This week, Gilly is with Rupy Aujla to talk gut health, flavour and his latest book, Dr Rupy Cooks He’ s a best selling author, a BBC presenter, a podcaster - his podcast The Doctor’s Kitchen is massive, his Instagram following is in 6 figures and somehow he manages to make it to work as a GP. If anyone can change the narrative about why heatlhy eating is so important for the whole of society, it’s Dr Rupy. And of course, it all starts in the gut. For two of the recipes from his four food moment...
Apr 13, 2023•36 min•Season 21Ep. 18
This week, Gilly is going to Pakistan, through the memories of food writer and writing coach, Sumayya Usmani Her memoir, Andaza tells the everyday stories about life and food in Karachi. It sees the kitchen as a place where young Pakistani girls learn much more from their mothers and grandmothers than how to make a recipe, but how to feed, how to nurture and how to connect. For Extra Bites accompanying Cooking the Books episodes, go to Gilly's Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for ...
Apr 06, 2023•32 min•Season 21Ep. 17
This week Gilly is with Turkish food writer and chef, Ozlem Warren Ozlem found fame as a blogger after moving here in 2009, and her supper clubs, meze nights and her book, Ozlem’s Turkish Table have made her the name in Turkish food. But since her home town of Antakya was devastated by the recent earthquake, she’s raised thousands for the relief effort with the help of food influencers like Melissa Thompson, Ravneet Gill, Ixta Belfrage and Clerkenwell Boy, as well as a Cooking the Books fundrais...
Mar 30, 2023•24 min•Season 21Ep. 16
This week, Gilly is gardening with teacher, podcaster and Telegraph columnist , Sarah Raven Sarah has seen massive changes in how our gardens grow over her 25 years as a gardening pundit. For anyone interested in food and the planet, growing, even if it’s just a few herbs on the window sill, seems a no-brainer. Her latest book A Year full of Veg gets to the heart of that relationship and how to grow your own kitchen garden. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Mar 23, 2023•28 min•Season 21Ep. 15
This week, Gilly is exploring the secret kitchens of Britain’s Desi kitchens with Britain's Best Home Cook finalist, Sarah Woods . Her book Desi Kitchen is part of the current crop of second generation Indian cookbooks which are hitting the shelves right now. But Sarah’s tells the story of the communities in which Desi people from the Indian Sub continent have enriched so much of Britain with their food and spiritual cultures. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Mar 16, 2023•31 min•Season 21Ep. 14
This week, Gilly time travels through the centuries with Belgian writer Regula Ysewijn to explore the rich history of the food from her homeland. An anglophile who binged on Bronte and Austen since she was a child, Regula has spent much of her food writing life focussing on British baking. She’s a consultant for the National Trust and even wrote the Downton Abbey Christmas Cookbook. But in her book Dark Rye and Honey Cake , she’s going home to Belgium, the long way. As she digs deep into the foo...
Mar 09, 2023•27 min•Season 21Ep. 15
This week, Gilly is Zooming into the 17th-century Palazzo home in Venice of Skye McAlpine . The daughter of Lord Alistair McAlpine, one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest advisers, Skye grew up in Venice where she now lives with her own family. A classics scholar with a PhD in ancient love poetry, she’s an expert on how Greeks and Romans understood love. And in her latest cook book, A Table Full of Love , she writes a culinary love letter to the friends and family whose recipes she’s gathered over t...
Mar 02, 2023•29 min•Season 21Ep. 14
This week, Gilly chats to a new voice in food writing, Gurdeep Loyal . Diana Henry calls him 'amazing, original, boundary breaking, a genius with flavour’. He's a cool hunter, a podcaster and writer and his debut cookbook Mother Tongue has exploded a whole new way of thinking about Indian food. Since he won the Jane Grigson Trust award in 2020 for his proposal for Mother Tongue, the food world has been salivating as we wait for the arrival of the final book. Anna Jones says ‘every so often a rar...
Feb 23, 2023•37 min•Season 21Ep. 13
This week, Gilly has lunch with one of Britain’s most respected and original voices in British food writing, Elisabeth Luard. A well-known writer, botanical artist and broadcaster, her many books have brought us stories of her family life in Andalucia in the 1960s set among the history, landscapes and culture of Europe. European Peasant Cook ery was first published in 1986 and reprinted again at Christmas, and is seen as one of the most important books in modern British food writing. Tom Parker ...
Feb 16, 2023•48 min•Season 21Ep. 12
This week, we’re celebrating three years of Cooking the Books with its very first guest, Olivia Potts and her latest book, Butter: A Celebration. Her journey from barrister to butter, her latest book is told with what Nigella calls 'her devilish wit', both in her award-winning memoir, A Half Baked Idea and now in a book that has GONG written all over it: Butter: a Celebration . She’s the host of the Spectator podcast , she writes for the Spectator magazine as well as running a successful caterin...
