The Truffler

In the war between supermarkets and their glossy magazines, no one could accuse Sainsbury's mag of not being a weighty contender. The new! improved! glossy publication - still with a Delia dish on the cover, still edited by Michael Wynn Jones (aka Mr Delia Smith) - weighs in at a mighty 800g. It was so heavy, I put it on the scales to check. The mag only cost £1, but who needs to add to the load we have to carry home from the supermarket?

In the war between supermarkets and their glossy magazines, no one could accuse Sainsbury's mag of not being a weighty contender. The new! improved! glossy publication - still with a Delia dish on the cover, still edited by Michael Wynn Jones (aka Mr Delia Smith) - weighs in at a mighty 800g. It was so heavy, I put it on the scales to check. The mag only cost £1, but who needs to add to the load we have to carry home from the supermarket?

* Still recovering from the shock of Delia's uncharacteristically bitchy outburst reported earlier in the week. I'm surprised it was Antony Worrall-Thompson who she described as "disgusting", while sparing Gary Rhodes's ghastly hair a tongue-lashing. But then, having just seen a picture taken in 1987 when Rhodes won a Michelin star at The Castle Hotel, Taunton, I too have gone soft on the spiky-haired chef. He looks so sweet with his floppy follicles au naturel, and baby-faced grin. And more than 10 years on he's still producing Michelin-pleasing food at City Rhodes. Bless, as the saintly Delia didn't say.

* The big cheese judges have made their decisions for the British Cheese Awards - the biggest gathering of native cheeses - from some 600 entries Inspect the entries in the town hall at Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, and follow your nose to the huge cheese market in The Square, from 10am-5pm. Entry is £2 to a marquee where 100 cheesemakers are selling 300 cheeses.

* No sooner does The Restaurant Show, which runs from 1-3 October, decamp from Olympia, in London, than the International Festival of Fine Wine and Food moves in. You can only get into The Restaurant Show if you're in the trade (free tickets on 0870 7511 484), and one highlight is a temporary restaurant, where leading pastry chef Claire Clark will feed a highly critical mass of customers.

* The International Festival of Fine Wine and Food starts next Thursday, 5 October, at Olympia. Tickets are £16, bookable on 0870 739 6611. Chefs and cooks, including Nigella Lawson, Lesley Waters and Giorgio Locatelli, will demonstrate free (should hope so too, given the admission charge), and there are masses of wines, and food from all over the world.

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They do - sell fridges - but they also have great food halls. Selfridges in London and Manchester is coming over all North African in mid-October with what's billed as the most extensive display of Moroccan food and wines to reach Britain. There will be rare foods and wines to buy, and music, dance and cookery demonstrations. Both stores will have souks where shoppers can slip off their slingbacks and sip mint tea. And there's an exclusive evening at each store in conjunction with The Independent. Readers are invited to London on 18 October, and to Manchester on 19 October from 7.15pm-9.30pm to taste and buy. Tickets are £10, redeemable off food and wine purchases that evening.

Send cheques payable to Selfridges Retail, Selfridges Moroccan Promotion, Marketing Department, at 400 Oxford Street, London W1A 1AB or The Trafford Centre, 1 The Dome, Manchester M17 8DA.