Readers, I have a phrase to cancel. You’d say it to a friend who has just had a baby or a bereavement, a pal in the middle of wedding chaos or chemotherapy. Your friend tells you their news, and after suitable congratulations or commiserations you say: “Let me know if I can help.” Or the close cousin: “Anything I can do?” It’s well-meant, but meaningless. You probably do want to help – but your friend is most likely not going to follow up. Because you’ve put the burden on them to ask you, and if they’re anything like me, it’s excruciating to ask people for practical help.

So what’s the best thing you can do? As readers of this newsletter, you know what I’m going to say. Turn up with food – or books, or a useful gift. And then be prepared to leave it on the doorstep, or hand it over and scuttle. When I was a newborn, my mum’s female friends would unobtrusively bring over meals, clear the dishwasher and tidy up before leaving. (One friend, Chris, provided her daughter’s sturdy lemon-yellow plastic baby bath for me, and some 30-plus years later, my daughters had their first baths in it, too.)

If you haven’t got a spare multigenerational bathtub to hand, the most useful thing you can take to a friend is dinner. In which case, I’d recommend something like Yotam Ottolenghi’s classic butter beans with preserved lemon, chilli and herb oil, which tastes even better once it’s marinated in the fridge overnight. (Don’t tell Yotam, but I usually skip the grated tomato bit.) I’ve taken this one over to under-the-weather pals, and because I was feeling extra, I made a batch of Kitty Travers’ papaya and chilli sorbet to go with – the recipe is in her excellent La Grotta Ices book, but if you’ve got both a decent freezer box and blocks, you can find three of her no-churn ice-cream recipes here. I am now desperate to make the raspberry and fig leaf spumone, and the espresso and almond granita.

For other delightful hot-weather coolers, a flask of Ravinder Bhogal’s chilled pea, green curry and Thai basil soup (pictured above) or a peanut furikake-topped cold tomato and curry leaf rasam (my absolute favourite) would go down extremely well. I had both my children in winter, but these soups look marvellously refreshing for a new mother – or a veteran one of three-and-a-half years.

On the baby theme, everyone knows that new mothers need snacks to keep their energy up, and if you get an unexpectedly cool day (rain – hurrah!) then you can get your bake on. That said, I’m not sure I can wait for my next pal to have a baby – or indeed for the weather to cool down – before making these passion fruit jaffa cakes by Benjamina Ebuehi. For both breastfeeding mothers or friends going into hospital, Yasmin Khan’s nutrient-rich apricot, pistachio and tahini bars would be the perfect edible gift. I took a batch of my chocolate chip cookies to my best friend in hospital post-birth, but I’m not going to argue with Felicity Cloake’s classic chocolate chip cookies.

And for a dinner that ticks all the boxes for breast cancer patients, this recipe for tofu, broccoli and kimchi rice bowls with cashews would make an excellent meal – protein, lignans, cruciferous vegetables, probiotics. Most importantly, it’s delicious – I make variations on it every couple of weeks. For other useful hospital/pre-surgery tips, I wrote a hopefully all-purpose guide on my Substack, if helpful for you or someone you know.

If you’re going through a fair bit yourself but still want to help a friend out, a bit of clever shopping will see you through. You could send a Riverford or Panzers box as a gift, or for something more unusual, my favourite fruit and veg shop, Bora & Sons, have branched into tropical fruit boxes – Tropibox – which look excellent. Or go old-school with a Fortnum & Mason delivery – mug off the pre-prepared hampers in favour of a block of truffled cheddar, some cheese sable biscuits and a nice bottle of red.

Late-night cooking | Do you think £13 is too steep for a salad? The Guardian sent me on a mission to recreate Pret a Manger’s miso salmon salad, which had me squinting at the ingredients listed on the packet at 9.30pm. (Gotta love a working mother’s office hours.) By 11.30pm, I had the dish – and you can read all about it here.

What I read | I was blown away by Yasmin Khan’s Sabzi, which got me out of a real cooking rut last week. It’s packed with beautiful vegetarian and vegan recipes – all full of flavour and colour. We’ve upped our breakfast game thanks to the first chapter, and you feel inspired just flicking through it.

Muffin tops expectations | Was the cafe at the Royal Academy always this good? I took the girls to see the summer exhibition last week, and was seriously impressed by the mushroom quiche and the chickpea, sweet potato and broccoli salad. Museum cafes have taught me that chocolate muffins are uniformly dreadful. But it’s hard to dissuade a three-and-a-half-year-old who has her heart set on one, and, since she agreed to share, I’m delighted to report that it was stunning – as good as the one I make, with a proper melting chocolate centre. The raspberry pistachio cake is also excellent.

Not cool | Dear Snickers, I used to love your ice-cream bars. On occasion, I’d even eat one with a knife and fork. But I bought a box for the first time in about 10 years and WTF? They seem to be half the size they used to be. How can they shrink in size yet increase in price? Please advise, at your earliest convenience. Yours truly, Baffled Eater of south London.

Lapin, Bristol | ​“This is a menu that could thaw the iciest of hearts,” says Grace of Lapin – a “peculiar, meta, slightly earnest, definitely delicious French restaurant that you would never, ever find in France”. With a menu serving “chunky asparagus with sauce gribiche and beurre noisette”, “fluffily light, but rich-with-gruyère souffle Suissesse” and “gnocchi Parisienne … plump, fluffy, choux pastry parcels in a stew of braised courgette, mint and creme fraiche”, it’s a restaurant that Grace notes is still finding its feet, but one that Bristol can already count itself lucky to have. Read the full review.