I’ve kept pickled chillies for two years and they were great. Chutneys are fine for six months, or more if you keep them somewhere cool.. Some top turkey suppliers have already stopped taking orders, but Swaddles Organic is talking turkey until 13 December – though only some sizes remain. The pioneering Swaddles Green Farm, set up 15 years ago to rear and deliver meat (and more), has organically reared bronze turkeys for £9.50 a kilo. It has meaty and veggie ready meals and casseroles such as lamb shanks in red wine with rosemary and plums. Good children’s meals, too, all sent frozen to stash in the freezer to tide families over Yuletide. There’s also an organic vegetable box, £10, and more, on the exemplary website.

Delivery in London is £5; elsewhere in the UK orders for Christmas will arrive by 10.30am on Christmas Eve for a flat – and very reasonable fee – of £8. But Swaddles Organic (01460 234387/ ) is talking turkey until 13 December – though only some sizes remain. By January complaints from customers were piling up faster than gnawed turkey bones Marchants is no more. If you want to buy cooking kit by phone or internet there’s still the incomparable Lakeland Ltd. But Cucina Direct (020-8246 4300/ ) has introduced some fresh meat, poultry and game, joining cheese, cakes and chutneys and its well-chosen selection of things to cook with, eat off and drink from. Lovely mixing bowls, Portuguese casseroles, Microplane graters, white ironstone jugs from £10, stainless-steel cake tins from £8 .. that’s just part of my Christmas wish list The edible stuff is tempting too.

Last orders for the Paxton & Whitfield cheeses and Alderton ham is Monday, for the Exmoor lamb box (£45) is Wednesday (11 December), and for the huge pork pies (£31 and £42) Thursday. These are sent straight from the producers, but delivery is a flat rate of £4 per order or £9 for next day. All other orders before 16 December.¿ While you’re eating out in a restaurant this month, many others are sleeping out on the streets. For the fifth year, StreetSmart is raising money for homeless charities through participating restaurants which add £1 per table to the bill. You contribute (voluntarily); the restaurant doesn’t, though more than 300 of them nationally, including top names as good as Baltic, Locanda Locatelli, Alastair Little and Belair House in London, and many in and around Oxford, Brighton, Edinburgh and Manchester, are supporting the fundraising campaign.

For a list of participating restaurants look up .uk. At least one restaurant, Neal Street in London, is matching every customer donation with its own.¿ When The Independent ran a story about the search for old Yorkshire recipes to be collected in a book in aid of Age Concern, the organiser was inundated. The book, Old Recipes of Yorkshire by Ann C Johnson, is now out, £5.99, and available in bookshops in Yorkshire, and to order from bookshops further afield if you give the ISBN number (0-9542696-0-8). Or ring the Knaresborough branch of Age Concern (01423 864956) mornings only to order for £6.95 including postage. The three counties of Yorkshire encompass an enormous number of specialities – haslet, mutton pie, bloaters, cow heel and Yorkshire curds to pick an endangered few. The charming book has unearthed several ways with rabbit, lots of puddings, rhubarb (grown round Wakefield), biscuits, preserves and sweets and at least three other names for oatcakes: clapbread, riddlebread and havercake.¿ If you’ve nothing planned next week, have lots of cooking to do for Christmas, £650 to spare and a capacious freezer, Leith’s one-week Christmas Course starts this Monday and may have a space or two left. Students come away from the five-day course with a Christmas cake, pudding and stuffing, venison casserole, spiced beef and prune and armagnac mousse, in quantities for 10 people Worth it for the lessons and a freezer full of fab meals. To see if they’ll squeeze you in ring Judy Wilkinson 020-7229 0177.