This week, we’re back with farming champion, Abby Allen and her latest book, The Farm Kitchen.

Abby was, until recently, the face of Piper’s Farm, the online farm shop which brought together the best farmers and producers in the South West. Her passion in creating a resilient food and farming system to food lovers across the Uk now comes from a new company, Pipers and co, run by Abby and husband Will which continues to build a network of farmers and producers who do the right thing by the soil, the planet, the animals and us.

And all while she’s been growing a whole new human called Olivia. Gilly begins by finding out how the mothering is going.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Abby including a recipe from The Farm Kitchen.

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This week, we’re with the queen of modern Caribbean cooking, Shivi Ramoutar.

It’s 10 years since her debut cookbook, Caribbean Modern: Recipes from the Rum Islands launched this Trinidadian lawyer and supper club host from Leicester to become the Caribbean queen of daytime TV.

The 10th anniversary edition – simply called Recipes from The Rum Islands is just as much about identity and belonging, but as the co-presenter now of Jimmy and Shivi's Farmhouse Breakfast and a regular on This Morning, not to mention a mum of three young wildlings, as she calls them, she’s got a different perspective. Gilly asks her to revisit a time when she first began to dive into her heritage and its food.

Pop over to Gilly's Substack for Extra Bites of Shivi and a recipe from The Rum Islands.

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This week we’re exploring the cuisine of Saudi Arabia in Madeeha Qureshi's debut cookbook, The Red Sea.

Madeeha who spent her first 18 years in Saudi, came to our attention on Masterchef when she reached the finals in 2021, impressing judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace with her fusion of Saudi Arabian, Middle Eastern, South Asian and modern flavours.

Now, many of us will think of Saudi as a place which is repressive for women and the LGBTQ community, but this is not Madeeha’s story. If Cooking the Books is a place to explore the secret kitchens from different culinary cultures, it’s also about the lived experiences of the authors who tell that story – many of them women. Gilly asks Madeeha to show us around her Saudi Arabia through her food moments.

Pop over to Substack for Extra Bites of Madeeha including a recipe from her book, and for Gilly's post about the complexity of telling stories about place and politics.

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