When I hear the word homebrew, it’s impossible to forget my dad’s numerous failed attempts when I was a toddler to put our family name on the real ale map (I haven’t checked although there probably is one). One of his worst efforts turned our house into a battle zone with my mum chasing me out the front door after I knocked over a vat of his ‘finest’ gunk. The kitchen smelt like a John West tuna factory for a week.

So this was a chance for me to have a crack at it myself and I felt pretty damn cocky as I printed off the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s elderflower champagne recipe. But the first problem I had was locating some elderflowers. How hard could this be? Unfortunately, all the fields near me were completely elder-less so I was reduced to the less than dignified act of trying to sniff some out.

“Pssst. You got any elderflowers? Hey, hey, keep it quiet man…”
In the end I lucked out as my girlfriend’s mum came up trumps with a big bag of the beauties. I was on my way…

The trip to the hardware shop for equipment was a real experience. I’ve just hit the ripe old age of 31 and I wondered why I’d not spent a Sunday in this haven of delights before now. (Screw you Alton Towers, this is my retreat now.) I marvelled at the array of buckets, gasped at the selection of funnels and glass bottles, and fantasised about brewing up enough to give as gifts to all my friends. I relayed this to my girlfriend and she looked at me like I’d just slapped an orphan. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself.

My only hope for the champers was that it would be drinkable. Not tasty. Not even memorable. Just bog standard drinkable. There’s a certain rustic charm to making any food or drink from scratch and the frustrated caveman within me certainly came to the fore as I lashed hot water into the bucket and aggressively mixed it up with the sugar. That animal feeling pretty much evaporated as I scraped the zest of lemon into the mix and tossed the flower-heads around like a culinary version of Morrissey.

I had forgotten to buy any muslin so an old tea towel was used to cover the mix. This brought on a wave of anxiety as my sensible side told me I was already flirting with failure by not following the rulebook. But I was caring enough to check on my baby and add some yeast when it looked exactly the same two days later. When the time came to sieve and decant into the bottles there was a strong but not unpleasant fruity-chemical odour emanating from the bucket, like a packet of Starbursts doused in Lynx Java.

To prevent any explosive ‘incidents’ as experienced by some users of this site, I carefully carried the bottles to my garage, handling them as if they were grenades. Whilst doing this I loudly whistled a happy tune to diffuse any of my on-looking neighbours’ fears that I may actually be a terrorist. Then came the waiting game…

A week is a long time to wait for a drink, especially one you’ve brewed yourself. Despite still having a suspiciously murky green colour to it, the brew smelt and tasted OK – very tangy, sweet and quite thick for a Champagne, but definitely drinkable. Hurrah! Job done! I’ve given a couple of bottles to friends who’ve seemed less than grateful so far, but for a first effort it’s not half bad.

So, I’m off to neck a bottle in the car park – who’s with me?

Try Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s elderflower champagne recipe for yourself.

View Sam’s step by step guide to making elderflower Champagne.

a) The toilets and
b) The food.

Part A is really not a suitable topic for this site, or indeed any website (or any conversation) but Part B is one of the great parts of Glastonbury for me.

Whereas most festivals years ago were content to wheel a few battered old burger vans in for the weekend, with the more cosmopolitan amongst us queuing for hours at the oh-so- extravagant noodle truck, these days they’re much better equipped for the gourmet festival goer.

Glastonbury is better than most, with tastes from around the world on offer and all to a pretty high standard. I was pleasantly surprised at the wooden (and biodegradable, Earth-fans) cutlery which makes eating any meal a whole lot easier that using your fingers, caveman-style.

But that’s not to say there isn’t an incident or two along the way. One of my most desperate moments as an adult was in 2005 when an overnight deluge of rain had transformed the whole site into a mud bath not seen since The Battle of The Somme. As we trudged past the floating Portaloos, and the girl paddling away in a canoe (what kind of determined pessimist brings a canoe to a festival?!?), the skies opened again so we took shelter in the nearest bar. Half the punters in the South West also had the same idea so it was a little cramped to say the least as I ordered my breakfast baguette.

As the roof leaked rainwater down the back of my neck I found my usual chirpy demeanour being compromised by the foolhardy decision from the staff to include not only sausage and bacon in my open bread roll, but also a runny egg, sloppy mushrooms, and baked beans. Baked beans! In a sandwich!

I was hungry, wet, and half-cut from the night before so my anger subsided as I tried to eat this puzzling creation, moving the pieces around like some savoury Rubik’s Cube. First my friends, and then the wider public began to take an unnatural interest in my plight, as schadenfreude kicked in and everyone found a victim worse off than themselves.

As the wet sausage plopped out of the baguette and into my crotch, log-flume style, I wished I’d brought my own butties.

My dad has never been bothered with Father’s Day. Is any father? I love my dad but it definitely takes a back seat to Mother’s Day and even comes beneath the, quite frankly meaningless, Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race on my List of Important Events.

I used to get my old man a Yorkie and a four pack of John Smith’s, which always led to an embarrassing exchange of firm handshakes in the hallway and an agreement that; ‘It’s all a load of commercial shite this. But thanks anyway son,’ as he cracked open the first can before I could even shut the front door.

He was certainly much happier with this than when I insisted on taking him out for a ‘proper meal’ last year which, due to his obdurate eating habits, was a speedy lasagne in the mighty Wetherspoon’s round the corner.

I like Wetherspoon’s. Our local establishment banned smoking long before the 2007 ban, didn’t play music and frowned upon swearing. Despite this making it sound more like a funky library than a boozer, it still attracted the same salt-of-the-earth punters as before.

