Don't waste the flesh of your pumpkins this Halloween. Chop the flesh into chunks along with onions and carrots cut to the same size. Add some crushed garlic, salt and pepper and a few sage leaves. Splash a little olive oil over and mix well before roasting in a hot oven for about 30/40 minutes until soft but not charred. Use to make Roasted Pumpkin Soup or a delicious and colourful Roasted Squash and Blue Cheese Pizza.

We don't want you all to know about this pub because it's busy enough as it is but we just had a tasty and great value home made lunch here, two courses for £5.70. The bill for four was under thirty pounds - including four drinks from a selection of guest and house ales. We had plaice and chips, chicken veronique (a bit like chicken supreme with grapes, but we didn't find any grapes in ours...) peach mousse with Archers, and bread pudding. There was a dish of fresh veg each; a choice of mashed, chipped or sauted potatoes, and custard or cream on the puddings. When the puddings ran out they put on new ones - hot chocolate pudding or whisky and raspberry trifle. This is how to fill up a pub or restaurant - very friendly staff welcoming lots of older local people who were brought up on this kind of home-made food and who know how good it is.

The sun was full out for this and so were the hot sauce and chutney sellers - rather too many for one festival. But local bands and good fast food, we had hot fried mackerel sandwiches. Remind me to look for an airstream on e bay for suffolk foodie.

This tea room won Suffolk magazine's Food and Drink Award last year for best tea or coffee shop, and I always wondered what that big teapot sign led to - we really liked the lemon cake.

Lunch with Sarah at West Suffolk College's Zest restaurant, one of the best value meals in Bury and a chance to contribute to the experience of young people training to be in the restaurant business. I had nice lamb hot pot with some far too vinegary red cabbage (I told them) and then Key Lime Pie.  Sarah had veg option which escapes me now. Abundance of service from students and both meals lovely - under £12 for two .

Lunch with two American student backpackers who are staying with me for two days, after showing them round the Abbey Gardens. Went to the Cathedral Crypt restaurant as it had to cheap and more or less English. Sure enough - Liver and Bacon - but not hungry enough today.  Had really nice Root Vegetable soup that came with bread (£2.95) and they had Bacon Rolls (£2.75) as well, although the Americans didn't seem to know what a bacon roll was. We shared a lovely Gooseberry Crumble Tart (£2.95) with custard, but I can't understand why it has to be a crumble on top of a tart. One or the other would be fine wouldn't it?

Here it is - my brunch from yesterday at that little cafe in Elmswell -where Goodfellows butchers used to be next to Mace.  Is it called Bumbles? I met my sister for a coffee.  They do good cappucino and my flat white (I have to tell them what to do - no one in Suffolk knows what that is yet ...) was good too. I had this Welsh Rarebit which tasted much nicer than the picture looks, because the Worcester sauce has made it go a bit brown. My other sister once told me a fab recipe for Welsh Rarebit  -  grated cheddar and a large spoonful of mayo - under the grill. Browns and bubbles up really nicely. I think they do hot lunches here too because a very friendly couple were having casserole and mashed potatoes at another table.  Now I see the picture it reminds me - I wish they would get rid of that horrible plastic Christmas table cloth!

Nothing to write about in Suffolk because I haven't been out.  Went to London and had lunch in Wahaca - the Mexican Market Eating restaurant of the only female Masterchef winner (so far) www.wahaca.co.uk. Lots of hot sauce, tortillas, meat and fresh salad - very quick, very nice and very cheap - with simple delicious drinks like home made lime squash. £36 for four of us.  Suffolk still has a long way to go.

Been to see two plays in one day as part of the Halesworth HighTide festival; this theatre being one of our favourite venues in Suffolk for comedy, particularly when it's escaped unnoticed into a serious script. The food has always looked good here and I love the randomness of it, watching the cream being whipped for a raspberry cheesecake on the bar next to you while you wait for a glass of wine - everyone seems to volunteer here.  I had pork, cashew and apricot terrine that came with three salads for £6 - new potato salad, cous cous and red cabbage coleslaw, topped with a bunch of watercress.  It was delicious, fresh and tasty, and exactly what I wanted at 6.30pm between the plays. I could eat like this every day. By the time we got to the interval the cheesecake was ready and it was one of the best I have ever had out - anywhere.  www.newcut.org