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The delicious podcast

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Here you’ll find the latest podcasts I produce and present for delicious magazine https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/stories/podcasts/  

It’s (almost) Chreeeeestmas!

In this month’s feature packed pod,  I go behind-the-scenes of the delicious. magazine December issue with editor Karen Barnes. From the very first planning meeting in July to the final moments of testing mince pies and all the secrets in-between. Food editor Jen Bedloe also shares her essential gadgets for cooking on Christmas Day.

I talk to Lebanese author Bethany Kehdy about the Islamic way with hospitality then hear from Scandi food writer Bronte Aurell about how Scandinavians celebrate Christmas including early morning carols by candlelight, eating saffron buns and lots of hygge.

Sticking with the Scandi theme, I discuss Trine Hahnemann’s new book with her. It’s about her hometown, Copenhagen and lists the places to go to including bakeries, restaurants and little-known hangouts that she loves.

I find out how to make your Yuletide very cool this year with a community banquet inspired by Cardiff’s Green City Events and chat to super-baker, Will Torrent, who tells us about the chocolate that keeps on giving.

Listen now: the delicious. December podcast

Can a farm be carbon positive?

I headed to the Abergavenny food festival, back in September, and met Sarah Dickins and Nick Miller of Pen-y-Wyrlod Lamb to discuss how they are doing things differently on their farm in Wales.

Sarah and Nick’s goal is to produce sheep utterly sustainably and to have a carbon-positive farm.

We discuss the concerns of veganism for farmers and how, at their farm, they work with the land to actually reduce carbon emissions. They don’t use fertilisers or sprays and they don’t plough the land; to create a better environment for the land, for the sheep and ultimately for the people who eat their lamb.

We also talk about lamb welfare. Most lamb farmers sell their lamb at 14-16 weeks but Sarah and Nick sell theirs at 14-16 months, allowing their sheep to develop at the correct pace which, in turn, shows in the flavour of the meat.

If you’re interested in the vegan vs farmers argument, there’s a lot to learn here. Take a listen:

Listen in for an interview with the Honey & Co owners

This week I talk to the owners of Honey & Co about Israeli cuisine, women in the kitchen and how, with their new book, you can recreate the food you eat in their restaurant, at home.

Husband and wife team, Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer, are the couple behind the award-winning Honey & Co in London. As well as their restaurant, which opened on Warren Street in 2012, they have another restaurant called Honey & Smoke and a food store, Honey & Spice.

I chat to the former Ottolenghi head chefs about the current craze in Israeli flavours and how they translate those flavours into traditional, home cooking.

We also discuss how Honey & Co is a company predominantly run by women which wasn’t predetermined but is now paving the future for females in the industry.

And finally, Sarit and Itamar tell us how their mission is for everyone to try cooking the food, that they eat in their restaurant, at home.  Listen here:

Listen in for an interview with the Honey & Co owners

Listen to this week’s podcast from Amorevore in Ibiza

This week, my podcast comes from the gorgeous white isle of Ibiza and the new food festival Amorevore.

I bump into delicious. columnist Gill Mellor who was demonstrating how to cook over fire as well as talking about his new cookbook Time. We chatted about how people are embracing being outdoors, the performance of cooking at food festivals and how the smell, touch, taste and connection with food inspires him.

Next is Zoe Adjonyoh, discussing the power of story telling and the new stories coming from Ibiza. Zoe tells me how after avoiding the ‘party island’ in her twenties, she now sees the rich, diverse food culture of Ibiza and realises the chefs are doing great things there – she thinks Amorevore will be a destination festival for many years to come.

Later, I catch up with one of the festival’s founders, Boris Buono, chef Cliff Grubin of Wild Beets and hotelier and restaurant owner, Victor Guasch, to find out their stories of the island. Click here to hear the whole story.

Listen to this week’s podcast from Amorevore in Ibiza

Listen now: A French revolution in Bordeaux wines

In this week’s podcast, sponsored by Bordeaux Wines UK, I head to the wine regions of Bordeaux to meet a couple of young winemakers causing a bit of a revolution.

First up is fifteenth generation winemaker, Benoit Trocard of Clos Dubreuil, who, against his father’s advice, was the first ever to grow Chardonnay in Saint-Emilion.

