The ultimate cooking demonstration will be at London's Riverside Studios from 2 to 19 June. Belgian theatre company Laika is staging Pataboem, a sort of musical kitchen where the show revolves around the actors cooking a meal for the audience...and, unlike Gordon Ramsay's kitchen, not a word is spoken. Details and tickets: 020 8237 1111.
Food festivals that are coming up: NW Food Lovers Festival in Cumbria features more than 70 specialist producers at the Westmorland Showground, 19-20 June. Wonderful hand-cured meats, local cheeses and preserves. Some of the most delicious and unusual food we receive on this magazine comes from the north west. Details: www.foodloversfestival. co.uk; 01695 732734.
Further north, the annual Loch Fyne food fair is at Cairndow, 29-30 May, with yummy oysters, live music and a farmers' market.
And on Skye, the sixth annual Talisker Skye and Lochalsh Food and Drink Festival is from 24 to 27 June. Activities include special seafood lunches, guided walks, cookery demonstrations, whisky tastings, tours of various food producers and local farmers' markets. Cookery writer Lady Claire Macdonald from Kinloch Lodge Hotel and Cookery School will be participating, and Shirley Spears from the Three Chimneys Restaurant will produce a 'Seven Courses of Skye' dinner, reflecting the best of the local produce. Details: www.skyefood.co.uk
The Hampshire Food Festival is a more amorphous affair running from 26 June to 11 July, covering farm walks, producer open days and cookery demonstrations. Details: www.hampshirefare.co.uk; 01962 848556.
Then there's the Cheltenham Festival of Science. Chef of the year, Heston Blumenthal, and pharmacologist Paul Clayton will feed a specially formulated dinner to a panel that includes Guardian food writer, Matthew Fort, journalist Francis Wheen and broadcaster Sue Lawley. Using monitors and response pads, they will gauge the effect of the food (which includes lobster gel with Siberian ginseng and rabbit, jasmine and garlic stew) on their levels of attention, memory and mood. Should be interesting. Pittville Pump Room, 9 June, from 7.30pm to 9.30pm. Tickets and details: 01242 227979; www.cheltenhamfestivals.co.uk.
Award-winning children's book illustrator, Chris Riddell, who is also The Observer's cartoonist, has a wonderful new book out with his collaborator, Paul Stewart. The mother of eponymous hero Fergus Crane works in a bakery, and the book is full of food and adventure (Doubleday £8.99).
With the summer fruit season coming up, Micromark and Kenwood both have small juicers on the market at around the £20 mark. The Micromark produces a thicker juice, but chucks all the bits into one container for easy disposal.
Dr Barnardo's has produced a Euro 2004 football cookbook with recipes from the players, manager (apparently Sven can rustle up a mean spaghetti with tomato sauce) and pundits (Des Lynam prefers his spaghetti with clams). They're hoping to raise £500,000; to buy your copy, go online to www.barnardos.org.uk/shop.
