To kick off a brand new year, we’re diving straight into the power of protein with Jeffrey Boadi, author of Plant Fuel. 

As a former semi-professional footballer and tennis player, Jeffrey has been a top level athlete for most of his adult life. But it was his decision to go vegan overnight that has given him a place on the podium in the plant protein world. Gilly finds out how it happened and how he gets enough protein in plants.

Click here to buy Plant Fuel from the CTB shop at Bookshop.org and here to get to Jeffrey's Extra Bites on Gilly's Substack.

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This week, we’re creating Something from Nothing with Alison Roman.

The former chef, food columnist for the New York Times, senior food editor at Bon Appetit, author of Dining In, Nothing Fancy and Sweet Enough, and now owner of her own store in upstate NY is all about about doing the bare minimum beautifully.

But as one of the early queens of social media, she’s been through the highs and the lows of influencer stratosphere and cancel culture. Her recipes were among the first to go viral – listen to that chat on the delicious podcast back in 2019, and Gilly finds out what she knows now about social media that she didn't know back then.

You can buy Alison’s book - and all your food books at the CTB page on Bookshop.org

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On Christmas Day, we’re combining all the things that Cooking the Books is about – identity, belonging, food cultures and vicarious travel thorugh food with Emiko Davies in one of Gilly's favourite books of 2025, The Japanese Pantry.

As Emiko puts the pieces of her Italian living Australian-Japanese ancestry and influence together through all her books, The Japanese Pantry reads like she’s landing softly among the flavours of her Japan. Gilly explores that journey with her.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Emiko, including an outtake of the book. You can buy her book from the CTB shop at Bookshop.org which supports this ad-free listen.

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This week, we’re with the Spirit of Christmas herself, Skye McAlpine and The Christmas Companion

Among all the talk of the pressures, the aspirational values and the industry of Christmas, Gilly finds herself feeling like the Grinch in the presence of the Christmas Fairy as she asks Skye about about the nostalgia, the beauty and the magic of giving.

Click here for Extra Bites of Skye on Gilly's Substack and here to buy The Christmas Companion on the CTB shop at Bookshop.org

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This week, we’re with Northern Irish food writer Cherie Denham and photographer Andrew Montgomery in The Irish Kitchen 

If you’ve listened to Gilly's chat with Andrew on her Substack  a couple of weeks ago, you’ll know that this is no ordinary book. It follows their first book, The Irish Bakery, published by Montgomery Press, Andrew’s own company designed to do exactly what he wants. 

The 90 recipes by Cherie are framed within stories about memory of home and rural life while Andrew’s extraordinary atmospheric photography captures the people, landscapes and food traditions still alive and well in contemporary Ireland. It’s part-cookbook, part cultural document of Irish home cooking and small producers, and a work of art. I

You can only buy The Irish Kitchen from Montgomery Press, and Andrew has even given CTB fans a discount. Click here and use COOKING10 as the promo code.

And do pop over to Gilly's Substack to see some of the wonderful photography, as well as a recipe from the book in Extra Bites. 

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This week, we're with Masterchef winner and the hottest name in Thai food, Nat Thaipun.

Her book THAI: Anywhere and Everywhere is packed with glorious flavours of Thailand via Melbourne where she grew up. But it was when Jamie Oliver as one of the judges on Masterchef spotted her talent that she really saw what a book could look like. We find out about the role of MasterChef as the global phenomenon in nurturing chefs, and the might of the Jamie Oliver mentorship.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for a recipe from Nat, and to see the original photos David Loftus took of her when Jamie first brought her to London.

And if you’re looking for a way to suppport this ad free pod, do consider becoming a paid subscriber on Substack and buying all your food books from the Cooking the Books shop at Bookshop.org by clicking on this link.

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This week, we’re off to the Bohemian Kitchen of Brit-Czech writer, Evie Harbury

My Bohemian Kitchen is a nostalgic trip through the memories of a place Evie only knows through summers with her Czech granny and her dad’s childhood memories as she investigates the traditional cooking techniques of this largely untapped culinary region. The result is an adventure in refusing to follow the rules and finding a kindred spirit among the Bohemians of her bloodline.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for a recipe from My Bohemian Kitchen which you can buy from the Cooking the Books shop at Bookshop.org to support this advertising free  podcast.  

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This week, we’re with one of our favourite CTB pals, Mark Diacono in front of a live audience at Patio, the buzziest yet somehow most intimate bar in Brighton to talk about his latest book, Abundance.

