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	DOTTY ABOUT IT! I can't quite understand how it's happened, given that there are not many musicals I'd go to willingly, but I cannot stop watching Over The Rainbow (BBC 1 Saturday and Sunday evenings) to a point whereby it's stopped being a mere televisual pleasure and become an out-and-out addiction. For those unfortunates who don't know what I'm talking about it, this is the reality-style competition to find a Dorothy for a West End production of The Wizard of Oz. There is just something very compelling and rather good-mood-making about watching a competition in which the contestants actually have talent, the judges know what they're talking about and - hold the front page - everyone is nice to one another. I am just captivated by Charlotte Church and Andrew Lloyd Webber for starters, always charmed by Graham Norton in his glinting jackets, Sheila Hancock is beautiful and elegantly splendid and I'm mad for red-haired Sophie (although I guess the smart money's on Stephanie) and rather liked the fact that if they cast the gingery dog that has just auditioned, they'd have a Dorothy and Toto to match! I'm afraid this is a geographically limited passion, since only those in the UK will know what I'm talking about or be able to access the i-player in order to find out, but I bet this will be on tv stations globally before long. I hope so - otherwise it's clear the whole world's gone mad, mad I say!
	DIRECT ROUTE TO DELICIOUS DINNER Well of course I love the Hairy Bikers. That goes without saying. I like their food and, when I met them last summer, I liked them a lot, too. Now, I have a new burst of enthusiasm - for their book, Mums Know Best - The Hairy Biker's Family Cookbook. It's no surprise: cosy, home cooking is my kind of food; and, what's more, I always respect those whose greed is greater than their interest is modishness. Take one example: the chicken in brandy, which you will see if you look at it in the recipe section (and thank you very much guys) is about as out of fashion as you can get, is a food stylist's nightmare, and yet is utterly, utterly delicious. You just need to read the recipe and, indeed, see the picture, for all that it is the sort of white-on-white creation most contemporary cookbooks would run a mile from, to know that you want to eat it. And you'd be right to. Buy it from Amazon UK for £8.98 and from Amazon US for $23.56.
	MAD ABOUT MEXICAN I've been eye-ing up Thomasina Miers' MEXICAN FOOD MADE SIMPLE for some time, and now that I have it, I must say I have been revelling it. I happen to adore Mexican food (or my version of it, as those of you who've come across my Speedy Gonzales section of Express will know) and am always interested in reading more about it. While I have all the Diana Kennedy tomes on the subject, and find them illuminating, this truly lives up to its title and is a gorgeously pretty book to boot, at once inviting and enthusiastic. I am grateful to Thomasina Miers for letting us reprint her Churros y Chocolate in our recipe section, and having just fried up a batch I can testify to their utter easy joyousness! The one change I made was to ignore her request for 125g each of self-raising and plain flours; I had no self-raising in the house so used all plain flour and just added 2 teaspoons of baking powder. Also, now I think about it, the icing nozzle I used was a little fatter than the one that was used in the picture to illustrate the recipe, so I made some shorter, fatter slightly more doughnutty churros, and since I kept them small, made twice as much. There are many more recipes I'm just aching to try, and once I've finished writing my own book, indeed I will! For I can tell, there is plenty of fun, and greedy reward, to be had. Buy Thomasina's book from Amazon UK for £9.99.
	IF YOU FEEL LIKE A BIT OF BAKING... A brief skim through my cookbooks (not that it can be that brief, given that I have now something approaching 4,000 titles shows that Chronicle Books, the beautiful imprint from one of my favourite gastro-centres, San Francisco, is particularly well represented. It's not surprising: theirs is a great list. My newest addition is the witty and pretty 'All Cakes Considered' by Melissa Gray; the title refers to the fact that the recipes are "tested, tasted and approved by the staff of NPR's All Things Considered". But I have to give you the second subtitle too, which is "How to keep your co-workers, happy, friendly, and fatter than you!" Anyway, I love this book, and not just for the recipes. True, The Naughty Senator Cake has already been tested, tasted and approved by my co-workers and greedily eaten and appreciated by me, and I have many more recipes tagged, but the writing throughout is cheering, and the photos (by Annabelle Breakey and Stephen Voss) inspirational. Buy it online from Amazon.com for $16.47 or from Amazon.co.uk for £11.03.
