Food & Drink notes

Move over blueberries and cranberries, and make way for the nutritious fruit of the cold-climate sea buckthorn bush.

Jam trafficking

Move over blueberries and cranberries, and make way for the nutritious fruit of the cold-climate sea buckthorn bush. Made in Sweden, Mondo Berry's jams include refreshingly sharp Sea Buckthorn Berry and Pumpkin, great on porridge or toast. £5.95 plus p&p, 0870 6092207/ www.mondoberry.com

Chop and change

Anyone with the most basic grasp of food hygiene knows that raw meat and fresh fruit and veg shouldn't share chopping boards. So how to make sure you don't get confused? Make it blindingly obvious, with this set of four dishwasher-proof silicone chopping boards from Guzzini, the Italian company that makes funky plastic household and kitchen kit. Available from Selfridges for £19.95 for the set; call 020-8646 9655 for other stockists.

Buffalo brill

Walking with water buffalo (right) is one of the many farming, foraging, feeding and feasting attractions of the Hampshire Food Festival running until 10 July. Today, as a taster: Cookie Monsters food workshops for children, Roman cooking at Butser Ancient Farm near Petersfield, and flour-milling at Longbridge Mill, Hook. Plus special markets and menus, tours of beef, llama, watercress, apple, pig and buffalo farms feature in the festival programme. For more details visit www.hampshirefare.co.uk

Shalai? Why not?

The options for grown-ups who don't drink alcohol are becoming ever more exotic. Better still, they can have health benefits that aren't just to do with staying sober. Shalai, made from the juice of hibiscus flowers, is as lovely as it sounds. It's a fabulous colour, luscious-tasting but not too sweet and with a slight astringency. Refreshing drunk cold on a hot day, it also claims to have many of the same healthy properties as red wine, without the booze. Flavonoids, polyphenols and anthocyanins may not be what you look for first in a drink, but hibiscus has them all, which means lots of anti-oxidants, obviously. And they'll still be there if you add a slug of vodka to it. From around £1.30 for a 250ml bottle, £3 for a 750ml, online orders or stockists 01604 715441/ www.shalai.com