I also chat to Coralie de Bouard who has used new technology and grape varietals in her own vineyard just down the road from the famous Chateau Angelus where she grew up.

Plus I talk to wine blogger, Coralie Strong, aka everyglassmatters on what to look for in Bordeaux wines.

Find more about Bordeaux wines at www.bordeaux.com and for top tips for a trip to Bordeaux, take a look at Benoit’s foodie postcard, here.  And click here for the whole story:

Listen now: A French revolution in Bordeaux wines

So, what’s in the November pod? delicious. editor Karen Barnes is up first, talking about eco cups and how it’s uncool to be seen without one.

I take a slice of Alison Swan Parente’s life. From starting a bakery to launching an artisanal cookery school, where students arrive feeling pretty bad about themselves but by the time they finish the course they are accomplished, self-assured and are ready to make a living from what they have learnt.

Champion of regional British produce Henrietta Green discusses how, in 1998, she bought her Food Lover’s Fair to Borough Market and paved the way of what the market has become – an icon of food from all over the world.

Also in Borough Market, we hear from Daniel Tapper who has just harvested hops that were grown in the giant market hall.

And, don’t miss, the judges of this year’s delicious. Produce Awards, led by Prue Leith, talking about the awards and what they were looking for when unearthing some real gems of British produce.

Listen here:https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/delicious-podcast-episode-32-the-november-issue/

Listen in for Donal Skehan on his new Meals in Minutes cookbook

This week, I meet blogger-turned-food writer and TV chef, Donal Skehan to find out how life as a former pop star – and being a new parent – inspired his latest book ‘Meals in Minutes’.

I couldn’t talk to Donal without mentioning his pop group days; he reveals all and tells me how he likes to push himself out of his comfort zone; from the euphoric highs of singing on stage – to thousands of fans – to the nerve-racking butterflies on his first time presenting Saturday Kitchen.

We chat about how he got into food, why Jamie Oliver inspired the 12-year-old Donal and taking tupperware food packages on pop tours around the country.

Now, living in Los Angeles with his wife Sofie and baby son Noah, Donal is releasing his eighth cookbook. Tune in to find out more about what inspired the book, as well as some top foodie tips for eating out in Puglia, Italy.  Have a listen here:

Listen in for Donal Skehan on his new Meals in Minutes cookbook

Listen now: Nigella Lawson on How to Eat

In this special extended interview, I talk to the awe-inspiring Nigella Lawson 20 years after her first cookbook, How to Eat, launched her career. Listen to this week’s episode and find out more about when the book was first conceived, what Nigella thinks of gastro porn and how she became an icon in modern food.

We reminisce back to where it all began and how Nigella took her opinionated views of food and turned them into a career as a champion of simple home cooking, author and TV star.

Then we chat about how, with How to Eat, she wanted to be a companion in the kitchen and why, even though she was resistant at first, the move to television allowed viewers to watch her recipes come to life.

Later on, Nigella denies being coquettish with her seductive finger-licking and tells me how it embarrassed her when she was described as the most beautiful woman in the world when, in real life, she describes herself as ‘messy’ and ‘bumbling’.

Nigella also answers delicious. readers questions including what she cooked at her last dinner party meal, who designed her kitchen and the herbs and vegetables she grows at home.

Have a listen here:

Listen now: Nigella Lawson on How to Eat

31: the October episode

This week, I find out how food waste has become central to the cooking of both eco chef Tom Hunt and Madonna favourite, Skye Gyngell. I talk to Yotam Ottolenghi about his new book Simple and meet fashion-guru-turned-Spelt-farmer, Roger Saul. And afterwards, I catch up with Nigel Barden to hear about his new TV show.

So, what’s in the October pod? First up is delicious. editor Karen Barnes. Karen lovingly tells me about the importance of The School of Artisan Food.

I caught up with eco chef Tom Hunt, at his restaurant Poco Tapas Bar, for a slice of his life. He told me about creating a menu for 200 people, key ways to reducing waste and how River Cottage played a large part in shaping his career. Poco is a shortlister in this year’s Food Made Good Awards, under the ‘Serve More Veg & Better Meat’ Category.

At this year’s Abergavenny Food Festival, Skye Gyngell revealed what inspired her three-course menu ‘Scratch’. The menu uses leftovers and is available at her restaurant Spring, in Somerset House.

