meemalee

Before my husband and I spent our days arsing around at food and music festivals, our favourite place to go for larks was a dingy room off the Royal Mile. Specifically the Edinburgh Festival (or rather the Fringe part of it), where we'd deliberately sit in the front row to heckle and be heckled by people like Stewart Lee and Richard Herring, Paul Foot and Dan Antopolski, Daniel Kitson and Simon Munnery, Chris Addison and Greg Davis (aka Fat Rik Mayall aka the teacher from the Inbetweeners). As slightly arrogant comedy purists, we only went for stand-up gigs, the dark stage lit by a microphone and a sardonic grin. Unfortunately, this stupid policy saw us pass up the opportunity to see the first UK shows of both Flight of the Conchords and The Mighty Boosh, reluctant to spend a tenner on something as shonky-sounding as "musical comedy". Such hubris meant we ended up spending a great deal more on their recent tours. Though all the venues looked much the same inside, the outs...

Growing up, the weekend for me meant the Sunday Times. I hung on every word of Craig Brown 's Table Talk, I longed to be Emma Forrest with my own column at the age of 14 (I long to be her less these days ). But my pride and joy was the Innovations Catalogue . Although not an official Sunday Times supplement, a fresh copy seemed to drop out of the pages every week, and made me laugh more than the Funday Times (also RIP), and fascinated me more than the Culture supplement. I wanted to own every single item on offer - from plasma globe to remote control can opener. Sadly the Innovations catalogue is now defunct, but Lakeland keeps me ticking over (I desperately want a Remoska and I kinda want a Toast 'N' Egg). Anyway, my endless lust for gadgets meant that a few years ago I asked my in-laws to get us the Tefal ActiFry for Christmas. Basically a big culinary hairdryer, the ActiFry promises to fry enough chips for a family of four with just a small scoopful of oil (and 3% fat)...

I went to Taste of Christmas at the Excel London today. No Christmas carol this year - I'm clearly slightly less highly strung than I was . But here's my recommendations for a wonderful day if you're visiting too. Go to the Campo Viejo stand W50. Watch the lovely Spanish Chef Jose Pizarro whip up wonderful tapas and then feast upon them. Try some of the wines. Heckle Mark Lloyd who's ably assisting. Go to the Club Gascon stand. Order the Foie Gras Popcorn - as wonderful as it was last time. Even if I still don't see the point of the baby corn. Order their Capon Mango Pumpkin too. Beautiful, especially the pumpkin puree. Guess how many meringues they have in their mountain to win a copy of cookbook Cuisinier Gascon by Pascal Aussignac . Go to the Modern Pantry Stand. Order the Organic Salmon Sashimi, Truffled Umeboshi Dressing, Yuzu Tobiko, wolf it down and lick the plate. I did. I am a tramp. Also order their Vietnamese style Duke of Berkshire pork belly, mas...

I've had a blepharospasm for the past fortnight now. That's right, look it up. Lack of sleep is the usual cause, but ocular twitching is also triggered by stress. And what did I have to be stressed about? Well, you know how I've spent a lot of the past year taking the mick out of MasterChef ? Especially the beautifully be-cardiganed Toadie and the remarkable Mr Egg ? So, the other day, the lovely people at Miele invited me to the BBC Good Food Summer Show at the Birmingham NEC where they just happened to be sponsoring the MasterChef Experience . And they said "Would you like to take part in the Invention Test?" And I replied "Sure, why not?" as my brain temporarily disconnected from my typing fingers. Because John and Gregg were going to be there and god's honest truth is - I'm a little bit afraid of them. Scratch that, I'm a lot afraid of them. Like a naughty schoolgirl playing Knock Down Ginger , I've been happy to tease unseen, but...