Tips on eating well for less, and an exclusive interview with the stars of The Trip
I licked the plate of every episode of The Trip, that gentle comedy where Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, under the guise of a restaurant critic and his dining partner, toured the north-west of England wining, eating and sparring. The understated and much-loved little series is back for a second helping, this time further afield – our intrepid critics go to Italy – and we sent Laura Barton to interview the stars on set.
In the first series, Coogan's character played a stand-in for our own Jay Rayner, so this month we sent Jay on a trip of his own, not to Italy, but on a mission to find some of the best value restaurants here in Britain, from a brilliant chip shop to a great deal at the Gavroche. Check out his collection of frugal food stops.
If you look at the bestseller lists right now, as predictable as New Year itself, they are a mass of "wise" words on how to save money and lose weight. In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, this is the season when many of us start taking a packed lunch to work, so a little book of clever ideas for the daily lunchbox sounds like a timely addition to the kitchen bookshelf. Caroline Craig and Sophie Missing have put together a collection of ideas from easy pho and banh mi to simple classics such as chorizo potato and egg salad in The Little Book of Lunch. In this issue we give you a sneak preview of their useful book.
And on the subject of saving money, we have commissioned some of our favourite cooks to come up with great meals on a budget, which is how we come to have Fuchsia Dunlop's spicy peanut butter noodles, Rosie Sykes's anchovy, olive and onion tart with a cornbread crust and Jane Baxter's sardine and pea pilaf. All delectable, and all made with ingredients that can be found in many a store cupboard.
May we all wish you a happy, successful and delicious 2014.