What's in season: February

February is a marvellous month for feasting, what with Candlemas, Chinese New Year, St Valentine's Day and Mardi Gras - better known as Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day

So where are you going to shop this month? The 12th to the 14th of February is Chinese New Year, so why not treat yourself to a visit to your nearest Chinatown and experience the thrill and bustle of the preparations, particularly the culinary ones?

You'll also be able to decorate your table appropriately, as all the Chinese supermarkets will also be full of auspicious flowers, slender wands of peach blossom and small orange trees. Look out, too, for red and gold new year decorations and the traditional 'lai see' - or red packets - in which to tuck a crisp new banknote or two for the children.

Food of love
Or perhaps go pink for St Valentine's: try a chilled borscht, followed by griddled organic salmon fillets. Complete the romantic dinner with the classic 'coeur a la creme' - a sweet cream cheese made in a pierced-heart-shaped mould - and a compote of fresh pink rhubarb or a coulis of raspberries made from frozen fruit.

Pancakes do duty both for Candlemas at the beginning of the month and Shrove Tuesday on the 19th. Sweet or savoury, simple or elaborate, the pancake is an excellent standby, and it's worth making extra and keeping them in the fridge. Use them for marvellous lazy breakfasts, as a first course for a dinner party, as an elegant dessert such as crepes Suzette, or as a teatime snack, fresh from the frying pan, dabbed with butter and sprinkled with lemon juice and light muscovado sugar.

Ground force
Root vegetables, such as parsnips and beetroot, are good in the winter, as are the 'stalks', such as leeks and celery. This means plenty of vegetable soups. And, if you're a fan of the deep fryer, try making vegetable crisps instead of potato crisps.

Alongside the wealth of citrus fruit, especially the delicious juicy navel oranges, southern hemisphere summer fruit is making its appearance - look out for Cape cling peaches and Chilean cherries. I prefer to wait for our own summer and buy fruit that has not clocked up quite so many air miles. My own feeble justification for buying tropical fruit, which, too, has come long distances, is that we've always imported tropical fruit. So mangoes, limes and papayas continue to go into my shopping basket.

Over the page: February's fish and shellfish