Twelve rocks lounge on polystyrene plates. I untether then slip their silky flesh, which doesn’t want to yield at first. As I sip their cool saline reservoir like a shot, I hardly notice that my chair perilously tips away from the counter (writes Douglas Blyde). Harvested from nearby Leucate, north of Perpignan, their ripe cucumber scented, iodine freshness mingles well with an almost translucent calcium dry white from Roussillon’s searing vineyards.

On a recent bleak and rain-lashed evening, a crowd gathered in a sodden orchard in Somerset, UK (writes Amy Laughinghouse). It was January the 17th, dubbed “Blue Monday” by psychologists, who have determined that the third Monday of January is the most depressing day of the year. The jaw-dropping Christmas debts have come due, the days are damp, cold and dark, and it’s ages until the first Bank Holiday weekend.

Far from the formality of Spain’s leading Michelin-starred chefs, Arzak and Adrià, Logroño’s Calle Laurel provides an inexpensive, accessible culinary adventure (writes Douglas Blyde).