meets sandwich king Max Halley, who is serving up a new way of eating outside

OWNER of cult restaurant Max’s Sandwich Shop, Max Halley has now decided to take on the state of the picnic in a new cookbook. Co-authored with Ben Benton, you will find more inside Max’s Picnic Book than instructions for a pickled egg.

Max says: “We often accept substandard things just because it’s a picnic. We think hummus and pitta is enough – and it’s not.”

The book itself features a meat trifle, a picnic dedicated to the sausage, one picnic menu is ‘hosted’ by Mary Berry and Hunter S. Thompson, and another by Ringo Starr and Debbie McGee. As you start reading and Max’s enthusiasm seizes you, it begins to make a whole lot more sense. A picnic, he adds, isn’t about “bunting and homemade ginger beer. It’s about eating something delicious in any place that is not your dinner table.” ■ Max’s Picnic Book by Max Halley and Ben Benton (Hardie

Grant) priced £16.99.

INGREDIENTS:

(Makes 2 martinis)

Ice; 2tbsp fine-cut marmalade; 100ml gin; 2tbsp triple sec or Cointreau; 2tbsp lemon juice; 1 slice of bread, toasted

METHOD:

1. Put lumps of ice in a martini glass and fill it with water to chill.

2. Put the marmalade in a cocktail shaker with the gin and triple sec and stir and stir until the marmalade has dissolved.

3. Fill the shaker with ice, add the lemon juice and stir and stir and stir making sure the spoon goes right to the bottom of the shaker.

4. Stir 50 times – count them. The shaker will have become so frosty and cold you will hardly be able to touch it.

5. Sling the iced water from the glass and pour the sparkly liquid through a sieve into it. On the side of your martini, have a slither of heavily buttered toast with marmalade on it. Perfect!