This week, in a special extra episode to coincide to the minute with a fascinating new way of publishing, I’m with content creation queen, Masterchef judge and co-presenter of The Food Programme, Leyla Kazim

Leyla’s debut Pathways is not one but two books about her massive life change to become a farmer in Portugal. It’s a memoir/manifesto/guide to living a purposeful life. Published by The Pound Project, it goes on sale for three weeks only, from 7pm on May 6th - 27th May. She’s in good company - Jess Phillips MP, Dolly Alderton, Pandora Sykes, Emma Gannon, Sebastian Faulks, Charlie Mackesy, Rita Ora, Richard and Scarlett Curtis are just some of her fellow authors. She tells us about disruption in life, the food system and publishing!

You can purchase the book from the following link, which goes live at 19:00 on May 6th:

https://www.poundproject.co.uk/shop/pathways

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This week, we’re talking about the dirty rotten scoundrels who run our global food industry with Dr Stuart Gillespie

Stuart’s book Food Fight: From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet gives us the back story of a food system driven by greed and exploitation. But it suggests how to transform it into a food system fit for the future which prioritises global health and justice. And it starts with really understanding that the food system isn’t broken—it’s functioning exactly as designed.

Pop over to Gilly’s Substack for Extra Bites of Stuart, and for her recent posts on what Food Fight has inspired her to do with Cooking the Books.

Click here for The Dark Side of the Plate, the report that Stuart mentions in the episode that he contributed to for The Food Foundation. And click here for the Food Foundation's Pod Bites.

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This week, we’re digging deep – culturally and politically - into our connection with the land in Poppy Okotcha’s A Wilder Way, how gardens grow us.

Poppy is this year’s winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award for New Food Writers for her memoir – and very practical handbook – about putting down roots and growing a garden while reconnecting with Mother Earth’s infinite power to restore life.

Her beautiful book is a wonderful wake up call to remind us of what’s under our feet, threaded through with fables and folklore from her Nigerian Igbo and British cultures.

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

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This week, we're walking the Green Mountains of Armenia and Georgia with food and travel writer, Caroline Eden

The last time we met on CTB, it was to talk about Cold Kitchens, her dream of journeys past during Lockdown, as she tried to make sense of a changing world. This time, she’s putting one foot in front of the other to process the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on this still largely unknown part of the world, her signature edible postcards a wake up call to the sensory adventures of the Caucasus in the last in her colour trilogy after Black Sea and Red Sands.

Head to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Caroline.

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This week, we’re back at River Cottage with bee queen, Rachel de Thample

River Cottage Handbook No 19: Bees and Honey is the latest in the practical guides to everything we need to know to live a sustainable life. Rachel and Steve Minshall take us through everything from caring for bees to honey recipes for soothing and healing, but as a former chef, commissioning Editor of Waitrose Food Illustrated and Head of Food for the organic box scheme Abel & Cole, Rachel has carved a niche as a writer who is all about the role of nature and climate change in food. Gilly asks her to trace that journey to River Cottage.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Rachel

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This week, we’re off on our travels again through Eastern Europe, this time with Irina Georgescu as our guide along the lesser known banks of the Danube.

Irina has become the word on Romanian food, and from her home in Wales, she’s committed to exploring her homeland through its food history. Her last book, Tava: Eastern European Baking and Desserts from Romania and Beyond won a James Beard Foundation award in 2023. In Danube, she finds publishing gold in everyday recipes from a part of the world most of us still haven’t discovered.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Irina and recipes from the book.

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This week, we’re visiting the kitchens of everyday India to find the food behind closed doors with chef, food writer and broadcaster, Roopa Gulati,

Brought up in Cumbria, Roopa spent 20 years as a chef in Delhi before she came home to advise on Rick Stein’s India series for BBC2. She's a woman who knows how to find the story in everyday food, and Indian Kitchens is an extraordinary story behind the recipes of 12 different communities to find the food that makes up a nation.

Bee Wilson raves about it, Tom Parker Bowles calls it a modern classic, Diana Henry says, 'The recipes are pure gold.'

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Roopa and the recipe for the lamb in ginger and orange from her food moments.

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This week, we’re back at Rockwater, Hove with River Cottage writer, Lucy Brazier telling a live audience about her memoir, The Honesty Box.

It’s a highly moving and very funny diary about healing a broken marriage and growing enough vegetables to fill her new distraction, an honesty box. But the rickety old receptable outside her garden gate is also a metaphor for the treasure trove she finds as she lifts the lid on the mental health crisis her husband – and the rest of the family – have been living with.

We begin with a question from the audience about the title, and if it was always meant to have such a brilliant double meaning.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Lucy and the audience Q&A at Cooking the Books Live.

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