Yotam Ottolenghi explains that while his new book is titled ‘Simple’ it’s really all about ease. He describes the five ways his cookbook strives to make cooking easy  – each represented by a letter in the word ‘simple’.

When Roger Saul thought ‘what is life really all about?’ he decided it was time to trade in his career, of designing Mulberry handbags, for sacks of flour. He tells me why he was encouraged to grow spelt.

Nigel Barden has become one of the most well-known voices in food radio. You can now find him on TV in the brand new series ‘Drivetime Dishes’. We reminisce back 28 years ago to when we first met and he tells me why this TV show is a must-watch.

And to end the episode, I head to the delicious. test kitchen for a top tip from cookery assistant Oliva Spurrell. You’ll have to listen to find out what, of course…

Have  a listen here:

delicious. podcast episode 31: the October episode

Listen now for Yotam Ottolenghi’s thoughts on identity, food fights and feeding the kids

In this week’s podcast I catch up with Yotam Ottolenghi to ask him about food identity, peace food and why he tries to avoid fighting with his kids over food.

First, I was really curious to find out how Yotam created the wow factor in British food. He tells me what he thinks the joy of cooking is, and why his cookbooks aren’t as popular in Israel.

He reveals what he’d like to say his kids eat compared to what they truly eat (all parents will identify with this, surely), including the one thing they’ll always leave on their plates.

Tune in to hear his careful answer to the question “what is Ottolenghi food all about?” Plus, the reason why he doesn’t normally have breakfast.

Listen now for Yotam Ottolenghi’s thoughts on identity, food fights and feeding the kids

Listen in for Sybil Kapoor’s interview on cooking with your senses

This week, I met with food writer Sybil Kapoor. Sybil talks about how one of the first recipes she cooked, as a teenager, developed into a recipe in her fascinating new cookbook Sight, Smell, Touch, Taste, Sound: A new way to cook.

She explains why it’s important to sniff all your ingredients, even the bad ones, the anticipation of sounds – and why we really do eat with our eyes.

Tune in for a fascinating insight about understanding how our senses attribute to the joy of cooking.  Listen here:

Listen in for Sybil Kapoor’s interview on cooking with your senses

Listen in for Gill Meller’s first interview about ‘Time’

It’s a delicious. exclusive!

I was lucky enough to get an exclusive interview with chef Gill Meller for this week’s podcast.

Gill is a resident columnist for delicious. magazine, an award-winning writer for his first book Gather and part of the renowned River Cottage team.

Tune in for his very first interview on his new book Time and why he thinks we should slow down to consider what food is all about. He delves back into his childhood too, and talks about what time means to him.

Here’s the link for you:

Listen in for Gill Meller’s first interview about ‘Time’

Musings from my meanderings around the food world

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Brown is the new black

I interviewed Nigella a while back. In her kitchen. I know! And as we sat at the mottled zinc table she says in her latest book is the ‘nexus of my life now’, we talked about, among other things, brown food.

You can hear the full interview about her latest book, At My Table on  the delicious. podcast Extra Portion, but here’s a little snippet to wet your whistle. Brown, we agreed, is an old fashioned, pre-Instagram colour, but it’s the colour of most of my favourite autumnal food, and certainly the roasts and stews of Nigella’s and my grandmothers’ best-remembered dishes. Home cooking, she said, is often all about the brown, from her family’s barley soup to her chicken fricassee.

What a joy! As she told me how she was often moved to tears when she hears about one of her cakes becoming a milestone in someone else’s family, I counted the autumn and winter recipes I would make from her books without a single pomegranate to be seen. And as I pondered on what I would cook for a post Yom Kippur feast (some of you will spot the deliberate errors) on Saturday night, I remembered a particularly gorgeous brown dish from her book Feast.

Now in proper Jewish households (unlike my mash up family and friends of non-observant Jews and ritual-happy goys), no-one cooks during the Day of Atonement. But slow-cooking could hardly be called work, and so Nigella’s Paschal lamb, roasted languorously with white beans, garlic, carrot and white wine seemed a perfect choice. Wrong time of year perhaps for an Easter lamb? Paschal, shmascal, as my husband would say. The story of Jewish ritual is always the same; ‘They chucked us out; we survived; let’s eat.’

