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Cooking the Books with Gilly Smith
Gurdeep Loyal: Mother Tongue
This week, Gilly chats to a new voice in food writing, Gurdeep Loyal. Diana Henry calls him 'amazing, original, boundary breaking, a genius with flavour’. He's a cool hunter, a podcaster and writer and his debut cookbook Mother Tongue has exploded a whole new way of thinking about Indian food.
Since he won the Jane Grigson Trust award in 2020 for his proposal for Mother Tongue, the food world has been salivating as we wait for the arrival of the final book. Anna Jones says ‘every so often a rare cookbook comes along which brings something completely new and fascinating to the world of food.’ Claudia Roden says she’s thrilled 'to be drawn into Gurdeep’s extroarindary diaspora and fantastic world of flavours.' Felicity Cloake says he’s 'a Willy Wonka wizard of flavour.'
Follow Gilly on Instagram @foodgillysmith, and you can also find a little surprise over on Substack each week as she asks her guests for a little extra something. Gurdeep has not only created a special Cooking the Books Spotify playlist, but written beautifully on her Substack about his choices. It’s a must read and listen.
And if you'd like to learn how to podcast and really say something, you can sign up for her Domestika course. Use the promo code GILLY_4-PROMO
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13. Nat Thaipun: Thai - Everywhere and Anywhere
32:01||Season 25, Ep. 13This week, we're with Masterchef winner and the hottest name in Thai food, Nat Thaipun.Her book THAI: Anywhere and Everywhere is packed with glorious flavours of Thailand via Melbourne where she grew up. But it was when Jamie Oliver as one of the judges on Masterchef spotted her talent that she really saw what a book could look like. We find out about the role of MasterChef as the global phenomenon in nurturing chefs, and the might of the Jamie Oliver mentorship.Pop over to Gilly's Substack for a recipe from Nat, and to see the original photos David Loftus took of her when Jamie first brought her to London.And if you’re looking for a way to suppport this ad free pod, do consider becoming a paid subscriber on Substack and buying all your food books from the Cooking the Books shop at Bookshop.org by clicking on this link.
12. Evie Harbury: My Bohemian Kitchen
24:38||Season 25, Ep. 12This week, we’re off to the Bohemian Kitchen of Brit-Czech writer, Evie HarburyMy Bohemian Kitchen is a nostalgic trip through the memories of a place Evie only knows through summers with her Czech granny and her dad’s childhood memories as she investigates the traditional cooking techniques of this largely untapped culinary region. The result is an adventure in refusing to follow the rules and finding a kindred spirit among the Bohemians of her bloodline.Pop over to Gilly's Substack for a recipe from My Bohemian Kitchen which you can buy from the Cooking the Books shop at Bookshop.org to support this advertising free podcast.
11. Cooking the Books LIVE: Mark Diacono
46:32||Season 25, Ep. 11This week, we’re with one of our favourite CTB pals, Mark Diacono in front of a live audience at Patio, the buzziest yet somehow most intimate bar in Brighton to talk about his latest book, Abundance.Abundance is Mark's pioneering way of writing a food book, a Substack post every week over a whole year, supported by a global readership of paying subscribers. Of course the publishers piled in to scoop up the ready-made market, and Quadrille have produced a thing of real beauty which you can buy here. It’s a masterclass in writing, observing, reminding yourself of the most important things in life and disrupting the traditional publishing model. Click here for Extra Bites on Substack where you can also show your appreciation for this ad-free podcast by becoming a paid subscriber.
10. Amber Guinness: Winter in Tuscany
29:00||Season 25, Ep. 10This week, we're with Amber Guinness whose latest book, Winter in Tuscany takes us into her own home to rifle through her pantry and cook what she cooks. But, as Gilly finds out, it’s also a stroll through a time and place still rooted in tradition, where cooking with the seasons and the frugal legacy of cucina povera is a reminder of the simple, good things in life. Pop over to Gilly's Substack for a recipe and Amber’s playlist made especially for Cooking the Books. And if you’re looking for a way to support this ad-free pod, do consider becoming a paid subscriber to Substack with access to the entire archive forever.And you can buy the book from the Cooking the Books shop at Bookshop.org by clicking here.
9. Stephen Harris: The Sportsman at Home
37:10||Season 25, Ep. 9This week, we’re celebrating 25 years of great British cooking with chef patron of The Sportsman and former punk, Stephen Harris. He’s the chef who put “cuisine de terroir” on the map, hyperlocally sourcing the foods from the land that have been the inspiration behind his award winning cooking. The Sportsman has held a Michelin star since 2008, but in The Sportsman at Home, he takes us into his own kitchen, to create the kind of book that taught him to cook back in the day when he was a university student trying out his ideas on his mates. And you can listen to Stephen’s playlist specially curated for Cooking the Books, as well as try out one of the recipes, on Extra Bites on Gilly's Substack, and you can buy The Sportsman at Home at the CTB shop on bookshop.org by clicking here.
8. Cooking the Books LIVE: Anna Ansari
55:17||Season 25, Ep. 8This week, we’re with Anna Ansari, the American-Iranian author of Silk Roads: A Flavor Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing.We meet at Helm Gallery in Brighton’s North Laine, in front of a live audience which includes members of the Network of international Women whose debate about the culinary variations of Kuku from Iran and Iraq to Syria, Jordan and Yemen becomes particularly heated in the Q&A. Food, travel and geopolitics, food memory and food identity - it's all here among many of the people who understand these issues most.You can buy Silk Roads from the Cooking the Books shop at Bookshop.org by clicking on the link, which supports this advertising free podcast.And do pop over to Gilly's Substack for the recipe for kuku and pictures of the live podcast event.
7. Sarah Bentley: We Cook Plants
34:52||Season 25, Ep. 7This week, we’re with Sarah Bentley, the brains behind Made in Hackney, and its brand new cookbook We Cook Plants.Made in Hackney is a charity founded 13 years ago by Sarah which teaches thousands the skills to cook with plants for survival, joy, and empowerment. It’s a glorious invitation to put more plants on your plate and be part of real food system change. Pop over to Gilly's Substack to see some of the wonderful work they get up to at Made in Hackney, as well as one of the recipes from the book.And you can buy the book at the CTB shop on bookshop.org by clicking here.
6. Karen Newby: The Natural Menopause Method Cookbook
29:34||Season 25, Ep. 6This week, we’re revisiting The Natural Menopause Method with nutritionist, Karen NewbyWe first met Karen last year when she explained how to arm women with the information we need to dodge the drug industry, understand how food heals and to live in harmony with one of the natural events in our lives. Have a listen to that episode of CTB here.This time, it's all about the cookbook as the companion book. Gilly finds out why it's so important to learn to cook up the method ourselves.You can buy Karen’s The Natural Menopause Method Cookbook at the Cooking the Books shop on bookshop.org.And head over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites from Karen including a recipe from the book.
5. Amelia Christie-Miller: Full of Beans
29:58||Season 25, Ep. 5This week, we are all about the bean - again. It’s Publication Day for Full of Beans, the second cookbook from Amelia Christie-Miller, founder of Bold Bean co., and lead singer in the campaign to bring beans back onto the British plate. We first met Amelia at Cooking the Books Live at Groundswell this summer to talk about her first book, Bold Beans: recipes to get your pulse racing Now, with her own little bean growing happily inside her, we caught up to celebrate the birth of Full of Beans and began by discussing the power of storytelling to change the way we eat.Click here to buy Full of Beans from CTB's own page on bookshop.org, and here for Extra Bites of Amelia on Gilly's Substack, including a recipe from the book, and a glimpse behind the scenes at its photoshoot.