Cooking the Books with Gilly Smith

Rachel Roddy: Five Quarters

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Episode notes

This week, in the very first Cooking the Books LIVE at Rockwater in Hove, an audience with Guardian Feast columnist, Rachel Roddy.


Rachel is the author of three books about her life in Italy including the multi award winning Five Quarters: Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome which was first published in 2015 and now reissued in 2024.


It’s the story of a 32 year old woman from Harpenden who turned up in Rome with little more than a travel toothbrush and a phone, planning to stay a month, maybe, before heading south and on in search of who knows what.  What she found in Testaccio, the tiny corner of Rome where she put her bag down, launched a career as a mutli award winning food writer.  In front of an audience of fans, food writers and foodies, Gilly finds out what that was.


Click here for more from the Q&A on Gilly's Substack and here for the further reading Rachel mentions.



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