	NO TANGLES, NO TEARS: THE SMOOTH SOLUTION There are two things that make me feel quite panicked whenever I think of them: the first is the memory of having my unruly hair agonisingly combed when I was a child; the second is the ordeal of inflicting similar pain as I used to try and de-tangle my daughter's hair. Both of us have that difficult mixture of having very fine hair, but just lots and lots of it. It is a recipe for tangles, and tangles are, in turn, a recipe for tears. Or they were. I can't tell you how much the Tangle Teezer has changed my life. The minute I saw it on The Dragons' Den I knew I wanted it, but the dolts there turned it down and things looked grim. Luckily, others in the field had a bit more nouse and it came to market anyway. It really works: I don't know how, but it just does. Not only would I never be without one (I can 't go back to those days of pain) but I notice that there isn't a hairdresser's that doesn't use them now, either. And I don't grudge them their success: they've earned it - along with every mother's gratitude! Buy it online, directly from Tangle Teezer for £9.99. Also available from Boots and many more stockists. Click here to search for a stockist near you!
	A CHEESE TO PLEASE It's not often that I eat something that I have never tried before. Partly, that's because I have something of an obsession for food - not exactly breaking news, I know - which I have shamelessly indulged since my late teens (I may not have eaten as a child, but I've certainly made up for it since!) and partly because I am not as well-travelled as I'd like to be. Anyway, I don't do too badly, and right now I am rhapsodic about a Swedish cheese called Greve (pronounced, I think, like the word 'gravy' spoken by someone from Lancashire or on Coronation Street) that is new to me, but which I cannot stop eating. I'm afraid I've eaten my way through about half a kilo ever since I had my first bite just under a week ago, and I love it alone or on fantastic Malmö brand crispbread (www.malmonordicdining.com). When I researched the gorgeous Greve, I was informed that it was modelled on Emmental, but I don't think that's really what it tastes like: I think it's like a mixture between Norwegian Jarlsberg with its sweet nuttiness and a young Italian parmesan with that particular textural veining of grittiness. Hard to explain, but oh so easy to eat! I'm afraid I am being rather tantalizing here since I doubt it will be available internationally, but it is certainly worth googling it where you are and I hope you strike gold - or rather Greve!
	CHOC-A-LOT When I cook, I can't bear to use anything but the best dark chocolate. When it comes to eating, I have always been more tempted by the lure of cheap confectionery: I'd always prefer a bag of maltesers to a box of Belgian truffles. Of course, there are exceptions - Vosges Chocolat Barcelona Bars and Bendicks Bittermints for example - but on the whole, I've never thought a treat needs to be chic. And that's emphatically been the case for me where milk chocolate's been concerned. I mean, I know cheap dark chocolate is disgusting, but what on earth is the point of upmarket milk chocolate? I thought there wasn't any, but now I've learnt better. I made the awful mistake of putting a bar of Prestat Organic Milk Chocolate in my shopping trolley the other day (pretending to myself it was for the children) and then ate it. All of it. And I appreciated - relished - every melting mouthful. This is difficult. Avoiding dark chocolate is relatively easy, but now that I've seen the light, where is it going to end? Still, I have never believed in guilty pleasures: the only thing we should feel guilty about is not taking pleasure. So I've decided to be grateful that my greed now has the opportunity to be so luxuriously rewarded. Buy it online from Prestat for £3.49.
	NO MORE PEN ENVY For all that we supposedly live in the electronic age, I’m afraid I’m still a sucker for old-school tools of communication. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter (although I hear there are people who are on both in my name) but I am a compulsive pen-and-paper scrawler. I’m an inveterate list writer, and I’m forever leaving messages to myself (which I then can’t decipher the next day) and to my children (who aren’t much better at reading them), I’ve got several to-do lists on the go at any time and there’s not a coat pocket or a handbag without an old post-it with a shopping list stuffed inside. And then there are my kitchen notebooks for jotting down what I do – give or take – when I’m cooking. The thing is, I am very pernickety about what I write with: what I’m writing on is less important, any bit of paper, such as the back of an envelope, will do but the pen – the pen is really important to me. I’m not mad on biro, and anything with blue ink upsets me. A regular black pentel used to pass muster, though wasn’t perfect (that hideous green is just not live-able with) and any gel pen or rollerball thing I’ve tried that I’ve liked is either too expensive or runs out too soon. But now – thank the Lord – I have found pen nirvana. (Trust me, as I tell my children, it’s the small pleasures in life that oil one's wheels.) It’s reliable, writes neither too thin nor too thick and glides on smoothly. Even better, it comes in the colour I was surely born to write in: a deep, dark bitter-chocolate brown; I think of it as a quirkily chic black. So far I’ve found them only online (the electronic age has its advantages after all) but that’s fine, as I buy in bulk. I need them in handbags, on the bedside table, in the kitchen and on my study desk at all times. Go to Cult Pens and buy them for £1.37 each or for a pack of 12 it is only £14.71. There are several colours to choose from, but I normally buy the Brown (Brown/Black).
