Cooking the Books with Gilly Smith

This 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.

This 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.

This 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.

This 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.

This 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.

This week, we’re off to Brazil with food writer and former Ottolenghi chef, Ixta BelfrageHer latest book, Fusao meaning fusion, is about more than the melting pot of Brazil’s huge diasporic food cultures; it’s about who she is after a deep dive into her own ancestry, the histories of Brazil and her own connection with food as medicine. Gilly finds out if this weighty book, packed with stories and recipes is an attempt to find her own place in a country which she barely knew at all. And you can buy Fusao at the Cooking the Books shop on bookshop.org by clicking on the link.Head over to Substack for Extra Bites from Ixta including a recipe from the book.

This week, we’re with Tim Siadatan, the man behind one of the most iconic restaurants in London, Padella to chat about his eponymous debut cookbook.Tim started his journey in food on an apprentice scheme at Fifteen, with the most iconic of chefs, Jamie Oliver. From there, he rocketed through the food firmament from St John with Fergus Henderson to Moro with Sam and Sam Clarke, before setting up his own restaurants, Trullo and Padella with his mate from the River Café, Jordan Frieda.With Padella on the bucket list for every tourist coming to Borough Market, it’s no surprise to find Tim’s first cookbook sub-titled ‘Iconic Pasta at Home’. Gilly asks him what iconic means to him.Head over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Tim, and if you'd like to buy the book, head to Cooking the Books page at Bookshop.org

This week, we’re back with Cooking the Books favourite, Tara Wigley and the second in her brilliant series of culinary confusions, How the Cookie Crumbles.After co-writing the Ottolenghi big hitters with Yotam and other members of the Test Kitchen, she’s found her own niche in rhyme.  After How to Butter Toast charmed a whole new readership, she’s back with all we  wanted to know about ingredients, cooking and kitchens, but were afraid to ask.And it's that sense of anxiety, over-thinking and delightful neuroses that makes her stand out in the food writing community. Gilly chatted to her a month about that nail biting bit before publication, and asked her how she thought the cookie’s going to crumble.Head over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Tara. And if you'd like to buy the book, head to Cooking the Books' page on Bookshop.org where you can find many of the books featured on the show.