The Lemon Grove

James didn't plan to be a chef at five; he drifted into it after art history and a spell teaching English in Barcelona. He landed at Cricket in London with no professional experience and learned fast. “On the stoves within two months,” he says. It was a place that gave young cooks responsibility and taught him how to make food taste, in the bluntest sense, good: the old rules about salt and butter.A stint at Fenn introduced him to fine-dining precision and rare-breed suppliers. But moving to Namayashi on the Isle of Lewis changed his relationship to ingredients. No fridges, off-grid harvests, and weekly deliveries taught him the real cost of a daikon: the weather, timing, and manual labour behind it. He stayed a year and left with a stubborn lesson — chefs should understand the whole food cycle.James spent just under a year in Japan, working stages and living with farming families in places like Kamiyama and Tokushima. Two concrete takeaways:The Teishoku rhythm — simple set meals that force technical rigour because “there’s nowhere to hide.”How to enhance flavour without leaning on salt: kombu, careful cooking, preserved peels and fermentations instead of “just caning salt.”He came back with a pantry of Japanese ideas: sedachi and yuzu varieties, kombu toasted into an intense, umami-rich powder, and techniques like tataki (fast searing) and kosho (fermented peel condiments). That's why his menus can read Japanese in spirit even when they're foraging-led Norfolk plates.Grounded Table is James's version of a travelling supper club: shared tables in fields and barns, seasonal tasting sequences, lots of small plates, and an emphasis on mixing people and provenance. He cooks with produce from his own Norfolk patch and local suppliers: organic lamb, fishermen's catch (when the sea cooperates), and Kentish cobnuts.James is candid about constraints. Weather and hosepipe bans hit his garden yields. Local fisheries export much of their best catch to France and Spain, and pub consolidation squeezes margins so independent suppliers struggle. He still shops at supermarkets when he needs to. But his aims are precise: more circular, community-minded food systems; a homestead run to teach kids how to grow; and a winter rhythm of learning new skills rather than burning out in a kitchen.He wants to scale what he does without losing the point: a menu that flexes with the season and an audience that leaves fuller and a little humbler about where their food came from.

In this Podcast Bites episode, Bruce McMichael from The Lemon Grove talks with Richard Newton-Jones, commercial director and co-founder of Snowdonia Cheese Co., about waxed cheddars, a truffle that's 1.4% magic, and a celebratory 25th-anniversary cheese aged in disused slate quarries under the mountains of Snowdonia National Park.

What can preserved lemons tell us about life in California? Host Bruce McMichael talks with food writers and lifelong friends Sarene Wallace and Beth Lee. They cover growing up around citrus, how Ottolenghi's Jerusalem sparked their community, and their debut collaboration, Preserved Citrus.GuestsSarene WallaceSarene is an award-winning American food journalist, editor and communications professional. Managing editor of Edible San Fernando Valley, she previously owned and edited Edible Ojai and Ventura County, contributing to over 70 publications.Beth LeeBeth Lee is a California-based food writer, cookbook author, recipe developer, and photographer, known for exploring Jewish, Korean, and Middle Eastern food traditions through storytelling, teaching, and her blog OMG! Yummy.About Sumac & SunshineIt's a Substack newsletter that began as the Facebook group Tasting Jerusalem. Sarene and Beth started the group in late 2012 after Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's Jerusalem was published.The community is global, with members in places such as Australia, Russia, Israel, Canada and the US. The name comes from sumac, one of the first ingredients they explored, and from California sunshine. They explore Mediterranean and Middle Eastern ingredients "through a California lens."Their rose harissa recipe became a popular post, even though the ingredient is hard to find at the time. About the book: Preserved Citrus, Recipes using Lemons, Limes, Oranges, Tangerines & TangerinesIt has 50 sweet, savoury, and juicy recipes. It covers lemons, limes, oranges, tangerines, kumquats and more.It includes foundational recipes for preserving citrus, plus savoury and sweet purées. More than 40 recipes show how to use them, from breakfast to dessert, cocktails and mains.It includes a quick-pickling method for when you can't wait a month for a jar to cure.Sarene, Beth, and a team of about 30 cooks, chefs, and friends tested every recipe multiple times.Recipes mentioned include:preserved kumquat, fava bean and lemon ravioligrilled halibut with preserved lemon compound butteroatmeal cookies with tangerine and dried cherrieskey lime panna cottaiced jasmine tea with mint and preserved lemontagine-style Moroccan chickenorange carnitas-style braised porkIt's published by Gibbs Smith and comes out April 20, 2027. Pre-orders are open on the major book sites, and the authors say it's planned for international sale.Timestamps0:00 Intro: preserved lemons and California0:41 Sarene's food journalism roots and Ventura County citrus3:06 Beth moves to California and meets Sarene5:03 How Jerusalem led to the Facebook group11:24 "Food on the Fringe"13:22 Pomegranate molasses and cocoa powder22:06 The story behind "Sumac & Sunshine"25:55 Why citrus?30:04 The book Preserved Citrus33:15 Quick-pickling and other shortcuts35:49 Release date and pre-orders37:02 Recipes from the book38:40 Recipe testingLinksSumac & Sunshine newsletterPomegranate molasses, cocoa and mushroom, recipePre-order Preserved Citrus, Recipes using Lemons, Limes, Oranges, Tangerines & More

