Are there more pips in lemons than there used to be? That’s definitely my impression. What’s going on? Andrea Wilson, Manchester Send new questions to [email protected]. Readers reply I knew this would finally pay off. These are my diary records: 1975: 8.2 mppl (mean pips per lemon); 1976: 7.9; 1977: 8.3; 1978: 7.9; 1979: 8.0; … Read more
A few years ago, a friend asked me to be her “literary executor”. We were both, I think, tickled by the grandiose sound of it, as if I would be playing off competing bids from the Bodleian and the New York Public Library for her juvenilia and early drafts (she is not actually primarily a … Read more
I’ve been standing in a soggy field in Bristol for two hours and I’m starting to lose hope. I try to smile optimistically at the woman beside me, but she’s staring ahead at the metal detectorists slowly sweeping the ground like crime scene inspectors. Suddenly there’s a screech. A man drops to his knees and … Read more
Described by chef Vivek Singh as “the most common and basic vegetable curry you will find anywhere in India”, aloo gobi (the name means potato cauliflower in Hindi) makes a great vegetable side dish, but it’s also full-flavoured enough to pair with plain rice or flatbreads for a very satisfying (and incidentally vegan) main meal. … Read more
Sadly, we cannot return to a more innocent age before the first episode of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s Netflix cookery show, with its recipe for one-pan pasta. This was a time when typing the words “skillet spaghetti controversy” into Google produced no significant matches. Now those three words are inextricably linked. To recap: Meghan piled … Read more
I’m in the fortunate position of owning my own home and some land without a mortgage (in a very affordable and somewhat remote area), and every week I hear more stories from friends about their struggles to get by. We’re all in our 30s, but I feel as if my stress levels are infinitely lower … Read more
In August 2014, conservation biologist Steve Krichbaum was searching for wood turtles on a small plateau in a West Virginia forest. His dog Henry was exploring below, near a stream, out of sight. Henry – a fluffy former stray so joyfully affectionate Krichbaum’s former partner nicknamed him the “Love Dragon” – accompanied him everywhere, hiking, … Read more
My seven-year-old daughter is playing a game on my husband’s phone. A punky, doll-like character has a dirty face, with green oozing spots and patches of brown dirt, bed-head hair sprouting from her head in crude black lines. My daughter dutifully selects a sponge from the toolbar and wipes off the spots, as if in … Read more
From my vantage point on a rooftop terrace I can see the snaking form of the Ourika River meandering through the swathe of palmerias at the southern edge of Marrakech. It’s hard to imagine that barely 20 miles (32km) separate me from the frantic bustle of the famous Djemaa el Fna square and the clamour … Read more
I’m looking for four things in pasta. First, its ability to hold up during cooking: good pasta retains structure and form, which helps it retain flavour and digestibility, which are the second and third things I look for. If the opposite is true and the pasta is not muscular, there is a good chance it … Read more