The story of Georgian wine has been 8,000 years in the making | Wine

France, Italy and Spain purport to be the best-loved classical wine regions, but if you’re in the market for the real old-world deal, look no further than Georgia, which has more than 8,000 years of winemaking prowess. There’s something about this place on the lush intersection of the silk roads between Europe and Asia that gets under the skin. Perhaps it’s the combination of unpolished authenticity paired with profound generosity (guests are considered a gift from God and fed accordingly), all while being gently rocked in a cradle of civilisation, that make Georgian wine so beguiling. (My first visit in August 2023 – a khachapuri-fuelled reconnaissance for my book, Drinking the World: A Wine Odyssey – lingered in my mind long after my flight touched back down on British tarmac.The Guardian’s journalism is independent

The feast before the fast … my pre-Lent indulgent recipes

In terms of religious food festivals, this week is kind of a double whammy. First up was pancake day, which is always a whole-day affair in our kitchen, with both sweet and savoury stations, crepe pans and all the toppings (you can always rely on Felicity Cloake for a foolproof recipe). And, because of the way the calendars fall this year, we are also celebrating Orthodox Maslenitsa, or cheesefare, week at the same time.OK, so the sentiment is pretty much the same (it’s the week before the start of Lent, when people ease into their strict fasting period), but these two celebrations can often be weeks apart (blame the battle of the Gregorian and Julian calendars). For those of Orthodox faith, last week was all about eating meat, and this week is all about dairy

Rachel Roddy’s recipe for chocolate and rosemary panna cotta | A kitchen in Rome

The pungent and lingering aromas of familiar kitchen herbs – oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme, bay, lavender, mint – seem purposely made to donate their landmark volatiles to our everyday lives and food. In fact, their design is not for domestic calm and onion basket or fridge drawer neglect, but for uncultivated wilds. In particular the limestone terrain of the Mediterranean, where their defining smells are hardcore chemical defences, with every small, tough leaf or needle loaded with enough volatiles to deter both predators and competitors.Rosemary is particularly kick-arse in this respect, with those volatiles (mostly organic compounds called terpenoids) synthesised and stored in minuscule glands that project from the surface of each dark green needle, which breaks when brushed against or bitten, releasing an intense, hot, bitter shot. It’s the evergreen equivalent of carrying personal defence spray

How to turn any leftover fruit into curd – recipe

You can make curd with almost any leftover fruit, as long as you add a little lemon juice for acidity and blend it to that familiarly special smooth textureI love ingenious recipes like curd that have the superpower to turn a tired piece of fruit or a forgotten offcut into something utterly decadent. Lemon curd is the original and a classic, but you can make curd with almost any fruit, as long as you add a little lemon juice for acidity. Each version is intense, indulgent and dreamy. So, please approach with caution: this spread is deeply moreish, in the best possible way.When testing this recipe, I had some leftover frozen mango that had been accidentally defrosted on the counter, a sad golden kiwi and some wrinkled grapes, so I split the recipe and made three small batches of different curds

‘Food porn’: are sexy meal pics ruining the restaurant industry?

Name: Food porn.Age: Entered common parlance around the 1980s – Rosalind Coward used the term in her 1984 book Female Desire (one of its earliest documented uses).Appearance: A total restaurant killer.Your thesis is that nice-looking food is destroying the restaurant industry? Yes, and I’m sticking with it.Why? Because if you make your food look nice, it attracts the wrong sort of customers, that’s why

In a taste-test battle of supermarket mite-y bites, which will win? (Spoiler: it isn’t Vegemite)

At the end of most taste tests, I have a clear idea of winners and losers, and I’m usually confident enough in the findings that I’d bet if I repeated it 100 times, with a different set of testers, the results would be similar. This is not a normal taste test.After blind tasting eight yeast spreads, readily available at Australian supermarkets, I don’t even know what my favourite is, let alone which are the best and worst.In Australia it is impossible to taste yeast spreads without comparing them with Vegemite, for better or worse. So this isn’t really a yeast spread taste test, it’s a taste test of Vegemite and things that taste like it