Lucy Dearlove: This is Lecker. I'm Lucy Dearlove. On this

episode, I'm talking to Helen Graves. Helen is a food and

recipe writer and editor based in South London. She's known to

many as a barbecue specialist. She's the co founder and editor

of a fantastic independent food mag called Pit, which also has

its roots in live fire cooking. She's known for her foolproof

and creative recipes. She's known for her excellent food and

travel writing, both in national and international publications.

But also for great local papers like Peckham Peculiar, I love

reading her work in there. But to me, and many 1000s of others,

I imagine, Helen will always be known as Food Stories, after the

food blog she started in the mid to late noughties.

In this interview, Helen and I talked about about how she

approached writing her first full length cookbook...

Helen Graves: I wanted to sort of explain to people how I came

to be the cook that I am today. Because I do use a lot of global

influences and my cooking... be it through different techniques

or different flavours. And I wanted to kind of explain how

that happened. But also wanted to acknowledge the people that

have influenced my cooking,

Lucy Dearlove: Why barbecue is so specifically appealing to her

as a way of eating together....

Helen Graves: It's always fun when you like go to someone's

house for dinner. But when you go to someone's house for a

barbecue, it's almost like you know, you're going to have a

good time.

Lucy Dearlove: And why grilling tenderstem broccoli over fire is

a tiny rebellion against what many people expect from barbecue

culture in this country

Helen Graves: Because the stalk sort of shrivels and goes like,

like a like a dry fried green bean or like an asparagus. Yeah.

And then the ends, they go really quite burnt and you get

the bitter bits. But then you can put a dressing on them and

balance out that bitterness and the frilly bits soaks up all the

dressing.

Lucy Dearlove: Firstly though, we're going right back to the

beginning.

Helen Graves: Because I started in food when I started a food

blog, when there weren't really any food blogs around. It was a

long time ago, dunno, must be like 15 years ago, and the first

blog post I ever did, I was living in a block of flats at

the time and I set up a barbecue on the roof. Somebody spotted me

and just like put a letter...I had a letter from the council

the next day saying that you can't barbecue on the roof. I

was like, Oh yeah, that's probably quite obvious actually.

It's like a bit of a fire hazard. But I still wrote it up.

And I think that was actually my first ever blog post. So my

transition into food and barbecuing did come at the same

time.

Lucy Dearlove: And that's funny, actually, because the story I

wanted to mention to you, which was the first time I met you is

I booked you to be a guest on a Guardian podcast about food I

was producing, which I can't remember how long ago it was.

But it was a long time, maybe five, six years ago. And I

remember you telling a story about having to have the Council

or the fire brigade come up to your flat to basically like

officially certify...because you had so many barbecues officially

certify that you are allowed to have them on the balcony.

Helen Graves: That's right.

Lucy Dearlove: I guess you're now like on the right side of

the barbecue law.

Helen Graves: Yeah, different block of flats. Actually, I'm

Lucy Dearlove: If you're interested. The Guardian series

still in that flat. I'm just about to move out. But um, it's

got a huge balcony, which is kind of like more of a room

without a side on it. So yeah, you've got like five barbecues,

and they've got like, yeah, I've got like a big egg. And then

it's not a big green egg, but it's a Kamado Joe and then I've

got a mini green egg. And I've got a jerk drum which is more

good for like catering because you can get loads on it. And

it's got two levels. So I did like friend's birthday party

with for that, with that recently. And I've got a Weber

kettle which is what I tested every recipe for the book on

because that's what people have. And then I've got an Outback

barbecue. I worked with them and I'm just about to get...Weber

actually asked me the other day, they were like, Do you want

another barbecue, it's a smoker? I was like, yeah, just sort of

like thinking if I just move that there and move that there.

