Something to Eat and Something to Read

What do you cook and read when feeling all the feels? This special episode is a recording of a panel discussion on cooking and reading with our emotions at a special lunch last month at Logan Wines as part of the 2024 Mudgee Readers Festival. Our chat ran the gamut from love to nostalgia, stress to turbulence and what we cook and eat when experiencing each one.

We (your regular hosts!) Sophie Hansen and Germaine Leece, were joined on the panel by Tamara Howorth, chef and owner of Mudgee’s fantastic The Little Cooking School and Commissary and James Findlay, Breakfast presenter at ABC Western Plains. Thank you so much to you both for your time and all you shared.

We hope you enjoy this conversation about the best things in life—books, pasta, chocolate, and baking!

All the links, recipes and shownotes will be sent to our subscribers separately.

Thank you to our wonderful producer, Kristy Reading, for putting this and every episode together so beautifully.

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

On comfort food, the power of a wooden spoon, the only diet, rituals, crunch and the things we cook to anchor and soothe. Our book guest this week is The Secret of Cooking by Bee Wilson.

Show notes, links and more will be sent to our paid subscribers shortly. We hope you enjoy listening to this episode. And Bee, if you’re listening/reading - thank you for this book.

Germaine and Sophie x

Thank you to our wonderful producer, Kristy Reading, for putting this and every episode together so beautifully.

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

Our book this episode is Butter, by Asako Yuzuki (translated by Polly Barton). And it sparked a very ‘alive’ conversation on appetites, cake boundaries and whether a bowl of rice, butter and soy sauce can truly awaken an appetite for life.

As always, you don’t have to have read the book to follow along. Although, we both did love it and would recommend you do! It’s a very layered, clever and thought provoking read.

Here’s the publisher’s synopsis;

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?

Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, "The Konkatsu Killer", Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

Show notes with links, recipes, and more will be sent to our subscribers separately.

Thank you. Happy listening! And please try the butter and rice dish as per Kajii’s instructions. It really is excellent!

Thank you to our wonderful producer, Kristy Reading, for putting this and every episode together so beautifully.

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

For a little light relief in a heavy time, in this episode, we are talking about Jilly Cooper’s Rivals and the many Shepherd’s pies, Dover soles, and bottles of Sancerre that keep its glamourous (enormous) cast of characters fuelled for all that romping around in stables and meadows.

Links and recipes from this chat will be sent to our wonderful subscribers shortly.

Happy listening!

Germaine and Sophie x

Thank you to our wonderful producer Kristy Reading for putting this, and every episode together so beautifully.

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

This episode is mostly about psychological thrillers, and how food and scenes around food can build words, develop characters, turn our stomachs and sometimes if we’re lucky, give us a moment to catch our breath.

We love table scenes in books - the table provides a reason and a place for everyone to be together and is a great canvas for a showdown or perhaps to introduce the characters, to flesh them out. This episode’s book, None of This is True, by Lisa Jewell provides us with a few pivotal ‘table scenes’ that propel the narrative and tell us so much about every character.

We have a lovely time diving into this, chatting about the book and meandering through related subjects such as - books as a warm hug, the magic of finding the right book at the right time and the joy of a flaky croissant in the warm sunshine.

We hope you enjoy listening to this episode! Shownotes are coming separately to our beloved subscribers.

Thank you to our wonderful producer Kristy Reading for putting our episodes together so beautifully. And for finding our fab new music which we think feels a bit ‘Great British Bake-off’-ish. In a good way.

Germaine and Sophie

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

We hope you enjoy this episode of Something to Eat and Something to Read, a podcast for people who love to eat and read, and to think and talk about both!

In this episode, we chat about eight very different books and the ‘shape’ of summer reading. Then we read and answer a beautiful letter asking for nourishing things to read and eat in difficult times.

Thank you so much to our subscribers for their support of this pod, your show notes are incoming via the newsletter.

Thank you also to our wonderful producer Kristy Reading for putting our episodes together so beautifully.

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

Merry Christmas from us both! We hope you enjoy this episode where we talk about our doorways into Christmas this year, thanks to our patron saint Jeanette Winterson and her book Christmas Days. She helps us in more ways than just festive ones. Her understanding of the importance of creativity and imagination leads us into a conversation about the ways art and culture offer us bridges back to our humanity.

We need this to fuel our imaginations and inner worlds as much as we need food to fuel our bodies. Our wish to you all this Christmas is that you find the time to ignite your imaginations whether that be with something new (can be short!) to read, cook or eat. We hope this episode nourishes you the way that creating it nourishes us!

Show notes with links, books and a Christmas recipe will be sent to our wonderful subscribers later today.

And we will be back in your ears after the summer holidays.

Thank you so much to musician Tom Donald, for the music on this episode and thank you to our wonderful producer Kristy Reading for bringing it all together.

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

Thank you, and Merry Christmas

Sophie and Germaine

Our book for this episode is Karina May’s Duck à l'Orange for Breakfast, and the conversation it sparks floats around how romantic comedies feed us, how this genre, especially in good hands (hey Karina) is so soothing because it is inherently optimistic. You just know love will triumph in the end.

And in a world where nothing much makes sense at the moment, that is a welcome comfort. We really enjoyed this book, talking about and around it. Hope you do too!

Other things we cover in this episode;

* Our favourite food-focussed rom coms.

* Ikea (it’s our protagonist’s happy place) as a one-dimensional version of home.

* Food as a key to a character finding themselves.

* The perfect ‘welcome cake’.

* And the perfect book for when we need to make big choices and reconcile them in ourselves

All the recipes, recommendations and show notes will be sent to our subscribers later today. To join them, please click below!

Thanks, Germaine and Sophie x

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We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

Thank you as always to our producer Kristy Reading and to Smith and Jones for generously allowing us to include your beautiful song Small Town Woman at the beginning and end of this episode.

Welcome to Something to Eat and Something to Read, a podcast for people who love reading and cooking and reading about cooking. In this episode, we’re talking about Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake, the shape it left on us, and the comfort and joy it brought us.

This book, this episode is all about celebrating the small happinesses;

“The things that are important in life, are the things that are so easy to overlook: family and kindness and homework and lunch and conversation.” Ann Patchett in conversation about Tom Lake on the New York Times podcast The Book Review.

And then we’ll answer a listener ‘letter’ with a book and recipe ‘prescription’.

Recipes and show notes will be sent to our subscribers shortly. Join them here!

A quick note - we don’t think you have to have read the book yet to enjoy this episode but wanted to flag that we do chat about what happens in it quite broadly. So perhaps not a full-blown ‘spoiler alert’ just something to be aware of!

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

Thank you as always to our producer Kristy Reading and to Smith and Jones for generously allowing us to include your beautiful song Small Town Woman at the beginning and end of this episode.

Hello! And welcome to our episode dedicated to the joys or otherwise of cooking and/or eating on our own. This one is rich in books celebrating, observing and offering advice for the art of feeding ourselves and ourselves alone.

It’s full of stories about how people eat, what they cook for themselves, how they feel about eating alone - how some relish in it, some avoid it, some do it beautifully and some gleefully have marmalade on toast for dinner when she’s home alone (that’d be me/Sophie).

We each bring two books to the table and chat about how the authors use the idea of eating and cooking solo to make a point, develop character or evoke emotion.

We hope you enjoy this one and as always, all the links and shownotes will be sent to our subscribers shortly.

Thank you, Germaine and Sophie

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

Thank you as always to our producer Kristy Reading and to Smith and Jones for generously allowing us to include your beautiful song Small Town Woman at the beginning and end of this episode.