Lifestyle

After exploring the cathedral city, I battled the heatwave while walking to the Kent coast on the Via Francigena Canterbury for Evensong. Is there a more delightful cluster of syllables in the English language? Old English, I should say, as æfensang comes from that tongue, an update on the Latin-derived “vespers”. But whatever you call the service, Canterbury Cathedral does it in style. How beautiful the singing from the choristers in their white and purple. How beautiful the light as it honeys the stone of the quire. I had been in the city only an hour or so, and considered this early evening worship a sort of overture for my stay. What a relief to get inside the great stone building. The lovely old city was horrible with heat. A statue of Chaucer on High Street appeared overdressed in robe, cloak and hat. He held out a page inscribed with the opening lines of The Canterbury Tales: “When in April the sweet showers fall … Then people long to go on pilgrimages.” The bronze had been hot to the touch and I began to suspect that I’d made a mistake starting my own pilgrimage at midsummer. Continue reading...

The Guardian Lifestyle • 9 hours ago

Rustic, authentic and utterly delicious – three dishes that bring the taste of the trattoria straight to your table Pesto trapanese combines almonds, tomatoes, pecorino and a hint of garlic and basil to create a fresher version than the typical Genovese variety , and I especially love the way the richness of the almonds is lifted by the fresh tomatoes – when they’re pureed together, it creates a wonderful mouthfeel. For me, though, pasta pomodoro symbolises home. My mum’s was a cornerstone of our trattoria, as it is at Italian restaurants around the world, and every family has their own fiercely guarded recipe. I developed this particular method when I started Pasta Princess , which delivered hand-rolled pasta and pomodoro sauce all over London during lockdown. It kept me grounded when I was in between kitchens, and resurfaced at Tiella, where it features regularly on the menu. Finally, torta caprese is a wonderfully rich flourless chocolate cake made with ground almonds. Mum often made a similar cake called torta gianduia, which uses hazelnuts instead of almonds, a recipe that hails from Piedmont, the heart of Italy’s hazelnut production (the Tonda Gentile delle Langhe variety is particularly prized for its incredible quality and flavour, carrying the IGP label to denote regionality and strict production standards). I remember her once buying these special hazelnuts on a trip to Italy, and taking them back home to New Zealand so she could make gianduia . When the cake came out of the oven, the aroma was so incredible that she decided to bring it home rather than putting it on the menu, and shared it with us instead. Continue reading...

The Guardian Lifestyle • 10 hours ago

Click here to access the print version. Fill the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 to 9. Continue reading...

The Guardian Lifestyle • 16 hours ago

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The Guardian Lifestyle • 16 hours ago

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The Guardian Lifestyle • 16 hours ago

Timely treatment provides relief for menopause symptoms, but expecting it to fix all of them is a set-up for disappointment It happens with some regularity. I offhandedly mention some bodily inconvenience to a fellow middle-aged woman – indigestion, a headache, a bad mood. Immediately, she says it’s perimenopause and suggests I try hormone therapy. These moments give me whiplash. In 2002, when I was a medical student, a study frightened a generation of patients and clinicians by suggesting the risks of menopause hormone therapy (MHT) – blood clots, stroke and breast cancer – outweighed its benefits. Then, in 2012, scientists took a closer look at the evidence, along with new data, and found the calculus only applied to older women. Now, many clinicians are comfortable prescribing hormones. In fact, some are a bit too comfortable hawking them as a cure-all. Continue reading...

The Guardian Lifestyle • 23 hours ago