January tips if you’re cooking for one | Kitchen aide
I really struggle with cooking for one, so what can I make in January that’s interesting but easy and, most importantly, warming?Jane, via email “There’s an art to the perfect solo meal,” says Bonnie Chung, author of Miso: From Japanese Classics to Everyday Umami, “and that’s balancing decadence with ease,” For Chung, that means good-quality ingredients (“tinned anchovies, jarred beans”), a dish that can be cooked in one pan (“a night alone must be maximised with minimal washing-up”) and eaten with a single piece of cutlery, “preferably in front of the telly and out of a bowl nestling in your lap”,Happily, she says, all of those requirements are met by miso udon carbonara: “It has all the rich and creamy nirvana of a cheesy pasta, but with a delicious, mochi-like chew that is incredibly satisfying,” Not only that, but you can knock it up in less than 10 minutes,“Melt cheese, milk and miso in a pan to make the sauce base, then add frozen udon that have been soaked in hot water.
” Coat the noodles in the sauce, then serve with crisp bacon or perhaps a few anchovies for “pops of salty fat”,Crown with a golden egg yolk (preferably duck, but hen “will suffice”), which should then be broken: “Add a crack of black pepper, and your cosy night in has begun,”“January feels like a time for fresh, bright flavours,” says the Guardian’s own Felicity Cloake, which for her often means pasta con le sarde made with tinned fish, fennel seeds and lots of lemon juice; “or with purple sprouting broccoli and a generous helping of garlic and chilli”,A jar of chickpeas, meanwhile, mixed, perhaps, with harissa, chopped herbs and crumbled feta, brings the possibility of a quick stew, Cloake adds, while it’s always a good shout to braise some beans, because cook-once, eat-all-week recipes are a godsend – so long as they’re versatile, that is,James Freeman, head chef at Thomas Straker’s new Acre restaurant in west London wholeheartedly concurs: “One of my favourite things is to roast delica pumpkin with aleppo chilli, garlic and ginger, and then eat that with braised white beans and a nice salsa verde to cut through the richness.
” Not only that, he says, but “you could also blend the roast pumpkin to stir through the beans and, on another day, turn the beans and pumpkin into soup and garnish with any leftover salsa verde,That would be banging, and you won’t be wasting a thing,” Of course, similar tactics could be applied to roast chicken, if you have time of a weekend: “Save the bones to make a broth, then shred any leftover meat into that, or use it in a salad or even eat with those beans and pumpkin,”Above all, though, Cloake refuses to recognise “the idea that cooking entirely selfishly, and according to one’s own whims and eccentricities of taste, is not inherently as, if not more, satisfying than cooking to please others”,The “quickest of all” ways to achieve this, she insists, is a three-egg omelette filled with whatever veg, herbs, cured meat or cheese you happen to have in the fridge: “It’s severely underrated as a meal.
” On the table in mere minutes, plus “the only person who’ll be cross if you overcook it is yourself”.Win-win.Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com
Adelaide festival apologises to Randa Abdel-Fattah and invites her to participate in 2027 writers’ week
The new Adelaide festival board has issued a public apology to Palestinian Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, and has promised she will be invited to Adelaide writers’ week in 2027.Abdel-Fattah immediately accepted the apology, posting on Instagram that it was a vindication “of our collective solidarity and mobilisation against anti-Palestinian racism, bullying and censorship”.She said she was still considering the board’s invitation to appear at the 2027 event.In a statement on Thursday morning, Adelaide Festival Corporation acknowledged they had previously said they would exclude Abdel-Fattah from this year’s event “because it would be culturally insensitive to allow her to participate. We retract that statement”
Churchill’s desk and rare artwork among items donated to UK cultural institutions
Winston Churchill and Benjamin Disraeli’s desk, a painting by Vanessa Bell and a rare artwork by Edgar Degas are among the items of cultural importance saved for the nation this year.The items, worth a total of £59.7m, will be allocated to museums, galleries, libraries and archives around the UK as part of Art Council England’s cultural gifts and acceptance in lieu schemes.Some items were accepted for their outstanding rarity, cultural value or technical skills, while others offer insights into the UK’s history through some of the nation’s most renowned public figures.The Regency mahogany standing desk used by Churchill and Disraeli during their times as prime minister has been allocated to the National Trust’s Hughenden Manor, Disraeli’s former country house
Jimmy Kimmel on ICE shooting of Renee Good: ‘They’re investigating the victims instead of the perpetrator’
Late-night hosts responded to the Trump administration’s escalation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) action in Minneapolis and its criminal investigation into the Fed chair, Jerome Powell.Jimmy Kimmel opened Tuesday’s monologue with a summary of “another bananas speech” by Donald Trump – this time at the Detroit Economic Club, where he tried to convince attenders that the protests in Minneapolis over the ICE shooting of Renee Good were “fake”.“They’re not riots, they’re real,” Kimmel responded. “First they want us to believe that we did not see what we all saw happen to Renee Good. Now he wants us to believe that the protests aren’t real
‘A very tough moment’: how Trump has put museums in jeopardy
From Times Square to the Washington Monument, America saw in the new year with a bigger bang than usual, celebrating the fact that 2026 marks the nation’s 250th birthday. Yet as the US looks back, precious repositories of the nation’s history are facing an uncertain future.Museum attendances are down. Budgets are precarious. Cuts in federal funding are taking their toll
Jon Stewart on the Minneapolis ICE shooting: ‘We are in a confusing, dark place’
Late-night hosts recapped a weekend of nationwide protests over the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer as Donald Trump made a social media post referring to himself as the “acting president” of Venezuela.Jon Stewart wasted no time expressing outrage from the Daily Show desk on Monday evening, after a particularly dark week for US news. “What the fuck is happening?” he exclaimed. “What the fuck is happening in this country? From Minnesota, to Venezuela, to Iran, to Greenland, Cuba, Mexico, Colombia.“We are on the Donald Trump Gravitron,” he concluded
Adelaide writers’ week 2026 cancelled as board apologises to Randa Abdel-Fattah for ‘how decision was represented’
Adelaide writers’ week 2026 has been cancelled after days of turmoil as more than 180 authors and speakers dropped out in protest of the decision to disinvite the Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah.In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, the Adelaide festival board announced the event, which was scheduled to begin on 28 February, would no longer go ahead. The three remaining members of the festival board have resigned immediately, after the resignations of four others – with the exception of the Adelaide city council representative, whose term expires in February.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThe decision to cancel AWW entirely came five days after the festival board announced it had intervened to drop Abdel-Fattah from appearing at the festival, citing “cultural sensitivities” after the attack on the Jewish community in Bondi.On Tuesday, the board apologised to Abdel-Fattah “for how the decision was represented”
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