I can probably fit another one in. So that will be six. But

yes, I had to get permission. I was like, right this time I'm

going to do it right. So the fire brigade came round, had a

look around the balcony. And they were like, Yeah, this is okay.

was called Let's Eat, I'll link to it in the show notes. It was

basically my first freelance podcast production gig where I'd

essentially been given free rein with guest booking. And I

largely just asked people that I really loved in food. Marie

Mitchell was on it as well Olia Hercules and Ed Kimber. And

along with Helen I also booked Lizzie Mabbott, who also had a

food blog I was obsessed with called Hollow Legs. I can't

really remember when I started reading food blogs. I read lots

of style and fashion blogs as teenager things like style

rookie style bubble white lightning. But at some point in

I guess my early 20s, it started becoming a habit to regularly

browse a select group of food blogs for restaurant

recommendations mostly. And sometimes I would even search

the name of the restaurant I wanted to go to along with the

name of the blog to see if they'd written about it. I did

that a lot with Lizzie's blogs. And I also did it with Chris

Pople's blog, Cheese and Biscuits. There's just something

about...restaurant writing had never really felt that relevant

to me before. This was the era of the London Paper and London

Lite, the battle of the free paper on the streets of London.

And I definitely remember reading restaurant reviews in

those but only in the same way that I read the horoscopes. It

just didn't really seem that relevant to me on a real life

scale, no shade to astrology.

I wanted to talk to you about the blog, because I mean, that's

how I first like read your work. And it was an era where that was

basically the food writing that existed outside of like, you

know, like broadsheet restaurant reviews, and all the rest of it.

That was the interesting thing that was happening. What was it

like at that time? Can you just talk a bit about what it was

like to be writing about food at that time, and the kind of

responses you got, and finding that community?

Helen Graves: Yeah, it was wonderful. It was like a

completely different internet. You know, it's this wonderful

corner of the internet, where everyone was just really nice to

each other. We all, nobody did it to monetize...the word

monetizing wasn't even used, then, you know, or maybe it was,

but I wasn't familiar with it. And nobody made any money out of

it for like the first five years. And we just did it for

completely just because we wanted a space to write

something about food, and we weren't professionals, I'd never

done any professional food writing, there was no chance I

was going to try pitching the idea of pitching something

somewhere was absolutely terrifying to me. And also, I

wasn't good enough back then, I kind of just practiced on my

blog. And I had that blog Food Stories for like 10, more than

10 years, probably 12 or 15 years. And, yeah, we used to

just comment on each other's blogs. So that was how you found

other people, you would just leave a comment on their blog,

and then your username would be a link. And then they'd just

click on the link and then find their blog. And then you start

reading their blog and add it to your Google Reader.

Lucy Dearlove: Ah Google Reader, RIP!

Helen Graves: Google Reader! I loved it so much. And then when

I go away, or something for like, a week, I come back and my

Google Reader would be like bursting with new blog posts,

I'd be so excited to go through them all. You would never get

any negativity, maybe like the odd comment or something. But

not like below the line situations are now. It was

genuinely just a really accepting lovely space to be in.

And I'm so happy that I did it and was part of it. Because

that's never going to exist again, the internet is a

different place now. It's just not possible. And that's really,

that's sad, but you know the world moves on. But I'm just

really happy that I was there at the beginning. And I recently

retired that that blog,

Lucy Dearlove: Oh, did you?

Helen Graves: Yeah, so it's more of just like a CV kind of

website, a normal website now. But I've kept some of the

recipes. Not some of the early ones, the kebab one is...on the

roof is not on there anymore. And that's I think I had to take

it down. I can't remember why maybe I was embarrassed about

something that I wrote. Some of the early stuff that I wrote was

just not the best, you know. We all...that's the thing. We all

Lucy Dearlove: That's the holy grail of sponcon even now.

sort of like grew up on the on the internet and sort of like,

interning in our own spaces, almost like yeah, just kind of

practicing our writing. And I tried to, I was trying so hard

for so many years to be noticed. And then Twitter happened. And

that's when we were able to start advertising yourself,

which we've just not been able to do before other than leaving

a comment on someone else's blog. And then suddenly, there

was this social media and I could find this network of

people and like you say, I met Chris and Lizzie, who were still

like close friends today. And I could just, you could link to

your content and all the, all your followers would see it and

that's when things started to take off. And then my first

piece of work was a really massive thing. Just completely

randomly. It was a billboard campaign for Lurpak butter. They

just emailed me and I was like, Are you sure you've got the

right person? Because this is crazy. And I made a pie and I

went along to the studio in East London I was just completely

overwhelmed. They had a food stylist ther, photographer to

make this pie look amazing. Backlit, so it was really

dramatic. And it was a chicken pie. And it was on billboards

all around London. And then it had its own hashtag on Twitter:

#piewatch. So people would snap a picture of it and then post it

on Twitter. And it was just, I mean, I was sbeide by myself.

