Every gardener will tell you that there is nothing quite so intimidating and unstoppable as that flush of courgettes that arrives like a tidal wave, usually during the fortnight when you are away on holiday. For the home cook, courgettes are an interesting ingredient in that they present different opportunities, depending on which stage you pick them. The first stage in the life cycle is very small courgettes – pencil thin and satisfyingly crunchy, what they lack in flavour is made up in texture and steamed whole they make a good counterpoint to grilled and poached fish.

Like so many things, it all rather depends on your viewpoint; if you're looking forward to tucking into a roast grouse, then the Glorious Twelfth of August may indeed be glorious, but if on the other hand you're a grouse ... The red grouse, Lagopus lagopus scoticus, is a magnificent creature, and so far it has resisted all of our attempts at domestication. It won't breed to order. It doesn't like living in cages.

We were hosts to the British Cheese Awards on Friday. And so it was that 910 different varieties of cheese arrived at the farm on Thursday. It doesn't sound that bewildering, but a good delicatessen probably only carries a couple of dozen varieties. Mayhem, it was. A cavalcade of cars and couriers; crates of the stuff pouring up the drive. From every corner of the kingdom they came, from Cornish Yarg to Orkney Cheddar, Lincolnshire Poacher to a highly prized Swiss-style cheese called Desmond from West Cork.

Get into the Seventies groove, says Mark Hix –whoever said that chicken Kiev has had its day?

Co-inventor of the Swan-Ganz heart catheter

As Theodore Kyriakou's new restaurant proves, real Greek food bears no resemblance to the tasteless taramasalata and kebabs of tourist menus. Michael Bateman reports

It's a dirty job but someone has to do it, says Charles Campion, author of `The Rough Guide to London Restaurants'

Alastair Little

When it comes to fish, we are getting hooked, according to Simon Bradley, head chef at Fishnets, one of more than a dozen new fish restaurants to open in the capital this year.

They eat as much red meat as they can lay their hands on, they drink to excess and most of them smoke. Steve Boggan spent a night with the Carnivores' Club as researchers at Cambridge University rubbished government claims that red meat is bad for you