On the Saturday morning before Yom Kippur, I picked up my Southdown lamb shoulder, fresh from Lew Howard, my family butcher in Ringmer (who you can also hear on the delicious. podcast) and who had personally checked on its welfare at the Goodwood Estate Home Farm, as he does with all the farms he buys from. Pasture-fed on the chalk ground of the South Downs, and winner of two Gold Stars at the Great Taste Awards, it fell off the bone after three hours at 150 degrees, with beetroot and sweet potato instead of carrot, and red wine instead of white (there was already a bottle open) adding autumnal tones to the richness of its brown.

At dusk, we burned our scribbled atonements (or the failings we weren’t prepared to take into the next year) in a Buddhist Puja ceremony, and broke the fast that I’d failed to do, but in which my newly single friend had found the mental space to reflect on the year that’s been. The light was dim, candlelit in a nod to the proper Jewish tradition, flickering against my brown and beetroot-red lamb shoulder. My grandmother would have been pleased. My husband’s grandmother would have been even happier. And I think Nigella would have approved.

Note:

Now I love Nigella as much as the next person, and as ‘her biographer’, (as the Sunday Times calls me) I do have a particular interest. But I’m more interested in the effect her glamour and the way she ‘performs’ it has on her audience and readers (and my social media following when I haven’t even yet released what she said to me). As a media academic for eight years, I’ve written and presented copiously on the subject of Nigella, or ‘Nigellisima; a study of glamour, performativity and embodiment’, as my co-authors, Lorna Stevens and Bernadette Capellini titled a paper we published, as the performedversion of the food writer, Nigella Lawson. Here’s the link and abstract if you’re interested.

THE DARTMOOR INN

I’ve just been chatting to a cow. Not any old cow, and not any old chat either; the pasture-fed Red Ruby Devon at South Yeo Farm West, Debbie Kingsley and Andrew Hubbard’s 108 acre farm just outside Okehampton, are part of the conversation about how good old fashioned farming and its relationship with new food culture could (just about) save the planet.

The cow (I didn’t catch her name) is one of the native breed cattle which farmers hope to become central to Britain’s high welfare meat after Brexit. With new trade relationships, including cheaper meats from America where, shall we say, they’re not quite on the same page, the promotion of higher welfare British meat will be an interesting argument; it’s more expensive but totally traceable to farmers who understand why feeding cows nothing but good old grass is best for the planet. The future of meat eating has to be about quality not quantity according to experts like Tim Lang who has just put the full stop on the Lancet report on the future of food, but the supermarkets are still mightier than Tim’s pen. In the meantime, it’s down to chefs to lure us to the debate over a plate of beef short ribs.

I was at the Dartmoor Inn, a gorgeous16th-century coaching inn on the north-western edge of Dartmoor National Park for lunch with Catherine Broomfield, breed secretary of the Devon Cattle Breeders Society who had taken me to meet Debbie’s and Andrew’s Red Rubies that morning for the delicious. podcast. We were joined by chef Philip Burgess who talked us through the short ribs in front of us. Served with caramelized walnuts on a red wine sauce and clotted cream mash, they had been cut from a Red Ruby rib eye and slow roasted for four hours that morning. The Red Ruby Devon beef had come from Meeth Farm, but most importantly for the chef, it was his butcher, Philip Warren, who had sourced it. `I work closely with Philip who I’ve known for 35 years,’ he told me, ‘and I trust him completely. It’s all native breed raised in the south west and hung very well. We use every bit – the sirloins, the rib eye, fillet, rump steak.. and brisket which we slow roast on Sundays. That’s really beautiful’. At £14.95 the short ribs are an affordable treat. ‘I don’t make as much money as some,’ Philip told me, ‘but I can sleep at night.’

Pasture-fed for its whole 26 to 29-month life, the Red Ruby Devon is about as far removed from the factory-farmed beasts grown on animal feed that is pushing so much wildlife to the verge of extinction, as Philip Lymbery warns in his book DeadZone; Where the Wild Things Were. ‘The consumer is often very educated now,’ said Catherine Broomfield, ‘but the issue is about getting the message through to those who don’t understand that low impact farming is also often the cheapest and most nutritious way of feeding the family.’ You won’t get short ribs in the supermarket though, and while chefs like Philip are the way in for foodies to find out just how to get the best meat on the table, Catherine says that a trip to the butcher can be a game changer – not just for the family finances, but for the planet. ‘Some of the cheapest cuts on an animal are those that do the hardest work – such as the leg,’ she reminded me. ‘That will be the tastiest cut – just like these short ribs. But you need to know how to cook them and we need to get those kitchen skills back. If you get some vegetables in a big pot with a cheaper cut of quality beef such as skirt, you can produce enough for two family meals. It’s less expensive than buying packaged meals.’