Abundance is Mark's pioneering way of writing a food book, a Substack post every week over a whole year, supported by a global readership of paying subscribers. Of course the publishers piled in to scoop up the ready-made market, and Quadrille have produced a thing of real beauty which you can buy here.  It’s a masterclass in writing, observing, reminding yourself of the most important things in life and disrupting the traditional publishing model. 

Click here for Extra Bites on Substack where you can also show your appreciation for this ad-free podcast by becoming a paid subscriber.

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This week, we're with Amber Guinness whose latest book, Winter in Tuscany takes us into her own home to rifle through her pantry and cook what she cooks. But, as Gilly finds out, it’s also a stroll through a time and place still rooted in tradition, where cooking with the seasons and the frugal legacy of cucina povera is a reminder of the simple, good things in life.  

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for a recipe and Amber’s playlist made especially for Cooking the Books. And if you’re looking for a way to support this ad-free pod, do consider becoming a paid subscriber to Substack with access to the entire archive forever.

And you can buy the book from the Cooking the Books shop at Bookshop.org by clicking here.

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This week, we’re celebrating 25 years of great British cooking with chef patron of The Sportsman and former punk, Stephen Harris.

 He’s the chef who put “cuisine de terroir” on the map, hyperlocally sourcing the foods from the land that have been the inspiration behind his award winning cooking. The Sportsman has held a Michelin star since 2008, but in The Sportsman at Home, he takes us into his own kitchen, to create the kind of book that taught him to cook back in the day when he was a university student trying out his ideas on his mates.

And you can listen to Stephen’s playlist specially curated for Cooking the Books, as well as try out one of the recipes, on Extra Bites on Gilly's Substack, and you can buy The Sportsman at Home at the CTB shop on bookshop.org by clicking here.

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This week, we’re with Anna Ansari, the American-Iranian author of Silk Roads: A Flavor Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing.

We meet at Helm Gallery in Brighton’s North Laine, in front of a live audience which includes members of the Network of international Women whose debate about the culinary variations of Kuku from Iran and Iraq to Syria, Jordan and Yemen becomes particularly heated in the Q&A. Food, travel and geopolitics, food memory and food identity - it's all here among many of the people who understand these issues most.

You can buy Silk Roads from the Cooking the Books shop at Bookshop.org by clicking on the link, which supports this advertising free podcast.

And do pop over to Gilly's Substack for the recipe for kuku and pictures of the live podcast event.

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This week, we’re with Sarah Bentley, the brains behind Made in Hackney, and its brand new cookbook We Cook Plants.

Made in Hackney is a charity founded 13 years ago by Sarah which teaches thousands the skills to cook with plants for survival, joy, and empowerment. It’s a glorious invitation to put more plants on your plate and be part of real food system change.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack to see some of the wonderful work they get up to at Made in Hackney, as well as one of the recipes from the book.

And you can buy the book at the CTB shop on bookshop.org by clicking here.

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This week, we’re revisiting The Natural Menopause Method with nutritionist, Karen Newby

We first met Karen last year when she explained how to arm women with the information we need to dodge the drug industry, understand how food heals and to live in harmony with one of the natural events in our lives.  Have a listen to that episode of CTB here.

This time, it's all about the cookbook as the companion book. Gilly finds out why it's so important to learn to cook up the method ourselves.

You can buy Karen’s The Natural Menopause Method Cookbook at the Cooking the Books shop on bookshop.org.

And head over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites from Karen including a recipe from the book.

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This week, we are all about the bean - again. It’s Publication Day for Full of Beans, the second cookbook from Amelia Christie-Miller, founder of Bold Bean co., and lead singer in the campaign to bring beans back onto the British plate. 

We first met Amelia at Cooking the Books Live at Groundswell this summer to talk about her first book, Bold Beans: recipes to get your pulse racing Now, with her own little bean growing happily inside her, we caught up to celebrate the birth of Full of Beans and began by discussing the power of storytelling to change the way we eat.

Click here to buy Full of Beans from CTB's own page on bookshop.org, and here for Extra Bites of Amelia on Gilly's Substack, including a recipe from the book, and a glimpse behind the scenes at its photoshoot.

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This week, we’re off to a farm just outside London but which feels like it’s on a different planet, with Tamara Schiopu in My Vegan Farm Food.  

