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No one likes mornings. Whether you’re having a slow start to the weekend, nursing a hangover or need a midweek pick-me-up, easing yourself in with an indulgent brunch is perfectly acceptable. You heard it here first. That’s why we asked Tasos Gaitanos and Alex Large, the old school friends behind London brunch institution Brother Marcus, for some flavoursome, summery recipes to get our days going. Celebrating vibrant Mediterranean cuisine, these recipes are worth getting out of bed for. Baked omelette and halloumi “Omelettes are an all-time favourite at Brother Marcus. We’ve given ours an Eastern Mediterranean touch by adding halloumi and baking it in the oven so it comes out golden in colour and light and fluffy in texture. This is best cooked in a skillet that can then be transferred to the oven for baking, but an ovenproof dish will also work.” Serves: 4 Ingredients: 30ml olive oil ½ a red pepper, diced 2 spring onions, chopped 100g spinach 12 eggs 230ml double cream 30g halloumi, grated Salt and freshly ground Black pepper Method: Preheat the oven to 200C fan. If using an ovenproof dish, place it in the oven to heat up. Heat the olive oil in a skillet, then add the red pepper and spring onion and saut. until softened. Add the spinach and season with salt and pepper, then saut. until wilted. Put to one side to cool. In a bowl, beat the eggs thoroughly with the double cream and a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir in the grated halloumi and the cooled veg mix. If using the ovenproof dish, take it out of the oven and quickly brush it with a little olive oil. While it’s still hot, pour in the egg/veg/halloumi mix and put it back into the oven. Alternatively, pour the mixture back into the skillet and return it to the oven. Bake for 10 minutes until the eggs are puffy and golden. Garnish with some more grated halloumi and serve with buttered toast. Rhubarb and cherry porridge “Early spring sees the arrival of the first forced rhubarb, and adding it to this porridge is a delicious way to enjoy it for breakfast.” Serves: 4 Ingredients: For the porridge: 200g oats 500ml whole milk 1 star anise Pinch of ground cinnamon Pinch of ground nutmeg For the rhubarb: 300g forced rhubarb 120g caster sugar 1 sprig of rosemary Juice of a ¼ lemon To serve: 4 tbsp maple granola 4 tbsp sweet preserves 4 tsp finely chopped pistachios Method: Place the oats in a pan with the milk, star anise, cinnamon, nutmeg and 500ml water and stir while slowly bringing the mixture to a boil. Stirring is the key to getting the perfect porridge consistency! Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring all the time, then take off the heat once it is thick. If you need to loosen it further just add a splash of water. Wash the rhubarb and trim the ends off, then slice it diagonally every 2cm to make diamond shapes. Bring a pan of water to the boil and drop the rhubarb into it, boil for a couple of minutes, until just tender, and drain. Place the blanched rhubarb back in the pan and add the sugar, rosemary, lemon juice and 230ml water. Bring to the boil and immediately take off the heat and cover – the idea here is to keep the rhubarb nice and firm while also dissolving the sugar in rhubarby juices. To serve, divide the warm porridge between four bowls and top each with a tablespoon of the granola and a tablespoon of the cherry spoon sweets and their syrup. Arrange some rhubarb pieces on top and pour over some of the juices, then scatter over some finely chopped pistachios. Brother Mary “The Brother Mary is our very popular twist on the classic Bloody Mary, using flavours from countries all around the Eastern Med: Egypt, Syria, Greece and Turkey. It’s a brunch essential.” Serves: 2 Ingredients: 300ml tomato juice 100ml vodka 60ml lemon juice 30ml Worcester sauce 10ml ouzo Pinch of molokhia leaf Pinch of cayenne pepper Pinch of celery salt To garnish (optional): 1 tbsp Aleppo chilli 1 lemon wedge 2 small Turkish green peppers 2 x 300-400ml glasses Ice Method: Take the large Boston shaker and measure in the tomato juice, vodka, lemon juice, Worcester sauce and ouzo. Add healthy pinches of molokhia, cayenne pepper and celery salt, then pour from the big Boston into the little Boston and repeat five or six times. This will break up the molokhia a little. Put the Aleppo chilli onto a small plate. Wet the rim of your glasses by sliding the lemon wedge round them, then dip or roll your lemony rims in the chilli on the plate. Fill the glasses with ice, then pour over the Brother Mary mix and pop a green Turkish pepper on top! Recipes from ‘Brunch with Brother Marcus’ by Tasos Gaitanos and Alex Large (Kitchen Press, £25).

Who is one of the hardest people to go gift shopping for? Let’s hear it for the dads! Father’s Day is coming up, as is the all-too-common brain fart about knowing what to get the father figures in our lives that they will actually like. We’re no strangers to coming up with thoughtful gifts for anyone on your list, including Dad, but this year we decided to try a new approach for finding gifts for the man who has everything: going straight to the source. We tapped the shopping editors of Refinery29 and the fathers in their lives to give the best advice on what real dads actually want as Father’s Day gifts.

