Guilty Pleasures: Should We Really Feel Guilty About the Foods We Love?

We all have them. Those foods we know aren't exactly haute cuisine, probably wouldn't impress a restaurant critic, and might not earn enthusiastic approval from a nutritionist... but which we absolutely love anyway.

They're our guilty pleasures.

One of mine is a Greggs Ham and Cheese Baguette. Nothing elaborate or sophisticated. Just ham, cheese, bread and that unmistakable Greggs appeal. 

Given the choice between one of those and some considerably more expensive lunchtime offerings, there are days when the Greggs baguette wins hands down.

But what exactly makes something a guilty pleasure?

The pleasure is obvious. But where does the guilt come from?

A guilty pleasure is generally something we enjoy while feeling that, for one reason or another, perhaps we shouldn't.

With food, that might be because it's high in calories, fat, sugar or salt. But sometimes the supposed "guilt" is about something quite different.

Perhaps it's considered cheap, unfashionable or unsophisticated. You might know perfectly well how to cook a proper Italian meal from scratch, yet occasionally crave a frozen pizza. You might appreciate artisan chocolate but still have an inexplicable fondness for a particular chocolate bar from the corner shop.

Food snobbery can create guilt just as effectively as calorie counting.

What's your guilty pleasure?

The possibilities are almost endless.

It might be chips smothered in curry sauce after a night out. A bacon sandwich with far too much brown sauce. Tinned rice pudding eaten cold. Instant noodles. A crisp sandwich. Fish fingers. A huge bowl of sugary breakfast cereal at ten o'clock at night.

Perhaps it's a kebab, a supermarket sausage roll, cheesy chips, a doughnut, a takeaway curry or eating ice cream directly from the tub.

And let's not forget one of Britain's great culinary inventions: putting something between two slices of bread that probably has absolutely no business being there.

Crisp sandwiches? Chip butties? Fish finger sandwiches?

Absolutely.

Should we actually feel guilty?

Probably not.

There's a big difference between enjoying an occasional treat and building your entire diet around it. Most of us understand that eating a varied, balanced diet is important, but food isn't simply fuel.

Food is also comfort, memory, nostalgia and enjoyment.

Sometimes a particular food reminds us of childhood. Sometimes it's associated with holidays, football matches, trips to the seaside or late nights with friends. And sometimes we like something for the simplest possible reason:

It tastes good.

Perhaps we should retire the expression "guilty pleasure" altogether and simply call these foods pleasures.

So I'll happily admit to my Greggs Ham and Cheese Baguette. (But not the one with salad!)

Now it's your turn!

What's your food guilty pleasure, the thing you secretly (or not so secretly) love, even though you suspect you're supposed to know better?

And more importantly, do you actually feel guilty about it?

That's Christmas 365: A Christmas Gift for the Chilli Crunch Fan That Th...

That's Christmas 365: A Christmas Gift for the Chilli Crunch Fan That Th...: We all know someone who keeps a jar of crispy chilli oil within easy reach. Eggs? Add a spoonful. Noodles? Obviously. Leftover pizza? That t...

London’s latest lunch queue is for a Caesar wrap

Londoners will queue for a good lunch, but a chicken Caesar wrap might not sound like an obvious reason to stand around the block.

That's exactly what CZER says happened when it opened its first counter in Mayfair.

The idea came from a craving. Hospitality consultant Mairi Livsey wanted an American-style chopped chicken Caesar wrap and struggled to find one in London. She had already thought of the name CZER when a US creator posted online about the same gap in the city’s lunch offering. 

Mairi replied that CZER was coming to Mayfair, although she and fellow founder Marius Baltaitis had yet to secure a location.

That was a bold way to set a deadline! Within weeks, the pair had found an unused counter inside Mayfair Food Fayre, worked out their recipes and hired a team. They shared the process online, and CZER says its introductory post received more than 100,000 views in 24 hours.

The founders had prepared for around 50 wraps a day. According to CZER, demand climbed to roughly 400 a day, with repeated sell-outs and queues long enough to prompt the hiring of a queue manager. The business has since opened a second location on Brewer Street in Soho.

