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A classic fried tofu stir-fry that’s bang-full of flavour
My funny, curious, panda-loving daughter, Arya, is turning nine this week. So I wanted to write a recipe to celebrate her and some of her favourite things to eat. Arya adores the chewiness of udon, the bounciness of tofu, the sweet, sour saltiness of sweet soy and tamarind, the crunch of cabbage and she’d put chilli (in any form) over her breakfast cereal if she could (although it’s optional in this recipe). Happy birthday, Arya.
Continue reading...A story that started in the British Virgin Islands led to a sensational arrest 4,000 miles away – but was it ever more than a shaggy dog story?
Is it really plausible that Peter Mandelson could have hatched a daring plot to escape to the British Virgin Islands? In the capital of Road Town for the last week or so, the question has been on many minds. And even if the UK’s Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, came away with that possibility in mind from a recent visit, very few of them are convinced.
“It seemed strange to me,” said one bemused local official who had met Hoyle at a function a few days earlier, “that if you were going to flee, it would be to a British territory. From a logical point of view, you’re still more or less in the UK. It’s like fleeing to Southampton.”
Continue reading...I have to show him all the jobs that I have either left undone or tried to do and made worse
My wife is out when Mark the builder is scheduled to come by to see what needs doing, so I have to show him myself. This, I know, will amount to a humiliating private tour of all the home repairs I have either left undone, or tried to do and made worse. It’s been two years since I last did this, so the tour will be extensive. Just before 11am the bell rings. It is a cold morning, but Mark, as usual, is wearing shorts. We start in the back garden.
“Here is where I tried to cut back the ivy and install two trellis sections,” I say, “but instead I pulled half the garden wall down.”
Continue reading...He’s television’s most daring documentary-maker, known for asking questions others wouldn’t. But Theroux doesn’t seem to like it when the tables are turned
On the pavement outside the Netflix office, I stand in the rain, confused. Was that interview a little off? Louis Theroux seemed not to like my questions, which were typical interview questions, related to him and his big glossy Netflix debut, Inside the Manosphere. He seemed, I don’t know, prickly? A bit testy? I’m prone to rumination, so perhaps I am overthinking. Because Louis Theroux is a good guy, right? He skewers the bad guys. And yet here I am, baffled. The only thing to do is sit in a cafe and replay the tape.
Theroux is solicitous, lightly ironic in tone. “Louis,” he says. “How do you do?” I am fine. Looking forward to our chat, as you may imagine. Theroux, 55, might be north London dad in appearance – specs, grey T-shirt, black jeans, sneakers – but he’s the grandmaster of both the immersive documentary and interview form. The son of American writer Paul Theroux (a nepo baby before they existed), he has built a 30‑year career in television, much of it at the BBC, making a virtue of being a socially awkward verbivore, hyper‑curious, super-funny.
Continue reading...The Israeli PM’s war on its nemesis is playing well domestically. But real safety for Israelis requires another leader altogether
Aluf Benn is the editor-in-chief of Haaretz
When Yitzhak Rabin became the prime minister of Israel in 1992, he debated which regional power would be the Jewish state’s stronger enemy – the Islamic Republic of Iran, or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Baghdad had the stronger military, but Rabin decided that Tehran posed the larger threat with its combination of Islamist ideology, regional proxies and nuclear ambitions.
Rabin’s response to the looming Iranian threat was negotiating land-for-peace deals with Israel’s immediate neighbours – the Palestinians, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – following the example of the pre-existing peace with Egypt. He argued that a ring of normalisation would strengthen Israeli security and counter the rise of radical Islam, and believed there was an urgency to conclude the peace process before Iran, following the Israeli example, acquired the bomb and became a regional hegemon. Rabin predicted in early 1993 that within a decade, Tehran’s rulers could cross the nuclear threshold.
Aluf Benn is the editor-in-chief of Haaretz
Continue reading...Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days
Continue reading...Harry, 24, an ecologist, meets Freya, 24, a theatre-maker and cook
What were you hoping for?
Some tasty food, and a nice evening with good company to block out the Sunday scaries.
Prof Tim Lang says country produces far less food than it needs to feed population and is particularly vulnerable
The British government should be stockpiling food, according to a leading expert on food policy, as it is not prepared for climate shocks or wars that could cause the population to starve.
Prof Tim Lang of City St George’s, University of London said the UK produced far less food than it needed to feed itself, and as a small island that relied on a few large companies to feed its giant population, it was particularly vulnerable to shocks.
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