This is a conversation about the solace and joy that reading and cooking can bring us. About comfort reading, re-reading, and a favourite book of ours, Elizabeth Jane Howard's The Light Years. 

Germaine prescribes our letter writer a life-affirming graphic novel and Sophie a cold, simple and very very delicious Christmas lunch inspired by Mrs Cripps from our book.

For the recipes, book recommendations and lots more, please check out our show notes and subscribe so they get delivered to your inbox every time we publish a new episode.

Where we decide to get into the festive spirit a little early and explore a cold, snowy Christmas read alongside celebrating bright, colourful Australian summer foods. The best of both hemispheres!

Our book this episode is Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson

For links to all the recipes, books, music and good things we mention in this episode, please head over to our newsletter archive (better yet sign up so it gets sent to you every time we release a new episode).

We hope this ep helps you get into the Christmas spirit! And speaking of spirits, hope the ghost stories in Christmas Days don't keep you up at night! 

Well here we are at episode four of our podcast! And this one is a special edition of Something to Eat and Something to Read where we talk to author Sarah Winman and food writer Emiko Davies about what food means to them and how it shapes their stories.

Thank you to Sarah for chatting with us about the kindness of strangers, how being given a meal or a good coffee can make you feel more than your circumstances, how food is memory and place, and how the idea for  Still Life found her.

Both of us love this book, a true “four course nourishment” that sweeps across four decades of the lives of Ulysses and his friends who become family as they move from England at the end of WW2 to Florence in Tuscany and start a new life. 

And thank you to Emiko for sharing her story with us too, how she writes about all the senses when writing about food, her food memories, the importance of birthday cake and how she came to be Sill Life’s food consultant! And read right to the end please for a very delicious recipe Emiko was good enough to share with us!

Our interviews with Sarah and Emiko are available to listen now on Apple podcasts. 

For more show notes and recipes, pls subscribe to our Substack newsletter. 

It’s episode 3 and reading-wise we have a new experience for Sophie and a familiar one for Germaine. It’s the world of the psychological thriller and a conversation about how food writing can help pace a page-turning novel, add subtext to character development, create a time and place, and add a depth of emotional atmosphere. Join us as we enter the world of Nicci French and their latest book The Unheard.

This episode also sees us answer a letter about many changes happening in a short space of time and the ways in which adding transitional moments into the day can give breathing space and act as a bridge between our different worlds.

For all the show notes, links and recipes, please head over to our Newsletter homepage and sign up so you get them delivered straight to your inbox.

Our thanks for this episode goes to:

We are lucky enough to again be sponsored by Kitchen to Table; a beautiful store based in Yamba, Northern NSW (and online) and stocked with absolutely everything you need for cooking, entertaining and more. Meredith and her team are incredibly knowledgeable and helpful plus they run wonderful cooking classes in store and in non-Covid times all over the world.

We will hear more from Meredith in the episode and in another special newsletter coming next week in which she shares her ‘something to eat’.

Thanks also to Sophie and Abby of Smith and Jones who have allowed us to use their song Secondhand Heart during this podcast.

Finally, our podcast producer Kristy Reading who adds her favourite psychological thrillers to the mix.

Episode two of Something to Eat and Something to Read in which we discuss Sarah Winman's Tin Man and the shape her other novels have also left on us; along with what happens when relationships disappoint us. The answers may well lie in books that explore relationships that don’t meet expectations, yet end up being something much more fulfilling. And this could also be greatly aided by desserts! 

For the recipes, links, books and more, please head over to our Substack page.

Our thanks for this episode goes to:

Our podcast sponsor Kitchen to Table; a beautiful store based in Yamba, Northern NSW (and online) and stocked with absolutely everything you need for cooking, entertaining and more. Meredith and her team are incredibly knowledgable and helpful plus they run wonderful cooking classes in store and in non-Covid times all over the world. 

We will hear more from Meredith in the episode and in a special newsletter coming next week in which she shares a very delicious pasta recipe. 

Thanks also to Sophie and Abby of Smith and Jones who have allowed us to use their song Secondhand Heart during this podcast.

Finally, our podcast producer Kristy Reading who again gives us another excellent reading recommendation.

Something to Eat and Something is a podcast about cooking and reading, and reading about cooking. Hosted by food writer Sophie Hansen and Bibliotherapist/Psychotherapist Germaine Leece; we believe that you should never go anywhere, or for too long, without something to eat and something to read. 

So every episode we’re going to dive into a book we’ve both read and talk about the ’shape’ it left on both of us. For episode one, we decided to go with a classic, Nora Ephron's Heartburn. And we have a lot of thoughts! 

Part two is the listener letter which we read, discuss and then prescribe a book and recipe that might help!

For all the links and notes from this episode, please click here, and if you'd like to be send these every time we publish a new one, please subscribe to our newsletter. 

We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoy putting it together for you, Sophie and Germaine x