* The Bordello Cookbook – So much to love about this! I’d love to know if anyone owns it already, and I’d love to know some of the reactions as visitors casually glance along your bookshelf. Would be worth buying purely for those moments!

* Consuming Passions: History of English Food and Appetite – bawdy and vulgar, like a scene from Hogarth. History and food collide, and show that there were definitely times before when the British loved their food.

* Fruity Passions – An Introduction to Country Wine-Making – honestly, I’d buy this just for the title, but maybe there could be some fun and games when trying out some of the recipes. Foraging together has to be a very romantic thing to do!

* In the Devil’s Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden History – food history from a slightly naughty perspective, from the moment Eve bit into the apple onwards. Is there any wonder we end up with food issues?

* The Gastronomy of Marriage: A Memoir of Food and Love – after all that lust and passion comes marriage. This is a great tale of how a couple come together and  learn to cook and eat together, without too many compromises.

Great books then to celebrate food in all its shades of passion from like to lust, through to marriage and even detours to the bordello. Something for everyone!

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* I’ve featured St.John and Dolly Smith pickles and chutney before, and think these are great products, with a great romantic story behind them. There’s a whole range of heat levels, or a gift box, and it would be something a bit different, as this is a small brand growing in distribution.

* I’ve not tried Chan Cham before, but I like the look and sound of the products, and think you could get a good selection of these for someone. The Scotch Bonnet and Black Pepper sauce can be used in a variety of ways and would definitely spice up a February night.

* Go sweet and hot with Tan Rosie Fiery Chilli Fudge. I met the team at East Midlands Food Festival, great people, great products, great story. Another great small business to think about supporting.

* Heading across to Suffolk now, and to Chilly Filly for great tomato chilli jam. There are some smaller jars, but for a gift I’d go for the big Kilner jar, which is a generous 1.2kg. Plenty to go round on your burgers, mixed into things like bolognaise, or to spice up a cheese sandwich.

* Someone else I got to meet at East Midlands Food Festival, I really like the range and variety at Gourmet Spice Co. I know I wrote about their Winter Spice Salt, and for Valentine’s Day then I like their hampers. This one has a smoked chilli oil, a spiced aromatic balsamic vinegar (which I have in the cupboard at home, in dwindling quantities) and a selection of rubs and salts. Some brilliant flavours for just over £20.

* Arabica are definitely a fave with me, as I love Middle Eastern flavours. Very stylish packaging, but definitely not a case of style over substance. I would be very happy to get a couple of jars of their spices, like the cous cous spices, the dukka and the zat’ar special blend. Would be different, not necessarily spicy but definitely great flavours.

So, up the heat quotient this February, regardless of what the weather outside does.

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So, here we are, end of January already. Seems only 5 minutes since I thought signing up to the Gold Challenge would be a good idea! Well, I’ve been walking every day, to different extents, and will be at 157km in the month. Which is a lot more than I’d have done last January, though slightly behind where I would have liked to have been.

As you might expect, a lot of my walks have involved food and drink at various points, and these have been my walking and eating highlights of the month:

* The Wheel Inn at Branston – started the whole challenge with a fairly tough uphill walk to Branston, with The Wheel being the halfway mark. I have to say the food is good here, the welcome always warm, but I do think it’s pretty expensive for what it is. Can’t fault the cooking, the provenance any of that, but there are a lot of places that tick equal boxes for me close by where I think the pricing represents great value for money.

* Dove Cottage Hospice Tea Rooms – a welcome sight on a hard slog of a walk in what turned out to be miserable weather. Supports the great work done at the hospice, serves a good cuppa and usually good cake.

* Wahaca – not on a walk round here, but a day in London saw us clock up over 6km without too much effort. We walked to Wahaca from Leicester Square tube, so felt more than virtuous in adding in an extra dish or two. Still one of my favourites.

* Champneys Tring – I know I have written before about the work I’ve been doing with the team at Champneys in my day job, and my last trip to Tring saw me finally cross the threshold of the gym for a quick 9km on the bike. Food is a great highlight of any visit to Champneys, that and the amazing treatments with great products. On this occasion though, we ate at The Akeman in Tring, which turned out jolly decent steaks from its Josper grill.

* We had a great walk at Woolsthorpe by Belvoir, along the Grantham Canal. There are two possibilities for stops here. The Dirty Duck is traditional pub fayre, plenty of deep frying and microwave action. The Good Food Guide would give the Chequers a thumbs up, and you may need to make your own mind up. I’m afraid after 3 bad experiences we only stopped for a drink.

