This has been another week of holiday. We went to visit my Mum and Dad in Somerset with E. Despite the weather, we’ve managed a good deal of slides and swings, pigs and chickens, trolley rides and general messing about. All this meant a holiday from cooking (for me). But before we left, there was a lunch with friends, and while we were away, there have been some notes on things to make next:

Saturday lunch:

• Cheesey biscuits – from Jennifer Perillo‘s Homemade with Love
• Sage and onion chicken with sausages – from Nigella’s Feast
• Sweetcorn, boiled potatoes
• Caesar salad, with Molly Wizenberg’s no-raw-egg dressing
• A Bread Ahead baguette (bought, not made!)
• Rhubarb and strawberry trifle, from Justin Gellatly’s Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding, with Canal House strawberry conserve

Plans to make:

• Meatballs from the Food52 Genius Recipes book
• Granola from the same
• Turkey and courgette meatballs from Jerusalem
• Apple pie from the new Bon Appetit magazine – an intriguing recipe that asks you to bake the apple slices before making the pie.

Reading:

• Ruth Reichl has been to London – and has a blog about the trip in three parts. She took in Barshu, Barrafina, Quo Vadis  and more (and that was just day one!).
• And she also has a cookbook coming out this autumn – My Kitchen Year. As her memoirs are some of my favourite food writing, I’ll definitely be adding this to the wishlist.
• I found this in Food52’s round-up of the best cookbooks that are coming out this autumn. The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt from Serious Eats is another wishlist book.
• Yet more cookbooks: this extract from the new Sally Clarke book suggests it’s going to be beautiful, and beautifully written.
• Via Signe Johansen, a NYT collection of ‘Do It Yourself’ recipes for preserved lemons, fresh cheese and more.
• Radio 4’s programme The Reunion was on Food Writers this week. It’s an excellent programme on food in Britain from after the war until the eighties, with Claudia Roden, Mary Berry, Prue Leith and others. Available on iPlayer now.