Another year almost wrapped up, and what have we learned? Here, live from my kitchen and entirely free of additives, sweeteners and all the rest, are my thoughts.1 The no-bookings trend is not going away, which is bad news if you don't fancy playing Russian roulette with supper, and dislike being jostled as you stand in a corner feeling all hot and self-conscious with a drink in your hand (a drink you didn't even want in the first place). There are few phrases more brain-wearying than: "We'll have a table for you in 15 minutes." Twenty minutes, and the jig is up. Don't even take off your coat. Head immediately to the less good - not to mention overlit and surprisingly empty - place across the road. But 15? So tantalising! Will it really happen? Or will 15 turn into 20? And if it does, should you walk out, or should you hang on, hoping for some return on your investment? Up the road is a new no-bookings place that sells chicken and potatoes. It's like a Nando's that has swallowed a John Pawson coffee table book. But since I tend not to fancy rotisserie birds and bleached wood at 5.30pm - actually, that's a lie; I very much do, only these days I try to pass myself off as someone who simply can't bear to eat before 8pm - I fear I am unlikely to experience its minimalist delights in this life, or the next.2 Gin. It's back. For ages, people kept saying it was back, and it wasn't. Now, though, it really is. I'm happy about this: so long as I'm in possession of a bottle of gin and a bottle of Mitsouko at any given moment, I am mostly content. But I wish people would stop droning on about "botanicals". No one swigs their favourite gin, and thinks: "Cop a load of the cassia bark in that."3 The cheeriest food story of the year was not the fact that jiang bing is the new hot street food trend, or that yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit much beloved of Californian chefs, is soon to arrive on menus everywhere. Apart from anything else, we don't all live in Hoxton. I was far more keen on the tale of Ian and Rebekah Pugh, a couple from rural Oxfordshire, who vowed to forsake supermarkets for a year, only to discover that they saved almost £900 on their annual food bill. I can't see any other way of beating the supermarkets in the end than by reminding people over and over again that they might save money if, whenever possible, they were to shop little and local.
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