Cooking the Books with Gilly Smith

This week, we’re basking in the evening sunshine at Cooking the Books Live at Rockwater, Hove with Noor Murad.Her debut cookbook, Lugma is her twist on the familiar, to use an Ottolenghi term, of the food from her homeland, Bahrain.It’s the very first international cookbook of Bahraini recipes, but reflects her own experiences of growing up there, the mix of Persian and Indian flavours infused with her own half Britishness and a brash of new York where she worked before landing in the bosom of the Ottolenghi family.Click here for tickets to the next Cooking the Books Live with Gurd Loyal, and then pop over to Gilly's Substack for the fascinating Q&A with the audience.

This week, we're with Malaysian Scottish chef, restaurateur and now food writer, Julie Lin and her debut cookbook, Sama SamaSama Sama meaning Same Same is all about food and identity. It’s a book that has been simmering for years as Julie explores her same-same notions of home and all the ingredients of belonging that have come together in the hashtag third culture food. Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Julie.

This week, Gilly is with the queen of communal living an icon of bohemian anti-capitalism, Rosie Kellett.An actress, a baker with Meringue Girls and Claire Ptak’s assistant at Violet Cakes – which included working on Harry and Meghan’s wedding cake, it was moving into a Carpet Warehouse  in London that shot her to fame on Instagram. The idea of sharing the cost of living with her ware-housemates, cooking and eating communally – as well as the supper clubs with Italian housemate, Virginia - hit home to so many that publishers were queuing up to sign her.  Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Rosie and a recipe from the book.

This week, in a special extra episode to coincide to the minute with a fascinating new way of publishing, I’m with content creation queen, Masterchef judge and co-presenter of The Food Programme, Leyla KazimLeyla’s debut Pathways is not one but two books about her massive life change to become a farmer in Portugal. It’s a memoir/manifesto/guide to living a purposeful life. Published by The Pound Project, it goes on sale for three weeks only, from 7pm on May 6th - 27th May. She’s in good company - Jess Phillips MP, Dolly Alderton, Pandora Sykes,  Emma Gannon, Sebastian Faulks, Charlie Mackesy, Rita Ora, Richard and Scarlett Curtis are just some of her fellow authors. She tells us about disruption in life, the food system and publishing!You can purchase the book from the following link, which goes live at 19:00 on May 6th: https://www.poundproject.co.uk/shop/pathways

This week, we’re talking about the dirty rotten scoundrels who run our global food industry with Dr Stuart GillespieStuart’s book Food Fight: From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet gives us the back story of a food system driven by greed and exploitation. But it suggests how to transform it into a food system fit for the future which prioritises global health and justice. And it starts with really understanding that the food system isn’t broken—it’s functioning exactly as designed.Pop over to Gilly’s Substack for Extra Bites of Stuart, and for her recent posts on what Food Fight has inspired her to do with Cooking the Books. Click here for The Dark Side of the Plate, the report that Stuart mentions in the episode that he contributed to for The Food Foundation. And click here for the Food Foundation's Pod Bites.

This week, we’re digging deep – culturally and politically - into our connection with the land in Poppy Okotcha’s A Wilder Way, how gardens grow us.Poppy is this year’s winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award for New Food Writers for her memoir – and very practical handbook – about putting down roots and growing a garden while reconnecting with Mother Earth’s infinite power to restore life.Her beautiful book is a wonderful wake up call to remind us of what’s under our feet, threaded through with fables and folklore from her Nigerian Igbo and British cultures. Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Poppy.

 This week, we're walking the Green Mountains of Armenia and Georgia with food and travel writer, Caroline EdenThe last time we met on CTB, it was to talk about Cold Kitchens, her dream of journeys past during Lockdown, as she tried to make sense of a changing world. This time, she’s putting one foot in front of the other to process the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on this still largely unknown part of the world, her signature edible postcards a wake up call to the sensory adventures of the Caucasus in the last in her colour trilogy after Black Sea and Red Sands.Head to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Caroline.

This week, we’re back at River Cottage with bee queen, Rachel de Thample River Cottage Handbook No 19: Bees and Honey is the latest in the practical guides to everything we need to know to live a sustainable life. Rachel and Steve Minshall take us through everything from caring for bees to honey recipes for soothing and healing, but as a former chef, commissioning Editor of Waitrose Food Illustrated and Head of Food for the organic box scheme Abel & Cole, Rachel has carved a niche as a writer who is all about the role of nature and climate change in food. Gilly asks her to trace that journey to River Cottage.Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Rachel

This week, we’re off on our travels again through Eastern Europe, this time with Irina Georgescu as our guide along the lesser known banks of the Danube.Irina has become the word on Romanian food, and from her home in Wales, she’s committed to exploring her homeland through its food history. Her last book, Tava: Eastern European Baking and Desserts from Romania and Beyond won a James Beard Foundation award in 2023. In Danube, she finds publishing gold in everyday recipes from a part of the world most of us still haven’t discovered. Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Irina and recipes from the book.