I never knew about the Lancashire courting cake. www.atlasobscura.com/foods/lancas...

Staggeringly ridiculous piece - the original headline said 'most Indians don't read for pleasure - so why does the country have 100 literature festivals?' before they changed it following widespread outrage: www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Hodmedods have launched a pulse club - like the Rancho Gordo bean club, but with homegrown British beans. hodmedods.co.uk/collections/...

Falling down the rabbit hole that's the old menu archives of Veeraswamy. The menus start off more Anglo than Indian, and then gradually become more Indian over the years. I wonder why 'Bombay duck' - so beloved of Anglo-Indians - fell out of favour. www.veeraswamy.com/heritage-arc...

Bit of a random question, but does anyone in London sell really good orange barfi made from fresh oranges and no food colouring?

For valentines, you should absolutely buy my red chilli-hot book for the person you love very much... yourself :) shop.bl.uk/products/the...

A Turkish restaurant opened near my house showcasing lesser-known regional specialities. A KFC opened nearby serving chicken and chips meal deals. Guess who also started selling chicken and chips meal deals. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Caught a glimpse of a rare vintage Gujarati cookbook while walking past one of those cardboard boxes in Tesco where people dump unwanted books. Then another one on a subsequent visit, and then another... Someone local seems to be getting rid of their collection bit by bit.

The IHR free online food history seminars are great and this one sounds like such an interesting topic...

Why is it always Super Bowl (even in the UK). You barely get a chance to recover from one Super Bowl and then, like buses, three more come along all at once.

Someone please start opening cafés and restaurants on Burnt Oak Broadway - there’s nowhere good for breakfast, lunch or even coffee.

Heartbreaking to read about so many journalists getting laid off, but deciding to launch a newsletter isn’t easy. You’re no longer *just* a writer; you also have to be editor, proofreader, photographer, design team, marketing team, videographer - or employ other people to do those jobs.

A nice love letter to the British Library by Charlotte Mendelson: www.ft.com/content/6c05...

I like the sound of this free retro British food event - Jenny Ridgwell is doing a talk on her memoir centred on 1970s food, including cream horns, vol au vents, Angel Delight, salad cream and margarine, at Putney library, 19 Feb, 6 pm: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jenny-ridg...

Look at the beautiful vintage photos of Veeraswamy, and a glimpse of its menus from 1940s and '50s. I hope it is saved. Maybe I should write to the King and send him a copy of my book, which places the significance of Veeraswamy in a broader context. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

She was amazing in Schitt's Creek. RIP Catherine O'Hara.

Wow, good luck to The Londoner. www.the-londoner.co.uk/the-londoner...

How do we do a poll on BlueSky? I wanted to ask a nosey question…

This story is being framed in the media as "look here's the evidence - vegan food doesn't sell, the vegan fad has passed" but in fact... McDonald's has dropped most of its vegetarian dishes because they were rubbish and they're developing better options. www.ladbible.com/lifestyle/fo...

Nigella!!

There's this bonkers Indian-Chinese dish called 'triple schezwan rice' that's a mix of rice, noodles, vegetables and a spicy 'schezwan' gravy often made with paneer that I wish I'd discovered when I was a student. Anyone know where I can get a good vegetarian version in London?

If the much raved-about new Claridge's bakery specialises in British baked goods, it should definitely sell more London-origin items such as maids of honour, Chelsea buns and - very importantly - London cheesecake, which nobody else seems to be doing. www.claridges.co.uk/restaurants-...

Love the sound of this new-season saffron grown in Norfolk: hodmedods.co.uk/collections/...

A delight to randomly discover this eccentric little radio series about chefs in different UK towns creating a representative signature dish, based on local produce and the stories of colourful characters living in the area. I hope they do more towns. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/serie...

Why are London's Indian restaurant menus all so same-y? Only a tiny fraction (maybe about 5 percent) of the vast repertoire of dishes that make up Indian cuisine find their way into UK restaurant menus. Where's the originality, the risk-taking, the creativity.

