Meringue, whipped cream and the first of the season’s perfectly ripe peaches

Biting into a perfectly ripe peach is one of my summer highlights, and I wait all year for that first good one. Once they are here, I can’t get enough and often enjoy them sliced as they are or sat hunched over in the garden with the juice running down my arm to my elbow (totally worth it). When I get a good batch, I roast them – they look like pretty sweets, and I especially enjoy peeling off the skin when it’s wrinkling at the sides. Peaches and pavlovas are a gorgeous match, and a constant classic. Make this for friends or for a picnic spread, and keep extra peaches for later, so you can eat them in the sun.

Cans are a smarter pick than bottles for picnics and festivals, but the options are more limited and the quality is variable, so it pays to do your research

Canned drinks are nothing new, of course, but they’re now seemingly taking over the shelves of practically any supermarket or booze shop you walk into. Marks & Spencer, for instance, recently extended its range of canned cocktails off the back of a 25% increase in sales over the past 12 months, while more and more no- and low-alcohol producers are putting their drinks into cans, too.

It’s not hard to see why, what with our hectic, on-the-go lifestyle. Just as you might grab a sandwich or a salad for the train or for lunch al desko, you can also now pick up a can to go with it. They’re a much better bet than bottles for picnics and festivals as well – lighter, unbreakable and easier to keep cold.

For more by Fiona Beckett, go to fionabeckett.substack.com

Cost of living crisis and labour shortages force hospitality venues to adopt a new normal

• ‘All time low’: UK hospitality bosses say sector is fighting for survival

For pubs and restaurants hoping to save money and stay afloat in the face of a record squeeze on disposable incomes, there is now a new normal: younger staff, simpler menus, less meat and closing for lunch.

Since the onset of the pandemic the sector has been hit by skyrocketing energy costs, food inflation, high interest rates, a recruitment crisis and consumer uncertainty.

It ransacks the cuisines of the world, taking flavours, dishes and cooking styles from every corner, and makes them all vegan without even mentioning the dreaded V word

I took Charles to Mallow in Canary Wharf because one of the worst spats we ever had was when I duped him, when he was very hungry, into eating at a vegan cafe in Edinburgh without so much as whispering the words “plant-based”. Somewhere between the concrete scones, the sludgy, tree-bark soup and the bottom-of-a-bird-cage tabbouleh, the truth came out, though.

Well, I say, “spat”, but it was actually more one of those silent, incandescent, mutual huffs couples seem to have in restaurants that involve much eye-rolling, sighing and passive-aggressive napkin-flapping. We laugh about it now – it has taken all of five years – so it felt the ideal time to dupe him again with lunch at Mallow, which recently opened a second site on Wood Wharf. Mallow, whose original restaurant is in Borough , is vegan, but very quietly so, and its intention to feed you well, but without cruelty, is carefully communicated. This is a bright, light, glass-fronted, chic, youthful modern brasserie where you can get tipsy on nori sesame old fashioneds and passion-fruit yuzu highballs, and take glamorous snaps of yourself in the bathroom.

Should you avoid fish on a Monday? Do the staff keep the service charge? And are places with long menus always terrible? Chefs and restaurateurs separate fact from fiction

TRUE Fred Sirieix , former restaurant general manager turned reality TV star and author of Wine Uncorked , insists that this goes without saying: “ Of course the customer is always right!” he says, adding a dismissive “Pffft” by way of Gallic emphasis. “Customers pay for all our livelihoods, so restaurants should bend over backwards to give them what they want … or at least give the impression that they’re doing so.” After all, the aim is to make them feel so welcome that they come back: “You know you’ve done your job well when a guest books a return visit as they’re heading out of the door.”

Attempt to curb domestic inflation behind country’s decision on non-basmati white rice

India has introduced an immediate ban on non-basmati white rice exports to curb domestic inflation after heavy rains hit domestic crops, raising fears of further increases in global food prices.

The ban comes after a 20% duty on international exports introduced in September failed to curb foreign demand, which has soared after extreme climate conditions hit production in countries and demand rose on the back of grain supply disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Written recipes have become too formulaic. Computing can help restore the fun and the fusion of the oral tradition

Over the past few weeks I have been using GPT-4 to help me cook. Need a substitute for an ingredient you forgot to buy? GPT can suggest an alternative. Time to clear out the cupboards? Simply type: “Please create a recipe using two eggs, a jar of borlotti beans, a potato, a leek, and the scrapings on the bottom of a jar of pickle.” I’m always polite, and so is GPT. It thinks for a moment – then whips up the instructions for an unusual but edible hash and even wishes me bon appétit. But that’s not all it can do.

On a recent trip to Venice, I wanted to know what sort of fish I should eat. “One of the local speciality fish is the branzino, or European sea bass,” GPT explained, without mocking my ignorance. And much as image generation models such as Stable Diffusion and Midjourney can imitate popular artists, you can input well-known chefs to influence the results. When I asked for “beans on toast in the style of Yotam Ottolenghi”, for instance, I received a recipe for “spiced beans on sourdough toast” which included cumin, za’atar and greek yoghurt, among about 12 other components. The feeling of reading the long list of ingredients before realising I didn’t have the energy was almost like-for-like.

Humans are eating more seafood than ever, and we are removing fish from the ocean at a far greater rate than they can replenish. What can be done?

Seafood is a vital source of protein for more than 3.3 billion people. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects the need for a 15% increase in global fish consumption by 2030; its director-general, QU Dongyu, calls the growth of fisheries and aquaculture “vital in our efforts to end global hunger and malnutrition”.

There’s one big problem: the growth rate of the global wild-fish catch peaked in 1963 and plateaued in the 1990s. It has been in slow decline the past few years. When it comes to the wild-fish catch, we are most likely past “peak fish”.

Detailed analysis finds plant diets lead to 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution and land use than meat-rich ones

Eating a vegan diet massively reduces the damage to the environment caused by food production, the most comprehensive analysis to date has concluded.

The research showed that vegan diets resulted in 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution and land use than diets in which more than 100g of meat a day was eaten. Vegan diets also cut the destruction of wildlife by 66% and water use by 54%, the study found.