Enamel mugs
Limited edition enamel tumblers in two cool and sophisticated shades of green: sage and samphire. Two sizes (£6, 9cm/310ml; £5, 6cm/124ml)
Visit falconenamelware.com
People’s Fridge
How to reduce the shocking 900,000 tonnes of food a year thrown away by restaurants in the UK, not to mention the British households that chuck an average of 24 edible meals a month? One answer is the Community Fridge, already a success in Spain, and now launched in Brixton, south London. It’s a place, run by volunteers, where local businesses and residents can leave spare, edible fresh food for those who need it. For further details of this crowd-funded initiative visit crowdfunder.co.uk/peoples-fridge (photograph, above, by Sebastian Wood)
Rococo chocolates
The collaboration between de Gournay hand-painted rococo wallpapers and the eponymous brand of chocolates has produced a swooningly romantic box of chocs for last-minute Valentiners. The box is decorated with de Gournay’s Portobello Chinoiserie paper (bamboo, flowering trees, exotic birds), the chocolates come from Rococo’s Couture range
Rococo limited edition de Gournay box, from £19.95, www.rococochocolates.com
Five of the Best…. romantic cocktails
Pink Champagne
Soak a sugar cube in the bottom of a champagne flute in angostura bitters, add 25ml of a decent French brandy and top up with pink champagne
The Palmetto
Chill a glass. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour in 45ml rum and 45ml red vermouth and a dash of orange bitters. Stir vigorously and strain into the chilled glass. Garnish with a twist of orange peel
Rose cocktail
Pour 50ml gin, 25ml of lemon juice, 15ml pure rose water, the white of one egg and a dash of angostura bitters into a cocktail shaker. Shake hard. Then add plenty of crushed ice until very cold. Pour into a cocktail glass relishing the frothy, faint pink appearance
Between the sheets
Shake 30ml Courvoisier VSOP brandy, 10ml Benedictine, 10 ml Cointreau and 15ml lemon juice into a cocktail shaker with solid ice cubes and strain into a cocktail glass
Bosom Caresser
Combine 45ml brandy, 30ml of Madeira and 15ml of Cointreau in a mixing glass half-filled with crushed ice. Stir well then strain into a cocktail glass
(all measurements make one cocktail)
