Restaurant Review: Ottolenghi, Islington

One of the main criteria I tend to employ when trying to decide on a venue for a meal is the extent to which I'd be able to prepare any of what's on the menu in my own kitchen. This dictum applies equally to both high end and proletarian fare. I am as equally disinclined to spend days on end reducing veal stock as I am to stink out my house by installing a deep fat fryer; thus, both classical French cooking and fish and chips are high up the list of things I want to eat out. With cooking as with all else, there is a noble humility in recognising that sometimes other people just have the tech, the time and the know-how which you lack, and you should pay for it. This is capitalism, and it tends to work quite well. This is also the reason I've resisted Kasia's enthusiasm to eat at Ottolenghi on one of our all-too-rare sorties south to London, until now.

End of season allotment scorecard

This was the scene at the allotment on Sunday, when our attendance managed to neatly and happily bisect a couple of squally rain showers. For shame: I haven't written anything veg-related on here since July, and in truth our attendance of the plot in real life over the last couple of months has been scarcely any more regular. The fact that we aren't now faced with an unmanageable forest of weeds is, as I have said since we took over this site in February, a function of its modest size. And yet, despite the limited ground space, and our infrequent trips to the site, we've still managed a very satisfying harvest.