“How many of these cookies can I eat?” my older son texts (he is downstairs; I am up). “They’re really good.” My fingertips tingle with satisfaction.

Both boys are home from university briefly and I have a new identity: I’m an intermittent feeder. My husband and I don’t exactly eat like birds in our empty nest – well, I eat like one of those gulls that shoplifts Doritos – but we shop like middle-aged people trying not to die, our cupboards boring and barren, our freezer packed with pulse-based, batch-cooked dinners.

Come the........

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