The SPK Book Club

The Salmon Pink Kitchen podcast is back for a fourth season! And we’re relaunching on a high with an episode recorded live during our book club meeting around  Leftovers: a history of food waste & preservation by Eleanor Barnett. 

In this episode, Irene and Margaux join Dr Eleanor Barnett for a journey through the various historical periods covered in Leftovers, and the related recipes and inventions that came from them. We talked about tinned foods and the revolution they brought with them. We walked through Victorian London as Eleanor taught us about the street economy of the time and the origin of Pudding Lane, and we marvelled at the resourcefulness of homecooks all over history. 

We’re so thankful to Eleanor for giving us hope for the future by looking into our past and we’re excited to be inviting you to join the conversation.

Recommendations from this episode and some links to read more from Eleanor: 

• You can buy Leftovers from our affiliated Bookshop.org shop here.
• Follow Eleanor’s brilliant Instagram page @historyeats.
• If you are a BBC History Magazine reader, you will find Eleanor’s monthly recipe column inside.
• Clare Finney’s article on dips in The Guardian with Eleanor’s comments on the history of dips in Britain.
• Check out Eleanor’s website for more news on her research, media appearances and publications.

If you’d like to read with us, here is a reminder that our book club is open to everyone and meets online. You can read more about the SPK Book Club at our website and remember to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the details about our future meetings. You can also connect with us on Instagram. 

We’re also excited to say that since our last season our own Margaux Vialleron has published her second novel: Breaststrokes – 'A study of womanhood, vulnerability, and the secrecy of the inner-life'. You can grab a copy at your favourite bookshop, including here. 

If you enjoy this podcast, please remember to rate and subscribe as it’ll help others to find us. 

Today the Salmon Pink Kitchen podcast gets a yellow makeover for a special episode in which Irene and Margaux discuss writing processes and Margaux’s debut novel, The Yellow Kitchen (spoiler free). 

‘A heady mix of politics, friendship, sex and food, poignant, provocative and utterly distinctive’ — Paula Hawkins 

‘’An exquisite novel — beautifully rendered, powerfully told, and so deeply felt. I urge you to read this novel — you will never forget it’ — Lucia Osborne-Crowley 

The Yellow Kitchen is Books Are My Bag’s July #IndieBookoftheMonth and is publishing on Thursday 7th July. In the meantime, you can already pre-order a copy from your favourite indie #ChooseBookshops. This episode is introduced by Irene, who reads (and sings!) an extract from The Yellow Kitchen. 

Recommendations from today’s episode:
Writers’ Hour
In Writing with Hattie Crisell 

If you enjoy this podcast, please remember to rate and subscribe as it’ll help others to find us. We’ll be back for a new season after the summer holiday, salmon pink promise!

Irene & Margaux 

In this new episode of the Salmon Pink Kitchen podcast, Irene and Margaux welcome Numra Siddiqui, head chef and owner of Empress Market, to discuss storytelling in the kitchen.  

With Numra, we retraced her journey from an office job to running a hospitality brand where she combines food, family traditions and storytelling. From selecting ingredients to planning a menu, doing the maths and picking dishwares, this episode is filled with tips and Numra’s love for a good story. 

This podcast is introduced by the brilliant spoken word artist Amani Saeed, who reads her poem ‘Vermillon’. 

Margaux Vialleron’s novel, The Yellow Kitchen, is publishing on 7th July! Pre-orders are hugely important for debut authors so if you can, please consider pre-ordering your copy from your favourite bookshops and retailers. Thank you for your support. 

Recommendations from today’s episode:
Parcha, the Empress Market newsletter
Food and Feminism, an Empress Market interview with Nida Bilgrami and Nida Jehangir
If These Meals Could Talk, a 6-part series
The Hen-nah Party, an open mic night
Queer Parivaar, a film by Shiva Raichandani and produced by Huma Qazi
The Salmon Pink Kitchen monthly newsletter

If you enjoy this podcast, please remember to rate and subscribe as it’ll help others to find us. This is the last episode of our 3rd season and we’ll return soon, salmon pink promise! 

In this new episode of the Salmon Pink Kitchen podcast, Irene and Margaux welcome chef and food writer Claire Thomson to chat all things writing cookbooks. 

Claire is the author of seven cookery books and her new book, Tomato, will be published in June by Quadrille Publishing. You can pre-order your copy now. With Claire, we took a journey through her cookery books, motherhood, feeding a family, working in kitchens, confidence, and using her Instagram account as a tool to spark ideas for recipes and to invite us all to find our blueprint in the kitchen. 

Claire’s knowledge of food and her confidence in the kitchen are contagious, and we can’t wait for you all to be energised by this episode! Here’s a link to Claire’s cookbooks; we are cooking our way through Home Cookery Year and we couldn’t recommend it more.

