Cooking the Books with Gilly Smith

This week, Gilly is with Richard Hart, former head baker of iconic bakery, Tartine in San Francisco, the Londoner whose bakeries across Copenhagen began with a test kitchen at Noma, and the man who taught Marcus from the Bear how to bake.  His book, Richard Hart Bread: Intuitive Sourdough Baking is more of a love letter to bread than an instruction manual. It’s a read that makes your heart rate drop, the descriptions of dough making a metaphor for all that is wonderful in life. You can hear the collaboration with his wife, Henrietta Lovell, aka the Rare Tea Lady, in his words. This is about falling in love as much as it about baking bread. Richard says it’s the same thing. Head to Gilly’s Substack for Extra Bites including his playlist to bake to.

This week, Gilly is with Irina Janakievska, a North Macedonian born former lawyer turned chef who trained at Leiths and worked in the Ottolenghi test kitchen before becoming a runner up for the prestigious Jane Grigson Trust award for her debut cookbook, The Balkan Kitchen. It’s massive book reaching deep into the history, peoples and geo-politics of the Balkans, but also into her own family story and her exploration of her own identity through recipes from all Balkan kitchens. Most of all, it’s a love letter to Balkan cuisine – one of the most under-explored gastronomies in the world, and overshadowed by conflict.Head to Gilly’s Substack to hear Irina read the poem that inspired the book cover, and for her recipe for Slatko, one of her four food moments.

This week, Gilly is with Claire Dinhut aka Condiment Claire. Claire is  a culinary history cook and the author of The Condiment Book. A dual national of the US and France, she splits her time between LA and her family home, a mill in the French countryside where the rituals, traditions and flavours of both have inspired her till-side treasure, The Condiment Book which is bound to fly off the shelves this Christmas. Check out Gilly’s Substack for Extra Bites of Claire who’s taken us to that mill house in France to make her crème de marrons.

This week, you may be surprised to find a fashion designer on the show. But Alice Robinson is not what you might imagine. She’s only just left the Royal College of Art, but her work has already been featured in the V&A ‘s Food: Bigger than the Plate exhibition. Her first book Field, Fork, Fashion has had her on Radio’s 4’s Start the Week to discuss our connection with the countryside - with James Rebanks among the other guests.  She is an extraordinary advocate of our connection with the land and prods us to think in a whole new way about the provenance of leather. Gilly finds out what the Fork in the title means to her story.     Check out Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Alice and Bullock 374 – and Sheep 11458 - and click here for more about British Pasture Leather. 

This week, Gilly's with Jon Watts, the author of the instant Sunday Times Bestseller Speedy Weeknight Meals .  He's a chef with 885k followers on Instagram, but it all started when as a teenager serving a six and a half year sentence for GBH in a young offenders institution, he was given a job on day release at one of the early Jamie Oliver restaurants.Now in this mid 30s, he says that it was the Duke of Edinburgh's Award which taught him to cook in prison that changed his life - he was the first person in custody to earn all Bronze, Silver, and Gold awards. But with a new book out, prison is still his defining story, despite his dad telling him to change the record. Gilly asks him how he feels about having to keep going back there.Check Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Jon.

This week, Gilly is with new kid on the block in cookbookland, Emily Roz.Emily is a trained chef, a recipe developer, and the content creator behind Myriad Recipes. Her “Around the World in 80 Dumplings” series went viral, gaining millions of views. They caught up to talk about The World is Your Dumpling, which has over 80 recipes celebrating the diverse flavours and textures of dumplings from just about everywhere across the globe. Iasked her if writing about dumplings was a great excuse to travel the world through the lens of dumplings.Check Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Emily.

This week, Gilly is with another changemaker, Elliot Webb, the author of Growing Mushrooms at Home: The Complete Guide to Knowing, Growing and Loving Fungi on the awesome world beneath our feet.The founder of Urban Farm It is a passionate grower and educator of alternative agriculture based in the UK.  His goal is become a leader in the global movement to a more sustainable and self-sufficient society by positively disrupting current food production culture. Gilly asks him to dig deep into the history and science of mushrooms to find out why so many people so interested in them right now.Head over to her Substack for Extra Bites of Elliot in which he finds a brand new species of mushroom while foraging, and three fabulous recipes from Urban Farm It.

This week, Gilly's with the man who’s on a mission to put flavour in the heart of a revolution in the food system. Franco Fubini is the CEO and founder of sustainable food distributor, Natoora. He’s also one of the judges of The Food Planet prize for innovation in food, and now, the author of In Search of the Perfect Peach.His philosophy is simple but its impact could be massive - He believes that our everyday food choices can and should make  our diet healthier, tastier with a massive impact on the farmers, the soil and the entire food chain. Head over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Franco.

This week, Gilly continues to curate the changemakers with chef, author and co-founder of Leon, Allegra McEvedyIn Chefs Wanted, she’s on a mission to teach kids not just to play with their food but to cook like the pros. It’s a must-buy for any kids who want to be properly creative in the kitchen and stretch their skills. But Allegra has a deeper purpose behind everything she does, including this book; Gilly last met her at the Conflict Café in London where she was hosting a Lebanese pop up supper club. As the tanks roll in again across Beirut, she asks her, as someone of real influence, how she feels about hope.Head over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Allegra.