News & Reviews

Pepsi has promised to take the fight to its arch-rival Coca-Cola, with an extra $600m (£378m) marketing and advertising blitz.

For the tahini sauce

Vinegar is hardly the most alluring ingredient in the kitchen cupboard. In terms of glamour, vinegar is on par with things like corned beef and custard. It carries with it connotations of grandmothers and rationing; household cleaning, even. However, in some quarters, vinegar has been quietly having a bit of a makeover. Not only is it steadily overtaking olive oil as the foodies' new favourite, something for them to obsess over and spend increasingly frightening sums on, there are also ever expanding new varieties. You just need to take a peek at the selection on offer in supermarkets to understand vinegar's new culinary status: balsamic, apple, red wine, white wine, rice, sherry, malt, onion, Asian, the list goes on.

What is it about veg boxes that they are positively prospering in the recession while supermarket sales of organic greengroceries have plunged? Is it loyalty to an ethical supplier, a determination to maintain green credentials as the planet heats relentlessly, or merely the surprise of not knowing whether a stick of black salsify or a handsome pale blue squash will turn up among the carrots, swedes and spuds to help brighten a winter supper?

1. Henckels

This week I've been drinking...Snowballs

Midday on Saturday at a restaurant in London. Two lunchers, both men in their twenties, sit in the back corner. The starters are on the table. One is fiddling with an iPhone, giggling at the screen. The non-fiddler leans forward. Bent across the table, he points a fork, complete with prawn, at the iPhone, making threats as to its continued well-being if it continues to enlighten and amuse.

After going into partnership with his brother Sam, Eddie opened Spanish restaurants Fino and Barrafina. In 2008 they took over Quo Vadis in Soho, refurbishing it at the end of last year and re-opening with Jeremy Lee as head chef.

A blackened stone shell is all that is left of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage cookery school after it was destroyed by a fire in the kitchen.

News in from Marks & Spencer: to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee it is introducing some "Best of British" treats that will include the Great British Breakfast Pizza.

In the coffee plantations on the escarpment of the Great Rift Valley, farmers have started to sleep in fields to protect their crops. Beyond the Kakamega rainforest, near the border with Uganda, villagers have waged bloody battles with gangs ready to murder to get their hands on coffee cherries. In towns across the country, storage depots have installed closed-circuit television systems and placed armed guards to protect the dried beans.

Iranian buyers have defaulted on payments for about 200,000 tonnes of rice from India in a sign of the mounting pressure on Tehran from a new wave of Western sanctions.

An award-winning Cornwall vineyard has become the first in the UK to apply for protected status for one of its wines.

Twenty years ago free-range eggs were rarely bought but for the first time this year they will outsell those from caged birds, according to industry estimates.

The cake in Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was marked in currants with "EAT ME". A century and a half later, we are following in Alice's footsteps, as Victorian desserts experience a remarkable revival.

The Danes have a venerable food culture that dates back centuries. But it wasn't until 2004 and the formulation of the Manifesto for the New Nordic Kitchen by Claus Meyer, René Redzepi and other Nordic chefs, that the country, and in particular Copenhagen, became a bona fide destination for gastronomic tourists.

If everyone in the UK went vegetarian or vegan it would have the same environmental benefit as talking half of all cars off the road, according to new research. Scientists have calculated the impact of 61 foods, with fresh meat and cheese topping the carbon footprint league.

If everyone in the UK went vegetarian or vegan it would have the same environmental benefit as talking half of all cars off the road, according to new research. Scientists have calculated the impact of 61 foods, with fresh meat and cheese topping the carbon footprint league.

My earliest food memory...

On Thursday, in the grounds of Granada's Parque de las Ciencias, delighted tourists and students watched a demonstration of olive trees being harvested. Flails whirred in the branches, clouds of olives thudded to the ground on to canvases spread for their collection. It was a timeless image of an industry whose Iberian roots stretch back to the Phoenicians in the sixth century BC, and in which Spain is the undisputed world leader.

Sunday lunch

Shellfish is one food group that many people find daunting to tackle in the kitchen, but ? and I know it seems like I always say this ? these dishes honestly couldn't be any easier. The fact is, none of them really takes much preparation or time to cook, and any mussels or clams that aren't fit for eating will tell you so by staying firmly shut.

There's a certain scene when a new restaurant opens, or when a lauded chef finds a new berth. The foodie cognoscenti descend and the place is abuzz with bloggers and critics, chefs and PRs, taking pictures, comparing notes and getting love bombs from the staff.

While some prefer their moules with frites, I stand by the notion that some good, crusty bread is all you need to soak up the delicious, wine-infused juices.

Don't worry: you don't need a live lobster for this; using tails means you achieve the desired effect without the guilt. Definitely a dish to make if you're out to impress.