Lara Prendergast

I arrived at Waterloo, half an hour before my train departed. Needing to buy a birthday card, I popped into Oliver Bonas, a shop which sells ‘lifestyle gifts’. I came across marble cheeseboards and gin-and-tonic scented candles. If you are looking for a lemon juicer shaped like a cactus, you will find one in Oliver Bonas. The shop also sells ‘gift books’. Most are aimed at women and quite a few have the word ‘feminist’ in their title. There is one called Vajournal: An Interactive Diary for Feminists. It invites the reader to engage with ‘thought-provoking activities’ and describe their ‘worst and best sexual experiences’ as well as any instances of ‘everyday sexism’.

I arrived at Waterloo, half an hour before my train departed. Needing to buy a birthday card, I popped into Oliver Bonas, a shop which sells ‘lifestyle gifts’. I came across marble cheeseboards and gin-and-tonic scented candles. If you are looking for a lemon juicer shaped like a cactus, you will find one in Oliver Bonas. The shop also sells ‘gift books’. Most are aimed at women and quite a few have the word ‘feminist’ in their title. There is one called Vajournal: An Interactive Diary for Feminists. It invites the reader to engage with ‘thought-provoking activities’ and describe their ‘worst and best sexual experiences’ as well as any instances of ‘everyday sexism’.

On the latest episode of the Spectator’s Table Talk podcast, Olivia Potts and I are delighted to be joined by The Spectator’s editor, Fraser Nelson. Fraser joins us – from his own office at 22 Old Queen Street, where he keeps an impressive collection of Scotch whisky – to discuss his life through food and drink. He reveals why he was called ‘Sandwich Boy’ when he was working at the Scotsman, and tells us about his time serving drunk old men in a Scottish pub. ‘They were some of the wittiest, funniest people I ever met.’ We also chat about the first time he encountered gazpacho at a FTSE 100 boardroom lunch – and he sent it back because the soup was cold.

Olivia Potts and I are delighted to be launching Table Talk, a new Spectator Life podcast with Spectator Radio. Each episode, Olivia – who writes the Vintage Chef column – and I will be joined by a guest familiar to Spectator readers. We will discuss their life story, through the food and drink that has come to define it. For our inaugural episode, we’re joined by Prue Leith: chef, restaurateur, broadcaster, journalist, novelist and, of course, Great British Bake Off presenter. We speak to her about her time in South Africa and Paris, and how that helped shape her attitude to food. We hear about some of her cooking mishaps, making sandwiches for both toffs and builders, being the first woman to have a proper restaurant in London and why she hates washing up.

Halloween used to be easy. It was a fancy-dress party: you could wear whatever you liked. The idea was to have fun. As teens, my friends and I would dress up as ghouls, spiders or witches, with cones of black paper on our heads. When we became more mature, Halloween turned into a tarty affair. We thought this seemed authentic, somehow all-American. Our costumes became flimsier and more flammable. One girlfriend made a habit of always going dressed as ‘sexy cat’. Inevitably, somebody would dress as a zombie Princess Diana or Amy Winehouse, or another celebrity who had died unpleasantly. The more risqué the better. I was once served a drink by a man with a toy doll tied to his lower half. He had come as Jimmy Savile. But Halloween is changing.

My friend recently met a man on a dating app and went out for dinner with him. When he arrived, the man announced that he didn’t drink. Nothing unusual about that: plenty of young men are abstemious these days. His next declaration was more surprising: he didn’t eat. Instead, he lived off something called ‘Huel’. Huel — an abbreviation of ‘human fuel’ — is a type of powdered food made of oats, peas, flax and rice. I’ve tried it and it is disgusting — gruel, essentially, in smart packaging. But it’s hugely popular: Huel is now one of the fastest growing companies in Britain. Huel is low in fat and high on principle. ‘We live in difficult times,’ says its evangelical marketing bumf.