She thinks that we can be ‘really good citizens of our planet’ if we make the smallest effort and go to the butcher or the greengrocer instead of the supermarket. ‘Often the most expensive way to feed the family is to buy packaged food from supermarkets and then waste most of the weekly shop. The butcher is often not only cheaper, but will advise on how to cook the meat to get the best out of it. Butchers are a massive link in the chain, and they’re under threat. When they’re gone, we’ll miss them.’

You can hear my interview with the cow and her farmer on the delicious. podcast Christmas episode.

MURMUR, BRIGHTON

‘I feel for the first time in decades that young people, the so-called ‘Millenials’ are interested in food in a way that is truly extraordinary. They are very knowledgeable, increasingly they want to eat the right thing and are prepared to spend a greater proportion of their income on sustainably produced food, to eat more in seasonally and to target their diet to help the great transformation that’s necessary.‘

Patrick Holden, panellist at Borough Market’s Borough Talks, September 13 2017

It was a sobering event at Borough Market last night, the final panel discussion in the summer series on everything from the influence of social media on the food we eat to its impact on the future of the planet. Professor Tim Lang, moderator for the talk entitled: ‘Sustainable sustenance: reducing the impact of food production’ seemed to think he was in his lecture theatre at City University, London’s Centre for Food Policy which he founded in 1994, demanding of the panel and the audience as if we were his students, ‘What’s the problem?’ His stellar cast included Patrick Holden, founder of the Sustainable Food Trust, Donald Hyslop, head of regeneration and community partnerships at the Tate Modern, Carolyn Steel, author of ‘Hungry City’ (surely the best book on the subject), Richard Swannell, development director of WRAP and sustainable chef, Robin Gill.

The problems came thick and fast: waste, income, politics, Brexit… The complexity of the story of modern food, how we ate ourselves into a state where Tim Lang believes that we have 20-30 years left to save the planet (Philip Lymbery, author of ‘Dead Zone’ and CEO of Compassion in World Farming says 60, so I’m with him) will be available to listen to very soon via the Borough Market podcast (which I should be producing if I weren’t writing this blog).

But I’m an optimist, and I clung to (and tweeted) Tim Lang’s proclamation that it’s the restaurateurs who are the ‘key shapers in the future of sustainable food’. This blog is about those key shapers, the game changers who are changing the story of how we eat and Michael Bremner is one of them. A Great British Menu winner (and a friend of Robin Gill who was on last night’s panel) Bremner is the man behind Brighton’s most celebrated and multi-awarded restaurant, 64 degrees. It’s one of the safe spaces where Millenials (and the rest of us) know we can trust that the food comes from the best possible sources. When I was there last for a late lunch, a bent old farmer carried in a box of vegetables, and was hurriedly met by a team of virile young kitchen porters like something out of a Richard Curtis movie. Who needs a back door, anyway? The message was clear; the beetroot on our plates was local, seasonal and supporting a grower who was part of a community of good folk who do good things for the planet.

Bremner’s new restaurant, Murmur is a simpler beast, for now at least. At only six weeks old, it’s still playing sandpits on the beach while 64 degrees checks itself in the mirror and prepares to entertain this weekend’s silk purses. Bremner told me he prefers to play with the baby at the moment; ‘People come to 64 degrees to celebrate something. They’ve read about what we do and will complain if we don’t do exactly what they expect. At Murmur, they’re more low key, and while at 64 degrees, there’s multiple sittings, people might stay all evening here. We can do things more simply at Murmur. I love the technical food that we do at 64 degrees, but Murmur clears my mind.’

Bremner has been on the beach before at Due South, the first of Brighton’s new wave restaurants to attract the attention of the broadsheets back in the early 2000s, and perhaps that’s why he chose to open Murmur at the end of the summer season. In the brief respite before the weekenders return in force around Valentine’s, he’s doing what he loves best; concentrating on what his guys at Brighton and Newhaven Fish Sales are offering as he plans his menu. If they tell him about a surplus of weeverfish, he’s on it, creating new tastes and combinations to put on the plates.

