Flexible and festive, this granola is a lovely gift in a posh jar, and will keep for ages

After the recent birth of our baby girl, we were taken aback to receive so many delicious gifts from friends and neighbours. As I’m sure you know, postpartum nutrition is paramount for a healthy recovery, and all these meals and treats helped nourish my wife as she rested and rejuvenated. One of our favourite gifts was a huge jar of granola from our friend Majella, which was such a welcome addition to our pantry that we decided to make a batch of our own to give to friends and family this holiday season.

Granola is a fantastic way to use up overripe brown bananas, jar-ends (such as jam, crystallised honey and molasses), and short-date or excess store-cupboard ingredients such as oats, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and spices.

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Bourbon, blueberries and bitters are the guiding stars of this festive infusion

This bittersweet, bourbon-forward and jammy twist on the boulevardier is enriched with berry notes. The infusion, which needs to be made at least a week in advance, also makes a nice boozy gift for your nearest and dearest.

Anya Kornilova, bar manager, Henri , London WC2

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These buttery, chewy toffees are full of festive flavour

The chewy caramels you get in a chocolate selection box have always been my favourite. Yes, they get stuck in your teeth, but that’s all part of the fun. I typically make these only around this time of year, and using festive spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg just adds to their buttery warmth. You will need a thermometer to make sure the mixture reaches the right temperature to set properly, but don’t let that put you off. They come together quite quickly and look so pretty all wrapped up.

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Wow your nearest and dearest with blackberry vodka, pear liqueur, limey limoncello and spicy rum. And for those who aren’t on the hard stuff, a booze-free ginger and rosemary cordial and a blueberry and lemon thyme shrub

No one wants socks, and you’ll only get the wrong brand of gin if you go for a bottle . Instead, whether for a boozer or teetotaller, why not make something personalised, delicious and easy to create? These recipes are all good as they are, but they’re equally valuable as templates from which to experiment with other flavours. All are scalable and, in my experience, very happily received. Expect future orders. Keep all the alcoholic infusions chilled for immediate deployment, though they will last almost indefinitely out of the fridge.

Mark Diacono’s latest book, Vegetables: Easy and Inventive Vegetarian Suppers, is published by Quadrille at £27. To order a copy for £24.30, go to guardianbookshop.com

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I’d rather have a bottle than a gadget, and these are the labels I’d like

In 1972, President Pompidou of France gifted Queen Elizabeth II a wine cooler in the shape of a giant grasshopper that, when you rotated its wings, turned into a drinks table. I haven’t seen it in the background of any royal family Christmas photos since. And I know how they feel: ever since I started working in wine, I’ve accrued a trove of so-called “gadgets”. A wine aerator. Several preservation systems. An amount of corkscrews that feels almost illegal to own. You can find all these things, and many others besides, in a dusty drawer in my house.

The gift of a drinks gadget is very well-meaning, I suppose, the assumption being that I drink enough wine on a daily basis that what I really need is a piece of tech to make my consumption of it easier, sexier and slightly more expensive.

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Service is friendly but formal: expect trolleys and theatrical table-side chopping

Serving afternoon tea and a fancy, pie-centred menu of an evening, The Georgian inhabits a fancily refurbished space on the fourth floor of Harrods in Knightsbridge. Think Edwardian glam, twinkling chandeliers, and a pianist tinkling Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On as you nibble on smoked rabbit paté en croute with marsala jelly.

Several friends have said that this space, which has been a restaurant since 1911, holds the fondest of family memories for them. My family, on their numerous pilgrimages to gawp at Harrods during the 1980s, however, were never as bold as ever to dine there. We’d sneak in, gasp at the posh toy department, then buy a branded, olive-green tote bag for carrying spuds home from the Carlisle Co-op. Even now, in 2024, I instinctively keep a stiff back and my elbows off the table while perusing chef Calum Franklin ’s menu of ornate pies and sipping on an oolong and chrysanthemum highball.

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You can’t really stab your food with it like a real fork, and you can’t really scoop your soup

Since Auguste Comte, philosophers have assumed that progress is an inevitable feature of history. As the father of positivism, Comte argued that the human condition always improves as science and technology advance.

A single commonplace object proves Comte’s assertion absurd and fallacious: the spork.

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In this week’s Feast newsletter: Everything about the holidays makes me happy, even light-up earrings. But my favourite thing is whipping up treats for loved ones

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Last Christmas, a chef I regularly work with admitted he hates homemade gifts. Needless to say, I was aghast; who doesn’t love a homemade edible gift?! Perhaps he has been scarred by endless jars of hedgerow jams and allotment veg chutney over the years (although I’m not sure I could ever get sick of homemade chutney, especially if it is one of Chetna Makan’s recipes ). This chef is a dear friend, so I have done what any good friend would do and, ever since, have given him a homemade gift each time I’ve given him a present. It got me thinking about edible gifts, what constitutes a good one and why I love them so much.

I’ll start with a disclaimer: I adore Christmas. I’m talking light-up earrings, carols around the village Christmas tree and Felicity Cloake’s mulled wine on repeat – I love it all . However, I do get overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that appears at this time of year. Do we need more stuff? Family and friends will ask me: “What do you want? What do you need?” There is, in fact, very little that I need, and what I actually want is the recipe for your infamous chocolate cake or your granny’s recipe for her slow-cooked ragu. (Clearly I’m not the only one, given the success of online sensation Pasta Grannies .) Or perhaps a bottle of that premixed margarita you made last time I visited your house. To be honest, you could bottle up any of these pitcher-style cocktails and I’d be thrilled. I love it all.

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Health secretary accuses fast food giants such as KFC, Domino’s and Subway of ‘cruelly targeting kids’ near schools

Fast food firms such as KFC, Domino’s and Subway are “flooding” areas close to schools by opening almost 1,000 new outlets there in recent years, research reveals.

Subway have opened 420 new takeaways within 400m of a school in England, Scotland and Wales since 2014, while Domino’s and Greggs have opened 354 and 329 outlets respectively.

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