Episodes
Eleanor Wilkinson is this weeks guest on our mini episode and I loved hearing about her Dream Dinner Party. Eleanor is the Queen of One Pot One Portion cooking so I was very intrigued to find out about how she cooks for a crowd. Thank you so much or listening.Thank you very much to our sponsor for this season: Maldon Salt. Maldon Salt are passionate about the love of food and helping connect people in moments of pleasure from food and drink and so are the perfect match for Desert Island...
Published 11/14/24
Published 11/14/24
My guest today is Melissa Thompson  Melissa is a writer, author and broadcaster. A columnist for BBC Good Food magazine, she is also ambassador for Weber Grills and an award-winning writer covering food for publications including The Guardian, Waitrose Magazine and Stylist.  Her debut book Motherland was published in 2022 to critical acclaim. It is an extraordinary combination of recipes from Jamaica and an exploration into the island’s history and the influences on the food.  By others she’s...
Published 11/12/24
Matt Adlard, social media star and self taught pastry chef talks us through his Dream Dinner Party this week. The concept is simple: who would you invite to your Dream Dinner Party if you could invite 4 people, dead or alive? We ask a different guest every week and find out exactly what the menu would be at their Dream Dinner Party. Thank you so much or listening.Thank you very much to our sponsor for this season: Maldon Salt. Maldon Salt are passionate about the love of food and helping...
Published 11/07/24
My guest today is Marco Pierre White. The original rock and roll chef, Marco Pierre White was the chef who cooked like an angel, looked like a rock star and changed the way the world thought of British food. Born in Leeds, to a chef father and Italian mother he was the third of four sons. As a teenager he travelled to London with just £7.36 in his pocket to pursue a career in cooking.  He trained under some of the most famous chefs in the world - Pierre Koffman and Albert Roux. He opened his...
Published 11/05/24
Ed Smith is this weeks guest on the Dream Dinner Party.  Ed is a cook and food writer based in London. He writes award winning cookbooks, recipe columns for magazines and newspapers, create content on Instagram, and for over a decade ran rocketandsquash.com as a celebrated recipe and restaurant blog. He now writes on Substack under the same name. Ed was on Desert Island Dishes a few years ago and if you enjoy today's episode, it's well worth going back and having a listen. Thank you so much...
Published 10/30/24
My guest today is Eleanor Wilkinson.  Eleanor is a content creator and recipe developer from East Yorkshire. Having always loved food and cooking she made the decision to quit her job in the charity sector and embark on turning her passion into a full time career. She started her series, One Pot, One Portion - recipes for people who eat, cook, or live alone but are tired of washing up and was soon getting millions of views on social media and quickly amassed some 600,000 followers on...
Published 10/29/24
Welcome to another episode of our side dish: The Dream Dinner Party and our guest today is Gizzi Erskine This is the mini episode where we invite a guest to tell us their dream dinner party. They are allowed to invite 4 guests – dead or alive because really I think personally 5 people is the optimum number for a great dinner party. And they are going to be talking us through their dream menu – what are they going to serve when there are no limits or practicalities to think about. We have a...
Published 10/24/24
My guest today is Matt Adlard Matt is a self taught baker, author and social media pastry sensation. You may have known him in the early days online as The Topless Baker and he’s known for hosting his own show on the Food Network as well as being a judge on various different baking shows including the BBC’s Platinum Pudding Competition.  Despite growing up above his fathers Michelin starred restaurant, Matt says he had little interest in pursuing a career in food and fell into baking as a...
Published 10/22/24
Welcome to another episode of our side dish: The Dream Dinner Party. This is the mini episode where we invite a guest to tell us their dream dinner party. They are allowed to invite 4 guests – dead or alive because really I think personally 5 people is the optimum number for a great dinner party. And they are going to be talking us through their dream menu – what are they going to serve when there are no limits or practicalities to think about. These mini episodes are really fun to record –...
Published 10/17/24
My guest today is Ruby Wax Ruby really needs no introduction from me, she’s a household name. She’s a woman of so many talents - she’s a comedian, Actress, author, writer and mental health activist. Her life in show business began when she went to the RSC - she says of herself she doesn’t think she was a good actress but Alan Rickman saw in her a talent for comedy and that was what started her on her road to success. She went on to become a TV star interviewing some of the world’s most famous...
Published 10/15/24
Welcome to another episode of our side dish: The Dream Dinner Party. This is the mini episode where we invite a guest to tell us their dream dinner party. They are allowed to invite 4 guests – dead or alive because really I think personally 5 people is the optimum number for a great dinner party. And they are going to be talking us through their dream menu. We have a returning guest for you this week in the form of the brilliant Sunday times best selling author Dawn O'Porter. I was lucky...
Published 10/10/24
My guest today is Clare Smyth (MBE). Clare is one of the world's most respected chefs. She is the first and only British female chef to be awarded three Michelin stars which she achieved for her restaurant Core by Clare Smyth in Notting Hill. Growing up on a farm in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, her passion for food began at a young age and even inspired some of her most famous dishes from her restaurant.  By the time she was 17 she had graduated from culinary school and moved to London...
