This is the Observer Food Monthly's fiftieth issue and we celebrate by asking some of our favourite chefs for their personal list of 50 food-related things to do before you die. Once we had pushed them into thinking beyond the 'nervous-breakdown' cooking of Michelin-starred restaurants they actually came up with a pretty classy set of 'must-eats'. By including some our favourite food critics, too, we have ended up with a comprehensive, if controversial, wish list for any aspiring foodie to tuck under their pillow. Whether it's eating cheese-flavoured chocolates in Paris, or making slurping noodle-noises in Takematsu, you can start ticking them off.
Naturally, as at any milestone birthday, we are in a somewhat reflective state of mind and so it seemed timely to bring up the subject of life-changing meals. Can a single meal really change your life? Is it possible to remember every detail of something you ate years ago? We asked writers to recall their most memorable meals, so we have Timothy Garton Ash having supper with the late Pope, Lynn Barber lunching with Dalí, Dylan Jones drinking with the Sex Pistols and Frank McCourt musing on the pig's head his mum would cook each Christmas.
As regular readers will know, I am a long-time supporter of local shopping, buying as much as I can from small specialist shops and farmer's markets. But am I just being nostalgic and insular or should I join the (long, long) queues at the nearest big-name supermarket for all their internationally grown, air-shipped and pre-packed food? Mimi Spencer takes up the challenge for me and, for a week only, shops at her local food shops and markets. A wonderful, life-changing experience for her or an exhausting full-time job?
In this issue we also share a freeze-dried curry with Arctic explorer Pen Hadow, follow Lisa Hilton around Paris's sexiest food shops (shopping for a baguette can be a sensuous experience, non?) and introduce OFM and Seeds of Change's first photography competition by taking a look at some of our most remarkable images. Oh, and there are some pretty good chicken recipes too. Happy birthday!
· Nigel Slater is The Observer's food writer. Dr John Briffa and Cocktail Girl return next month