Why mushrooms are the secret to better flavour and less food wasteRead The Lemon Grove's Substack newsletter about the podcast, with further details about Ollie, including links to his books.What if the secret to better food wasn't meat or sugar, but mushrooms? Chef, entrepreneur and activist Ollie Hunter reveals how a lifetime of cooking, sustainability, and flavour obsession led to Shroomami, the black ketchup designed to make everyday meals more savoury, more exciting, and far more umami.From Cornish family feasts and beach barbecues to MasterChef UK semifinals, organic wine importing, and seven years running a sustainability-led pub, Ollie's path is anything but ordinary.He and host Bruce McMichael trace the turning points that shaped his cooking philosophy - including the moment a too-fussy MasterChef dish taught him that food has to be connected, not just clever. You'll discover:How Ollie went from graphic design and bartending to hospitality, entrepreneurship, and food activismThe travel experiences in Italy, France, Spain, and Florence that reshaped his idea of food, beauty, and provenanceThe mushroom-foraging encounter in the Welsh mountains that sparked the idea for ShroomamiThe concept of umami synergy and why black ketchup behaves differently from every red or brown sauce you knowBruce brings the perspective of a thoughtful interviewer and fellow food lover, pressing Ollie on everything from zero-waste cooking to branding. At the same time, Ollie shares the practical, philosophical, and deeply personal story behind a product built to turn mushroom sceptics into believers. If you care about food with purpose, plant-based flavour, sustainability, or the messy real journey behind a new product launch, this is essential listening. It's a conversation about taste, identity, and how one small bottle can carry a lifetime of lessons.Perfect for cooks, founders, food obsessives, and anyone who wants to know why this black ketchup is unlike anything else on the shelf.Find Ollie on Instagram here.Keep up to date with product launches and events about Shroomami here.

As a five-year-old, food writer, editor, educator and mentor, Kāren Barnes remembers watching her mother peel an onion and thinking, "I'll never be able to do this". That fleeting moment shaped her learning to cook, and as a young teenager, she made Saturday night Flemish beef stew and lemon syllabub for pudding for her family. These are signs of the determination and hard work that thread throughout this fascinating podcast.Kāren’s earliest food lessons came from her mother, who had spent formative years as a governess to the American ambassador in Moscow during the height of the Cold War. Those dinners introduced flavours from around the world into a south London household, and they left Kāren with a set of practical skills she leaned on when her mother passed away while Kāren was still a young teenagerShe describes that teenage life that included shopping at supermarket Safeway, batch-cooking for the freezer and volunteering to cook for a grieving family from church. Those weren’t just acts of kindness — they were formative practice. The result: a food writer who writes from experience, not from an imagined glamour. That practical outlook explains why Kāren still prizes recipes and tips that help people feed themselves affordably and well.Kāren’s career moved from staff rooms to independent publishing. She still mentors, teaches and hosts events, and she runs a Substack newsletter — KB’s Kāren Barnes Joyous Things — where she tries to combine reviews, guides, product suggestions and cultural pieces.Her advice to aspiring food writers is to live a broad lived experience; read widely; practise writing relentlessly; and use Substack to learn the craft because it’s a democratic place to experiment. She’s honest about what’s lost since the old office days: “water-cooler” learning, day-to-day osmosis and the kind of informal mentorship that used to happen while waiting for coffee.Kāren is also realistic about money: she accepts that food writing rarely makes anyone wealthy, and that the new creative economy requires combining writing with teaching, mentoring, occasional commissions and events.It's a fascinating listen.

