In extra episode from Groundswell, the Regenerative Agriculture Festival that Sheila Dillon calls 'the Glastonbury of Food and Farming', Cooking the Books Live discusses the influence of cook books and books about food on changing the way we eat and buy our food

In front of an audience of farmers and food businesses, pioneers and innovators who are changing the way we eat, Gilly asks a panel of writers with influence, Thomasina Miers of Wahaca, Amelia Christie-Miller of Bold Bean company, Alice Robinson of British Pasture Leather and David Finlay of The Ethical Dairy what a book can do to change the story of food.

Check out Gilly's Substack here and get in touch on Instagram here

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This week, we’re back at Rockwater in Hove for Cooking the Books Live with Gurd Loyal.

Regular listeners will know that Gurd is probably the writer who Gilly think's best uses the lens of food to examine life. His first book, Mother Tongue won the Jane Grigson Trust award for Best Debut, and he has become the word on Third Culture food, prising open the liminal spaces between where we come from and who we can be.

His second book, Flavour Heroes is a lighter read, a pantry book giving us technicolour ways to elevate the simplest dishes with 15 superstar ingredients. After the food world clucked around him over Mother Tongue, Diana Henry calling him boundary breaking, Felicity Cloake dubbing him the Willy Wonka wizard of flavour, Gilly asks him in front of a live audience, how he felt about the notoriously difficult second album.

Head over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of CTB Live with the Q&A

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This week, we’re with Guardian columnist and author Felicity Cloake as she cycles through America in search of its food culture.

Peach Street to Lobster Lane is her great American road trip – on a bike. It’s the off-road trip that’s about getting to the heart of American cuisine via a glimpse into everyday life that you just can’t get by car.

The story she finds is about immigration, colonisation and enterprise, from tex mex to creole, fried chicken and real bbq, Chicago deep pan pizza, lobster rolls, clam chowder, Boston baked beans New York bagels and Coney Island hot dogs.

Click here for Extra Bites of Felicity's epic adventure on Gilly's Substack.

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This week, we’re exploring the story of Ukraine with its most famous defender and cultural protector, Olia Hercules in her first memoir, Strong Roots.

It’s the story of Ukraine that history can never tell, through the stories of its people - and in particular, Olia’s people, through four generations of her family. Nigella calls it 'breathtaking', Caroline Eden calls it cinematic, Elisabeth Luard says: ‘Here, in all its beauty and sorrow, is the story of Ukraine as it is, and was and surely will be again.’

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Olia and her photos from the family album.

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This week, we're with award-winning psychologist, and graduate of Gilly's How to Cook a Book food writing retreat, Andrea Oskis.

Her first book is a series of tales from her clinic exploring how the food we eat reveals who we are – and how we love. Its title? The Kitchen Shrink. Genius.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Andrea.

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This week, Gilly is confronting her biggest summertime phobia with Tom Kerridge and his latest book, The Barbecue Book.

He’s the man with the Midas touch – he turned the Hand and Flowers from a rundown pub in Buckinghamshire into the first and only 2 star Michelin pub in the world. He’s the chef who lost a stack of weight and turned his diet story into books and telly which helped millions of others do the same. He’s the boy who grew up on free school meals who launched Full Time Meals with Marcus Rashford in 2021 and campaigns for free school meals for all children in the UK. He’s the Michelin star chef whose books elevate the simplest of dishes. But is he the man who can teach Gilly how to love a barbie?

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites

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This week, we’re back with one of Gilly's favourite guests on Cooking the Books, Bee Wilson and her latest book, The Heart Shaped Tin.

It’s a book about love and loss, and the magical thinking that so many of us transpose onto everyday objects, often found in the kitchen. As she navigates her way from the despair of a broken marriage to a gloriously happy present via the death of her mother and the inevitable life changes that happen as children grow up, she gathers stories and explores the psychology about our relationship with things – the junk and the treasure – in her most moving book so far.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Bee.

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This week, we’re basking in the evening sunshine at Cooking the Books Live at Rockwater, Hove with Noor Murad.

Her debut cookbook, Lugma is her twist on the familiar, to use an Ottolenghi term, of the food from her homeland, Bahrain.

It’s the very first international cookbook of Bahraini recipes, but reflects her own experiences of growing up there, the mix of Persian and Indian flavours infused with her own half Britishness and a brash of new York where she worked before landing in the bosom of the Ottolenghi family.

Click here for tickets to the next Cooking the Books Live with Gurd Loyal, and then pop over to Gilly's Substack for the fascinating Q&A with the audience.

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