It's never too early to start stocking up on bottles for the festive meal, especially when there are so many bargains to be had right now

I've never been a great one for forward planning – my Christmas shopping usually starts around 20 December – but sorting out your Christmas drinking now is a good move because retailers are in full swing with seasonal wine offers. The odd thing is how many of them are French. France may have slipped to fourth spot in terms of numbers of bottles sold (behind Australia, the US and Italy), but we still seem to revert to the classics at Christmas, feeling compelled to serve up châteauneuf, chablis and bordeaux when we might actually prefer an Aussie shiraz.

Brussels sprouts get a bad press, but cooked properly, they're a revelation – honest

I am quite aware that for some of you this is going to be a tough sell, but please hear me out. This week, you see, I'm spouting about sprouts in an effort to convince the wary that brussels sprouts aren't just for Christmas, they're for life – or at least for that cold and frosty bit of life that runs between late autumn and early spring.

To those who love it blue cheese is the apotheosis of a technique that encapsulates civilised food production. Surely there's no finer expression of the form than stilton?

Cheese would defy time. Its purpose is to extend the natural life of milk, to insulate itself from the things that spoil it. The press, the salt and the rind seal in the goodness and stave off decay. I was in the Jura mountains a couple of weeks ago, where hoary folk still make hard gruyère to last the bitter winters.

After an upsetting childhood experience, Jeremy Lee of the Blueprint Café could never find unalloyed joy in British bangers. Is there a sausage which might restore his faith?

Ah, the British banger. Growing up with sausages that gave my brother and me severe headaches means I still struggle to enjoy the things today. On occasion my parents cooked that shame of convenience, mini skinless sausages. My brother and I, in a rare moment of bonding, wept at the prospect of eating these abominations, both craving a proper sausage. We were ignored until a radio programme exposed the hideous reality that some cheap sausages were pumped so full of unsavoury preservatives and additives they were likely to upset your stomach and give you a headache. Our parents saw the light; we never saw the dreadful wee things again.