BRUSSELS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 22, 2023--

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Within the Red Bull ecosystem, encompassing two teams on the Formula 1 grid and the junior team below, there is no doubting who the senior statesman is. When Dr Helmut Marko speaks, people listen. And for Nyck de Vries, the writing has been on the wall for a while now. Asked after the British Grand Prix whether Red Bull’s ‘third driver’ Daniel Ricciardo could replace De Vries at Red Bull’s sister team AlphaTauri, Marko grinned. A grin which told us everything we need to know. “We’ll have the tyre test next week and then we’ll see,” he stated. That test, with Ricciardo in the cockpit of Red Bull’s RB19 rocketship for the first time this season, took place on Tuesday morning at Silverstone. Hours later, the Australian’s return to F1 was confirmed. The first thing to note is, despite his obvious struggles, it is brutally harsh on Nyck de Vries. When the Dutchman made his splash last September in Monza – filling in for Alex Albon at Williams and securing points with an impressive ninth-place finish – it must have seemed like a dream. The former Formula 2 and Formula E champion had long been on the cusps of a grid spot, entwined in Mercedes’ junior programme, and now a 2023 place was inevitable. AlphaTauri, with Pierre Gasly departing for Alpine, moved swiftly for De Vries – a decision we have now learned that Christian Horner did not agree with. Yet this year, the pairing has always felt like an uncomfortable marriage. AlphaTauri have slumped to the worst team on the grid, with Williams showing signs of improvement under the leadership of James Vowles. And while Yuki Tsunoda – in his third season with the team, it should be said – has maximised any potential out of the AT04, De Vries has undeniably stumbled in his first full season. 10 races. Zero points. Out the door. De Vries may now look back with regret that he did not stick in Mercedes’ wider bubble and eye a spot with Williams. The chances are he would have been favoured over Logan Sargeant, the only other driver on the grid yet to score a point this season. But the stark reality is that De Vries is a sacrificial lamb in this situation. Because, as we have seen in the past with Red Bull’s ruthless revolving door, his axing and Ricciardo’s return is about something much bigger than the prospects of Red Bull’s sister team this season. As much as De Vries’ poor form looks the reason on paper, Sergio Perez’s struggles as Max Verstappen’s team-mate in the past two months is a factor equally important, if not more so. Since winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in April, Perez has endured a wretched run given he is, clearly, in the fastest car. While Verstappen is on a win streak of six, Perez has finished on the podium just twice and has not made the final qualifying session in his last five races. Three of those have been a humiliating exit in Q1. Thus, Perez has gone from a world championship contender to under pressure for his race seat in a matter of months. While Horner insists publicly that the Mexican’s spot is not shrouded in uncertainty – with a contract until the end of the 2024 season – there is no doubting that Ricciardo’s re-emergence heaps an extra crumb of pressure on that second Red Bull seat. For what its worth, simply assuming Ricciardo will snap up Perez’s seat as soon as next year is inadvisable. The 34-year-old was dropped by McLaren for a reason, after a chastening 2022 campaign, and has plenty to prove in the remaining 12 races of this season, starting next week in Hungary. But if the tyre test is anything to go by, the popular Aussie is champing at the bit. Speculation is rife that his best time would have been quick enough for the front row at the British Grand Prix on Sunday. Sure, it was just a tyre test, but nonetheless impressive after eight months out of the car. A similar set of statement performances throughout the season’s remainder, back where it all began with Red Bull’s sister team, could give Ricciardo the most unlikeliest of routes back into the sport permanently with Red Bull next year. At the very least, it will give Marko and Horner a decision to make. Read More Daniel Ricciardo returns to F1 as he replaces Nyck de Vries A fictional Drive to Survive? Daniel Ricciardo ‘full steam ahead’ with scripted F1 show Daniel Ricciardo shaped void will take some filling by Oscar Piastri at Australian GP Daniel Ricciardo returns to F1 as he replaces Nyck de Vries The moment Norris came of age in British Grand Prix – and it wasn’t his super start Max Verstappen storms to British Grand Prix victory with two Brits on the podium

