FOOD & DRINK / Daily Bread: What the vegetarian food writer ate one day last week

I LIKE to get up early, between 6am or 7am. As soon as I get up I make a big pot of strong coffee and have a couple of cups, no milk or sugar. I do not usually get hungry until about 11am when I will make myself a brunch of all the odd bits of leftover food I have sitting in my fridge. Today I had a rather curious assortment of Puy lentils and diced tomato dressed with olive oil, oatcakes and then some walnut marzipan. The marzipan was one of the Christmas foods I am trying out at the moment. After lunch I had a cup of Earl Grey tea with milk and some mineral water. I drink mineral water and herbal tea throughout the day. At about 2.30pm I tasted one of the Christmas recipes for Vogue I'm working on at the moment - a pain perdu. It is made with pannetoni dipped in a mixture of egg, milk and sugar and fried with butter and honey. It is then flambeed with kirsch and served with van-illa ice-cream melted over it. At about 7pm I had some black olives and then at 9pm I had dinner. I am testing salads for a book I'm working on at the moment, so I had a warm salad of poached quails' eggs, girolles mushrooms and baby spinach. I also had some potatoes roasted with thyme and garlic. I had a couple of glasses of white wine in the evening and finally a cup of camomile tea before bed.

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