The good vibrations of an early bedtime

Iwas asked to a “sex tech” dinner this week by an inventive young company called Soda. Jolly generous it was too. We each found a goody bag containing a vibrator at our place setting. But the best thing about this dinner was that when the initial invitation arrived, it told guests to arrive for 7pm and added that “you’ll be in bed by 10.30pm”. As a morning person who frets if I’m up past 11, I loved this. From now on, I’d like every drinks/ lunch/dinner party invitation to come with a sensible leaving time, please. That way, we all know what time we’ll be at home reading our books. I’d insert nsert an obvious joke about carrying home my vibrator goody bag here but it’s too early y on a Sunday y for that.

tels and restaurants that have moved away from this style of cooking, but you can still go to places like The Ritz and order crêpes suzette. I rediscovered them a couple of years ago when Luke Holder and I were just reaching the end of service at our restaurant, Hartnett Holder & Co, at Limewood hotel.

Our policy there is to never say no to a customer – and someone asked for crêpes suzette at 10 o’clock at night. We both thought: “Oh no, we just want to go home!” But we laughed as we made them, realising that we were the only people in the kitchen old enough to know what crêpes suzette were. It’s a lost art, but people still love the theatre of it.

The country terrine shared overleaf, another bistro classic, takes a little planning, but it’s worth it. We invited friends for dinner recently

Making crêpes suzette might be a lost art, but people still love the theatre of it