When it was confirmed that Barack Obama had defeated Mitt Romney, I breathed a sigh of relief. Not because of the politics – those are views I keep to myself, at least in print – but because I couldn’t bear the thought of such a comprehensive abstainer in the White House.

How many grandmothers do you know who encourage children to play with their food? Most tut with disapproval while you do your best to enforce discipline.

Every so often a supermarket chain makes an attempt to take the fright-factor out of wine buying. Yes, fright.

Some people find wine incredibly intimidating. For them, staring at the wine shelves is like looking at a menu in an unfamiliar foreign language.

School: Bake With Maria, London Road, London NW8

Class: An introduction to bread-making

Expectation: The prospect of making bread has always struck me as daunting and time-consuming. I hoped the course would introduce me to the basics and eliminate the fear.

The trend for so-called artisan food — locally sourced food and drink made by individual crafts people — is not particular to the UK. In Israel, business at the Shuk in Jerusalem and the farmer’s market at Tel Aviv’s port is booming. Further north, a new region has emerged as a favourite with foodies — the Golan Heights.

We wine scribes do not always stand around at tastings nodding in agreement about every sip that passes our lips. Wine is a matter of personal preference, and even those with well-trained palates disagree about a particular wine.

In these times of austerity, Ashkenazi cooking has a head start on most. A cuisine partly with roots in the peasant food of the shtetl, it was the diet of a people living in extreme poverty and insecurity.
Countless dishes are made from inexpensive ingredients or based around a small amount of meat or fish and bulked up with cheaper grains or vegetables. Kugels are a perfect example.