In this extra, special episode, Gilly is with Angela Clutton, who, with Itamar Sulovitch from Honey and co and Leyla Kazim from the Food Programme, was one of the three judges of this year's Fortnum and Mason Awards. By the time you hear this, the glitz and glamour of these Oscars of the food world will be over for another year. The mass of talent in the room will be nursing their hangovers while the winners will be stroking their crowns. And as one of the nominees recording this before the...

This week, Gilly is with award winning travel writer, Caroline Eden. Her Cold Kitchen in Edinburgh is where we find her comfort cooking up the recipes she remembers from her travels. Her memories take us on the Trans Siberian Railway, through the dark back streets of a winter in Istanbul and the political chaos of a coup in Kyrgyzstan, and remind us of what travel can do for humanity.   This is the recipe for food books which Gilly found so compelling when she first interviewed her about her...

This week, Gilly is with Georgina Hayden, our favourite Cypriot food writer to talk about Greekish, her everyday recipes with Greek roots. This is about the mash up of all that she is – North London, 2nd generation Greek Cypriot, who with full support from her yiayia, her grandmother, has cooked up a whole story of her family life in the kitchen. Gilly finds out whether the ish in the title has to do with how she feels about spending the last 19 years writing recipes from her intercultural...

This week, Gilly is off to stunning Welbeck country estate in the heart of Nottinghamshire to the School of Artisan Food to meet head baker, Kevan Roberts. His book Baking Sourdough takes us on a sensory journey to the roots of traditional bread making, and as the School prepares for this years’ summer school courses, Gilly finds out why sour dough and artisan food matters so much. Check out Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites from the School of Artisan Food. Hosted on Acast. See...

This week, Gilly is with Nicola Lamb, one of the nominees of this year’s Jane Grigson Trust Award for best debut food writer. Her book Sift is an extraordinarily accomplished first book by a pastry chef trained in London and New York by the best - Ottolenghi, Dominique Ansel and Little Bread Pedlar. Her Substack, Kitchen Projects was praised as an ‘incredible resource’ by The Observer, and her recipes have been featured in Serious Eats, The Guardian, Olive, Vogue, and ESMagazine and she hosts...

This week, Gilly explores art, philosophy and food with third generation British-Chinese photographer and Instagram superstar, Michael Zee His Symmetry Breakfast account  featured his photographs of symmetrical breakfasts every day for 10 years and has 667k followers. In his latest book Zao Fan, Breakfast of China, it's with his anthropological eye that he looks beyond the dishes to place, people and home. Check Gilly's Substack for recipes and photography from Michael's book. Hosted on...

This week we’re off to North Macedonia via Crawley with Spasia Dinkovski  Spasia’s book, Doma, meaning home, is one of Gilly's favourite journeys, back to where it all started. She may have been born in Crawley, but her heart, she finds out through her cooking and her writing, is with the women who fed her soul in Macedonian summers.   Already spotted as an Observer Food Monthly Rising Star, she took an Instagram lockdown hobby and made it into a supper club and shop in South London called...

This week, Gilly takes us back to last week's Jane Grigson Trust Awards for debut food book writers to meet the winner, Chris Newens. He may still be writing his book, Moveable Feasts: Paris in Twenty Meals, but Gilly helps him unpack four food moments which open a door on Parisian food through its 20 arrondissements. Check into Gilly's Substack to listen to chair of The Jane Grigson Trust, Don Sloan explain what the judges were looking for in this year's nominees. Hosted on Acast. See...

This week, Gilly Zooms over to the Clare Valley just outside Adelaide in South Australia to catch up with food writer, TV presenter, sustainable living advocate, urban farmer, entrepreneur and the queen of Granny Skills, Rebecca Sullivan to talk about her book, with partner Damian Coulthard, First Nations Food Companion. Gilly first met Rebecca in 2016 at a conference at the University of California in Berkely about the role of food In the health of everything that we care about. Although...

This week, Gilly is discussing Easy Wins with the award-winning and best-selling queen of vegetarian food, Anna Jones. Her latest book is packed with stunning recipes and ideas for getting so much more taste and less waste on our plates. Easy Wins has 125 brand new recipes around 12 hero ingredients, all designed to make our lives easier. But with two small kids, that can’t be an easy win for her. Gilly finds out how she does it. Do head to Extra Bites on Gilly's Substack to get a taste of...

This week, Gilly is with Angela Clutton to talk about her latest book, Seasoning. This is so much more than a bit of salt and pepper. It's about how climate is changing our seasons with its earlier springs, longer summers, warmer, wetter winters and the role we play.  It has all the hallmarks of a modern classic, a book packed with the rigour we associate with Angela’s award-winning writing but brimming with flavour and delicious ideas to reduce our waste and get more – much more – out of the...

This week, Gilly is with Charles Clover, author of Rewilding the Sea to dive deep into the world behind our fish. Charles is a seasoned environmental journalist, super campaigner, co-author of King Charles’ Highgrove: Portrait of an Estate.  And as co-founder of Blue Marine Foundation, he’s bringing life back to our oceans. Margaret Atwood calls his book a 'game changer,' Isabella Tree says 'it’s desperately needed', George Monbiot says ‘what if our seas became productive again with giant...