Feb 09, 2023•36 min•Season 21Ep. 11
This week, Gilly is talking revolution in the bakeries of Europe with Berlin's Fine Bagels baker, Laurel Kratochvila . Her book, New European Baking is part guide book to the coolest city bakeries in Europe, part celebration of the return to craftmanship. As she takes us from Boston to Prague, Lisbon to Warsaw and Hackney, we join her in sniffing out the best brioches, challahs and breads of every shape and hue to meet eleven bakers who are riding the New Wave of baking. Check out Gilly's Substa...
Feb 02, 2023•30 min•Season 21Ep. 10
This week, Gilly's talking about food and identity, folklore and First Footers with The Hebridean Baker. Coinneach Macleod has cooked up a magical story of the Outer Hebrides, packed with ancient myths and recipes, and captivated a massive Tik Tok audience. She asks him how he did it, why people are so attracted to story and why Hebridean mothers smash their newly-wed daughters over the head with a piece of shortbread! Check out Gilly's Substack for extra Cooking the Books content each week, inc...
Jan 26, 2023•36 min•Season 21Ep. 9
This week, Gilly's talking food and class in Jeremy Lee ’s book Cooking with 17-year-old food campaigner at the Food Foundation , chair of Bite Back 2030, and Youth Member of parliament for Winchester, Dev Sharma. Jeremy Lee is one of the handful of chefs who’s cooked his way into the history books of modern food culture. His journey has taken him through the kitchens of some of the most influential London restaurants of our time: Conran’s Blueprint Cafe, Alistair Little’s Frith Street to the le...
Jan 19, 2023•29 min•Season 21Ep. 8
Tthis week, Gilly's off on her Zoom travels again, this time to the complex and multi cultural flavours of Romania. Irina Georgescu has become the voice of Romanian food in the years that she's lived outside it.. She believes that there is no better way to tell the tale of a nation than through its food, and in her latest book, Tava , she unpicks the rich fabric of its political, spiritual and culinary past to understand its present. Follow Gilly on Substack where you can find a post from her bo...
Jan 12, 2023•32 min•Season 21Ep. 7
This week, Gilly is at the home of the queen of food writing, the original collector of Middle Eastern and Jewish food and grande dame of food and identity, Claudia Roden . As they celebrate 25 years of Claudia's internationally acclaimed Book of Jewish Food, they discuss the foods in our repertoire now that have been hidden in the kitchens of the Jewish diaspora for centuries - until Claudia wrote them into our world. The influence of the book is a phenomenon; from Alistair Little to Sam and Sa...
Dec 22, 2022•46 min•Season 21Ep. 6
This week, Gilly is talking Christmas wines with Cindy-Marie Harvey whose beautiful book, Watercress, Willow and Wine tells the story of the English vineyards which are creating a revolution in wine. Climate change has not just warmed the soils in England, but also focussed a new movement of sustainable producers to think laterally about how local wine pared beautifully with local, seasonal food can help to save the planet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 15, 2022•37 min•Season 21Ep. 5
This week, Gilly is off to find Christmas – and a whole lot more - in Africana, the debut cookbook from the new voice in pan African food, Lerato who whisks us off on a tour of the latest obsession in culinary cultures. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec 08, 2022•31 min•Season 21Ep. 4
This week, Gilly is with the queen of the Fowl Mouths supper club, BBC Good Food contributor, co-director of the British Library Food Season and now, author, Melissa Thompson . Her debut cookbook, Motherland is the story of the Jamaica that was her father’s family home. As she traces its history through its food, she uncovers the stories of its people, its struggles and its resourcefulness - as well as its delicious food. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 01, 2022•36 min•Season 21Ep. 3
This week, Gilly is with chef Tim Anderson who holds a unique position as cultural commentator on Japanese food culture in Britain. He's a chef, a Masterchef winner, the author of six books on Japanese food and a regular on Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet, yet he grew up in Wisconsin. Gilly digs deep to draw a line between the dots as they discuss his latest book Japanesy: Bowls and Bento. Through Cooking the Books' four food moment format, Tim explains his love of conbini, the Japanese convenienc...
Nov 24, 2022•35 min•Season 21Ep. 2
This week, Gilly meets travel writer, Sylvie Bigar whose article about the rich history of the South West French cassoulet inspired a personal investigation into her often toxic family history and her own love affair with food. Cassoulet Confessions is a food memoir which takes us deep into where a love of food can come from, however dark the path. A New Yorker brought up in a 'mini Downton Abbey' on Lake Geneva, Sylvie's story is of class, nostalgia and dysfunctional family life. As we follow h...