Yeah, and honestly, I mean, now I would be beside myself as well.

Helen Graves: So yeah, that was where it all started.

Lucy Dearlove: I don't want to get too meta because I feel like

Helen Graves: Well, it's all about newsletters, isn't it? I

I'm talking about food writing a lot recently, rather than just

doing it, especially with doing the Vittles live event at the

British Library food season last month, which was about British

food wrotomg, but as Helen's someone who's been involved in

independent food media as it's evolved over the past decade or

so, I was really interested in her take on the current food

media landscape, especially the bit that sits outside of what's

kind of considered more mainstream feed writing. What's

the main outlet for this sort of writing now? I asked her.

mean, what Jonathan Nunn has done with Vittles is incredible.

I'm sure people that listen to this podcast are probably

Vittles readers as well.

Lucy Dearlove: I think there's a lot of crossover.

Helen Graves: I think there's a lot of crossover. And I think

it's really important what he's done, actually, because he's

given a platform for people that didn't have a space before. And

it's, you know, it's pretty incredible, actually. And I

think he deserved that success that he's had with that

newsletter, it's amazing. I'm an avid reader. Yeah, because what

happened was food writing kind of stagnated a bit. You know,

there's still loads of great food writing out there. But no

one was really doing anything different. And him, you know,

finding a way to make a space for those voices, I think is

just really, really interesting. And really important. So I think

he's given the the whole industry like a massive push

forward.

Lucy Dearlove: is amazing. But it's almost like...for me it's

almost like a product of we're really obsessed with like the

cult of personality now. So it's almost like there has to be

somebody that's already got a personal brand. And I mean, I'm

not saying Jonathan did really have that, he built that himself

and as part of Vittles, as well. But I do think that's really

interesting. Because like maybe, I don't know, 10 years ago, all

the people that are writing for Vittles might have started their

own blogs. But that feels like just a little bit more futile

now. Because there's not really...I don't know, it's hard

to explain it. But I've been thinking about this a lot

recently, and I can't quite articulate why it's so, why it

feels so different. And I think because I work in media as a

producer, like just seeing the kind of appetite for talent,

quote, unquote, and people have to have a following. And yeah,

and I feel like, I'm much more interested in what everyone has

to say about food.

Helen Graves: Yes.

Lucy Dearlove: Not just select people who might be famous for

whatever reason,

Helen Graves: I agree. And because I'm a person who's like,

not a personality, I'm like, not a in front of the camera person.

I've been asked to do like demos and things quite a lot. And I've

just have to say, I'm sorry, but it's not my skill set.

Lucy Dearlove: Okay, so you do turn that stuff down?

Interesting.

Helen Graves: I turn it all down. Yeah. Because it's just

not, I don't feel comfortable doing it. And I think it's

really important, I don't have to say yes to everything. And

there was definitely a time where I would have done that.

And that would have been awake for a week. Like not sleeping

crippled with anxiety. I'm not the person that stands up in

Lucy Dearlove: the algorithm must find you very confusing,

front of everyone and kind of performs. It's just not me.

Yeah, but I know what you mean. Like, there's a lot of...like,

TikTok is a great example. Right? You know, that there are

a lot of people now that just have huge profiles on TikTok,

you know, videos that making food and things like that. And

that's great, but I just don't consume any of that media. I'm

not interested in the slightest. It's like reels on Instagram. I

am I have trained my algorithm to exactly know what I want,

which is videos of cats, and like people falling over drunk,

right? All I'm interested in. If it shows me a food video, I'm like...

"but her content!"

Helen Graves: Every now and again, it has a go at showing me

a food video. And I'm like, no, because it is...

Lucy Dearlove: Why do you think you don't like it?

Helen Graves: I don't know. I think it's just that side of

food media that I'm just not interested in.

Lucy Dearlove: Yeah, fair, fair

Helen Graves: Sorry to anyone that makes it but...

Lucy Dearlove: I think it's really interesting because

there's such a n aesthetic to like those TikTok videos as

well. Like I personally, I'm an avid consumer of them, and I

love doing TIkTok.