So, what are people queueing for? The menu centres on the Classic CZER and the Picante CZER. Both contain oven-roasted chicken breast, lettuce, Parmesan, croutons and house Caesar dressing. The ingredients are chopped and tossed together before being generously sauced and wrapped to order. The Picante gives the combination a spicier kick.

There is something appealing about taking a familiar salad and making it a substantial, easy-to-carry lunch. Chopping everything together should mean you get a bit of chicken, crunch and dressing in each bite, rather than reaching the end of the wrap to discover all the croutons have gathered there.

Mairi says the response has been “beyond anything we imagined”. Social media may have helped people discover CZER, but its next challenge is keeping customers coming back once the excitement of a new opening has settled.

If you fancy seeing what the fuss is about, you can find the original CZER at Mayfair Food Fayre, near Marble Arch. The Soho branch is at 87 Brewer Street. Given the brand’s history of selling out, an early lunch might be a sensible plan.

Chopped, tossed, sauced. And apparently worth queueing for.

https://www.instagram.com/czerldn/

This Is a 10-Year-Old Whisky. And Compass Box Can Tell You Exactly What’s in It

A whisky called This Is a 10-Year-Old Whisky might sound like it’s stating the obvious. 

But Compass Box has chosen that name for a reason: every drop in the bottle is exactly ten years old.

The London-based Scotch whiskymaker has combined three single malts for this limited-edition release. 

Clynelish makes up 66.5% of the blend, while peated Ardnamurchan contributes 20.2% and unpeated Ardnamurchan the remaining 13.3%. All three spent their ten years in first-fill bourbon barrels.

Why make such a point of their ages? An age statement on a blended Scotch tells you the age of its youngest whisky. Other components could be older, but the number on the label won’t tell you that. Compass Box’s answer is to share the recipe, including the distilleries, proportions and ages, so drinkers know what they’re buying.

That openness is part of the company’s identity. This release marks ten years since Compass Box began publicly calling for greater transparency about Scotch whisky recipes. It’s a pleasingly straightforward way to celebrate: put the full details out there and let the whisky speak for itself.

As for what might be in your glass, Compass Box describes a light, glossy dram with Clynelish’s waxy character and a touch of smoke from Ardnamurchan. Its tasting notes suggest Pink Lady apples, rhubarb crumble and custard on the nose, followed by lemon-iced biscuits, white chocolate, soft apricots and nutmeg. The finish brings buttery pastry, candied lemon and a hint of charred oak. 

That sounds rather tempting on an autumn evening, although tasting notes are always an invitation to discover what you notice.

The whisky is bottled at 50.5% ABV, without added caramel colouring or chill-filtration. There are just 3,610 individually numbered 70cl bottles worldwide. At the time of writing, The Whisky Exchange lists it at £63.95.

For anyone who enjoys exploring what a blender can do with carefully chosen malts, this offers plenty to talk about alongside the dram. And if a friend asks how old the whiskies inside it really are, you can give them an unusually precise answer.

More: www.compassboxwhisky.com | @compassboxwhiskyco (Instagram).

That's Christmas 365: Have a Cracking Christmas with Bonne Maman

That's Christmas 365: Have a Cracking Christmas with Bonne Maman: Surprise, surprise! Revealing a very special new, limited edition Christmas Cracker Surprise from Bonne Maman. A charming little festive cel...

Cook Up a Taste of Thailand at Home

Have you ever come home from a holiday still dreaming about the food? 

One fragrant curry or plate of Pad Thai can leave you wondering how to bring those flavours into your own kitchen. 

Even if you’ve never been to Thailand, a good supper is reason enough to explore.

That’s become a little easier with the launch of Ocado’s Taste of Thailand range. The retailer says it added 15 products from Thailand in September, alongside more than 50 Thai products already on its website. 

Its Thai food shop includes cooking essentials, curry pastes, noodles, snacks and drinks.

For me, the appeal is having more of the right ingredients to hand. Thai cooking often brings sweet, sour, salty and spicy flavours together in the same dish. Getting that balance just right is part of the fun, and a jar of curry paste or a packet of noodles can be the start of a very satisfying midweek meal.