* The Lord Nelson at Oakham was our reward for a 7.5km walk at Rutland Water. Owned by the same team behind the Tobie Norris at Stamford and the Prince Rupert at Newark, the formula is the same, but it’s a good formula. Not quite perfect yet at this one, but I would definitely go back.

So, I’ve got some miles done, I’ve managed some good eating, and so far I’ve raised £325.12 for the Alzheimer’s Society. A long way to go to the 2012km target, but it’s a start. You can read more about what I’m doing and why by clicking here, and if you feel moved to sponsor me, I’d be very grateful. More walking and eating in February, will keep you posted!

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* Go sloppy and romantic with a heart-shaped box from Pong. Three different heart shaped cheeses including Neufchatel and Godminster Vintage Cheddar, along with a good deep red beetroot and apple chutney. Good combinations, just remember to get some decent crackers or bread in.

* The Cheese Shed is a great shop and website, with fantastic artisan cheese from the West Country. Their Valentine’s Day box also includes the Godminster, but also a heart shaped version of White Nancy, a sweet, creamy goats cheese. Lovely cheese, lovely packaging.

* As you might expect, Neal’s Yard are offering something a little different in their Valentine’s Day selection, and only one heart shape in the mix, in the shape of Ragstone. Other than that, your loved one will get to enjoy Colston Bassett Stilton (still the favourite Stilton in this house), Montgomery’s Cheddar and Milleens from Ireland.

* If you want to support a small British producer, then try the selections from the Northumberland Cheese Company. The Connoisseurs Cheeseboard gives you a selection of four of their cheeses, including Blagdon Blue and Brinkburn. Good choice for those looking for something a bit different, something they may not have tasted before.

So, not exactly the usual hearts, flowers and box of choc routine, but I bet something that many food lovers would enjoy an awful lot more!

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I saw this case from Casetagram  the other day, and thought what a fantastic way to bring some of your photos to life, and in a practical way. I love Instagram, along with many other fantastic photo apps on the iPhone, which probably means I am taking more photos than ever, but leaving them locked in the files of the phone or the laptop.

And as a food blogger, then I take a lot of photos of food, restaurants, food shops, ingredients…a whole spectrum of food related photos, some of which are not bad. And I know from other blogs there are some people out there taking some amazing photos, that deserve to be seen by a wider audience.

These are US$34.95, with free shipping worldwide, so whilst not cheap this would definitely be a very unique and personal gift.

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* John Torode’s Beef – hard to avoid John at the moment, thanks to the return of Masterchef. And it’s been great to see him running the kitchen, to remind us that he’s not just that bloke on the telly, but a bloke that can cook. I associate him most with beef, and bet this is a bloke’s kind of cookbook, but as I love my beef, I think I’d cook lots from this too.

* Every Day by Bill Granger – I might well have put this one in before, as it is my fave of the several Bill Granger books I have, and love. I am really thrilled to learn he has opened a restaurant in London, as a lot more chance of me eating there than one of his Australian ones. I’ve also written before about how I love breakfast, and this one has great breakfast and brunch recipes in, which are well thumber in my copy!

* Charmaine Solomon’s Complete Vegetarian Cookbook – not the most up to date choice, but when I went through a veggie phase in my 20s, this was my cookbook bible, along with the Moosewood cookbook. I still remember the cheese souffle stuffed red pepper that was a real fave. The fact that I was cooking it in a bedsit with only a handwhisk to hand is not a part I wish to repeat, but the dishes in the book were definitely worth revisiting.

* Kids’ Birthday Cakes from Australian Women’s Weekly – I wasn’t sure which one to pick from AWW, but this is the first one I ever bought. If you ever want simple cakes that will send kids high as kites with sugar and colourings, this is the one for you. That said, kids love the cakes!

*  Quay by Peter Gilmore – I know very little about Peter Gilmore, I only know from looking at this book that the food and the restaurant looks like what I perceive to be quintessentially Australian. I know we don’t always have the weather for these dishes, but there is something incredibly appetising about so many of these!

Maybe these are a good way of bringing some of the Aussie sunshine into the kitchen during our cold, grey days of winter, as we start to think again of lighter summer eating.

