The best of the web: Cheese, pancakes, coffee, cake, travel, spinach pie, macaroons

• * Get cheesy! My friend Jessica who blogs over at Ripe London has written a lovely piece for Times Online on the art of constructing a good cheese platter. Or you could do as the Americans do (or some of them at least) and carve your cheese rather than eat it – Word of Mouth has the details. And Lee at The Unbearable Lightness of being Hungry has blogged about how cheese healed the britpop rift between Blur and Oasis. (Woo hoo!).

• * I have been posting a lot about pancakes recently, but who can resist these poppyseed darlings on 101 Cookbooks? They look delicious! There are instructions for both dessert or savoury versions.

• * Attention coffee drinkers! Science blog Developing Intelligence tells you how to optimise your caffeine hit – small, regular doses are key. (Link via LifeHacker).

• * Travel blog The Window Seat has a guide on how to eat like a local, wherever you are in the world. Not surprisingly, it talks a lot about farmers’ markets – and here is Ivy at Kopiaste’s description of her local farmers’ market in Athens.

• * Apple & Spice celebrates its first birthday with, what else, a spiced apple cake. Mmm… looks delicious! Happy birthday! By the way, you can see a recipe for my namesake here.

• * I gave my recipe for spinach pie earlier in the week. Here’s Rose’s recipe at You Say Tomahto, I Say Tomayto – she has used puff pastry, only 100g of spinach, and ricotta, while I used filo, a whole bunch of chard, and both feta and cottage cheese, so the result would be very different, but I’m sure no less delicious. Rose, who is part Maltese, calls her version “Maltese spinach pie”. I’ve called mine “Greek” (though I’m not Greek), but really variations on this recipe can be found all over the eastern Mediterranean – my friend Tamara from Sydney makes the same dish and calls it “Bosnian pie”.

• * I’m loving the increased coverage of food and drink in Time Out London. This week the mag takes lessons on how to make macaroons from the pastry chef at Soho tearoom Yauatcha and shares the recipe.