The Truffler: World food guides, Amazing Thailand Festiva, Newlyn Fish Festival, Bartholomew Fair, wine boxes

Although many of those travelling around even the more remote parts of the world with a Lonely Planet guide in their rucksack are seeking the quickest route to a milk shake and banana pancake, its World Food pocket guides provide an informed and tantalising flavour of what can be eaten in a country or region. Latest in the series is World Food, Caribbean (£8.99). If you're heading that way, the sections on markets and how to construct a dream beach picnic, on where to eat, and the thorough glossary of grub are useful. But even if you're staying at home, recipes for dishes and cocktails could help realise the potential of market stalls in Brixton. So too could the just-published-this-summer hardback, The Caribbean Cook by Patrick Williams (£18.99, Michael Joseph). A classically trained British chef (associate of Marco Pierre White) brings contemporary flair to bear on some traditional West Indian dishes and comes up with some of his own. It's beautifully produced and gives the undervalued cuisine a stylish makeover, as well as a delicious insight into what younger black Britons might eat. With a copy of The Caribbean Cook, anyone unwilling or unable to brave the crowds and stalls of jerk chicken at Notting Hill Carnival this weekend can cook up a fresh Caribbean feast or lay on a splendid tropical barbie.

* Plenty of Lonely Planet guide-clutching travellers to Thailand will have spent time looking for a bowl of muesli in Chiang Mai, but those with a well-developed taste for Thai food might want to got to Surrey this weekend, where today, tomorrow and Monday the Amazing Thailand Festival is taking place. It's at Secretts, Hurst Farm, Chapel Lane, Milford, Surrey (01483 520500) from midday until 7pm. Among the handicraft and cultural displays will be demonstrations of regional Thai cookery. A recreation of a roadside market will have street food, and there'll be more to eat from street sellers' baskets. With snack in hand, you can watch classical dancing today, Thai boxing and sword fighting tomorrow, and folk dancing and flower-filled boats floating on the lake on Monday. Admission is £2.50 and proceeds go to charity.

* Newlyn claims to be the biggest fishing port in England and Wales. The Cornish town is holding its 11th Fish Festival on Monday, from 9am-5pm. Taking place in the fish market and on the harbourside, there will be many fish-related activities, all better than a slap in the face with the proverbial wet one. The event aims to support the fisher people of the town, show what and how they catch (cod, pollock, ling, haddock, whiting, mackerel, among others), identify it, and buy it fresh or cooked. Fish apart, there's a farmers' market overflowing with Cornish produce – and the wherewithal to complete your fish supper. Where there's seafood there's often Rick Stein, and sure enough he'll be there with a TV crew and the inevitable audience of gurning faces in the background. Admission is £2.

* It's not all olde Englande at tomorrow's Bartholomew Fair at Smithfield Market from 10am to 6pm. Yes, Clarissa Dickson Wright is opening it, and other non-edible attractions include a Punch and Judy show, Pearly Kings and Queens and a flower festival, but one of the stalls of top-quality food will be manned by Comptoir Gascon, the mouthwatering Smithfield food shop selling the fat of the land from south-west France. Other stalls will sell British food, organic meat and vegetables from speciality producers, and local pubs and restaurants will be open all day.

* As if the return of Blue Nun and Mateus Rose weren't enough, Stowells of Chelsea reminds us it's the 20th anniversary of its boxed wines. As a reformed box tap-presser, Truffler isn't prepared to revisit those Eighties drinking habits, even though millions of other wine drinkers still merrily quaff from a box; Stowells sell 5.4 million 10 and 3-litre boxes of wine a year.