He and his GBM mates have a whatsapp group and are always sharing their ideas. He says they’re on the same page as far as sustainability is concerned. ‘I see it as our responsibility to source properly’, he told me. ‘If we’re not going to do it, who will?’ His whole team at 64 degrees and Murmur researches produce. ‘We read a lot’, he said. Local, though, is not the most important item on his check list. As with most great chefs, he will source from Scotland if it means the hand-dived scallops are better than in Sussex. Happily, most of his fish is local, and my roast lamb rump with fregola, basil puree and pickled and charred courgette ribbons was from Saddlescombe Farm. Sussex is not short of excellent produce. Or restaurants serving it.

But the pressure from the customer is a concern, and however committed Bremner and his team are to leading the defence of the planet through cool, fabulous food, it’s hard to change people’s minds. He told me about a trial he’d recently done at Murmur. ‘I asked the staff to taste the difference between plaice and lemon sole. Both fish are local, but my guys at BNFS said that the plaice was the better fish for now – more of it and just as good as the sole, and £5 cheaper.’ The team agreed that it was a good option and Bremner asked them to push it. ‘But people wanted the sole’ he said. ‘We want them to taste the new things that we’ve found, but you can’t force the direction.’

Bremner is relaxed in his new pad on the beach and is not about to push the (occasionally unattainable) bar as he did with 64 degrees. ‘I mean how many more awards ceremonies do we really need in Brighton?’ he laughed. If Patrick Holden and Tim Lang are right about the new generation of young people seeking out the sustainable good guys, the stars and rosettes are the wrong colour, anyway. It’s the Instagram Clarendon that will make the waves for Bremner on the beach.

Isaac @: cool food to save the planet

It was a birthday party to remember; Issac@, Brighton’s cool, youthful pop-up turned Good Food Guide destination was celebrating its first Big Year last night with the influencers who helped to put it on the map. The team’s combined age can’t be more than the oldest blogger in the room, but boy, do they know what to do with a goosefoot.

For me, it’s less about the delicate balance of flavours of the brill, desiree potato and parsley sitting prettily on the plate, but the palpable passion of the guys who put it there. Local sourcing is Isaac@’s trademark, with food miles listed alongside the menu in a twine-tied scroll; the apples are not just from Ringmer (9.8 miles from the table), but Isaac’s mum’s garden. The lamb from Pevensey Marshes grazed happily for six months, tramping the fields and fertilising it naturally, adding to a rich habitat for flora, fauna, butterflies and bees.

And that, for me, is the point of Isaac@. It’s not alone; as Brighton’s culinary star shines ever brighter, so does Britain’s high welfare food culture. It’s one of the many new restaurants which sells local, responsibly sourced and often plant-based dishes as cool food. While Isaac and his butcher, Trevor Morton at Westdene will be making their choices based primarily on quality and flavour, this is how change will happen, how factory farming will belong to junk food culture and how a new generation of chefs and their foodie followers will continue to bump overfishing of the seas and massive deforestation for intensively reared animal feed off the menu. As CEO of Compassion in World Farming, Philip Lymbery warns in his book ‘Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were’, the plundering of the earth’s natural resources for factory farmed animal feed is already decimating wildlife all over the world.

MEP Anje Hazekamp from the Party of The Animals told Compassion in World Farming’s roundtable discussion on factory farming at the European Parliament earlier this week, ‘The knife and fork are the most important weapons in the flight against climate change’. Her colleague, MEP Florent Marcellesi added that we need to create a new narrative about what we eat if we are to encourage people to eat responsibly. How Isaac’s lamb lives and eats on Pevensey Marshes has a direct impact on how we can save the planet. Eating higher welfare (and more expensive) meat less often that tastes as extraordinary as Isaac’s chump served last night with the sweetest turnip and punchy jus that took me right back to the Sunday roasts of my teens, is what Hazekamp and Marcellesi believe could save the planet. Subscribe to StoptheMachine, the podcast I produce for Philip Lymbery at Compassion, to hear more about Philip’s campaign, and the next episode from that roundtable when it comes out later this month.

