Feast Newsletter

Best enjoyed by the seaside, classic fish and chips. Mtreasure/Getty Images/iStockphoto There are few things more powerful than the smell of salt, vinegar and hot oil carried on a sea breeze. Or sugar-coated doughnuts, still warm in a grease-stained paper bag. Such distinctly British perfumes are the smell of my summer, because my family and I are road-tripping through the UK and Ireland.

There is still plenty cook with this summer, including Yotam Ottolenghi’s stuffed courgettes with oregano and pine nut salsa. Louise Hagger/The Guardian I don’t wish to boast, but I’m typing this with a jumper on. Not because my flat has air-conditioning, but because it doesn’t – and the relentless heat of south-east England was having a seriously detrimental effect on my productivity and the health of my elderly dog (NB: the two are not mutually exclusive).

A perfect beach day is not complete without a “perfectly chilled” watermelon. Pictor International/Alamy Everyone who grew up by the Mediterranean Sea knows that a lazy day on the beach requires a certain level of planning. You should pack everything you’ll need, or may need, and get there early to secure a good spot.

Make it your own … Georgina Hayden's roasted apricot jam and halloumi sandwiches. Louise Hagger Greetings from my parents’ kitchen in north Norfolk where, despite its familiarity, cooking takes on a less predictable dimension.

Quick and easy 
 Rukmini Iyer's roasted aubergine, chickpeas and pomegranate with a lemon tahini sauce. Matthew Hague/The Guardian While I am glad to be home in Rome, it was particularly hard to leave England this year. After a few days in London, we spent two weeks between Dorset and Devon, in gardens or on the pebble beaches of West Bay, Lyme Regis and Branscombe. Thrashing around in the sea has never felt so necessary.

Hot-weather remix … broad bean, dill and tomato salad by Georgina Hayden. Kate Whitaker/The Observer When Shakespeare coined the phrase “salad days”, he was referring to a state of youthful inexperience. But at 41, and midway through the hottest summer on record, I can safely say my own salad days – these weeks of endless salad-eating – are the result of experience. As my organs segue into their fifth decade, I need more than rosé and a bag of Tyrrells for dinner.

Joe Woodhouse's camping cuisine: sweetcorn salsa; shredded cabbage, blue cheese and kidney bean salad and Moroccan carrot salad. Issy Croker/The Guardian Much as I love camping, I understand why so many recoil at the idea of spending their holidays sleeping in a field and sharing bathroom facilities with several hundred other people, plus the local spider population.

Transporting … the Manhattan restaurant Estela. A dark emerald puck on a white plate – our spoons disturbed its surface to break it down to its crystal components. Bright shards of green ice released their flavour as they melted on our tongues – vegetal, flowery, herbal, slightly honeyed and a lot saltier then any dessert should be.

Cream of the crop … Ravneet Gill’s poached apricots with almond cream. The Guardian. Food styling: Benjamina Ebuehi. Prop styling: Anna Wilkins. The apricot orchards at Godshill Orchards on the Isle of Wight consist of 4,000 trees made up of six cultivars: sunnycot, tomcot, flavourcot, ladycot, perlecot and digat. Apricots like moderately cold winters, mild and relatively dry springs, and hot, dry summers.

Photo: Arx0nt/Getty Images While I adore almost everything about June, there is a brief window, round about now, where I get flashbacks to my childhood PE lessons. That’s right, folks: it is sports day season. And while I love cheering on my own kids (and trying to calm my inner Julia from Motherland), as a kid I hated it with a passion. I was not remotely sporty, but I have tried to quieten those hangups and encourage my girls as best I can.