Springtime has come and the publication of our own Margaux Vialleron’s novel, The Yellow Kitchen, is approaching and we cannot wait! TYK will be published by Simon & Schuster on 7th July 2022 and you can pre-order your copy from your favourite bookshops and retailers! 

Recommendations from today’s episode:

Claire’s Instagram reel on the women food writers and chefs who have inspired her 

Writers and cookbooks we mentioned in this episode:
Elizabeth David
Jane Grigson
Marcella Hazan
Claudia Roden
Diana Henry
Nigella Lawson
The River Café cookbooks
Elizabeth Luard
Rachel Roddy
Anna Tasca Lanza cookbooks and cooking school

We attended the opening night of the British Library Food Season with the event dedicated to the #CookForUkraine campaign, hosting the incredible Olia Hercules and Alissa Timoshkina in conversation with Caroline Eden. It was hands down the best talk we have ever been to and we are so grateful for all the work Olia and Alissa are doing to raise funds, awareness, help with visas and also with stocking your kitchens with ingredients to help Ukrainian refugees to feel at home. 

You can buy Olia’s, Alissa’s and Caroline’s cookbooks from the links below:
Summer Kitchens by Olia Hercules
Salt & Time by Alissa Timoshkina
Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes - Through Darkness and Light by Caroline Eden

Check out the rest of the Food Season’s events,

In the first episode of this third season of the Salmon Pink Kitchen podcast, Irene and Margaux welcome writer and cook Rebecca May Johnson. 

With Rebecca, we returned to the basics of tomato sauce, cooking together over Zoom as we talked about documenting home cooking, Rebecca’s 10-year old dinner document blog, which has just been turned into a Substack, and her upcoming memoir Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen, which will be published by Pushkin Press in August 2022. You can pre-order your copy here or from your favourite indie. 

‘Cooking is thinking,’ as Rebecca says, and in this moving conversation we discussed the marks we leave and the revolutions that can start from the kitchen. We can’t wait for you to join us at the hob.

Some news! Our very own Margaux Vialleron has written a novel (!!!). The Yellow Kitchen will be published by Simon & Schuster on 7th July 2022 and you can pre-order your copy from your favourite bookshops and retailers! 

Recommendations from today’s episode:

Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen by Rebecca May Johnson

Substack: dinner document by Rebecca May Johnson

The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book by Alice B. Toklas 

Look Here by Ana Kinsella

Marcella Hazan’s cookbooks

McGee on Food and Cooking: an Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture by Harold McGee

Olia Hercules’ salo recipe from Summer Kitchens

400 Ricette della Cucina Piacentina cookbook edited by Carmen Artocchini

‘My Life is not my own. I eat, breathe and sleep this’: the single mother who has fed 100,000 neighbours as published in The Guardian 

Cookery classes at Bottega Caruso in Margate

Franchi: seeds of Italy

The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs

The Salmon Pink Kitchen ends 2021 with a live recipe swap! 

For this episode, Irene and Margaux missioned their listeners to send through recipes that celebrate the cooks they are and/or their kitchens. Grab a snack and a drink of your choice and settle in as we dress 10 supper tables in honour of the women artists and writers we celebrated in our newsletter through 2021. 

Click here to subscribe to our monthly Salmon Pink Newsletter. 

N.B. make sure you have a pen and a notebook: this episode is filled with recipes and tips! 

Our menu for this episode: 

Supper one: The Table of Babe Paley (04:22)
Giulia’s beetroot, goat’s cheese and rocket risotto (@pizzalikesgiulia)

Supper two: The Table of Marguerite Duras (06:54)
Cécile’s leftover soup (@cecil.rdt)

Supper three: The Table of Eileen Chang (08:24)
Matt’s spiced aubergine rice (@mattb085)

Supper four: The Table of Maya Angelou (11:27)
Chiara’s cotoletta (@chiarariviezzi)
Davide and Claudia’s ragù (@clajolivo & @bomberalba_9)
Valentina’s chocolate cake (@v4le.p) 

Supper five: The Table of Nora Ephron (22:13)
Alyce and Alexis’ halloumi and mushroom burgers (@alycegabrielle)
Sean’s brutti ma buoni (@seanoftheshire)

Supper six: The Table of Natalia Ginzburg (26:08)
Alessandra’s crazy cabbage (@muchwritingaboutnothing)
Ludo’s minestrone 

Supper seven: The Table of Betsy Talbot Blackwell (32:35)
Jack’s tuna ragù (@jackclondon1992)
Jemima’s Belgian biscuit cake (@jemimaforrester)

Supper eight: The Table of Jan Morris (38:06)
Diya and her father’s biryani (@diyas.dinner)
Georgina’s sponge cake (@georginabbrookes)

Supper nine: The Table of Tove Jansson (48:02)
Lauren’s red pepper sauce (@sneezykitchen)
Maria’s open sandwich (@mariadinca)
Elisa’s pesche dolci (@ipnotista_dottssaelisacassi)