Helen Graves: Are you?

Lucy Dearlove: Yeah. I'm kind of interested to see how a new

generation is going to take to cooking through it, I guess.

Because I wonder if...it's a different way to learn how to

cook, I think. Like, if you see someone doing something, it's

very different to seeing a photo and reading about how it's made.

So I'm quite interested in that.

Helen Graves: There's a massive contrast between the sort of old

food media and the sort of like slowness and the sort of vibe of

being relaxed and you know, maybe watching like Keith Floyd,

faff around for like, half an hour, you know, or like watching

Delia make a cake or something. And that was kind of long and

drawn out and hear let me show you every single tiny thing that

I'm doing. And then now it's like condensed into sort of 30

seconds and there's there's a lot of like hacking going on.

It's a lot of shortcuts. There's a lot of...not that there's

anything wrong with that. Take these ready made products and

you can make this thing that sort of resembles another thing

that takes a long time to make, which I have nothing against but

it's just interesting. Yeah, so it's sort of gone from like

here's cooking as a sort of relaxing pursuit to here's how

to make something really tasty and like no time at all with

like minimal effort.

Lucy Dearlove: I also wanted to talk to Helen about Pit, the

independent food magazine she started with art director Holly

Catford and photographer Robert Billington. Originally focused

specifically on live fire cooking, Pit now has a broader

remit around food in general. And I'm going to use the example

of the much cited MSG issue. But just the breadth of stories that

PIt covers is extraordinary, the photography's all stunning.

There's these great illustrations. And it's been

such a success story at what is obviously a really tricky time

for print media.

Helen Graves: I know it's a bit of a cliche, but it's a bit of a

Tina Brown approach. Like it's like there's, you know, there's

a lot of fun stuff. And there's a lot of more serious stuff. And

even the more serious stuff, we try to present it in a fun way.

So Pit did start out as barbecue magazine. And now as you say,

it's got a broader remit. So it's more of a, we just evolved,

Helen Graves: And we just found...it's not that we didn't

you know?

Lucy Dearlove: Yeah.

want to just be a live fire magazine, but there was so many

stories we wanted to publish that people were pitching. And

it just made sense to broaden. Yeah, um, so now we do we cover

a couple of live fire stories, every issue, but it's just it's,

it's a much broader general food magazine. Pit started because

Holly emailed me one day, because Holly works in magazines

as a full time job. And she wanted to start a magazine.

She'd been barbecuing a lot with her with her boyfriend at the

time. And she knew that I was really into into barbecue, too.

And she just emailed me one day and was like, Do you want to

start a magazine? And I was like, probably, yeah. Then we

were like, Oh, shall we go to the pub? So we just went to the

pub. And that was the basis of the foundation of Pit, meetings

in the pub. And then Holly knew Rob anyway, she worked with him

on like editorial photography, shoots and stuff. And we just

all get on really well. And they're like my best friends,

you know, and that is, I think that comes through in the

magazine, I think, well, I hope it does, because we really love

working together. And we really, as I said, we try to keep an

element of fun to the magazine, I just think it's really

important to have that light hearted element to it. But also,

we do try to cover much more in depth stories. And I'm not sure

there's another print food magazine, like that, that would

publish something about, you know, sex workers in India who

were making, you know, illegal liquor production to survive,

right. You know, that kind of journalism I'm not seeing

anywhere else in print, in a print magazine. And I'm so proud

to be able to publish stories like that. But then we also

have, you know, something at the other end of the scale in the

same issue.

Lucy Dearlove: Helen's first full length cookbook Live Fire

came out last month. In many ways. It feels like all of the

things which have defined her career so far coming together in

one place. It's beautifully and cleverly designed, her Pit

colleagues, Holly and Rob have stepped in on art direction and

photography respectively. And Valerie Berry's food styling is

exceptional. It's also full of meticulously developed creative

recipes, but also features almost journalistic elements

with kind of half reported, half first person profiles about

people and dishes and places that have influenced Helen's

cooking and recipes. These sections give the book a

dimension that doesn't often come through in recipe writing:

a very real sense of how this dish, and way of cooking is part

of someone's life. There are also some stories that I think a

lot of us just wouldn't necessarily immediately

associate with live fire cooking, because they're

unfamiliar. So Swiss goat farmers heating goat milk for

cheese over a wood fire; many generations of fish smokers in

Craster on the Northumberland coast; are cooking tortillas in

Belize, among many others.