Recorded at Lebnani in Reigate, Surrey, this conversation explores Lebanese food as memory, culture, and daily ritual. The Lemon Grove host Bruce McMichael speaks with Jad Youssef, founder of Lebnani and author of the Lebnani cookbook, about his journey from Beirut to London, Hong Kong, and now Reigate. Jad shares how family, markets, butchers, and seasonal ingredients shapes his cooking to this day, and why he believes Lebanese food should stay rooted in tradition rather than follow passing food trends. The conversation also covers opening Yalla Yalla in Soho, the social nature of meze, and the care and tradition behind dishes such as hummus and tabbouleh.Jad’s childhood in Beirut and the influence of his parents’ cookingLearning to choose fresh ingredients at the marketOpening Yalla Yalla in Soho after being made redundant during the recessionWhy Jad and his family chose ReigatePreserving traditional Lebanese recipes while allowing for regional differencesThe difference between creativity and changing a dish to follow a trendMezze as a way of sharing food and bringing people togetherTabbouleh, freekeh, bulgur, herbs, pulses, and other Lebanese staplesWhy a few simple ingredients, prepared with care, can make a memorable dish

Bruce McMichael speaks with Ella Stewart, wellness and resilience coach, mental health first aider, and founder of Bake Well Being, about how baking can support mental well-being. Ella shares how a lifelong love of cooking, a family tradition around food, and her own experiences with anxiety shaped a project that blends creativity, connection, and mental health advocacy. In this episode, they explore how baking became Ella’s mindfulness practice, why sensory, hands-on activities can be grounding, and how Bake Well Being has grown from a social idea into a CIC working with schools, charities, communities, and corporate groups.Key topics:Ella introduces herself as the founder and director of Bake Well Being, a Community Interest Company focused on getting people talking, baking, and sharing cake for better mental well-being.Her interest in baking started very young, learning from her nan and growing up in a family where food, cooking, and kitchen-table connection were central to life.A Saturday job in a cake shop at 13 opened her eyes to the wider world of cake decorating and led to an Instagram side hustle called Cupcakes by Ella.Ella explains that special-order cakes gave her an early sense of joy, especially seeing how birthdays and celebrations bring people together around one shared moment.A major turning point came when her nan experienced a serious mental health breakdown, which sparked Ella’s long-term interest in mental health advocacy.While studying events management at university, she researched stress management, mindfulness, and grounding, and realised baking had long been her own form of meditation.She describes making a highly detailed fishing-themed cake for her partner as a moment of total mental quiet, helping her understand baking as a healing practice rather than just a hobby.The idea for Bake Well Being grew after a conversation about “cupcake therapy” and a university enterprise challenge, where she won funding and rebranded the project as Bake Well Being.Ella outlines three strands of the project: education talks and webinars, baking classes and bake-alongs, and decorating sessions such as cake painting and sprinkle embroidery.She explains why baking works so well for mindfulness: it is grounding, flow-based, and engages all five senses at once.Ella shares a period of daily anxiety and panic attacks, and how grounding techniques and mindful baking helped her cope.The conversation covers perfectionism, expectations, and learning to let go when a bake doesn't turn out as planned.Ella also explains what a CIC is, how it sits between a social project and a charity, and how that structure has helped formalise and fund the work.She closes by sharing her go-to comfort cooking: hearty, chopping-heavy meals with kale, spinach, lemon, and something nourishing for family.Ella says:“Baking and cooking are very unique in the sense that they're grounding activities.”“This actually is not just a hobby. It is my mindfulness practice, and it has healing powers.”“My buttercream has had a lot of my emotions whipped into it over the years.”(ENDS)

Bruce McMichael speaks with food historian and writer Sam Bilton about how she moved from food writing to food history, the family recipe notebook that sparked her curiosity, and why food is such a powerful lens for understanding social change. They also discuss her books on gingerbread, saffron, chocolate, and Shakespeare, as well as the upcoming Serve It Forth conference on the Norman impact on British food. Sam explains how historical recipes reveal class, culture, and everyday life, while also showing the limits of authenticity when recreating old dishes today. She shares why she loves uncovering the stories behind ingredients and how food history can make the past feel immediate.Key topicsSam’s journey from food writer to food historianThe inherited Mrs Beeton notebook that inspired her interest in food historyWhy surviving recipe books often reflect the upper classesSam’s work with English HeritageFood in Shakespeare’s playsThe challenges of recreating historical recipesThe history of gingerbread, saffron, and chocolateWhy Saffron Walden became associated with saffronHow chocolate has been viewed as a spiritual drink, poison, and aphrodisiacThe Norman influence on British foodFood as a lens for understanding class, culture, trade, and migrationWhy food history can bring overlooked stories to lifeThe Serve It Forth food-history conference.About Sam BiltonSam Bilton is a food historian and writer whose work explores the relationship between food, culture, literature, and society. She has written about gingerbread, saffron, chocolate, Shakespeare, and historical food traditions, and contributes to English Heritage.About Serve It Forth, October 17, 2026, online. Serve It Forth is a food-history event combining presentations, interviews, and cookery demonstrations. The conference brings historical food to a wider audience through accessible conversations about different periods, cultures, ingredients, and culinary traditions.

