Hot-weather recipes that break a sweat

I’m writing this in what is sometimes described as “ice-cream weather”, as if there were any wrong time of the year to eat the stuff. We’re four days into a heatwave that has had most of south-east England cock-a-hoop, and me booking trains north to more clement conditions. By the time you read this, the dog and I should be in Edinburgh, where it’s currently 13 degrees cooler than it is in London, yet still very much ice-cream weather. (Happily, there’s almost too much good stuff to choose from up there, which may be why it’s one of my favourite cities; I’ll definitely be paying Mary’s Milk Bar a visit, hoping they still have their fig leaf and lemon curd special to make the festival queues worthwhile, but I also plan to get to Joelato and S Luca in Bruntsfield and, well, let’s just say it will be a busy week.)

If the weather holds until I get home, I might even dig out the ice-cream maker – my fig tree has gone wild this year, taking over much of my tiny garden with its hopelessly evocative scent, though no doubt it’s still less impressive than the one that inspired Nigel Slater’s glorious-sounding fig leaf and kefir ice (pictured top). Sticking with seasonal produce, I wouldn’t even need to go scrabbling around in the shed to make Rachel Roddy’s gorgeously pink plum granita or Giorgio Locatelli’s blackberry ice-cream – the only equipment required for those is a freezerproof dish and a fork.

Even with having a book to write and all that, I reckon I could carve out 45 minutes for Ravneet Gill’s falooda (milkshake; pictured top), flower flavours being one of my many other weaknesses.

Much as I might like to exist on dessert alone until September, other food groups can be equally refreshing. Gazpacho is the classic choice here, and something I almost always have in the fridge over the summer (though I confess I often buy it in cartons from Brindisa, rather than making my own). But I love the idea of Rose Elliot’s melon soup with feta, mint and cashew nuts, and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s cold beetroot version with soured cream. And, needless to say, Yotam Ottolenghi’s chilled buttermilk with hot fried chicken is also extremely tempting, which begs the question of when a cold soup becomes a salad.

So let me move swiftly on to that other summer standby: I like the look of Anna Jones’ cauliflower and yoghurt salad, Thomasina Miers’ watermelon and chorizo number, as well as her peach fattoush, and, for a weekend lunch, Nathan Outlaw’s crab and tomato with horseradish dressing.

And if it’s really too hot to do anything but rehydrate, there’s always Asma Khan’s nimbu pani, the reliably reviving sour and salty drink of the Indian subcontinent, or perhaps my very own piña colada. Strictly speaking, that’s not ice-cream, though – it just tastes like it.

Puff piece | As someone more interested in patisserie than pole vaulting, this croissant map of Paris, based on meticulously detailed spreadsheets, makes me think that now might be the time to pay Paris a visit, before it gets crowded again for the Paralympics.

In a crunch | Though I often make my own granola, I enjoyed a bag of Jemima’s Perfect Granola I splurged on recently – so much so that I sent the whole range to a friend with a newborn, since it’s easy to eat with one hand, while feeding the baby – or, indeed, while typing a Feast newsletter.

Provence-style | I was in Kent over the weekend, where the weather was perfect for the Provençe-style Simpson’s Railway Hill rosé that my brother produced from Broadstairs wine merchant the Bottleneck. Made from Canterbury pinot noir (that’s Canterbury in Kent, not New Zealand), it was delightfully refreshing, full of stalky, red currant and raspberry flavours, with just a hint of minerality. Gorgeous.

Ice-creamflation | While writing this article, I happened upon this piece from 1982, reminiscing about the Italian ice-cream men of Richard Kelly’s childhood: “Hygiene took a back seat, in the days before pasteurisation, yet strange to relate the population was not stricken by botulism, brucellosis or the Black Death. I have even seen a child go up and give the horse a lick and then carry on enjoying the rest” – and complaining of inflation hiking the price from “one penny” to 25p. They’re now £3.50 from the van I can hear from my desk. Yet another excuse to make my own.