To mark the launch, chefs working with Thai Trade London have put together serving ideas ranging from Thai coconut soup and a yellow curry rice bowl to green curry and Pad Thai chicken. If you’re in a hurry, pork and holy basil stir-fry sounds particularly tempting. The idea is to make these dishes approachable on an ordinary Tuesday, when everyone is hungry and nobody wants a mountain of washing-up.

There’s pudding, too. The suggested Mogu Mogu trifle combines a fruity drink with chewy coconut jelly, coconut milk and double cream. It sounds unusual, but isn’t trying something new half the pleasure of browsing an international food aisle?

You could make a whole Thai-inspired evening of it, perhaps with a Chang or Singha beer. Or simply start with one dish you love and see where it takes you. Stock and recipe ingredients may vary, so it’s worth checking the shop before planning your menu.

The only possible problem? Once you’ve mastered your favourite curry, the takeaway menu might start feeling a little neglected.

Limoncello by Tea Towel: Possibly the Most Entertaining Recipe in Our Kitchen

Recipes can turn up in the strangest places.

My wife recently found this rather splendid tea towel bearing a recipe for homemade Limoncello. Not only does it provide the recipe in the original Italian, it helpfully supplies an English translation.

Well... mostly English.

The tea towel informs us that we should “Take only che lemons peel”, place it in an “hermetically selled container”, and eventually “put it in a sottle.”

You really couldn't make it up, although somebody apparently did!

Behind the wonderfully eccentric translation, however, there is a perfectly recognisable recipe for the famous and delicious Italian lemon liqueur.

The tea towel's Limoncello recipe

According to our newly discovered piece of kitchen literature, you'll need:

1 litre of water

1 litre of alcohol

1 kilo of sugar

8 lemons

The Italian instructions make things rather clearer than their adventurous English counterpart.

You remove just the peel from the eight lemons, cutting it thinly, then put the peel into the alcohol in a tightly sealed jar.

Leave this infusion for four days.

Next, prepare a syrup by dissolving the kilogram of sugar in one litre of warm water. Combine this with the lemon-infused alcohol, mix everything together and leave it for about ten minutes.

Finally, filter the Limoncello and bottle it.

Or, as our tea towel memorably puts it, “put it in a sottle.”

Then comes an instruction requiring absolutely no translation whatsoever:

Drink Limoncello very cold.

That we can manage.

One important British kitchen note

The recipe's instruction to use a litre of “alcohol” needs some qualification. In Italy, very high-strength neutral food-grade spirit is commonly used for homemade Limoncello. Do not use industrial, rubbing, denatured or other non-food alcohol.

If suitable food-grade spirit isn't readily available, a strong vodka can be used, although the quantities of water and sugar may need adjusting because vodka is considerably weaker. Or you can use Everclear, a distilled grain alcohol spirit with no color, odour and without much of a taste, making ideal for producing Limoncello at home. 

And use unwaxed lemons if possible, since it's the peel we're after.

Who needs a cookery book?

I think we've become rather fond of our Limoncello tea towel. It is decorative, educational and unintentionally very funny.

Better still, if you splash Limoncello over this particular recipe, you don't have to panic about ruining your cookbook or mobile phone.

You simply put the instructions in the washing machine.

Now all we need is a tea towel explaining how to make the perfect Negroni…

That's Green: Protect the ’Pods Campaign Calls for Stronger Anim...

That's Green: Protect the ’Pods Campaign Calls for Stronger Anim...: Animal welfare charities have launched a new campaign calling for crabs, lobsters, prawns, octopuses, squid and other sentient sea creatures...

English Whisky GI Faces Appeal Over ‘Scotch-Style’ Rules

Plans to give English whisky protected geographical status are facing a challenge from a Bristol distiller who believes the proposed rules could restrict innovation and confuse consumers.

Liam Hirt, founder of Circumstance Distillery, has announced his intention to appeal Defra’s decision to approve the new English Whisky Geographical Indication (GI). 