Helen Graves: The tortillas...I was really lucky enough to do

quite a bit of travel writing because travel and food

obviously go together super well. And I used to write travel

stories for quite a few magazines and I was in Belize

once in Central America and there's a lot of Mayan people

live there and there's you know, this incredible history with

this, with this culture. And I found myself just, around

someone's house for lunch like just amazing how just go

anywhere and people just invite you in.

Lucy Dearlove: Do you speak Spanish?

Helen Graves: No, I wish! Yeah. This is more of a like,

gesturing situation. These women just kind of like...there's no

tortilla presses. So they just kind of have a ball of masa. And

then just kind of pat it out, but like making a circular

motion with their hands, but like really fast, and then cook

it on the comal, which is like a flat, like a plancha, or just a

flat piece of metal over a fire in indoors, but like kind of

ventilated, but like, filled with smoke. And I remember

texting my boyfriend and being like, I know how to make

tortillas, now I know how to make tortillas. And they when

they were cooking them on the comal, they were doing this

thing where they were kind of like patting the tortilla with

their hand to see if it was cooked. And when they pat the

top of the tortilla, it puffs up into like, like a pita. Yeah.

And I was like...you're right, it was a bit of a nightmare with

the translation. But I managed to ask them, Is that how you

know it's cooked? She was like, oh, yeah, yeah. So I was like,

great. When I get home, I'm going to be like the tortilla

master. But...I can do it a bit, but it doesn't happen every time

so I'm quite disappointed. Yeah, if what I...I don't do it with

my hand, but I just do it with like a spatula or something.

Just use that, I don't really cook tortillas on the barbecue.

I normally just cook them indoors, a cast iron pan, but

really hot and then give them a pat and then sometimes they go

'poof!', like puffed up. It's super satisfying. Yeah, but I

think the reason they didn't and this is probably wrong, but I

think I didn't have enough moisture in my masa mixture.

Right? So I've got more hydration now that recipes in

the book. So give it a go, give it a try patting.

Other stories I've got in there... I mean, Jamaican jerk

absolutely had to go in because...I mean people know me

for like being quite obsessed with that, those flavors of

Caribbean like, scotch bonnet chili is something I use

probably, you know, three times a week, I'm like quite immune to

that heat. And I often forget how much I'm putting in and that

you can see people's cheeks beading up with sweat. Oh,

sorry. But I think it's an amazing fruity floral fragrance

that chili. I just can't get enough of it. And combined with

all spice berries, and like spring onions and thyme and

garlic and lime juice in a jerk marinade. That to me is one of

the best things you can eat. And then...it was so interesting to

me because jerk is...it has to be cooked over smoke, like smoke

is such an important part of the flavor profile of jerk. And so

when I started going, you know trying to find different jerk

places and speak to different cooks. And they were like, look,

it's not, you can't cook jerk in the oven. It has to be cooked

over fire, it has to be cooked for a long time. Jerk chicken

has to spend a long time with lots of smoke, which is why when

you see a jerk drum drum billowing smoke, you're like,

This is a good one. So I mean, I love...the three places that I

love in the most and London: Tasty Jerk in Thornton Heath,

and then Smoky Jerky in new cross. And then JB Soulfood,

which is in the book, in Peckham, Ben and Jennifer.

They're just...er, Bill and Jennifer, sorry. They're just

amazing. And I remember finding that place and just walking down

the street ain Peckham, the high street, it's just off the high

street and just smelling the smoke and being like [sniffs] I

can smell it. Ah, there's a good one. There's a good one. And

then when I turned the corner, there's there's massive queue

out of the door. So I was like, right, great. So I go there a

lot. So they had to be in there.

Yeah there are loads, I could go on forever. Sorry. And then the

other one I absolutely had to get in was FM Mangal, which is

a...I always though they were Turkish but they're actually

Kurdish.

Lucy Dearlove: Oh I didn't know that!

