So we’ve just had a month of parties, presents and general purpose porking. Who’s cunning plan was it to punish ourselves with daft diets and dreary detox? New Year diets are the sort of boring Calvinist nonsense that make Gordon Brown look like George Michael. Guilt-tripping yourself because you had a good time in December is a bad idea because it doesn’t work. And there has to be something better to look forward to than the gastronomic drudge of Burns Night and the overpriced tacky tat restaurants get away with on Valentine’s night? No! It’s dark, it’s grey and I’ve been turning my collar to the cold and damp for lang dreich weeks and I’ve had quite enough of it. I don’t want diets, I want treats.

Let’s have a little gastronomic self-help session; don’t moan about January being miserable if you are not prepared to do something about it; don’t be depressed and not make the effort to have a good time; and don’t diet when the real answer is to stop being such a pig the rest of the time. I can understand why people want to go easy on the drink for a while, but as a friend once pointed out – for a few days it’s OK, but one can take things too far.

So stop being so dull, there’s a treat for every pocket, all entirely suitable as Valentine gifts too. Here are five for guilt free enjoyment:

Gorvett and Stone
Dark Chocolate Cinder Toffee

Sublime bitter chocolate and melt-in-your mouth burnt sweetness. Elegant simplicity finished in a bang-on-trend blue ribbon. This very special product isn’t cheap, but it is good value – it’s hard to eat the lot! You might think ‘gourmet Crunchie’ and you would be right, but what’s wrong with that? Cinder toffee is traditional English confectionary at its very best and it’s a real winter flavour combination. The shop in Henley a treat in itself on a winter day out.

£8.95 250g. Duke St, Henley. www.gorvettandstone.com

Shire Menu at John Campbell at Coworth

John Campbell’s latest venture, having left his two Michelin star kitchen at the Vyneyard at Stockcross, is just superb. Not affordable to everyone, but we are talking treats here. The lunch is only a touch more expensive than some of the absurdly overprice chains – and don’t we want something to look forward to after Christmas? Lunch at Coworth Park is a great Christmas (or Valentine’s) present (though overnight stays require deep pockets). The transformation of Ascot mansion to five star hotel is nicely done – even if the tongue in cheek pictures don’t entirely do it for me. The shin of beef did it for me entirely as did the hibiscus mojitos and the only pork crackling I’ve ever really liked. The stars, if that’s what Mr Campbell is after, are surely only a matter of time.

Coworth Park, Blacknest Road, Ascot
£25 per person till 28 Feb. www.coworthpark.com

Belvoir Organic Ginger Beer.

Ginger beer that is smooth and bitter-sweet, not too fizzy – small bubbles – always better, fiery, and sensual. Give or enjoy as a gift or with a vodka like Belvedere in a Krakow Mule. A killer winter flavour is ginger.

£2.17. Good supermarkets.

Crazy Bear Beef and Chorizo Sausages

As meaty as a sausage should be and full of strong, rich flavours. The Crazy Bear is something of an experience in pub food. The associated farm shop sells the restaurant ingredients to cook at home. These top-drawer British sausages hold their own with anything European sausage obsessives have to offer. In the summer on the barbie, but in Winter great Jamie Oliver style in a roasting tray well seasoned with sweet potato, beetroot, shallots, a bunch of herbs, chilli flakes, a couple of heads of garlic and some olive oil.

Crazy Bear Farm Shop, Stadhampton, near Oxford
Around £6.95 per Kg. www.crazybeargroup.co.uk/farm 

Coffee and Cake

There’s no excuse for not having coffee and cake, which screams romantic winter in an northern European city. Picnic, one of this column’s first ‘five’, remains independent in a sea of corporate blandness. It survives because it provides good value, reasonable service and, still, the best coffee and cake in Reading.

Picnic, Buttermarket, Reading. Less than £5 per person