How to make the perfect beer cheese soup – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect …

Beer and cheese, two ingredients that don’t immediately scream soup to much of the world, are the cornerstones of one such midwestern speciality, particularly beloved in Wisconsin, with its prominent dairy and brewing industries. Beer soups are also found from Alsace to Russia (and, indeed, Wisconsin has a significant northern European heritage population). The cheese, however, appears to be an inspired American addition (though, seeing as Germany boasts both beer and cheese soups, I’m prepared to stand corrected), playing off the bittersweetness of the beer to produce a richly flavoured dish that’s perfectly suited to harsh midwestern winters. That said, it’s a treat on a cold day wherever you are.(Note: this is not to be confused with German obatzda, while a thicker version is a popular hot dip in Kentucky, in particular

Lilibet’s, London W1: ‘Pure joy, high drama, camp as heck’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

My new favourite restaurantUntil last week, Punk Royale was easily the strangest restaurant I’ve been to all year. “We’re all wacky here!” cried those Scandinavian punks with pans, as covered in my review here a month or so ago. But they’ve already been usurped by a spot in a repurposed office block less than half a mile away.The fabulously bizarre Lilibet’s opened her doors with little or no fanfare in mid-September, beckoning us into her world of strange. Behold the antique fireplaces, the floral chairs and wallpaper, the multitude of gilt-framed, 18th-century French paintings, the pretty etched glassware, the monogrammed napkins, the tall dinner candles

Helen Goh’s recipe for pear, chocolate and hazelnut torte | The sweet spot

Unlike lighter, flour-based cakes, tortes are traditionally rich and dense. Often made with ground nuts instead of flour, this gives them a fudgy, moist texture. Here, ripe pears sink gently into a dark chocolate and hazelnut batter, with the flavours of vanilla, almond and cardamom subtly enhancing the depth of the chocolate and teasing out the fruit’s perfume.Prep 10 min Cook 1 hr 15 min, plus cooling Serves 8-10150g blanched hazelnuts 200g dark chocolate (about 70% cocoa), roughly chopped150g unsalted butter, cubed150g soft brown sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract ½ tsp almond extract 4 large eggs, separated¼ tsp fine sea salt ¾ tsp ground cardamom (from the seeds of 12-18 pods)2 small ripe pears (conference, williams), peeled, quartered and cored To finishIcing sugar, for dusting Creme fraiche or ice-cream, to serveHeat the oven to 190C (170C fan)/375F/gas 5, and line the base and sides of a 23cm springform cake tin with baking paper.Put the hazelnuts on a small baking tray and toast in the oven for five to eight minutes, until light golden and fragrant

More than a third of whisky drinkers are female. Time for the industry to wake up to women

Why wait for International Women’s Day to celebrate women? A commemorative day is a good excuse, true, but we don’t need to wait to recognise the contributions of female and female-identifying individuals to the drinks industry. Right? Right.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more

Jimi Famurewa’s recipe for Marmite and leek homity pie

The first time I encountered homity pie was in a disused train carriage. It was Deptford market in the late 2000s: a reliably chaotic, noisy morass of jostling bodies, the wafted smell of sweating burger onions and a vast section where the “stalls” generally comprised gatherings of orphaned trainers, boxy VHS players and other random house-clearance items dumped on to lengths of tarpaulin. I was an eager but gastronomically green 25-year-old in my first proper flatshare and this ragtag locus of trade became an early site of core dining memories. I thoughtfully appraised very ordinary vegetables, channelling Rick Stein in Gascony; bought warm, hectically seeded granary loaves from the Percy Ingle bakery; ate average pub Thai, better kerbside rotisserie chicken; and generally tried, with limited success, to ignore the creeping sense that I had settled in a part of town that wanted for some structure or culinary vitality.It was this atmosphere of cultural nascence into which the Deptford Project trundled

$1.50 mangoes: Australia’s best-value fruit and veg for November

Kensington Pride, Calypso and Honey Gold mangoes are the juiciest of the crop right now – but avoid potatoes until prices come back downGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailHot weather in the Northern Territory has been favourable for summer’s golden child.“Everyone should be eating mangoes right now,” says Josh Flamminio, co-owner of Galluzzo Fruiterers in Sydney.The mango abundance will continue throughout the month and will only get better as supply from Queensland increases. Flamminio is selling larger premium mangoes for $2.50 to $3 each, and smaller-sized ones for $1