The Friday 5 #168

Some top weekend wine buys from Lidl, this month’s cookbook giveaway, carrot flapjacks and travel hacks

I never quite get used to long haul travel. One moment you’re halfway round the world thousands of miles from home then you suddenly walk through your front door as if you’d never been away.

The intensity of some of the experiences on my three week trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is already fading so I’m glad I jotted down a few thoughts at the time. (See my postcards from Hanoi, Hué, Saigon, Angkor and Laos)

It’ll take a while to digest but there are two things I wanted to share straightaway. The surprising discovery that in spite of eating a hearty three meals a day I lost about 1.5 kilos . Doesn’t sound a lot but by rights I should have put on weight. More thoughts on that in due course.

And despite the reservations I had and still have about organised tours, the pleasure of travelling with and meeting new people. From whom, apart from their companionship, I learnt so much from an easy way to adjust the exposure on your phone to how to make a carrot flapjack. (Can’t quite remember how that came up in conversation but I found time to have a go at it yesterday as you can see below). Oh and and a couple of really good travel hacks..

Anyway it’s back to reality and since I owe you some wine recommendations big-time I drove over to Lidl and picked up a random selection of bottles.

I was beginning to think - I know I’ve mentioned this more than once - that Lidl is getting pricier than its competitors but they have good deals in store especially for ‘Plus’ card holders a selection of which I’ve highlighted below.

It’s also time for a new cookbook giveaway which, appropriately enough given where I’ve just been travelling, is Masterchef winner Ping Coombes new book Rice which is published next week.

And I realise we haven’t got a date in the diary for the next tasting. Or indeed a subject.

Any thoughts? Geographical? If so where? Australia?

A focus on a particular grape variety, such as cabernet franc?

Food and wine pairing? Maybe what to drink with south-east Asian food given that’s where I’ve just been and the Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao New Year celebrations are coming up.

Here’s a poll but do suggest alternatives in the comments. (Remember you have to be a paid subscriber to take part but not to give a view!)

I’m thinking Monday February 23rd and Sunday March 29th for the March one.

The best wine buys at Lidl this weekend

One of the downsides of relying on press tastings is that retailers have to show you wines they can guarantee will be in stock over the next 4-6 months and, I suspect, ones they think it will be harder to sell.

Picking them up off the shelf as I sometimes do in between tastings is a much better bet though I can’t afford to do it all the time. But yesterday’s raid resulted in some crackers …

Hopefully at least some will be in your local branch