My friend died last week.

And it's hard to think of much else.

I’m starting this as a draft on Sunday while my kid is out with a friend. I’m writing to get the thoughts out of my head and I’m so desperate to tell the world about my amazing friend and how much the world has lost.

I’ve found it difficult to work since I heard on Thursday morning. I cancelled a bunch of things. Only did what was urgent. The world has already been so heavy with tragedy, and this just made it weigh even more.

But I have a kid and I can’t wallow without explaining, and I am not ready to tell her yet.

So, we went out to busy ourselves over the weekend. And I pretended.

Pretending everything is fine is tiring, but easier than grieving in public.

I am going to tell you about what we did over the weekend because we ate delicious things and fundamentally that’s what you’re here for, right?

But I hope you’ll let me celebrate my friend for a moment first.

That’s Zoe in the gold on the left. Taken after an Academy of Chocolate Awards evening. (Photo courtesy of Hazel Lee)

Zoe Perrett was the first to celebrate other people. God, writing her name in that sentence makes it all real again. I’ve been in denial most of the past two days - as I now edit this and write more on Tuesday evening - hiding in tasks, to pretend it isn’t true.

Zoe was especially great at celebrating people making delicious food. She had two blogs in the early days of blogging - one on Indian food and the other on chocolate - and was a freelance writer, editor and connector and then became the editor of food and travel magazine, Good Things, for several years. After the magazine closed she launched a street food business in Leeds - Slap & Pickle - very Zoe - with her boyfriend, seven years ago, that expanded beyond Leeds and is still going strong. She was living back in London properly a year ago, just after her dad passed away, and we started to hang out properly again.

The news blindsided me.

As well a being brilliant on food knowledge and descriptions, Zoe was the kindest and most generous person. She gave without ever wondering what she might get back. She was completely nonjudgmental and accepting. She had friends of all ages and all walks of life. She was ever curious, never intrusive, and the epitome of “strong opinions, loosely held”. She always considered other people and what they might want. She was so intelligent and such a deep thinker, as well as always being up for fun. I loved my conversations and my adventures with her.

I thought we’d have so many more.

We’re bringing back Chocolate Week again this year and as an early supporter of craft chocolate it feels fitting that we will honour her memory there. But she really should just be there. 💔

I wish I’d celebrated her even more while she was still here.

In that spirit, I’ll keep on celebrating people here, who are still here to hear it:

The brilliant duo Isobel & Karen behind Dormouse Chocolates are celebrating 10 years in business. They loved and were loved by Zoe, too.

My brilliant friend Miranda who did the bulk of the organising of produce side of the excellent new weekly Leyton KERB Market that launched on Saturday. It went so well and nearly all of the traders sold out at the end of the market.

It was such a buzz. I hope you can make it one week. Next week Butter will be there with viennoiserie, instead of Liv’s Baked Goodies.

Each week will have new businesses popping up. If you’d like to be one of those business please drop me a message and I’m happy to make an introduction.

We bought a savoury galette and savoury muffin from Liv’s Baked Goodies, chilli oil and a top up of Kimchi Seasoning that I’ve written about before from The Korean Pantry (they were gifted then but I bought them this time), and an excellent cookie from Land Chocolate. Even though I had intense afternoon plans…

I went to Cake Picnic.

It’s even better than it sounds.

thenextdeliciousthing

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Elisa (@saltedrye) lives in San Francisco and organised a cake picnic in spring 2024. It became a phenomenon and now it’s travelling the world with London as the first international stop. And on her birthday!

The morning session included cakes from

Nicola Lamb

,

Phil Khoury

,

Sophie Bamford

,

Benjamina Ebuehi

and

Lily

Vanilli. 🤯

I joined the afternoon session and quite a few of the cakes were made by people running home bakery businesses, including Polly Chan. I’m hoping that Polly and others will pop up at the Leyton market.

There were 234 cakes on the tables.

That is not a typo.

I was sat with Polly, Sophie, Benjamina, Martha Collison, Liberty Mendez & Felicity Spector (plus Michael, Kenny & Maya) and between us I think we probably had bites of at least 35 cakes. More? It boggles my mind to think that there were more I didn’t try.

If you like the sound of this kind of thing then check out Band of Bakers in South East London or become a paid subscriber here and you can join our summer picnic on Saturday 2nd August (totally ok to just join for one month, if you want to). ☺️

If you know of any other similar groups anywhere in the world that meet like this please put the name and city in the comments!

Thane Prince

used to host the potluck Cook Book Club in Islington and it was a lot of fun and delicious. It was regularly attended by writers and cooks like

Debora Robertson 🦀

and

Catherine Phipps

and it’s also where I met Kate Young, Olivia Potts and Tarunima Sinha (it’s been so wonderful watching all of their successes - and the success of Debora and Catherine on Substack!).

There were so many other lovely and brilliant people, too. If there isn’t a group near you but you’d like to start one, please feel free to put that in the comments (make sure to mention your town or city), and we will see what we can do to spread the word. I feel like we need community of all kinds right now.

I had planned to bring two cakes to the picnic - both from

Georgina Hayden

’s excellent Nistisima (Bookshop.org) - because I was bringing Maya and the rule was a cake per person, but this is what happened to the second cake:

Watch when using a mini air-fryer oven, folks.

Especially if your mind is distracted by grief.

(I scraped that batter off and let it keep baking and my husband is still eating it now.)

One more thing to celebrate today and one more thing to let you know about because, well, if I can keep writing when there are wars raging, then I can keep writing now:

The lovely folks at Happy Pear have their products on Ocado now.

The black olive tapenade is particularly good and on sale now. All the dips are great. They are launching in the US as well! And have plans for Australia and beyond.

I cannot wait to visit their cafe in August. Will I go in the sea? We’ll see.

If you have recommendations for Ireland / Northern Ireland or for Edinburgh for me for this weekend, please let me know. 🙏🏻

And finally, there’s a fundraiser this Saturday for Palestine.

cookforpalestine

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I don’t think the TNDT subscriber picnic on Saturday 2nd August will be quite as intense as the cake picnic, but wouldn’t it be fun to do a (obviously smaller!) savoury and sweet version of it?

If you’d like to join us you can sign up for a year or a month here to be included:

Zoe was supposed to be there. We will break a bar of chocolate in her honour.

Tell the people you love how much you care, ok? Please.

Sending love,

Jen xx

P.S. In case you missed it last week, the reader discount on the bundle of 3 London maps is still usable until the end of today. JEN2025 at jenniferearle.com/shop