Olive, March 2008

Website: www.olivemagazine.co.uk
Cost: £3.20
130 pages plus cover
Strapline: eat in, eat out, eat away

Recipes: where do I start? I counted 56 in the index...most of them mouthwatering, although I have to admit to not knowing what some of them were (Ravigote sauce, anyone?) There's even a handy booklet containing Olive's 30 best ever recipes, should you not find enough in the mag itself.

Favourite article: Easy does it (simple, laid-back brunch recipes). Though that might be because I've got a think about pancakes at the moment. The photo of the American pancakes with bacon is sheer food porn.

Billed as the "Cheapskate's guide to luxury eating", the March issue is focused on budget food. For you and me, that might mean Lidl or the Reduced to Clear section at Tesco, but for Olive it means cheap eats in Paris, New York and London, and menus for £5 a head. I'm not sure I'm Olive's target market, but hey, I can do aspirational with the best of them.

On the plus side, the recipes look gaspingly beautiful. In fact, the photography throughout is pretty fantastic, with some lovely montages in the travel section (the Paris one made me want to jump on a Eurostar immediately and never come back).

Have I actually made any of the recipes yet? Well, no. I will try some (the purple sprouting broccoli, chilli and feta tarts sound quite fun), although I will be giving the delightful Mr Ramsay's soused mackerel with cucumber salad a miss (I'm not great at remembering to prepare something 24 hours before I want to eat it, and the recipe was rather fiddly too). I did like the way that wines were recommended for each dish, although to be honest I'll probably ignore most of them as £5 is generally my limit for a bottle of wine.

Sadly, I think that's indicative of the fact that I'm not sure I'm rich enough to be a regular Olive reader. That's no reflection on the cover price, more on the fact that 13 pages on eating out (albeit budget eats) and 12 pages of 'foodie destinations' make it an aspirational read rather than a practical one. Yes, I'd love to zip off to New York for the weekend or pop out for supper on a regular basis, but I'm not sure it's going to happen any time soon.

Full marks to them for trying, but if this is a budget issue, I'd hate to see what a luxury one would look like.