This week, Gilly is with nutritionist, Karen Newby hot on the heels of an Instagram live with the Queen of the Menopause, Davina Mcall, on her new book The Natural Menopause Method. It’s a book for our times. Since Davina’s documentary about HRT, everyone’s talking about menopause. Karen's book is all about food, but it’s not a recipe book. This is about arming women with the information we need to dodge the drug industry, understand how food heals and to live in harmony with one of the...

This week, Gilly is with one of the main players in the story of modern British food, Michel Roux Junior His Mayfair restaurant, le Gavroche is a London legend, and its closure last month  57 years after his father and uncle, the Roux Brothers changed the game in British food, is a milestone in the way we eat.  At 63, he’s ready for the next chapter, and he’s marking it with his latest book, Michel Roux at home. I asked him how he’s feeling. Head to Gilly's Substack Extra Bites for recipes...

This week, Gilly is with Ashia Ismail- Singer to talk food identity and how food culture travels across borders.  Her books Ashia’s Table and Saffron Swirls and Cardamon Dust, and her 3rd, The Laden Table which comes out in April, are about her Indian food culture, born in India, brought up in Malawi and the UK and fused with the best of New Zealand. Check for the recipes from Ashia's food moments on Extra Bites on Gilly's Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Gilly is with the word on Omani food, Dina Macki. Her first book, Bahari: Recipes from an Omani Kitchen and Beyond is out today, but it’s been a long time coming; the Jane Grigson Trust Award which she won in 2023 is the annual pointer to the best of the brand new food writers before their books are even finished, and the world has been longing to see what the fuss is all about.  Born and brought up in an Omani community in Portsmouth, she tells us how learning about her own food...

This week, as part of a new season for the New Year on how to live, be and do better, Gilly is with plant-based chef and author, Gemma Ogston to talk about how to get well enough to be your best self. Gemma's journey through dis-ease led to a career in addiction counselling and nourishing DJs and 24 hour party people back to health in her temporary home in Barcelona. Her simple guide to wellness in her second book, The Healing Cookbook is about long term health, and has catapulted her to...

This week, Gilly is with Lynn Cassells who with her partner Sandra Baer are two of the most inspiring women you’re likely to hear on Cooking the Books this year.  Our Wild Farming Life is their story of following a dream, moving from South East England to the Scottish Highlands to regenerate an 150 acre farm. It was more than a dream – it was a calling to reconnect with the land, to find out what role people can play in nature, and to tell their story to people who are aching to know the...

This week, Gilly is with food writer and photographer, molecular biologist, multiple James Beard award-winner, Nik Sharma. His latest book Veg-Table is all over the Best of the Year lists for his original scientific take on vegetables which has opened up a whole new way of eating. Check out Gilly's Substack for Nik's Extra Bites Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To kick off a brand new year of life through the prism of food, Gilly is with the Head of Communications and Marketing at Veganuary, Toni Vernelli to talk about the 2024 edition of the Official Veganuary Cookbook. It's 10 years since Veganuary first made January its own, encouraging people all over the world to try out a meat free month for the sake of our own health and that of the planet. And it’s been a phenomenal success with only two countries in the world - North Korea and the Vatican...

This week, Gilly is with Alex Jackson, Noble Rot chef, former restaurateur at Sardine and author of Frontieres. He talks about his long love affair with France, and particularly with its food, but it’s the edges that we’re after here, The Italianness of the French Riveiera , the spices of  Provence, melting pot of Marseille. It’s about an adventure in French cooking through the prism of the others that make modern France French. Head over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Alex's...

This week, Gilly's with a man after her own heart. There are very few people who write about TV chefs and their place in British food culture, but Kevin Geddes, author of Keep Calm and Fanny On and Gilly, who wrote Taste and the TV Chef (2020) are two of them. Channel 5 is showing an hour long documentary on December 28th called the 70s Dinner Party in which Gilly joins Dr Annie Gray to talk about the social history of the TV chef. She and Kevin celebrate by diving deeply into the '70s food...

This week, Gilly is with private chef, Jane Hodson, food writer, Lucas Hollweg and probably the most influential of social media food influencers, photographer Clerkenwell Boy to discuss These Delicious Things, a charity cookbook featuring recipes and childhood food memories from the likes of Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and Stanley Tucci.  The idea began when Jane and Lucas, hunkered down on a winter’s night, as Jane writes in the introduction, wondered if a collective memoir, featuring the...

This week, Gilly is with Dina Begum, whose book, Made in Bangladesh celebrates the food and folklore and of the old country which she left when she was four years old. It was first book, Brick Lane which first opened the door on what was happening in the kitchen of our East End curry houses, and propelled her into pole position as authority on British Bangladeshi culture. Gilly explores with her why she chose to take us back to Bangladesh and what she wanted to find. Check into Gilly's...