I’ve never been a fan of cider – it brings back too many bad memories. Most resounding of these is that of when, at the age of fifteen, in the queue to a scuzzy underage night in East London, my friend handed me an unmarked bottle of ‘White Ace’ that I foolishly took a swig of. Not believing that a drink could taste that bad – and all too aware of Tom’s reputation as a prankster – I remember wondering how Tom had managed to carbonate his own urine.

There’s no doubt that Mondavi can give the other new worlders a run for their money, and for your money you could do a great deal worse.

Qin Xie was recently invited to learn about matcha as the latest superfood trend to sweep the UK but it has raised a question or two in her mind…

I’ll be honest. I’m reviewing this new Ocado range because at the moment I’m on the famine side of feast or famine – the downside to being freelance – and since the ‘feasts” have in truth been famines, it seemed the only real feast I’d ever get was the offer of some French picnic goodies. Bread, cheese and jam. How easily I am bought.

Make your week a meaty easy one with Donald Russell’s Meal Planners. We tried a sample and found the idea sound and the meats quality and all at a fair price.

Chef’s rubber Croc shoes seem at odds with the mud we’re tramping through, but then so are his chef’s whites. ‘I’ve got big plans,’ says Lee Streeton Executive Chef at the spanking new Syon Park Waldorf Astoria hotel while waving his arms around. ‘This land is mine!’

Among all the courses and activities for young people there are a growing number of cookery courses and schools for children popping up all over the UK. These courses are usually hands-on, a little bit messy and, crucially, lots of fun with cookery parties proving to be popular and offshoots running in schools, homes and village halls.

For those of you for whom Stratford-upon-Avon summons up visions of hags around a cauldron […]

A converted pub in a previously neglected backwater, A La Cruz’s interior is enlivened by fancy wall art and it’s a fresh, clean place. The asador burns brightly and next to it is a barbecue of the crudest kind, its cooking grill simply raised or lowered by a chain pulley. It’s simple but it’s also an art and head Chef Adrian Cocco keeps a close eye on it, manoeuvring steaks of all shapes and sizes, as well as plump chorizos and ribs, around carefully.

We give ProCook glass digital scales a trial in a small, urban kitchen to discover that dishes with proper cooking measurements are hard to fault.