Published 10/08/24
My guest today is the founder of Hoppers - Karan Gokani. Combining his passion for cooking with his love of the country of Sri Lanka he has built a restaurant empire celebrating the food of Sri Lanka and Southern India. I went to Sri Lanka last year for the first time and completely fell in love with the food. I’ve been to Hoppers many times so I kind of knew what to expect but honestly it’s just the most amazing country and the most delicious food so it was brilliant to hear from Karan about...
Published 02/29/24
This week we have Ravneet Gill on The Dream Dinner Party– she is an extraordinary pastry chef who just makes the most amazing cakes and puddings. She’s also a TV presenter and cook book author – her third – Baking for Pleasure is out now and it’s all about baking for the pure joy of it. She has been a guest on Desert Island Dishes – a few years ago but well worth a listen. I knew Rav loves to entertain so was great to hear more about that and how she envisages her Dream Dinner Party. Thank...
Published 02/27/24
My guest today is Bee Wilson. In all honesty, Bee is one of the most interesting and thought provoking food writers and historians we’ve ever known. She is the author of 8 books about food and eating. Her books have won multiple awards, and she’s won 5 Guild of food writers awards for her journalism. After over 20 years of food writing, this year she released her first cookbook, The Secret of Cooking, something she says she’s dreamt of doing since the age of 8. She has been described by Yotam...
Published 02/22/24
This week we have Zena Kamgaing on The Dream Dinner Party. I love bringing you Desert Island dishes but I also selfishly do love the dream dinner party – it’s a just a little bit of fun, I love how everyone of the guests have really embraced the theme and taken it seriously – in a very unserious way. Zena was no exception – I love the sound of her dream dinner party – there is a part in this where she gets me to play one of the games she likes to play but we cut out the actual game part as I...
Published 02/20/24
My guest this week is the world famous photographer David Loftus. David is one of the most influential photographers of all time often fondly referred to as Lord Loftus. Award-winning and internationally acclaimed, David has done the photography for the books of Jamie Oliver, Rachel Khoo, Gennaro Contaldo, Elizabeth David and April Bloomfield. For over 20 years, David has photographed over 150 books including all but one of Jamie Oliver’s international best-sellers. His work with Jamie Oliver...
Published 02/15/24
Hi I’m Margie Nomura and welcome to another episode of our side side dish: The Dream Dinner Party. This is the mini episode where we invite a guest to tell us all about their dream dinner party. And this week we have the one and only Rick Stein – I know so many of you loved his episode of Desert Island Dishes so I’m thrilled he also joined us to share his Dream Dinner Party. I think Rick would be a popular choice on lots of people Dream Dinner Party guest list so it was so interesting to hear...
Published 02/13/24
We are back! For a short mini series but back nonetheless! I missed you! And I'm very excited that today my guest today is Claudia Roden. Described as the food writer who never goes out of fashion. She began collecting recipes in 1956, while a student in London. The Suez crisis of that year turned many people from Egypt into refugees: preserving the food culture of the Jewish community was as much practical as it was emotional.  These recipes led to her debut masterpiece A Book of Middle...
Published 02/08/24
My guest today is Rick Stein. A highly requested guest, I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did recording it. Rick is, of course, a chef, restaurateur, cook book author and television presenter. He has written over 25 cookery books, a memoir and made over 30 television programmes. His latest cookbook, Simple Suppers is out now. It has been nearly 50 years since he first opened The Fish Restaurant in Padstow, an area of Cornwall he fell in love with at a young age and has made his...
Published 11/16/23
This week we have Donna Hay on the mini episode The Dream Dinner Party. Donna is the much loved and respected queen of cooking in Australia – she’s got a new cookbook out Even More Basics to Brilliance – which is the follow up to her first of this series. I was honoured to host Donna's supperclub at Fortnum and Mason a few weeks ago where we talked about the new book and then were served the most delicious food all from the book. Donna is extremely fun and she did not disappoint with her...
Published 11/14/23
My guest today is Zena Kamgaing. Zena describes herself as a passionate home-chef, recipe creator and food enthusiast. Before going full time as a freelance recipe creator, She worked for a charity and ran their anti human trafficking initiative, worked for a food media company as head of ops before working at Mob kitchen – the food media platform. Zena burst onto the food creator scene when she appeared on Jamie Oliver’s Cook Book Challenge and since then her career has gone from strength to...
Published 11/09/23
This week we have Clodagh McKenna on our mini episode: The Dream Dinner Party. Clodagh is so much fun. She makes the most delicious food but she also makes the setting and everything look so beautiful. You’ll have seen her cooking on ITVs this morning, as well as her brilliant instagram videos she did during lockdown that brought a lot of cheer to people. I think she is one of the only dream dinner party hosts where I have actually been to a dinner party she hosted and it was so much fun. A...
Published 11/07/23
My guest today is Ed Gamble Ed is a comedian, an actor, host of the Off Menu podcast amongst others, and judge on the Great British Menu. He can now also add author to his bio of credentials as his debut book Glutton has just been published. His career in comedy began at Durham university performing with the Durham revue before heading to the Edinburgh fringe for the first time in 2011  His stand-up comedy is largely observational comedy, often aimed at himself, including discussion of his...
Published 11/02/23