Cooking the Books with Gilly Smith

This week, we’re back at Gilly's How to Cook Book food writing retreat at her house just outside Lewes in East Sussex with muse-in-residence, the grande dame of British food writing, Elisabeth Luard.

After bringing the flavours of Spain to a British readership from the 1980s on, her Classic Spanish Recipes: 75 signature dishes is part of the Hamlyn Classic Recipes series celebrating 75 years of publishing some the most admired chefs and writers in the world for their pioneering approach to food culture - Anna del Conte on Italian food, Ken Hom on Chinese, Chetna Makan on Indian.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack from Extra Bites of Elisabeth's Spain.

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This week, we’re with British-Caribbean writer, Keshia Sakarah whose debut cookbook, Caribe was shortlisted with Irina 

Janakievska and Dina for the Jane Grigson Trust Award in 2023. It's a history of Caribbean cooking with 125 recipes from 23 nations - from Montserrat to Haiti, Antigua to Guadaloupe, capturing the cultures through food in what this Leicester born young writer calls 'resistance through retention'.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Keshia.

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This week, Gilly is with the British Iranian/Pakistani human rights activist and food and travel writer, Yasmin Khan to talk about her latest book, Sabzi.

Sabzi, meaning greens and herbs in Persian, the language of her mother, and vegetables in Urdu, the language of her Pakistani father, is about how to reduce the amount of meat in our diet with delicious recipes from the Middle East, Mediterranean and South Asia. It’s as political and environmental as we’d expect from Yasmin, but it’s also a book about her ancestors and the food from their land – as well as a hard-won journey to motherhood. Gilly finds out why she chose vegetables to convey such a big story.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Yasmin

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In extra episode from Groundswell, the Regenerative Agriculture Festival that Sheila Dillon calls 'the Glastonbury of Food and Farming', Cooking the Books Live discusses the influence of cook books and books about food on changing the way we eat and buy our food

In front of an audience of farmers and food businesses, pioneers and innovators who are changing the way we eat, Gilly asks a panel of writers with influence, Thomasina Miers of Wahaca, Amelia Christie-Miller of Bold Bean company, Alice Robinson of British Pasture Leather and David Finlay of The Ethical Dairy what a book can do to change the story of food. 

Check out Gilly's Substack here and get in touch on Instagram here

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This week, we’re back at Rockwater in Hove for Cooking the Books Live with Gurd Loyal.

Regular listeners will know that Gurd is probably the writer who Gilly think's best uses the lens of food to examine life. His first book, Mother Tongue won the Jane Grigson Trust award for Best Debut, and he has become the word on Third Culture food, prising open the liminal spaces between where we come from and who we can be.

His second book, Flavour Heroes is a lighter read, a pantry book giving us technicolour ways to elevate the simplest dishes with 15 superstar ingredients. After the food world clucked around him over Mother Tongue, Diana Henry calling him boundary breaking, Felicity Cloake dubbing him the Willy Wonka wizard of flavour, Gilly asks him in front of a live audience, how he felt about the notoriously difficult second album. 

Head over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of CTB Live with the Q&A

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This week, we’re with Guardian columnist and author Felicity Cloake as she cycles through America in search of its food culture.

Peach Street to Lobster Lane is her great American road trip – on a bike. It’s the off-road trip that’s about getting to the heart of American cuisine via a glimpse into everyday life that you just can’t get by car.

The story she finds is about immigration, colonisation and enterprise, from tex mex to creole, fried chicken and real bbq, Chicago deep pan pizza, lobster rolls, clam chowder, Boston baked beans New York bagels and Coney Island hot dogs.  

Click here for Extra Bites of Felicity's epic adventure on Gilly's Substack.

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This week, we’re exploring the story of Ukraine with its most famous defender and cultural protector, Olia Hercules in her first memoir, Strong Roots.

It’s the story of Ukraine that history can never tell, through the stories of its people - and in particular, Olia’s people, through four generations of her family.  Nigella calls it 'breathtaking', Caroline Eden calls it cinematic, Elisabeth Luard says: ‘Here, in all its beauty and sorrow, is the story of Ukraine as it is, and was and surely will be again.’

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Olia and her photos from the family album.

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This week, we're with award-winning psychologist, and graduate of Gilly's How to Cook a Book food writing retreat, Andrea Oskis.

Her first book is a series of tales from her clinic exploring how the food we eat reveals who we are – and how we love. Its title? The Kitchen Shrink. Genius.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Andrea.

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This week, Gilly is confronting her biggest summertime phobia with Tom Kerridge and his latest book, The Barbecue Book.

He’s the man with the Midas touch – he turned the Hand and Flowers from a rundown pub in Buckinghamshire into the first and only 2 star Michelin pub in the world.  He’s the chef who lost a stack of weight and turned his diet story into books and telly which helped millions of others do the same. He’s the boy who grew up on free school meals who launched Full Time Meals with Marcus Rashford in 2021 and campaigns for free school meals for all children in the UK.  He’s the Michelin star chef whose books elevate the simplest of dishes. But is he the man who can teach Gilly how to love a barbie?

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites

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This week, we’re back with one of Gilly's favourite guests on Cooking the Books, Bee Wilson and her latest book, The Heart Shaped Tin.

It’s a book about love and loss, and the magical thinking that so many of us transpose onto everyday objects, often found in the kitchen. As she navigates her way from the despair of a broken marriage to a gloriously happy present via the death of her mother and the inevitable life changes that happen as children grow up, she gathers stories and explores the psychology about our relationship with things – the junk and the treasure – in her most moving book so far. 

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Bee.

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