canapés and what to do with leftover turkey and deliberately omitted roundups of the best places that journalists went on holiday and where they plan to go this year, as well as skiing and cruising as ever.

TRAVEL

UK

The Guardian had eight great UK winter walks and the Times had twenty all over the country.

The Guardian had two accounts of pilgrimage walks in the UK, doing the English leg of the Camino de Santiago starting in Reading and a walk on the South Downs on the old pilgrimage route. They both sound fascinating and I will also add in an old article in the Guardian by Tracy Chevalier on a walk from Winchester to Salisbury on the Clarendon Way which she did as research for her book, A Single Thread. This is for my brother who lives on the route and a test to see if he actually reads this newsletter or just pretends to!

After Worthing and Eastbourne in previous newsletters, we are back to the theme of whether another Sussex town, this time Hastings in the Telegraph is cool or is ‘a gritty alternative’ meaning that quite frankly, it’s not where you want to go for a weekend. The jury is out. Also in the Telegraph, is Chichester Harbour, southern England’s little known alternative to the Hamptons, which begs the question, if the car park at West Wittering is always full in high summer, why is it little known?

Seven of the UK’s cosiest pubs with rooms are in the Times, Crab & Boar, Newbury, Berkshire, Northumberland Arms, Felton, Northumberland, Farmhouse at Mackworth, Derbyshire, The Bell at Skenfrith, Monmouthshire, the Inn on the Mile, Edinburgh and the Gurnard’s Head, Penwith Moors, Cornwall. Maybe you could get to some of them by bus on England’s best and discounted cheap bus tickets in the Guardian.

The Times also has the best places in Scotland to visit that aren’t Edinburgh or Glasgow and another article on four itineraries in Scotland to suit every kind of traveller with the top castles, bothies, hotels, towns and national parks to visit this summer.

Europe

In the FT, Gran Canaria is a gastronomic explosion and in the Guardian, they give the best places to stay in all the Canary Islands. There’s a useful summary of best places to visit in Croatia in the Times and I also found their ultimate guide to Croatia.

I’m a sucker for any articles on Paris and there have been two in the Times, a solo trip to Paris for Christmas, and finding the locations from Emily in Paris which includes six great-value Paris hotels and a local’s guide in the Guardian. I stayed at the Hotel St Christophe on the edge of the Latin Quarter last year and would thoroughly recommend it too as great value especially as we walked practically everywhere we wanted to go. Don’t all book it before I’ve decided when to go again this year.

Last but not least, a city guide to Malaga and to Genoa in the Times for weekends and to Basel in the Independent.

RESTAURANTS

To start with, an extra article from the Standard, where chefs were asked their favourite places to eat out on a budget in London

In the FT, Tim Hayward went to Saltie Girl in London, and thought it was ‘seafood with grace and transatlantic flair’.

In the Guardian, Grace Dent liked the Pentonbridge Inn, in Penton, Cumbria: and admitted it was ‘the sort of food that makes me giddy’. I liked the idea of lunch or afternoon tea at Bassenthwaite Lake Station better and wrote about vegan food where she mentioned the Lingholm Kitchen, also in Cumbria, which isn’t only vegan.

In the Observer, Jay Rayner returned to Mandarin Kitchen where he used to go with his parents and thought it ‘seriously good.’

In the Standard, Jimi Famurewa reviewed Bouchon Racine, gave it five stars and said every corner of it hums with soul, character and intention. After everyone I follow on Instagram seems to have already been, I am going in two week’s time.

In the Telegraph, Willam Sitwell went to the Elder in Bath, website here, and the Speedboat Bar where he thought the food was ‘damned good’

In the Times, Giles Coren went to the Fox at Oddington in the Cotswolds, website here, and Berbère Pizza, website here, in Kentish Town,

RECIPES

It’s all about soup this week with Diana Henry in the Telegraph with recipes for lentil and ham soup, beef and greens soup and roast pumpkin soup with bourbon and bacon, whilst Ottolenghi in the Guardian has vegan soup recipes for green pea and coconut, herby pumpkin and walnut, and chickpea and carrot with olives. Nigel Slater had a recipe for lentil, tomato and coconut soup and for clementine and lemon tarts in the Observer as well as recipes for breakfast muffins and kipper cakes with dill sauce. Finally, there’s Omani lime daal with saffron yoghurt, herbs and a boiled egg by Ravinder Bhogal in the FT.

Mark Hix has store-cupboard three-course meal recipes with another soup, made of winter pulses as well as spaghetti with sardines and chilli and parkin with Yorkshire rhubarb in the Telegraph while Rosie Birkett follows the same pantry theme in the Sunday Times with recipes for coconut and sweetcorn soup with crispy curry leaf chilli oil panisse with sweet smoked paprika mayo and broken lasagne with chilli brown butter, sage and hazelnuts

Eleanor Steafel has a recipe to make sea bass more interesting by adding smoky miso sauce and pickled carrot in the Telegraph as well as a chilli cheese-filled potatoes with quick pickled onions recipe.

There were some nice brunch recipes in the Times including lemon and ricotta pancakes with cardamom rhubarb and pistachio crumb which I made on New Year’s Day, subbing a compote of frozen strawberries with strawberry liqueur for the rhubarb whilst there’s chocolate, orange and coffee bundt cakes by Honey & Co in the FT.

The market at Malaga.