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Calling all monsters, superheroes, ghosts, and goblins! Whether you’re bobbing for apples or dressing to impress, the creepiest thing about Halloween shouldn’t be your kid’s candy haul. Luckily, these healthy swaps put the fun back in fun-size. This year, Americans are set to spend $4 billion on Halloween candy alone, but we’re in a bit ...

From fast food to garden-to-table living, Carmen Perr shares her best tips for shopping at farmers markets and cooking with seasonal fresh herbs.

The Derry Girls actor has always loved food, so who better to take over as the new presenter of the Guardian’s Comfort Eating podcast? Siobhán McSweeney is teaching me her preferred way to enjoy a packet of cheese and onion crisps. She has arranged two matching slabs of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate, two piles of Tayto crisps and two cans of Guinness on the table in front of us – and is issuing strict instructions. “Don’t swallow!” she booms theatrically, and I freeze, my mouth full of Taytos. The trick, McSweeney explains, is to get the crisps, chocolate and Guinness into your mouth at the same time, and then swill it all around a bit to make a kind of boozy, oniony soup. “See?” McSweeney is watching me carefully to check I am putting all the ingredients into my mouth in the correct order. “It’s delicious! Just delicious!” McSweeney burst into the public consciousness back in 2018 with Derry Girls , a comedy series about a group of Catholic schoolgirls, set against the background of the Troubles in 1990s Northern Ireland. McSweeney won a Bafta playing the girls’ headmistress, Sister Michael – a potty-mouthed, judo-loving nun – and can count Martin Scorsese as a fan. Asked for a TV recommendation during a panel discussion in 2022, the director name-checked Derry Girls and then lifted his fist in the air in a kind of salute, exclaiming rapturously, “Those nuns!” Continue reading...

Our experts have some airtight advice on stopping your loaf from going stale – and even freshening it up again – but whatever you do, keep it out of the fridge What’s the best way to store bread? Beeswax wraps, plastic bags, fridge – I’ve tried everything except a bread bin. Nancy, by email “When bread is baked, what happens is that all the starch in the flour expands and takes in all the water,” says Sophia Handschuh, co-founder of Sourdough Sophia in London. That’s why the crumb turns all soft and fluffy. “When you pull the bread out of the oven, as soon as it touches any surface it will start to dry up, which is why bread goes stale; the starch doesn’t like being kept in the air.” To combat this, Handschuh stores her loaf at room temperature in a greaseproof paper bag (ie, the one you bring it home in): “That’s probably the best way – no plastic. And, yes, you can use beeswax wrap, but that’s expensive and you shouldn’t have to go and buy some just for storing bread.” Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com Continue reading...

Twenty years since my book The Omnivore’s Dilemma was published, America’s food system is still a mess—but there are reasons for optimism.