Cooking the Books with Gilly Smith

This week, Gilly explores art, philosophy and food with third generation British-Chinese photographer and Instagram superstar, Michael ZeeHis Symmetry Breakfast account  featured his photographs of symmetrical breakfasts every day for 10 years and has 667k followers. In his latest book Zao Fan, Breakfast of China, it's with his anthropological eye that he looks beyond the dishes to place, people and home.Check Gilly's Substack for recipes and photography from Michael's book.

This week we’re off to North Macedonia via Crawley with Spasia Dinkovski Spasia’s book, Doma, meaning home, is one of Gilly's favourite journeys, back to where it all started. She may have been born in Crawley, but her heart, she finds out through her cooking and her writing, is with the women who fed her soul in Macedonian summers.  Already spotted as an Observer Food Monthly Rising Star, she took an Instagram lockdown hobby and made it into a supper club and shop in South London called Mystic Burek. The book is a story of a second generation immigrant ,inspired, like so many writers who come on to this show and  to Gilly's How to Cook a Book retreats, by her grandmother, her baba.Click here for Gilly's Substack and some Extra Bites of Spasia.

This week, Gilly takes us back to last week's Jane Grigson Trust Awards for debut food book writers to meet the winner, Chris Newens. He may still be writing his book, Moveable Feasts: Paris in Twenty Meals, but Gilly helps him unpack four food moments which open a door on Parisian food through its 20 arrondissements.Check into Gilly's Substack to listen to chair of The Jane Grigson Trust, Don Sloan explain what the judges were looking for in this year's nominees.

This week, Gilly Zooms over to the Clare Valley just outside Adelaide in South Australia to catch up with food writer, TV presenter, sustainable living advocate, urban farmer, entrepreneur and the queen of Granny Skills, Rebecca Sullivan to talk about her book, with partner Damian Coulthard, First Nations Food Companion.Gilly first met Rebecca in 2016 at a conference at the University of California in Berkely about the role of food In the health of everything that we care about. Although Gilly had written a lot about Australia over the years by then, what Rebecca told her over several glasses of wine one evening about the epiphany that led to the creation of her nations company, Warndu, blew her mind.  Pop over to Gilly's Substack to find recipes from Rebecca's food moments by clicking here.

This week, Gilly is discussing Easy Wins with the award-winning and best-selling queen of vegetarian food, Anna Jones. Her latest book is packed with stunning recipes and ideas for getting so much more taste and less waste on our plates.Easy Wins has 125 brand new recipes around 12 hero ingredients, all designed to make our lives easier. But with two small kids, that can’t be an easy win for her. Gilly finds out how she does it.Do head to Extra Bites on Gilly's Substack to get a taste of some of Anna’s recipes.

This week, Gilly is with Angela Clutton to talk about her latest book, Seasoning.This is so much more than a bit of salt and pepper. It's about how climate is changing our seasons with its earlier springs, longer summers, warmer, wetter winters and the role we play.  It has all the hallmarks of a modern classic, a book packed with the rigour we associate with Angela’s award-winning writing but brimming with flavour and delicious ideas to reduce our waste and get more – much more – out of the here and now. Click here for Extra Bites on Gilly's Substack

This week, Gilly is with Charles Clover, author of Rewilding the Sea to dive deep into the world behind our fish.Charles is a seasoned environmental journalist, super campaigner, co-author of King Charles’ Highgrove: Portrait of an Estate.  And as co-founder of Blue Marine Foundation, he’s bringing life back to our oceans.Margaret Atwood calls his book a 'game changer,' Isabella Tree says 'it’s desperately needed', George Monbiot says ‘what if our seas became productive again with giant sturgeon, halibut and skate – it’s closer than you think.’Head over to Extra Bites on Gilly's Substack to hear Charles tell us another of his massive wins for the sea, this time in Dogger.

This week, Gilly is with nutritionist, Karen Newby hot on the heels of an Instagram live with the Queen of the Menopause, Davina Mcall, on her new book The Natural Menopause Method.It’s a book for our times. Since Davina’s documentary about HRT, everyone’s talking about menopause. Karen's book is all about food, but it’s not a recipe book. This is about arming 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.Head to Extra Bites on Gilly's Substack to watch Karen make a simple minestrone soup rich in collagen – although she does drop her phone into it.

This week, Gilly is with one of the main players in the story of modern British food, Michel Roux JuniorHis Mayfair restaurant, le Gavroche is a London legend, and its closure last month  57 years after his father and uncle, the Roux Brothers changed the game in British food, is a milestone in the way we eat.  At 63, he’s ready for the next chapter, and he’s marking it with his latest book, Michel Roux at home. I asked him how he’s feeling.Head to Gilly's Substack Extra Bites for recipes from Michel's food moments.