If I asked you to think about which foods are healthy, the chances are that you would probably include, say, fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, plain yogurt, legumes, poultry, olive oil and wholegrains. You might be less sure precisely why these foods are considered healthy, but in general terms, they cover all the food groups and are rich in nutrients.
While chefs and cooks run wild, getting a little chubby and celebrating indulgence, many people have the notion that we nutrition folk sit in the corner rolling our eyes and sighing about poor food choices.
Next week, aficianados from all over the UK will gather at north-west London's Ivy House to spend an entire day cogitating, discussing and digesting a matter close to our hearts. Food.
In the three years since he founded Gefiltefest, Michael Leventhal has become something of a godfather of Jewish food - the Noshfather, so to speak.
It might seem strange to visit a picturesque Tuscan hill town to sample its Jewish food. Stranger still considering only one Jewish family still lives there.
Last year a great battle was won in a long war. The struggle was not over land, oil or religion. It was over a cream and fruit-filled meringue pudding.
Australia and New Zealand have both claimed to be the originating country of this favourite dessert, said to be inspired by a tutu draped in green silk cabbage roses worn by the ballet dancer Anna Pavlova, when she toured down under in 1926.
Kosher wine has arrived. The wine list at Spain's El Celler de Can, one of the world's top restaurants, offers selections from kosher producer Elvi Wines. The Michelin-starred venue is not alone. Until it closed its doors recently, the world-famous El Buli also kept Elvi bottles in the cellar.
Yochanan Lambiase, founder of the Jerusalem Culinary Institute (JCI) is on a mission to improve the quality and reputation of kosher cookery. "We've got so many ways of being able to play with food to make it just as good as non-kosher," he explains. "I see no reason in the world why kosher food couldn't be up to Michelin standard."
On the Kent coast, overlooking a sunset painted by Turner, you can tuck into a exceptional serving of salt beef. But it is not salt beef as we know it. Jason Freedman, chef-proprietor of The Minnis eschews brisket in favour of the finer-textured rib, and cooks it for hours at low temperature in a water bath rather than the long boil that bubbe would have administered.
Cardamom and pistachio give a modern spin and a bit of crunch to the best way of using up spotty brown bananas. Ground cardamom can be bought online. For an even better flavour, extract and grind the seeds from 10 green cardamom pods using a spice grinder or pestle and mortar.
This is delicious served warm with butter, but equally good with a dollop of Greek yoghurt and a drizzle of honey.
'The last time I saw this many expectant Jewish faces was at my barmitzvah," quips Ian Marber. The celebrated diet expert is giving his inaugural talk as patron of the newly founded Food Academy at the London Jewish Cultural Centre's Golders Green building.
According to South African-born Robinne Collie, who runs Food@Work, there is no better place than the kitchen to tackle difficult issues, particularly surrounding work.
There is a good reason for that characteristic "love it or hate it" moment when you sink your teeth into a slice of traditional rye bread. It is caraway. The distinctive flavour you also find in sauerkraut, traditional borscht and other eastern European and Scandinavian favourites - a small crescent-shaped seed with deep roots in Ashkenazi culinary history.
He may be about to launch sophisticated Italian and pan-Asian cuisine in London, but it is not a vision of the perfect tiramisu or teriyaki which is misting up Arkady Novikov's eyes when we meet at his Mayfair restaurant.
"Kneidlach," he says, "is what gives me goose bumps. Stuffed chicken neck, matzo brei and other things my grandmother made me. Like gefilte fish - now, I make my own."
In his recent BBC documentary, Jerusalem on a Plate, Yotam Ottolenghi shared his passion for the wealth and variety of food in his home-city. Jerusalem has always been known as the capital and holy centre of Israel, but in recent years it has started to provide Tel Aviv with real competition as the country's culinary top spot.
The amount of fried food circulating at Chanucah means that for thosekeeping an eye on their health, the festival of not-so lite a bit of an ordeal.
The jury is out on whether or not a low-fat latke is worth grating a potato for, and no one wants to be a party pooper, so here is the low-down on oil and ways of enjoying it without harming your health.
Katz's deli, Carnegie Deli, 2nd Avenue Deli. Who hasn't heard of them? New York has for years been delivering legendary Jewish food, sometimes immortalised in movies, in a way London has never really matched.
Food trends tend eventually to cross the pond, but for whatever reason, Jewish food has remained entrenched in London's north-western suburbs.
Style: Simple home-style food with an Iraqi slant.
Premise:
Dangoor follows in the footsteps of Claudia Roden in documenting and preserving the recipes of her childhood, "out of a desire to teach my nephews and their generation how to cook the Iraqi dishes they loved so much".
The girl at the reception desk at the new Buca di Beppo restaurant in Elstree's Village Hotel has never heard of Robert Earl. Fortunately, one of the PRs fluttering about overhears and rushes over.
Robert Earl himself might well have been unimpressed. He is, as you will most likely already be aware, a hospitality entrepreneur of gargantuan proportions. Not physically.
What is it about Israelis and sushi? The Middle East and Japan are many miles apart, and you would think the Israeli appetite for hearty, spicy fare with plenty of dairy would be at odds with a cuisine composed of dainty portions of fish, rice and seaweed.
