Fay Maschler's week in food, from Buchinger Wilhelmi to Kahani

Quinoa soufflé, tomatoes with aubergine caviar and courgette foam — one of the meals carefully created to ease us back to eating after a 10-day fast at Buchinger Wilhelmi on Lake Constance in southern Germany.

The Buchinger picnic for the plane journey includes rice salad with grains outnumbered by chopped salad vegetables. The low-fat yoghurt and juice are confiscated by security but an apple is allowed through.

Home and free to eat anything, Beth and I soberly make a rather delicious mushroom omelette cooked in olive oil. And drink sparkling water.

Meeting two of my naughtiest woman chums for dinner at Soho’s L’Escargot, I hugely enjoy chef James Tyrrell’s profound lobster bisque.

Another posh Indian is former Tamarind chef Peter Joseph’s Kahani near Sloane Square. Dinner finishes with a Stonehenge of kulfis featuring salted caramel, rose malai and pistachio cardamom.