Tolhurst Organic, a 20-acre farm on the Hardwick Estate, is a dream of how farming could be – and is about so much more than growing. This is about community, where the growers work the land and live on the river under the famous willows of Kenneth Grahame’s children’s books. Hardwick Hall, the original inspiration for Toad Hall, overlooks the Victorian greenhouses and the 500-year-old walled kitchen garden where the produce is only half the story. Gilly, who has written the foreword to My Vegan Farm Food, finds out why Tamara, who co-wrote it with Samantha Kroes, chose to tell the story of Tolhurst in a cookbook. 

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for a glimpse of that extraordinary community life Tamara describes on Extra Bites

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This week, we’re off to Brazil with food writer and former Ottolenghi chef, Ixta Belfrage

Her latest book, Fusao meaning fusion, is about more than the melting pot of Brazil’s huge diasporic food cultures; it’s about who she is after a deep dive into her own ancestry, the histories of Brazil and her own connection with food as medicine. Gilly finds out if this weighty book, packed with stories and recipes is an attempt to find her own place in a country which she barely knew at all. 

And you can buy Fusao at the Cooking the Books shop on bookshop.org by clicking on the link.

Head over to Substack for Extra Bites from Ixta including a recipe from the book.

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This week, we’re with Tim Siadatan, the man behind one of the most iconic restaurants in London, Padella to chat about his eponymous debut cookbook.

Tim started his journey in food on an apprentice scheme at Fifteen, with the most iconic of chefs, Jamie Oliver. From there, he rocketed through the food firmament from St John with Fergus Henderson to Moro with Sam and Sam Clarke, before setting up his own restaurants, Trullo and Padella with his mate from the River Café, Jordan Frieda.

With Padella on the bucket list for every tourist coming to Borough Market, it’s no surprise to find Tim’s first cookbook sub-titled ‘Iconic Pasta at Home’. Gilly asks him what iconic means to him.

Head over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Tim, and if you'd like to buy the book, head to Cooking the Books page at Bookshop.org

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This week, we’re back with Cooking the Books favourite, Tara Wigley and the second in her brilliant series of culinary confusions, How the Cookie Crumbles.

After co-writing the Ottolenghi big hitters with Yotam and other members of the Test Kitchen, she’s found her own niche in rhyme.  After How to Butter Toast charmed a whole new readership, she’s back with all we  wanted to know about ingredients, cooking and kitchens, but were afraid to ask.

And it's that sense of anxiety, over-thinking and delightful neuroses that makes her stand out in the food writing community. Gilly chatted to her a month about that nail biting bit before publication, and asked her how she thought the cookie’s going to crumble.

Head over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Tara. And if you'd like to buy the book, head to Cooking the Books' page on Bookshop.org where you can find many of the books featured on the show.

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This week in a special extra episode, we’re live in Paris at the legendary Belleville bistrot Le Mistral with Chris Newens, the winner of the 2024 Jane Grigson Trust Award for best debut food writer for his gastronomic journey through the arrondissements of Paris, Moveable Feasts.

The name of the book is a nod to Chris’ idol, Ernest Hemingway and his memoir of a struggling expat writer making his way in Paris during the 1920s. And in front of a live audience made up of many of his friends and fans who have already made that left turn and are living the expat dream, we talked about curating the bubble of Parisian gastronomy. We began with an introduction to the evening by the queen of French food, Francophile journalist and author of Amuse Bouche, how to eat your way around France, Carolyn Boyd

And you can buy Moveable Feasts and Amuse Bouche at the Cooking the Books shop on bookshop.org by clicking on the links.

And then head over to my Substack for the fascinating Q&A at the Paris show on Extra Bites. 

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This week, we’re with yet another lawyer turned chef, Malaysian restaurateur and award-winning author of Sambal Shiok and now Simply Malaysian, Mandy Yin.

She’s the super-driven restaurateur who started selling satay burgers at a street stall after getting burnt out in corporate law, and who went on to be lauded by all the food critics for her London laksa bar, Sambal Shiok.

As a mum of a three year old now, she’s making it easy on herself, and on the growing number of people who really really want to cook her super tasty laksas and satays in Simply Malaysian. This is about giving yourself a break – as a mum.  

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Mandy's Extra Bites, including some top tips for new mums!

You can buy Mandy's book from the Cooking the Books shop at Bookshop.org which supports independent bookshops.

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