Friendly vibe at J&A Cafe

I was in Italy when it happened. In fact, I nearly ended up staying there since it was almost impossible to get a flight home, at least on any British airline. (Thank heavens for Alitalia, which, remarkably, landed at Heathrow ahead of schedule.) Viewing the snowy white-out from the relative distance of Rome made me feel like a small child who'd slept through Christmas. For once my cynicism was suspended in lovely memories of growing up in Canada and helping my father shovel away barrel loads of the stuff before breakfast.

My Italian friends were as bemused as I was. Surely this could not be England? People were talking to each other. Frivolity was the order of the day. Snowmen appeared on our TV screens with greater regularity than Amanda Holden.

Of course, there was a downside, but what the paralysed transport systems illustrated more than anything was how nebulous the concept of globalisation is. We may be able to communicate with the rest of the world at the touch of a keyboard, but none of that matters if we can't feed ourselves. Flying in beans from Kenya is no earthly use if the plane can't land. Out-of-town supermarkets are a waste of time if you can't get the car out. It made me realise the importance of eating and shopping locally. So, bursting with eco-friendly intentions, I put on my sturdiest boots and we took a neighbour to the J & A Café.

This neighbour doesn't like snow. He is also the antithesis of eco-friendly. He likes fast cars and exclusive restaurants and wondered disappointedly why I'd brought him to such an unremarkable venue instead of somewhere flashy 'up West' (which he seems to think this column is all about).

Because we can't get there, I told him impatiently. And because there's more to life than wine cellars and Michelin stars.

Run by two enterprising young women, the J & A Café is hidden at the back of one those timeless, labyrinthine East London yards. Simple and unpretentious, the room has an old-fashioned warm and rustic feel. Brick walls; cream slatted ceiling; lots of natural light. There's a central refectory table on which sits a giant bowl of apples and lemons; smaller tables are dotted about. Vegetables of the day are displayed decoratively (it's a bit like walking into a still-life class). A big blackboard announces the specials. It's perhaps more Cambridge than Clerkenwell.

We started with spicy squash soup (try repeating that rapidly after a glass of wine) which arrived in a mini-cauldron. Resembling a bowl of steaming, sunshiny porridge, it was sweetly piquant and served with exceptionally good soda bread. My neighbour wanted to talk football, which I can just about cope with. We got into the transfer deadline.

But it was when he raised the possibility of David Beckham returning to the national squad that I quickly revised my intention to have an alcohol-free lunch and flagged down a waitress. As you'd expect, the wine list isn't extensive, but it is interesting. We selected a highly drinkable English white.

Every day there's a different homemade stew or pie. My chicken casserole was a meal-in-a-bowl dish - big chunks of meat crammed in with hunks of carrot and potato. It was like your mum would have made, and perfect fare for a cold winter's day.

Rather surprisingly, my friend opted for roasted vegetables with couscous (it took another glass of wine before he confessed his girlfriend had recently described him as 'lardy'). Weight not withstanding, it was a good choice - a pretty rainbow of a dish, accompanied by a fresh winter salad.