The protected status is due to be added to the official register on 1 October 2026, following a 20-day notice period.

Hirt supports the principle of protecting English whisky but objects to parts of the specification submitted by the English Whisky Guild, particularly the definition of Single Malt English Whisky.

Under the approved rules, single malt English whisky must be double distilled using copper pot stills. Hirt argues that this requirement follows the Scotch whisky model too closely and fails to represent either England’s own distilling heritage or the varied production methods being explored by modern English distilleries.

“The Scottish model isn’t wrong; it’s contrary to the English traditions,” he said. “It is like making the English wear kilts," he told That's Food and Drink.

His formal objection was deemed admissible under the relevant grounds for opposition, and Defra asked Hirt and the English Whisky Guild to hold discussions. However, he says those talks failed to resolve the disagreement.

Hirt believes the specification should have taken greater inspiration from the Welsh Whisky GI, which he says draws upon international approaches and allows Single Malt Welsh Whisky to distinguish itself more clearly from Scotch.

He warned distilleries complying with the English GI could end up producing spirits that are difficult to distinguish from Scotch, while some of the industry’s more experimental producers may have to operate outside the protected category.

That, he argues, could create a confusing situation in which innovative whisky made in England cannot be marketed as “English Whisky” under the GI.

Producers using protected terms will also need to be verified through HMRC’s Spirit Drink Verification Scheme, bringing additional requirements and costs.

The dispute comes as English whisky is expanding rapidly. Defra says more than 70 distilleries now produce whisky in England, compared with 46 in 2023. English whisky is exported to over 30 countries, while an estimated £1 billion worth of spirit is currently maturing in casks.

The GI is intended to protect the provenance and reputation of English whisky. However, Hirt maintains that protection must be broad enough to embrace the distinctive character, history and inventiveness of England’s emerging whisky industry.

He says he will appeal if the original specification remains unchanged, potentially beginning a lengthy process to amend the new GI.

https://www.circumstancedistillery.com

Siren Craft Brew Strengthens Links to Reading Football Club

Siren Craft Brew is the new principal sponsor of The Tilehurst End, one of Reading Football Club's longest running, and most popular fan-run media platforms. 

Comprising a website and podcast with over 700 episodes, The Tilehurst End has chronicled the ups and downs of Reading Football Club from the final days of Sir John Madejski through to the present day. 

The partnership is the latest piece of a puzzle that has seen Siren Craft Brew take over as official beer supplier to the Reading FC fanzone, located at the Select Car Leasing Stadium, and Siren's RG1 bar hosting its first live football podcast event with The Tilehurst End, at the end of the 2025/26 season. 

As part of the sponsorship, Siren's RG1 bar in Central Reading will continue to host live Tilehurst End podcast events as the 'home away from home' for supporters travelling from Reading Town Centre. The next live podcast event is scheduled for the Bradford City home game on Saturday, October 3 (time to be confirmed). 

There will be Siren giveaways throughout the season on the podcast and exclusive monthly prize draws for Patreon members. Additionally, all Tilehurst End listeners can use code Tilehurst10 to receive 10% off their next Siren Webshop order over £30. 

Pictured are Ben Thomas of The Tilehurst End and Andy Nowlan, Marketing Manager at Siren Craft Brew.

Ben Thomas, The Tilehurst End podcast host told That's Food and Drink: "I'm delighted to welcome Siren Craft Brew as our main podcast sponsor here at TTE. We've developed a strong relationship over the last few months, and I'm really pleased to make it 'official'. 

"There are lots of things for our fans to look forward too, including more live pods, giveaways of merchandise and beer and having a stronger presence at their flagship bar, RG1. I'm grateful for the support they have shown us and the faith they have put into our podcast and with Siren now holding a space at the stadium in the fanzone, there is lots of scope for collaboration moving forward. 

George Upton, General Manager, Siren RG1 in Central Reading commented: "We're incredibly excited to get closer to Royals fans working alongside the best RFC podcast! We love that Siren are part of the fanzone and we can support them by being the home for all reading fans in the town centre itself! Especially being so close to the station too."