In praise of the Lima bean For the love of garlic Kumud Ghandi is a food scientist, nutritionist, spice maestro, author and broadcaster, whose passion for garlic in all its sweet and pungent glory has inspired her to write The Garlic Story: Nourish Your Body, Delight Your Palate: Rediscover the Ancient Superfood. Newly published and added to ckbk, the book takes us on a tour through all types of garlic and all the global cuisines in which is it such a central source of flavor ..read more

Kumud Gandhi, the founder of The Cooking Academy cookery school, is a food writer, critic, broadcaster and food scientist. She is also the author of The Garlic Story, a cookbook entirely dedicated to the pungent vegetable which plays a key role in so many national cuisines. To mark National Garlic Day in the US on April 19th, Kumud here considers the many uses of garlic in all its varied forms, and why it holds such a special place in her heart. By Kumud Ghandi For me, garlic is divine, and at the centre of what I call the holy trinity of ingredients that is garlic, ginger and chillies. Few i ..read more

Jenny Jefferies latest book expands the horizons of her work looking at farming and fishing, to take an international view, with stories and recipes from 25 producers around the world. We spoke to Jenny about how this book came about, and what she learned while bringing it together. Q & A with Jenny Jefferies, author of Islands In A Common Sea Q The stories in the book cover a huge geographic range and a diversity of cultures. How did you go about researching such a wide-ranging book to find these stories? A I read a lot. Usually by the light of my phone and after my children have gone to ..read more

? Making the most of wild garlic season A spotlight on Darren Purchese Have you discovered the brilliant Darren Purchese and his oh-so-tempting recipes yet? If not, now is the moment to do so. We are fortunate to have four of Darren’s books on ckbk, and were thrilled to sit down with Darren to chat about his life, career, and passion for pastry. Born in Surrey, England, Darren has risen to global fame from his adopted home of Australia via award winning restaurants, guest appearances on MasterChef Aust ..read more

? Publication day for Magrets & Mushrooms Happy publication day to Magrets & Mushrooms “Finding out that Jeanne Strang had written another exploration of southwestern French cuisine, bringing that story forward another thirty years, was like realizing that yet another present had unexpectedly materialized under the Christmas tree.” Anne Mendelson, food journalist and culinary historian. Our sentiments exactly. When Jeanne Strang and her husband Paul moved to Aveyron in the 1960s ..read more

On March 24th 2024, award-winning author Eleanor Ford was interviewed at the inaugural North London Book Fest by Guild of Food Writers president Orlando Murrin about her latest cookbook, A Whisper of Cardamom. Highlights include: how to avoid “dusty disappointment” when storing spices which French company makes cars, bicycles and excellent spice grinders which spice was described by a famous food writer as “beastly” which recipe in the book is Eleanor’s current favorite Watch the recording of the talk, below, to discover all this, and more… Recipes mentioned during the talk Other us ..read more

Jeanne Strang’s Goose Fat & Garlic is arguably the classic work on the regional cooking of South-West France, and has been reprinted many times since its publication in 1991. Today ckbk is proud to publish Magrets & Mushrooms, the long-awaited sequel to this work. The new book is the first publication in a new series of “ckbk originals”, published under ckbk’s own imprint and available in print, as a Kindle ebook, and via the ckbk app. Read more about Magrets & Mushrooms in this extract from the foreword by Orlando Murrin, founder of Olive Magazine and President of the Guild of Fo ..read more

Jane Kelly, co-founder of Eat Your Books, joined Matt Cockerill, co-founder of ckbk, to talk about how Eat Your Books and ckbk got started, and to answer your cookbook-related questions and share previews of exciting new features and enhancements. Watch the replay of the livestream ckbk Premium Members have access to more than 800 cookbooks and 140,000 recipes. Take a 14 day free trial. To find out about future ckbk livestreams, follow us on Eventbrite. More ckbk features Cookbook Preview: Bold Nisha Katona’s latest book takes your tastebuds in new directions with bold twists on classic dis ..read more

“I love teaching people, I love passing on my knowledge, I love doing TV that is encouraging and helpful and lifts people up.” — Darren Purchese By Cat Black British born chef Darren Purchese is Australian patisserie royalty. If you are in Australia you will know of him. If you aren’t you will certainly have heard of Australian Masterchef, the globally watched show on which his complex creations have been set as tie-breaker challenges under his watchful eye and expert guidance. And you will have heard of The Great Australian Bake Off, on which he is now a judge, at the suggestion of national ..read more

? Meet Eleanor Ford at a new book festival + put your questions to Eat Your Books & ckbk founders Spotlight on the Sydney Seafood School Food writer, cookbook author and culinary educator Roberta Muir ran the Sydney Seafood School in Sydney Fish Market between 1997 and 2021. Her book, the Sydney Seafood School Cookbook is packed full of hugely tempting, thoroughly tested recipes for the fruits of the sea. In our latest Behind the Cookbook feature, Roberta takes us behind the scenes at the ..read more