Phil Gyford

If you live anywhere near, I can recommend a visit to Stoke Newington Farmers’ Market run by Growing Communities. Every Saturday from 10 to 2.30, just here off the High Street. It’s smaller than I imagined a “market” to be, but there’s lots of veg (the sweetest ever cherry tomatoes), some meat, eggs (fantastic scotch eggs), goats cheese and sausages, a bewildering array of bread (try the vegetarian pasties), and some kind of bottled drink I didn’t investigate. All sold by smiling people who can tell you exactly how best to cook onion squashes or whatever they’re selling. N16 has an article.

Even better, you can occasionally find a second hand book sale next door. Today the North London Labour Party (I think) held one, which was a bit too heavy on ageing politics and economics (including bound volumes of London County Council minutes from the early twentieth century) for my taste, and not quite up to the variety of the Green Party’s sale a couple of months earlier. Great food and second hand books; how good can a Saturday get?