Grace Dent

“Sometimes you only realise how far you've travelled when you turn around and see the distance behind.”

“I love the Tower of London, but it is not a feel-good day out - unlike time spent eating beef biang biang or slurping a bean thread noodle and seaweed soup.”

“The simple reason buffets light up a room is this: you are providing guests with a tiny dopamine shot from a point in life they were happiest; running into a brilliant birthday party aged five; their granny's Boxing Day open house; the best Eid get-together of their teen years.”

“Food fads are the bane of the critic's life because you're served the same thing again and again.”

“What we eat at home, behind closed doors, is personal. Our secret snacky peccadilloes do not bear scrutiny.”

“In 2017, I did the Christmas big shop on 23 December. Six people, eating for four days, done in under 55 minutes, with two trolleys, in an almost-closing Sainsbury's in Penrith.”

“Whatever late December means to you, it should be a time of twinkly lights, nourishing love and minor indigestion.”

“I speak for large swathes of the Great British Antisocial Public who just want to be left alone.”

“I'm just a woman who carries oat milk in my handbag, can tell you 10 good ways to scramble tofu and whose favourite primo in many fancy Italian restaurants is two or three contorni wedged together.”

“I already give cash to good causes at least once a week via the plethora of my friends' mid-life crises masquerading as 'charity work' - treks, cycle rides and marathons.”

“Eating plant-based makes really no impact on my career as a restaurant critic. I see this as my special skill as a critic, not a hindrance.”

“I am admittedly eccentric and very silly and I laugh all day and it makes me laugh that people think that I'm going to turn up in a restaurant like Darth Vader.”

“Don't insist on involving your fellow diners in a social media brag. If your guest doesn't want to be snapped mid-gorge then respect that fact.”

“I've realised that, from your mid-40s, everything you eat and drink shows in your face.”

“Silver linings have been fairly thin on the ground during Covid-19, but the right to wear elasticated-waist nightwear in daytime - livening it up with a jaunty scarf during Zoom calls to fool colleagues that you're dressed - well, at least there was that.”

“Prayer, for centuries, has only ever been a way to make humans beings sit still, take stock of the human condition and hopefully try to do things a bit better.”

“Whatever the initial challenges were of getting a show like 'Transparent' into production, its success has been triumphant.”

“Well, I never went for posh meals when I was little.”

“Some foodie types are snobbish about the microwave; I see it as a loyal friend who has had my back for over 30 years.”

“The solid, irrefutable truth is that money will make all daily minutiae of life much, much easier and that's why Boris Johnson and thousands of his wage bracket guard their status like lions and always, always need just a bit more.”