Paula Goddard

My home-baking enthusiasm was squashed when, opening the kitchen cupboard after watching Škoda’s new cake-car advert , I discovered there wasn’t the 100kg of flour and sugar required to make my own full-sized cake Fabia. Not to be put off, I fired up the sainsburystoyou website and started shopping for ingredients.

Matching Mondavi Fumé Blanc with a plate of battered haddock, hash browns, onion rings and some token peas proved a good choice – an evening filled with guzzling and munching followed. The glossy-green of Mondavi’s Sauvignon Blanc Fumé matched the treacle tones of the battered meal and awakened the signals from eye to stomach. A hard choice followed - drink or eat? Drinking won. A lemon sherbet-dab tingle moved across my tongue, soon followed by a warming sensation as the 13.5% alcohol by volume moved downwards. The wine’s gala melon and buttery tastes didn’t overpower the creamy-haddock meal – both could be enjoyed and tasted to the full.

Rocket is a first-time and last-time gardener’s staple. A sprinkle from your watering can or a shower of rain will prompt this salad necessity to pop-up after only a few days.

It might sound daft, but you can make a dress out of wine. If you fancy having a go you’ll need twelve bottles of cheap Australian red wine and patience. Two weeks and a vat of red wine vinegar later, you’ll have enough Mother of Vinegar ‘material’ to make a mini-dress.

The hazelnut meringue came with embarrassed apologies. It was late and Michael, the chef at The Poolway House Hotel in Coleford, was reluctant to let such a cracked and crumbled meringue leave the kitchen.