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This time last year was the first time I’d ever made my own marmalade. I think partly because I’ve only recently got into marmalde, and I’ve not been a big preserves maker (unless you count preserving sloes in gin).

And Dr T would tell you it was pretty tasty as far as marmalade goes. It was just the huge mess in the kitchen he couldn’t stand. The stickiness over ever surface. The chuntering from me as I tried to peel all the fruit. Which is why this year I know the answer to perfect marmalade is just to buy some darn good stuff from someone who is much better at making it than me!

My choice at the moment is either the classic Seville orange marmalade or for something different the red grapefruit marmalade from Rosebud Preserves. They’re based in barns near Masham in Yorkshire, which is about where Dr T would like me to make marmalade. I somehow think they are less messy and better equipped than me, and they certainly turn out great tasting preserves. We bought some of this for the first time when we were in the area last summer, and hoping that their stockist list moves a bit further south.

Failing that, stock up online. Gooseberry and Elderflower jam sounds like one of those to stock up on during the summer, bet it would make an interesting addition to a cream tea.

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It’s a nice greeting at this time of year, to be wished a prosperous year. As Chinese is pretty much up there in MGG’s top three (chicken chow mein rotates with mussels and chicken pie as her fave) then there is a big demand for Chinese food here. Being close to Leicester, we’re really well supplied for more unusual Indian ingredients, but less so on Chinese. So, these are my fave online sources, as my trips to Hong Kong seem to have dried up for now:

* Wing Yip – I associate these with some really huge supermarkets I’ve seen around the country, and it certainly has everything I think you might need, and then some. I mean, get all the ingredients, and then some paper lanterns as well! Site is a bit hard to navigate though, and for most of these things I may as well go to Sainsbury’s.

* The Asian Cookshop – this is probably my preferred site, as we cook from a wide variety of Asian cuisines, and this covers everything from Chinese to Sri Lankan and Japanese, even Filipino. It covers dried and fresh food, so you can get things like banana leaves and dumpling wrappers.

* Canton Tea Co – you’ll need some good tea and this a good source for a wide variety, with a number that are Great Taste gold award winners. What ever takes your fancy is probably here: black, green, white and flowering. To me, jasmine tea is still the best thing to go with Chinese.

I wish we were nearer to somewhere authentic with a dragon dance, and proper food, so we’ll be busy doing our own. Here’s hoping it’s a prosperous year ahead for all.

Photo by Paolo Camera on Flickr.

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And no, I’m afraid it’s not someone keeping an eye on the contents of your cupboard and fridge, and then popping out and filling them up for you! You still need to do some work, but these shopping magnets mean you can keep a check on what you need, in a very visual and colourful way.

Choose from herbs or spices, or more everyday basics. Or even go for magnet madness and get all three. These come from Harrington & Squires,  a small private press that specialises in small, limited edition runs. You could stock up on some beautifully designed cards at the same time, as you never know when you might need those either. And there isn’t a magnet to cover those!

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* Thai Food by David Thompson – very comprehensive, covering the breadth of Thai cooking from north to south of the country. Yes it does the things you might know already like Pad Thai, but also things like crispy fish cakes with pork and salted eggs. I also like that it covers a bit about the culture of each area, and also a bit about ingredients as well.

* Thai Street Food by David Thompson – same writer, different approach to same cuisine. I remember being stuck in a traffic jam and looking longingly at all the food being cooked on the street next to the car. It was torture really, so maybe this book would make up for it.

*Stylish Thai in Minutes by Vatcharin Bhumichitr – a good standby or intro text, given that it’s all about quick dinners, with Thai flavours. The cooking style lends itself to speedy dinners, if you have the right ingredients in the right combination. Good for someone looking to explore but necessarily go completely native or expert.

* The Blue Elephant Cookbook by John Hellon – it’s years since I ate at The Blue Elephant, but it was probably one of the first places I had Thai food. Slightly nostalgic for me, but a great book covering a bit of everything, from starters to desserts. Nice chapter on wine matching too.

* Buddha’s Table: Thai Feasting Vegetarian Style – so not forgetting the non meat-eaters, this book seems to get some good reviews even from those who are not massively experienced or keen cooks. I always think Asian vegetarian food is so good that you hardly miss the meat, so could even give this to a non veggie, just for a bit of healthy variety.

So, bring some sunshine to the kitchen this winter, and enjoy some variety, some heat and some great flavours.

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