SOS meals – the food to cook for friends that shows you care | Food

I lost my beloved cairn terrier Wilf a couple of weeks ago, and when I say lost, sadly, I don’t mean I mislaid him yet again on Hampstead Heath. Rather, after 13 and a half years of (mostly) civil disobedience, we had to make the tough but ultimately kind decision to say a final goodbye. Since then, I have been bombarded with kindness. Friends and family have rallied round to take me out for breakfast, lunch, dinner and coffee, clearly worried that the bereavement might affect my appetite – well, apart from the one who responded by having a baby a week early, and who now requires me to provide for her.

It got me thinking about the part food plays in big life events. We so often cook, or otherwise provide for people in the aftermath of such shocks, be they happy or sad, as a way both to offer practical help and to show them how much we love them. Such tokens of affection tend to fall into two camps. The first is high-energy food that can be easily eaten with one hand while the other is holding a baby or clutching a sodden handkerchief, or simply when you’re just too busy to sit down. Just this morning, I received a picture of the new mother tucking into my extremely wholesome fruit and nut-packed granola with her daughter sleeping on her arm, but Melissa Hemsley’s five-ingredient flapjacks (pictured top) would fall into this category, as would Meera Sodha’s chaat masala popcorn and Thomasina Miers’ dark chocolate and toasted walnut banana bread. Like Anna Jones’s chocolate chip cookie power bites, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s spiced nuts or my own kale chips, they’re full of good things, and tempting enough to compete with the less nutritious options that are so easy to reach for instead. (That said, no one should judge anyone for the choices they make at times of stress.)

The second consists of home-cooked meals that you hope will make them feel looked after, even when you can’t be there to do it yourself. I’ve already promised to make a batch of my massaman curry for the new parents by special request, because I usually fall back on either my ragù alla bolognese (vegan version here), or chicken cacciatore. Bundle the clearly labelled plastic containers with a big bag of nice pasta, too, as well as a block of hard cheese, perhaps, and I figure the recipients are never more than 10 minutes from a good dinner – though, in this case, I’ll splash out on microwaveable sachets of rice instead. Go for a pie, however, and they don’t even have to cook any carbs to go with it. At this time of year, Nigel Slater’s cauliflower cheese number would be delicious, as would Calum Franklin’s keema-spiced shepherd’s pie or Jeremy Lee’s classic chicken version. Thomasina’s ricotta, courgette and spinach dumplings, meanwhile, come with their own tomato sauce, and freeze brilliantly, as would Blanche Vaughan’s Lancashire hotpot.

And, if in doubt, take round a roll or two of Tamal Ray’s freezer cookie dough, so they’re always prepared for last-minute guests or late-night sugar crashes. After the past fortnight, I can confirm there’s very little to match the comfort of a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

My week in food

On the subject of tea … | I found myself dogless but hungry in Henley-on-Thames on Saturday evening, after talking with wine writer Olly Smith about our respective culinary-themed novels at the town’s literary festival (which runs until Sunday). Happy chance led me to Bijan’s Kitchen, a Persian restaurant that served the most delicious and enormous lamb kebabs on naan, as well as thick, garlicky yoghurt with cucumber and mint, and olives covered in a rich paste of walnuts, pomegranate molasses and garlic, plus a lovely Iranian black tea perfumed with rose petals. Best of all (for me), it’s also dog-friendly – Wilf would have loved it.

Apple turnover | A reminder, should you need it, that although the weather (at the time of writing) feels more like summer, British apple season begins to wind down towards the end of October, so if you value the more unusual varieties rarely found in supermarkets (I got some lovely Charles Ross and Blenheim Orange fruits on Sunday), now is a good time to stock up at the farmers’ market, farm shop or pick-your-own orchard. Dry the apples well, if necessary, and store them, preferably in a single layer, in a slatted crate, cardboard tray or on open shelves (air flow is vital) and keep them somewhere cool, dry and dark, where they should keep until Christmas. So long as you don’t eat them all first.

Not worth dying for | The start of Celebrity Traitors has proved a welcome distraction for me – and, as usual, I found myself most interested in what the cast is actually eating during the dramatic daily breakfasts in the castle, and what they’re awkwardly picking at from the buffet later in the day. This article sheds a little light on the on-set catering, and confirms that I would be a terrible contestant: there’s only so long I could put up with dry croissants and rationed wine before I confessed all just to get out of there.

Fishy business | As a devotee of the much-maligned kipper (a cold-smoked herring), I was delighted to discover that Waitrose now does a hot-smoked version in place of the Scottish mackerel it’s removed from shelves in response to warnings of imminent population collapse in the north-east Atlantic Ocean. Herring numbers, which suffered from similar problems in the 1970s thanks to over-fishing, are now more robust in the North Sea – though check it’s been responsibly sourced, because numbers have dwindled farther west. Anything you can do with smoked mackerel, you can do with herring, from flaking it into potato salads to whizzing it into paté. Just ask any of our northern European neighbours.