Caroline Lucas: ‘I can’t imagine my parents ever voted Green, but they became less antagonistic’

The former Green MP on patriotism, protest and and why Labour is much less ambitious than its votersIt’s tempting to think of Caroline Lucas as a kind of spirit of place in Brighton. She has arrived first at Food for Friends, the oldest vegetarian restaurant in the city, and there is something almost mythical in seeing the pioneering Green MP in its window seat, facing the Lanes, framed by trailing foliage. She has been coming here for as long as she can remember, she says – the restaurant opened in 1981 and used to have folk queuing around the block. She recommends the blueberry and ginger “nojito”, orders the Thai noodle salad and crispy tofu, and half apologises for still being “a vegetarian on the road to veganism” without quite yet arriving at that destination.It’s nine months since Lucas stepped down after 14 years in parliament as her party’s first and, in that time, only MP

Notes on chocolate: make way for a new favourite

Last year a reader called Olivia got in touch to ask if I could recommend some chocolates to replace those her mum loved – Terry’s Spartan.These were a box of chocolates with a black and orange mountain scene on the front, that majored on the fact that all the centres were hard (and, as is the way with a lot of now discontinued chocolates, empty boxes of them go for ££ on eBay). Memorial Device on X once said of them: ‘not uncommon to find a box of Spartans with teeth marks in every single one – the unaware searching for the nonexistent soft centre,’ which made me guffaw. I gave Olivia some suggestions but she came back to say she’d ‘found the winner in Audrey’s Chocolates. I gave her a selection for Christmas and she loved them

Graceful wines with a twist in the tale

Subtle but beautiful wines from Savoie and JapanDomaine Belema Imago, IGP Vin des Allobroges, Savoie, France 2023 (from £34.75, terrawines.co.uk (lescaves.co

Gilgamesh, London: ‘It’s a weird trip’: restaurant review

We’re here for a ‘culinary journey’ apparently, but where on earth to?Gilgamesh, 4a Upper St Martin’s Lane, London WC2H 9NY. Small plates £7-£19, large plates £9-£42, desserts £9, wines from £38A Monday lunchtime, and my phone pings. There’s a text. “Gilgamesh London. It’s our Birthday! ONE milestone gift to you,” it says, with a dizzyingly random use of capital letters

My boiler has broken and I’m finding solace in a slice (or several) of toast | Rachel Cooke

My subject today is toast, which is much on my mind right now, a buttery ticker tape that calls me constantly to the kitchen. Our boiler has packed up, the new one won’t be installed for a week, and though it’s only the central heating that’s down (the cooker’s fine), the freezing cold has turned me into a toast monster. It’s all I want, a feeling I haven’t had since I was a student and living in a house that was so badly insulated, we sometimes had to break the ice on the water in the loo. How many loaves can a person get through in a week? Come back to me in a few days for an answer. I’ll give you a tour of my chilblains at the same time

Ludovico Einaudi: ‘The way you blend the elements you eat is similar to composing a piece of music’

I live in Torino [Turin], a town where I grew up, where I was born. There’s a famous dish from there called bagna cauda. It’s a meeting of the garlic from the area of Piedmont, the mountains, with the anchovies coming from the sea in Liguria. It’s a very simple dish, a bit like a broth, perfect in winter, and you eat it with raw vegetables of the season. But there’s so much garlic in it that, when you eat it, you need a couple of days away from other people