As my father and I placed our order and sat down for the worryingly short wait for our food to arrive, we looked around at the sea of characters surrounding us. I felt like I was in the bar on Star Wars. The food was plopped down onto our crumb-ridden table and I overheard one old geezer ask his mate how his cyst was. Lovely.

I had dinner with my folks last week and foolishly suggested I take him out again this year. My dad almost choked on his credit-crunch special corned beef bourguignon.

Read more Father’s Day memories

Show us your foodie ideas to tell dad you love him

I love weddings. The dressing up, the all-day drinking, the bitchy comments about the bridesmaids… I love it all. I seem to be reaching a point in my life now where I’ve got stag nights and weddings coming out of my ears and it’s depressing. This is amplified when close friends talk about this truly magical wedding day experience of theirs when all I have in comparison is a front row seat at a Prodigy gig in 1998.

I was in Sorrento, Italy recently for a friend’s wedding and couldn’t help notice the difference attitudes that the Italians had at the reception.

Even towards the end of the night the men were all still immaculately dressed and, despite a concerted effort, I couldn’t find one male with his tie wrapped round his inebriated forehead. That was probably a result of the guys sipping espressos instead of Carlsberg, and all greeting the groom with a delightfully camp wave rather than a string of ‘friendly’ obscenities.

When the buffet was opened there was none of the January-sales-style-borderline-queue-violence-hysterics that you get at most British weddings. (I use the word ‘buffet’ with some reluctance as it’s a word that dredges up soiled memories of crusty vol-au-vonts and hairy sandwiches. There isn’t a more depressing situation than arguing with an angry pensioner over the last chicken leg. And losing.)

Nor was there the wanton desire to tactically pile high the food like some horrifically edible Jenga tower, for fear of others taking the spoils.

“This second plate’s for our Julie,” when we all know Julie went home an hour ago.

Instead these Italian revellers swaggered past the mountains of gnocchi and picked and poked their way through a sensible amount of the beautiful food on offer. Even this couldn’t stop my inherent British buffet-greed from coming to the surface as I smuggled pasta underneath strategically placed bread, retiring to a safe corner of the room to scoff my winnings.

Just goes to prove, you can take the boy out of Britain, but you can’t stop him from being a greedy pig.

Get prepped for the season of meringues and wedding cake. Read up on when wedding proposals in restaurants go wrong and DIY wedding buffets for the credit crunching bride.

I saw a sign in Pizza Hut this week saying, ‘Mother’s Day bookings now being taken’. Hardly the best way to show the person responsible for your very existence your appreciation is it? With a deep pan Meat Feast and an all-you-can-eat salad bar? (Actually, they do a nice salad bar in there, but still…)

This reminded me of perhaps the only time I’ve ever made a fuss of my dear old mum at this time of year, because as she always says, ‘Every day should be Mother’s Day’. (In theory I agree, but surely with nation-wide obesity on the rise, the last thing we need is a daily fix of Chocolate Oranges.)

I intended to take my mum out years ago and had booked this fancy restaurant in a nearby village that everyone was raving about. “Ooh, the black pudding is to die for!” one friend had boldly claimed, which I always thought was an unusual expression, as I’d never heard about anyone giving up their life for a dish consisting of mainly blood. (And surely the story of the Black Pudding Martyrs would be an important part of the curriculum?)

So the table was booked long in advance, with flowers and all the trimmings awaiting our arrival. As we drove across the country roads towards this haven of delights that awaited us, I felt that just for once, I was the son my mother had always wanted.

Then we saw the massive ‘CLOSED DOWN AWAITING INSPECTION’ sign that popped up on the horizon, and the day was ruined.

Disappointment kicked in first, followed by some rather choice language from my (increasingly less) dear old mother. We tried in vain to find somewhere else to salvage the afternoon but it was impossible, and I didn’t help matters by magically recreating that special feeling of panic normally reserved by men for Christmas Eve in the John Lewis perfume department.

Still, we were out, we were hungry, and suddenly The Colonel was calling. A KFC drive-through was the furthest thing from our minds earlier that Sunday afternoon, but as we scoffed our way through a family bucket (what better way to bond?) in my battle-weary Fiesta, I looked around the car park and saw we weren’t the only ones in this predicament.

Proof that Mother’s Day can be finger-lickin’ good.

Not keen on the restaurant route? Bake your mum a cake

As an adult I’ve always felt pressured to make an effort for Valentine’s Day meals, but as a fresh-faced 18 year old I wasn’t so fussy. Whereas some folk say it with flowers, I was more likely to say it with flour.

At the time I was plying my trade in a distinctly second-rate heavy metal band (not a good start) and on 14th February 1997 we were off to London’s LA2 to play at the romantically titled ‘St Valentines Day Massacre’ sponsored by the equally charming music mag Metal Hammer.

I was 18, bubbling full of hormones and this was my chance to impress my first ‘proper’ girlfriend with a morning Valentine’s gesture that only Shelley and Keats would truly understand. (I’d had a girlfriend the year before but we’d severed ties after she refused to let me use the chocolate body paint she’d bought as a Valentines gift. I ended up eating it on toast on my own like Nutella – how erotic.)

As we were leaving for the Big Smoke at 9am, I hastily arranged a romantic Valentine’s breakfast for my loved one and I… at Little Chef for an hour before. Yes, this quintessential British roadside institution was to be our very own Paris…

The conversation was excited, the food was greasy, and the damp condensation dripped off the window onto my jumper. There was a slightly older couple on the table next to us with the strongest Scouse accents in the world. Their declarations of love for each other showered us in saliva and bits of chewed food and it was only the laminated menus that kept our food safe.

But I thank you Little Chef, for that perfect Valentine’s Day full English with extra bacon and a side order of French toast. The coffee was good too. We split up a week later…

Peruse more Valentine’s tips, techniques and recipes on 4Food.