Back at the restaurant, the food influencers were tucking into their crab with charred cucumber. They may not even have checked the food miles (9.2) or the responsible small boat fishing at MCB Seafoods, but they know that Isaac and his team did. Like the better supermarkets, restaurants are becoming a safe space for those who care about the planet. And as Alex, the sommelier at Isaac@, surely, with Isaac, a contender for Young British Foodie, talked us through wines perfectly matched with the evening’s South Coast taster menu, it occurred to me that this is what pairing is really all about. These are the cool young people creating that new narrative so vital to the future of the planet. And in this new blog, I’ll be meeting as many as I can find as part of my work with delicious. magazine, to trace the stories on the end of the fork back to the fields of green.

Do follow me here, on Twitter (@gillysmith) and Instagram (foodgillysmith) as we explore and celebrate the partnerships between the restaurants and producers which could save the planet. We’ll meet the fishermen, the farmers and the butchers who are all part of this revolution in food, and the chefs whose pretty, instagrammable plates are persuading us what good food can be.

The Great Food Transformation

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It’s Professor Tim Lang’s phrase, but it sums up what needs to happen if we’re to avoid what George Monbiot is so gloomy about in today’s Guardian. This is the consistent story coming from every food expert I talk to for Stop the Machine or the delicious. podcast – Jamie included – although some say we’ve got 20 years left of healthy soil and others say 40. I’ll stick with the 60 years claimed by the UN, George and Philip Lymbery of Compassion in World Farming whose conference in October had the great and the good from all over the world debating these issues and coming up with a variety of solutions.

It’s not all doom and gloom though; the overwhelming feeling is positive – there’s plenty to eat if we choose a more plant-based diet and wake up to the impact of factory farming on the decimation of wildlife. As most of us can – and plenty already do – we need to buy from markers to avoid plastics and chat about our food, buy from high welfare farm shops or reputable butchers/ fishmongers and eat meat less often.

And the easiest message is everywhere – cook more lovely stuff – it’s an activist thing to do. It’s rubbish attitudes to food and eating socially that’s our problem in the faster West. That’s what all that posting of our dinners on instagram is about for me. There’s a food revolution going on right now, and cooking consciously is the way to save the world.

A new series of Stop The Machine with Philip Lymbery starts in January to explore the impact of food production of life on Earth. Do subscribe.

A Lesson in Podcasting

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I’m a member of lots of those support groups and visit almost none. But the Podcasters Support group is different; perhaps it’s because podcasting is a bit of dark art and no-one quite knows what they’re doing, there’s lots of chat and sharing, and even the odd occasion to appear on another potter’s show.

And so it came to pass that I ended up in Alaska as the guest of Ritual Misery’s Undaunted podcast to talk about… podcasting. As we chatted, I realised that this was the first real life (via Skype) conversation I’d actually had with a real life podcaster, and particularly one who had done his research and heard the shows I make. The feedback was amazing. Have a listen if you want to hear a rookie talk to a pro.

http://ritualmisery.com/podcasts/und/gilly-smith-is-undaunted-w-gillysmith/

Telling Tales

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This week, I’m cutting two stories for the delicious. magazine July podcast, and pondering on the nature of journalism in 2017. In many ways, it’s the same as it ever was; you find a story, and record the people with the tale to tell. Recording might be short hand (never did that), a camera or recording device of some sort, or notes in scrawly hand that you can barely read when you get home. You listen/read back and revisit your experience, painting pictures with words, sounds, images until you’ve reconstructed what you saw. Of course you go for balance, audience relevance and ethics, but basically that’s it. That’s how storytelling works.

Castellucio after the earthquakes. Photo by Tamsen Courtenay

So yesterday, I was editing the story of Sara, a Italian lentil producer from Castellucio, whose family survived the three enormous earthquakes this year and last which reduced her agriturismo and farming business to rubble. She told me, through a local English interpreter, a once tough journalist called Tam whose nerves were also shattered by her own experience of the quakes, how terrified she had been. Not just for her 12 and 15 year old children, her sheep in the fields, the farm that had been in the family for generations, but by the terror of the tremors that her eight and eleven year selves have never forgotten. And as I tried to keep the feel of the shot nerves in Tam’s calm and measured translation and Sara’s relentless optimism (‘there is no option’), I cut and cut away to try to fit it all into the five minutes I can give to the piece.