Supper ten: The Table of Toni Morrison (55:43)
Graham’s pasta pie (@gzoxley)
Elisa’s risotto with gorgonzola, pear and walnuts (@elyyogalife)
Dragos and Nora’s banana bread (@dragospopescu92 & @norracs)

Midnight snack with Louise Bourgeois (1:04:44)

Irene & Margaux’s 2021 round-up: 

Our top Book Club Reads of 2021:
Irene: Once Upon a Time in the East by Xiaolu Guo
Margaux: How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang

Our top Fiction Reads of 2021:
Irene: Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
Margaux: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart 

Our top Non-Fiction Reads of 2021:
Irene: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Margaux: In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova 

In this episode Irene and Margaux welcome writer, poet, academic and editor Anna Sulan Masing for a salmon pink dinner party (oui oui, an actual IRL dinner party!).  

With Anna, we spoke about spirits, bread making and the pomodoro technique, collaborative work, food and academia, the fake meat industry, storytelling, culture appropriation in the kitchen, garlic and ginger and much more.  

Anna (@AnnaSulan) is the founder and editor-in-chief of both SOURCED and CHEESE, the magazine of culture. 

Our menu for this episode:

• Courgette carpaccio and aubergine caponata, served with wholemeal bread
• Homemade pappardelle with fennel, radicchio, soya cream and parmesan (this recipe was taken from Rachel Roddy’s An A-Z of Pasta)
• Plum frangipane tart

Recommendations from today’s episode:

One Pot, Pan, Planet by Anna Jones (2021)
A Modern Way to Cook by Anna Jones (2014)
An A-Z of Pasta by Rachel Roddy (2021)
The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy (1992, 1994, 1998)
Chicago Fire, a TV series available on Netflix

And you can read more about our bread routine here. 

Books:
The Gastronomical Me by M.F.K. Fisher (1943)
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge (1946)
‘The Anatomy of a Recipe’, published in With Bold Knife and Fork by M.F.K. Fisher (1968)
The Life and Times of Michael K. by J.M. Coetzee (1983)
This Is Just To Say, a poem by William Carlos Williams (1991)
Toast by Nigel Slater (2003)
POLPO: A Venetian Cookbook (of sorts) by Russell Norman (2012)
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin (2016)
Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen (2017)
Hungry by Grace Dent (2020)
Tiny Moons by Nina Mingya Powles (2020)
Real Life by Brandon Taylor (2020)
In the Kitchen, essays on food and life, an anthology published by Daunt Books (2020)
The Last Harvest: the Fight to Save the World’s Most Endangered Foods by Dan Saladino (2021)
Elizabeth David’s cookbooks
The Roasting Tin cookbooks by Rukmini Iyer
Anna Jones’ cookbooks
Ella Risbridger’s writing 

In this episode Irene and Margaux welcome Rhia Cook, founder and editor of Potluck Zine, a magazine about cooking, eating and sharing food.

With Rhia, we talked about growing up cooking, being a vegetarian, our love for leftovers, community building over food and what it’s like to run a one-woman magazine.

You can find Rhia on Instagram at @potluckzine and pre-order the new issue of Potluck Zine here! Remember that 10% of all sales goes to the Trussel Trust and 40% of the sales goes back to the contributors, so it’s a fantastic opportunity to support food banks and emerging writers and illustrators. 

Recommendations from today’s episode: 

Bitter Honey by Letitia Clark (with a special mention to her Eggs in Tomato Sauce with Music Paper Bread) 
Hoovering, a podcast hosted by Jessica Fostekew 
Taverna by Georgina Hayden 
The Roasting Tin cookbook series by Rukmini Iyer 
Grown Ups by Marian Keyes
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
Midnight Chicken by Ella Risbridger

In this fourth episode, Irene and Margaux welcome Jill Damatac, a writer, filmmaker and photographer. Jill’s first book, Dirty Kitchen, a blend of memoir, food writing and history, will be published by Astra House in 2023. You can read an extract on The Margins, here: https://aaww.org/dirty-kitchen/. Jill tweets @JillDamatac. 

With Jill, we talked about Tinola, grandmothers, two kitchens, the word dirty, the migrant condition, grief and healing through the acts of cooking and eating.  

Recommendations from today’s episode: 

Jill’s Filipino dishes: Chicken Adobo, fried fish with mango salad, Pork Sinigang (tamarind-based soup), Longanisa (a sweet sausage based on Spanish chorizo), Beef Tapa, Kare-kare (Filipino peanut oxtail stew), Tinola (ginger-chicken soup), Sisig, Pinakpet (vegetable stew) seasoned with Bagoong (a sweet and savoury shrimp paste)

Shakespeare Who?, a podcast hosted by Jill Damatac and Maxine Sibihwana

Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture by Doreen Fernandez (Anvil Publishing, 1994) 

Shuggie Bain by Stuart Douglas (Picador, 2020)

The Mousetrap, a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie at The St Martin’s Theatre