A professional cuddler who makes a living giving clients hugs has said people travel from all over the globe to receive the cuddle therapy she offers which is “far less intimate than a massage” and helps people from “all walks of life”. Natasha Wicks, 44, from Coventry, West Midlands, says that despite criticism, cuddling is scientifically proven to release happy hormones like dopamine and that a lot of her clients are “the big spoon in life” and go to her for emotional support that they do not have at home. As such, many of her clients are caregivers and most of them join Natasha for two-hour hugging sessions, costing £70 an hour. The sessions vary depending on what the client wants, some having “emotional hugs”, others talking more and some wanting to “sit at opposite ends of the sofa with our legs and feet entwined”. Natasha became a cuddle therapist in 2015 and, while she has had comments online from people criticising the practice, she said that her family and friends were unsurprised when she first started giving professional cuddles. She said: “They all said to me that I give the best cuddles so it’s not surprising that I’d start doing it as a job. “It’s very much what I do, I help people and want to make people feel better. It’s a natural thing when someone is going through a tough time to want to give them a hug. “Cuddle therapy might not be as widely accepted in society but it’s far less intimate than other things like massages which are seen as normal.” Prior to becoming a cuddler, Natasha originally trained as a CBT therapist and counsellor. She said: “There’d be situations where I would be talking to someone and they’d really need a hug, but obviously, you’d have professional boundaries in place and it wouldn’t have been appropriate. “It was just a really natural thing. One client had finished her final session and we had agreed that she wasn’t my patient anymore so we hugged goodbye. She said to me that she’d wanted to do that for a long time and I thought ‘me too’.” Looking into cuddle therapy, which she said was increasing in popularity in 2014, Natasha took a training course. By 2015, she was a qualified cuddler and started taking on new patients for cuddle sessions. Natasha provides a minimum session of one hour but said most people go for at least two hours, sometimes longer if they are receiving more than one type of therapy. She said: “I always give people a hug on the doorstep when they arrive and then they’ll come in and relax, and we’ll have an initial chat about what brings them here. After that, I’ll put on some ambient music and we’ll have a cuddle on my cuddle sofa. “It can be daunting coming into a stranger’s house and I can tell the difference in them from arriving to leaving. The first hug they might be angled away from me but when we’re hugging goodbye, I can get my head in between their neck and shoulders and you can almost feel that a weight has been lifted from them.” There is not one type of person that visits Natasha for cuddles, but she says that a lot of her clients are caregivers. She said: “There’s all sorts of people who come for a cuddle, from people who have moved away from home for the first time and just want a mum hug all the way to people in their 80s. “I’m inclusive of all genders and all ages. I get a lot of clients who are the carers of their family and they are so busy looking after other people, and probably giving the hugs and support to other people, that they don’t have that for themselves. “A lot of people that come to see me are generally people are the big spoon in the life – they take care of others and don’t want to show a vulnerable side to people because they don’t want people to worry that they can’t cope. “I get a lot of carers, a lot of NHS staff, a lot of mums, a lot of people that are in a world where they have to be the strong one in the situation and they just want to be able to come here and let their guard down.” Natasha’s priority is to make people feel at ease when they arrive as she said it can be “nerve wracking” turning up at someone’s house for a hug. Setting out clear boundaries prior to meeting, the therapist has said that the patients she has welcomed into her home have all been respectful. She added: “I always say to people that when your body relaxes, your tummy might crumble and mine might too, but that people don’t need to worry about it. Sometimes people fall asleep and they might snore or fart, it’s just natural things that happen. It’s happened twice where someone has got an erection and that’s fine, I have boundaries and we’ll just change position. “I want people to feel reassured that, as soon as they get in, they feel comfortable.” Despite the unconventional therapy, when Natasha first took on cuddle clients, she said her family were completely “unsurprised” and the step from CBT therapy to cuddle therapy was a “natural evolution”. While Natasha focuses her time on a holistic approach for treating people, she noted that there is also neuroscience behind cuddles. According to the 44-year-old, physical touch activates the brain’s orbitofrontal cortex and cuddling releases oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin. Now, Natasha also does EMDR therapy and is a mental health swim host, and has clients travel from all over the globe to receive her hugs. She said: “Working from Coventry is brilliant because I’m only nine minutes on the train from Birmingham Airport and people come to visit me from all over. I get a client from Belgium, someone from Ireland and people from all over the UK who come to see me. “I wanted to find a sofa bed that just looked like a big comfy sofa for cuddle sessions. I’d started off with a big L shaped sofa but after about five years, it was sagging a bit, there’d been a lot of healing done on that sofa and it was time for a new one. “Now I have a sofa bed in my living room that I use as my cuddle sofa. It’s in the living room and it’s used for everyday life, watching TV with my partner, having people round and also for my work.” Breaking down the taboo around cuddle therapy, Natasha hopes more people will embrace the alternative treatment. She added: “As it’s become more popular, more people are becoming qualified as cuddlers and I think that’s great. “I’ve had comments online before of people thinking it’s weird or not understanding but there are other things we accept in society that are much more intimate than cuddles, like massages. “It’s not weird, it’s actually a really lovely thing to be able to make another soul feel better for a while.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live What is ‘beer tanning’ and why are experts warning against it? Christian Cowan: Designing is like dreaming Deborah James’s daughter launches anniversary clothing line for Bowelbabe Fund

Don't play with creepy occult hands, kids. That's it. Well, apparently no one told the