In this episode of The Lemon Grove podcast, Bruce McMichael speaks with Shane Holland, executive chairman of Slow Food UK, about Terra Madre, biodiversity, regenerative farming, and the politics of food.Shane explains how the Slow Food movement began, why it has grown into a global network across 150 countries, and why its message of “good, clean, fair” food still matters today.The conversation explores how food choices shape health, farming, communities, and the environment.Bruce and Shane also discuss the value of local producers, heritage crops, school food education, and the challenge of making good food accessible to everyone.They share stories from Terra Madre in Turin, the huge public celebration of food, culture, and solidarity that brings together producers, chefs, policymakers, and consumers from around the world and takes place in Turin every two years.If you care about where food comes from, how it’s made, and what it means for the future, this episode is for you.

Ramin Ganeshram, writer, journalist, chef, culinary historian, and executive director of the Westport Museum for History and Culture in Connecticut, USA, shares her life's work on the enslaved cook Hercules Posey and her research into the food around the time of the American Revolutionary War, which was fought 250 years ago and is widely celebrated this year. The conversation explores how foodways reveal migration, class, race, commerce, and power in American history. They also dig into Ramin’s research on Hercules George Washington’s enslaved chef, and how his food and Washington's political skills shaped diplomacy in the early republic.Key topicsRamin’s background and perspectiveShe shares her Trinidadian, Iranian, Kurdish, and New York roots, and explains how that mix sparked her interest in food, culture, and heritage.What “foodways” really meansRamin defines foodways as more than eating and tradition. It includes production, commerce, politics, sustainability, and the broader impact of food on society.Food as cultural memory in immigrant householdsShe describes growing up in a home where food preserved identity, especially when language and other cultural expressions were pressured to assimilate.Why food history in America is racialisedThe discussion covers how whiteness, immigration, and access shaped whose food was celebrated, absorbed, or marginalised.Early America’s global pantryRamin explains how citrus, tamarind, sugar, olive oil, almonds, coconut, and other ingredients moved through Caribbean and Atlantic trade networks into colonial North America.The role of wealth and enslaved labourGeorge Washington and other elites could access rare imported foods because they had land, money, and enslaved labour supporting their households.Philadelphia as a food hubThe city is described as America’s gourmet centre, with grocers, fruiterers, and street sellers moving citrus and other imported foods through the docks and markets.Hercules Posey’s life and legacyRamin details her long research into Washington’s enslaved chef, his training at Mount Vernon, his move to the presidential household, and his self-emancipation in 1797.Dining as diplomacyHercules helped shape the culture of elite and political dining, where the table became a tool for influence, hospitality, and statecraft.Using food history to confront slaveryRamin explains how exhibits like Bittersweet: Chocolate in the American Colonies help visitors engage with slavery through a familiar subject.The Real Revolution exhibitAt the Westport Museum, Ramin is curating a broader view of the American Revolution that includes women, children, enslaved people, and gender-nonconforming participants.Recreating colonial food todayThe museum’s tavern setting, historic drinks, and period foods help make the era tangible without flattening its complexity.Content Ramin Ganeshram introduced as writer, chef, and museum directorHow foodways became an early journalistic focusDefining foodways beyond just eatingFood culture and assimilation in an immigrant householdRace, whiteness, and food in the United StatesRamin’s article on early America’s love of eastern foodsCaribbean trade as the hinge of colonial food accessWashington, elite wealth, and imported ingredientsFruiterers, dockside trade, and everyday access to citrusPhiladelphia as America’s gourmet cityWriting The General’s Chef and recovering Hercules Posey legacyHow Hercules was identified and traced after self-emancipationWashington’s use of Pennsylvania law to rotate enslaved peopleTable service as a performance of status and powerHercules’s training under the cook Doll in Mount Vernon’s kitchensReconstructing Hercules’s life without personal writingsWhat George Washington and the elites actually ate and drankSugar plums, Jordan almonds, and other elite sweetsTrade, wealth, and food imports in the colonies and early republicWhy black history is inseparable from American food historyBittersweet and using chocolate to teach history of enslaved peoplesExhibition at the Westport Museum of Culture & History, and its museum tavern, historic drinks, and traditional punchStirring Liberty, publishers and publication date. Notable quotes“Black history in America is American history”.“What you put on the table was really the demonstration of your status”.“I often say that he (Hercules Posey) created the concept of diplomatic dining”.