Nov 17, 2022•36 min•Season 21Ep. 1
This week, Gilly's with Prue Leith to talk about her new book Bliss on Toast which elevates the simplest of pleasures into the most delicious meals. Her journey in food makes her look like a gourmet version of the Bisto kid, sniffing her way from her Michelin restaurant in London’s starched 60s through, to taking on the catering at British Rail, through Leiths School of Food and Wine to Bake Off , aged 82. And she’s written 12 cookbooks and 7 novels. Gilly asked her to put her novelist hat on an...
Nov 10, 2022•35 min•Season 20Ep. 12
This week, Gilly is slowing right down for a meditation on cooking and eating in An Everlasting Meal by former chef at Chez Panisse , Dan Barber’s researcher and Vogue journalist, Tamar Adler. The book which first came out in 2011 has clear echoes of Tamar’s hero, MFK Fisher with its poetic message of resilience and personal power, and its gentle humour is particularly resonant in these challenging times. Her former boss, Alice Waters writes in the introduction: ‘It’s a beautifully intimate appr...
Nov 03, 2022•34 min•Season 20Ep. 11
This week Gilly is talking the culture and politics of food with Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall. His latest River Cottage book, Good Comfort is about tweaking our favoruite recipes with healthy extras, saving the pennies and losing a few pounds. It’s also about food memories and generations of family recipes, rooting those cottage pies and weekend pancakes in who we are. And as we navigate our way through a douuble whammuy of climate and obesity crisis, it couldn’t have come at a better time. But as...
Oct 27, 2022•38 min•Season 20Ep. 10
This week, Gilly is talking about Italy through the stories of its Pasta Grannies with Vicky Bennison Vicky won a James Beard award in 2020 for her first Pasta Grannies book based on the super homey Youtube series which has won the hearts of millions of viewers. Her work in international development in countries like Russia, South Africa, and Kazhakstan has given her an anthropological lens through which to look at the role of the nonna. She introduces us to four of the Pasta Grannies through he...
Oct 20, 2022•28 min•Season 20Ep. 9
This week, Gilly is at the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen in North London. This is the hub where the Ottolenghi books and recipes are born to talk, and Gilly's here to talk about Extra Good Things , the latest book after Shelf Love from the OTK stable. Gilly chats to Noor Murad and the team of international chefs and writers who make the magic happen: Gitai Fisher, Verena Lochmuller, Chaya Pugh, Jens Ferdinand and Clodagh McKenna Noor is the lead guitarist in this fabulously international band and the ...
Oct 13, 2022•31 min•Season 20Ep. 8
This week Gilly is with Urvashi Roe whose journey from Gujerat through London’s estates to Bake Off and her first book, Biting Biting celebrating the snacking culture of her Gujerati family is a fascinating story of modern Britain. And don't forget that Leiths Online is offering a discount for Cooking the Books listeners. To get 10% off the Essentials online course that Gilly is on, go to leithsonline.com/courses/essential-cooking , click ‘enrol’ on course page and apply the code: GILLY10 at che...
Oct 06, 2022•35 min•Season 20Ep. 7
This week, Gilly puts Jamie Oliver’s new book One: Simple One-Pot Wonders to the test with 20 year old Food Foundation food ambassadors, Rabiya and Jani who work with her on the Right2Food podcast . Rabiya and Jani are part of a team of young people from across the country who report for the Food Foundation’ s podcast from the front line of food insecurity, having grown up in Huddersfield often not knowing where their next meal came from. Now students – Rabiya of Law at Lancaster and Jani of Spo...
Sep 29, 2022•32 min•Season 20Ep. 6
This week, Gilly is talking about Spice , the latest book from award winning food writer and Cooking the Books regular, Mark Diacono . In a series of four food moments, Mark introduces us to spices from cultures which we may yet have discovered, and explains how an explosion of flavours as a child led to an endless appetite for new culinary adventures. And don't forget that Leiths Online is offering a discount for Cooking the Books listeners. To get 10% off the Essentials online course that Gill...
Sep 22, 2022•31 min•Season 20Ep. 5
This week, Gilly is in reflective mood with Sam and Sam Clark, the husband and wife chef team who have given us 25 years of Moorish cooking at Moro to talk about the publication of their latest book, Moro Easy , and the legacy and influence of cook books Sam and Sam are among the most influential chefs in modern British cuisine, bringing delicious, rustic Moorish cooking to Britain back in the 1990s. We met on the morning after the Queen had died, while the media was having a field day discussin...
Sep 15, 2022•32 min•Season 20Ep. 4
This week, we’re eating to save the Planet with Philip Lymbery , global CEO of Compassion in World Farming . Philip is one of the most important campaigners against factory farms where the animals whose meat most people eat are confined and never see the light of day. He and Gilly have worked together on his podcasts Stop the Machine and the Big Table and he’s appeared on the delicious podcast and on Right2Food, the voice of the Food Foundation in a bid to change the way we eat. He’s painted an ...
Sep 08, 2022•32 min•Season 20Ep. 3
