| Welcome to a new year of food and wine from The Weekend Australian Magazine. We hope you had a great festive season with plenty of relaxation and a lot good things to eat and drink. Summertime is often a time when cooking takes a backseat to a more leisurely style of eating. Salads and grills epitomise the style of culinary preparation most of us undertake at this time of year. Anything to minimise fuss and time spent over the stove. This week our contributing chef Lennox Hastie is in the backyard teaching us how to get the most out of octopus. Read how to do a super speedy Med-style grill in two to three minutes using his octopus recipe, which he has teamed with a lovely couscous salad. Delicious. Also summery are two salads from Sydney food identities Michael Rantissi and Kristy Frawley, who run popular inner-city cafe Kepos Street Kitchen. Try their Middle Eastern lamb as well as a sunny tomato salad, and a hearty brussels sprouts salad with feta. Perfect for the season. Happy eating. | 