Now, I’m lucky.  I’ve got a fabulous editorial and digital team at delicious. with old school ethics and big heart, and listeners who care enough to listen, and in the brave new world of podcasts, I can give people like Sara and Tam a further 15 minutes in Extra Portion which follows the monthly magazine podcast. But can 15 minutes to tell the story of a woman with ‘the heart of a lion’ as Tam calls her, ever be enough? Perhaps, if the rubble is cleared and the roads are opened as result of someone hearing the podcast.

This week, Extra Portion gave extra space to debate whether the Dartmoor Hill Pony Association should create a market for pony meat to add value to animals who are mostly culled at under a year. Charlotte from the DHPA tells me that the podcast has done more in a week to get people interested in the meat than they’ve been able to do in months.  The Telegraph, The Mail and Horse and Hounds have all been in touch as a result, and want to give the story more space. Which is probably a good thing. 

As I leave Sara’s story, I begin to edit the next for the July pod, a heart warming story about San Patrignano, the world’s most successful rehabilitation community whose secret can be found in the work ethic behind its award winning cheeses. I listen to Anna, Sasha and Daniel tell me their survival stories and I hear the back stories that they only half-told me.  I look at the timeline on my laptop and begin to cut.

And here’s the final cut:

https://aca.st/42f1f1

 

The Power of the Podcast

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It’s been a while, I know. I blame WordPress for locking me out, but really it’s just that I’ve been busy. Since my last post in July when I was knee-deep in my next book, ‘Taste and the TV Chef’ (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), I’ve become a full time podcast producer, with the most glorious portfolio a food journalist and food media academic could wish for.

It started with an interview for the book with former BBC Worldwide man, Seamus Geoghegan who is now boss at EyetoEye Media which publishes, among other food titles, the UK’s biggest food magazine, delicious. I’d subscribed my parents to the magazine for years as a regular Christmas present and have loved watching it develop its amazing recipes, articles by some of the best food writers in the UK and its passion for produce, waste, sustainability and conservation issues into a tasty, relevant and important read. In a world in which magazines need to think beyond the book shelves, delicious. was already producing a monthly podcast as well as a world online for the discerning food lover. With a gap opening for a new podcast producer, Seamus spotted my broadcast quality mic on my iPhone, asked me if I could edit, and whether I could be tempted away from pure academia back into the warm embrace of food journalism. Well, after spending my ‘mothering years’ teaching students how to change the world through the power of audio (and TV) and in my final 20,000 words on how Food TV had taught us to eat,  I bit off his hand and joined the message makers again.

Eight months later, I’ve interviewed Raymond Blanc on sustainability, Philip Lymbery of Compassion in World Farming on ending factory farming and Michel Roux Junior, Peter Gordon, Rick Stein, Ken Hom and Marco Pierre White on how modern food culture was created in the UK.  I’m currently cutting a story on the lentil producer whose world was rocked, quite literally, by the earthquakes in le Marche region of Italy, and am taking the temperature of the delicious. community on the place of Dartmoor Hill pony meat on the dinner plate.  And the food, food, FOOD! I’ve interviewed cooks and chefs from all over the UK – and the world – who are some of the most creative people I’ve ever met. My hope is that you can smell it through your ears as you sit back and relax on your way to work or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

And if I wasn’t enjoying myself enough, the podcast was even nominated for the Fortnum and Mason Food Award for Best Food Programme against BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme, The Kitchen Cabinet and BBC Ulster’s The Foodie! Of course we didn’t win; how could a woman and laptop who records her links under a duvet win against the might of the BBC?  But how thrilling to be nominated! You can hear the entire back catalogue here

And then.. and THEN… I suggested to Borough Market, where lots of the delicious. stories begin and end, that they produce a podcast. And they said yes!  So I began to tell the stories behind the stalls of London’s most famous market, as well as capture the fabulous Borough Talks, a series of panel discussions about all aspects of food from food media to cook books. You can hear the back catalogue here

And as my mantra has always been ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get’, I suggested to CEO of Compassion in World Farming, Philip Lymbery when I interviewed him about his book ‘Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were’ that I produce a podcast for them too. Check out Stop the Machine, a podcast dedicated to Philip’s promotional tour for his book this month and the CIWF and WWF conference in October.