	S.O.S. (Save Our Skin!) I have long been a fan of Estee Lauder's Advanced Night Repair Serum - launched in 1982 - even though I cannot, however I try, turn myself into someone who puts face cream on every night. Actually, I first got into this magical stuff not for my face, but my hands. Irredeemably clumsy, I am forever burning myself and cutting myself and I found - first trying it during some filming - that if I put some Advanced Night Repair onto these self-inflicted wounds, they healed faster and scarred less. It may seem extravagant as hand cream too, but actually a bottle lasts for ages as you need only a few drops at a time. Someone from Estee Lauder once told me what was in it that particularly helped with healing and - by consequence - anti-ageing, but I've long sinced forgotten (perhaps I need an Advanced Night Repair for the memory now!) and find the sci-style techno-text that accompanies the new version, the Advanced Night Repair Synchronized Recovery Complex, rather impenetrable. Still, the point is, the stuff is fantastic, and just the thing for skin that is battered by harsh winds outside and central heating inside. I vow I will apply twice daily from now on.... Advanced Night Repair Synchronised Recovery Complex 30ml £36
	FRESHLY MINTED Oh dear, it's embarrassing how predictable I am. As I sat down to enthuse you with the joys of Summerdown Pure Mint Tea, I suddenly remembered that at around this time last year I'd been extolling the benefits of my beloved Stomach-East Tea. I love the stomach ease as much as ever but, as you know, when it comes to the kitchen, I'm a more-is-more kind of a person. So, to the many tea cannisters already cluttering my kitchen surfaces and cupboards, is added my new favourite brew, sweetly minty and - given the excesses of the recently celebrated season - appropriately soothing. When the need arises, I ramp up its comforting properties by adding a spoonful of manuka honey (and see Loves Archive) to create an indulgent but still virtuous hot drink - like a mint humbug in liquid form. You can buy it online from FineFayre or from RealFoodDirec t for £2.95 for 1 carton or £5.00 for 2 cartons.
	CHOCS AWAY I know I chose some chocolate for ‘loves’ last week, but come on, it is Christmas, after all. And this is the time I always delude myself that come the new year, I will lead a life of purity and restraint, and so I must get as much in under the wire now. So, the next three days, I will be sofa-bound and revelling in the gloriousness of my mega-jar of Quality Street. It is a hallowed tradition and must be duly honoured.
	SEASON'S EATINGS I often feel guilty because I write about some major enthusiasm that my transatlantic friends can’t share. This time, only those on American soil, I’m afraid, can join my passion-party. And the passion is a deep one – for minty, Christmas-candy-studded chocolate. My Christmas just wouldn’t be complete without a tin (or two) of Williams-Sonoma Peppermint Bark. I love the tin, I love what’s in it even more….. Buy it online from WILLIAM-SONOMA for $26.50.
	EYE-EYE I am shamefully lazy when it comes to daily beauty regimes (and much else besides) and have managed to pare my make-up down to the absolute minimum. But you already know about my ever-optimistic mascara-mania. Of course, I’ve got a new one I’m mad about! It’s a strange, two-ended thing: at one end, a wand to dispense some conditioning serum; at the other, one for fabulous lash-bolstering inky black mascara. This put me off initially: why would I want to double the time it took me to put on mascara? But in the end it doesn’t, because the first layer (a tippex white, which gives one a bit of a Tilda Swinton interim look) means you need to put on less of the second. And I’m liking the feathery long-lashed look it gives a lot! Available to buy nationwide in the UK from L'Oreal concessions, RRP £10.99. Or buy it online from BOOTS. Buy it in the US from Walgreens, for $24.99.
	'TIS THE SEASON I am a great believer in ritual at this time of year, and love bringing out old tree decorations year after year. But I think a little Christmas present to oneself in the form of a new little something to hang from the tree is also permissible. I bought some of these gorgeous, red and white, painted wood decorations last year, and not only hung them from my tree, but also decorated the table with them at Christmas lunch. I’ve just bought some more, and am planning to use them to adorn some jars of homemade chutney to give away as presents. This saves me from hideous wrapping duties: simply tie on with string or ribbon for easeful seasonal charm. Buy it online from ChristmasTimeUK, £7.99 for a pack of 12.
	DEAR DIARY I know you’re not supposed to wish your life away; my teenage years were spent with people telling me that. And yes, as I get older I do see how important it is to live in the present. But still, sometimes you just have to plan ahead. By this time of year, I just have to have next year’s diary brought into play, and this is my second year running of complete conversion to the Moleskine Pocket Weekly Diary (which comes as part of a ‘twinset’ with a fabulously useful little notebook). I love my iPhone, and enjoy playing with its calendar function, but I need a proper, low-tech, old-school diary in my bag or I can’t cope. Buy your diary online in the US from MOLESKINEUS and in the UK from MojoLondon.