On Christmas Day, we’re combining all the things that Cooking the Books is about – identity, belonging, food cultures and vicarious travel thorugh food with Emiko Davies in one of Gilly's favourite books of 2025, The Japanese Pantry.

As Emiko puts the pieces of her Italian living Australian-Japanese ancestry and influence together through all her books, The Japanese Pantry reads like she’s landing softly among the flavours of her Japan. Gilly explores that journey with her.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Emiko, including an outtake of the book. You can buy her book from the CTB shop at Bookshop.org which supports this ad-free listen.

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This week, we’re with the Spirit of Christmas herself, Skye McAlpine and The Christmas Companion

Among all the talk of the pressures, the aspirational values and the industry of Christmas, Gilly finds herself feeling like the Grinch in the presence of the Christmas Fairy as she asks Skye about about the nostalgia, the beauty and the magic of giving.

Click here for Extra Bites of Skye on Gilly's Substack and here to buy The Christmas Companion on the CTB shop at Bookshop.org

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This week, we’re with Northern Irish food writer Cherie Denham and photographer Andrew Montgomery in The Irish Kitchen 

If you’ve listened to Gilly's chat with Andrew on her Substack  a couple of weeks ago, you’ll know that this is no ordinary book. It follows their first book, The Irish Bakery, published by Montgomery Press, Andrew’s own company designed to do exactly what he wants. 

The 90 recipes by Cherie are framed within stories about memory of home and rural life while Andrew’s extraordinary atmospheric photography captures the people, landscapes and food traditions still alive and well in contemporary Ireland. It’s part-cookbook, part cultural document of Irish home cooking and small producers, and a work of art. I

You can only buy The Irish Kitchen from Montgomery Press, and Andrew has even given CTB fans a discount. Click here and use COOKING10 as the promo code.

And do pop over to Gilly's Substack to see some of the wonderful photography, as well as a recipe from the book in Extra Bites. 

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This 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.

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This week, we’re off to the Bohemian Kitchen of Brit-Czech writer, Evie Harbury

My 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.  

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This 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.

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This 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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