The title of Gurinder Chadha's sequel will now take on a different meaning

Vanilla Black - London’s 1st smart vegetarian restaurant. I went there with many different people over the years, tried every dish on the menu and still think about it to this day. Their rise and fall is detailed in their witty Substack (you have to read it from the start): vanillablack.substack.com

The Beckham family saga is like something out of one of those interminable Indian saas-bahu (mother-in-law/ daughter-in-law) soaps from 20 years ago

Thank you PLR, for letting me work out that my book was borrowed from libraries around 26 times in a year.

Did Ottolenghi have a hand in setting today's Wordle

Love a properly done wassail - but last year I went wassailing at my local farm, and they didn’t have any apple trees so they did wassailing around quince trees and it felt like cheating

There's a lot of buzz around this book on Bombay food history and I'm trying to get hold of a copy from India... speakingtigerbooks.com/product/in-t...

Always intrigued by this wordy, neatly typed notice… about banks, governments and money… on an Edgware Community Hospital notice board, underneath ‘give blood’ and ‘clean your hands’ posters.

Idea for a novel (novelists, feel free to run with it): All the world leaders are kidnapped by a bunch of Buddhist monks, locked in a monastery and forced to meditate for seven days running

Excellent. I have signed up for the free newsletter to begin with.

It's Indian kite flying festival tomorrow (14 Jan) - an excuse to eat lots of popcorn (traditionally made from freshly harvested grains); and in London, look out for special 'Uttarayan menus' centred on an iconic Gujarati stuffed winter vegetable curry with dumplings, with pooris and jalebis.

Currently enjoying Diana Henry reading from her book of essays 'Around The Table' on BBC Sounds - so many evocative descriptions of food from around the world: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/serie...

Totally addicted to Polish chleb with cranberries from my local Polski shop in Cricklewood Lane.

I'm writing about Indian cheeses for my dictionary and keep discovering more and more. Who knew there were so many. And why aren't they more widely available?

Just read somewhere that "one-eighths of people in the world eat Indian food regularly". That is a lot.

What a fascinating slice of London food history - London Transport's food production centre in Croydon and many canteens for feeding staff fresh food every day in the 1950s. Bring back canteens!

Coconut milk is not essential in Indian (or other) curries. It's only used in regional recipes in coastal or other areas with coconut groves, to balance stronger flavours like tamarind. It's not the generic liquid element as in western-style curry recipes. www.theguardian.com/food/2026/ja...

Twitter in 2010: "Aww... cute cat" Twitter in 2017: "You can't say 'read' as it'll offend people who can't read" Twitter in 2019: "Turmeric milk is cultural appropriation" Twitter/ X in 2026: "Apartheid was a good thing. Colonialism was brilliant. America should rule over every city in the world"

After years of increasing hype around 'Veganuary' I have barely heard anyone mention it or write about it this year.

My own personal 2026 forecast for Indian food trends BUT ONLY IN UK: - gunpowder spices in everything - mithai-western desserts fusion (eg ras malai tiramisu) - eggs (fascinating topic - hoping to write about it) - khichdi, chyawanprash, ashwagandha continuing as 'wellness trends'

Has a modern philosopher, cultural commentator, someone like that written any smart, sharp essays trying to make sense of why the world is the state it's in, how we got to this point? Surely there must be some wise words out there.

I don't know what's more depressing - that Easter eggs and hot cross buns are already in the shops, or that they've continued the 'Dubai chocolate' theme by relentlessly putting pistachios in everything.

So eating lentils, black-eye beans and leafy greens on new year’s day are supposed to bring you wealth? Well as a vegetarian that’s kinda like my regular diet and it hasn’t made me rich.

Alpha, which opened in Oxford Street in 1879, was London's first vegetarian restaurant. Fancy tapioca milk soup, lentil cutlets and stewed prunes? londonist.com/london/food-...

Omg Daily Mail quoted me and my post about 'fricy' foods ?! (But thank you for mentioning my book!) www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...