Helen Graves: Yeah. In Camberwell in southeast London

where I live there. I go there so often. It's embarrassing and

I get their Adana wrap, just a very specific order. Double

Adana wrap. So it's like two kebabs, obviously. And it's

really super thin bread. It's not it's like it's sort of

thickness of lavosh. But I don't think is a lavash, it's like a

very stretchy, maybe it is I'm not sure. And then the salad and

that obviously chili and garlic sauce, and then the sumac and

the onions. And I just... I've eaten that I would say I've been

like kebab like literally hundreds of times, probably even

1000s over the years. So that had to go in as well. But yeah,

what I wanted to do was paint...there's a lot of London

in there because that's what...part of my story I guess.

But there's also something about smoking traditions around the

UK. So yeah, there's kippers up in Craster. And I just wanted to

sort of explore...there's beach barbecue, all sorts. I did a

beach barbecue thing, a beach barbecue story in Wales with for

Pit magazine. So that's in there, too.

Lucy Dearlove: How did you go about deciding what was going to

go in it? I just feel...I feel overwhelmed just thinking about

that.

Helen Graves: Well, I wanted to it was I wanted to sort of

explain to people how I came to be the cook that I am today.

Because I do use a lot of global influences and my cooking, be it

through different techniques or different flavors. And I wanted

to kind of explain how that happened. But I also wanted to

acknowledge the people that have influenced my cooking. Because I

think quite often that's not done. And I just really thought

that was really important. But I wanted those people to tell

their stories in their own words as well, which is why I decided

to do the interviews, and then sort of write them up in that

sort of like, interview, half interview, half sort of

narrative style. And I think it's worked out well. But like

you say, it's like impossible to include everybody. So it's sort

of the people that have really shaped my style the most, I

guess, like my friend Magda, and her husband, Jack. Magda's

Eritrean, and she cooks the most incredible food, like you have

the giant injera bread, and all the food has kind of piled on

top of it. And it's just such a social way of eating, which is

quite sort of like similar to barbecue in a way, you know, I

think barbecue is a very unique way of eating. In that. It's

always fun when you like go to someone's house for dinner. But

when you go to someone's house for a barbecue, it's almost

like, you know, you're going to have a good time. And I don't

just mean, if there's alcohol involved, there may not be

alcohol involved for you at all. But it's sort of like when

there's a barbecue, like, the gloves are off in terms of

entertaining, I think. And that's one of the things that I

really love about it.

Lucy Dearlove: One thing that the stories and the way that

you've written them up in that style that you described, so

kind of like half like a narrative sort of feature style.

But also you very much hear people talking in their own

words, they really bring it to life. So it makes you

understand, like you're saying, like, about the real, like joy

of experiencing that food in person, I think I can't remember

the name of your Cypriot friend, the psychologist? And she was

talking about how there's just a real difference between like

formal dining at the table that she experienced in England, and

then going to Cyprus, and like, barbecue would just be this

whole different thing, like, what do you think it is about it

that makes it such as like, a unique experience like that?

Helen Graves: Well, I think it is unique, but also, I think

it's like, really, every day, that was the thing with the

book. It's like, it's like, these are people that, that're

from cultures that do just cook over fire, like, like, in some

parts of the world, you know, barbecue is just cooking,

because it is might not have a kitchen, you might not have gas,

you might not have an indoor space to do that. So I wanted to

really bring all those stories into the book. And I think

that's what you mean, when you say that, you know, it's kind of

brings it to life, because it's just so natural for these people

to cook that way. Whereas for, for me barbecue growing up was

like getting some sausages on a disposable barbecue. My parents

didn't have barbecues at all. There were no, there was no...I

never saw any barbecue culture. Sort of finding all that was a

really exciting thing for me.

Lucy Dearlove: When did you find that?

Helen Graves: When I moved to London, because I grew up in a

really like boring village. Sorry if my family is listening

to this! In Gloucestershire. Exposure to different cultures

was extremely limited to put it mildly, it's extremely white. So

that just wasn't, you know, I never encountered any different

kinds of food, really. And I moved to London about 20 years

ago to do a master's, when I used to be a psychologist before

I was a food writer. That was when I was like, Okay, wow,

there's some seriously exciting stuff that I've not been eating.

And now I need to eat all of it, like immediately, every day. And

that's when I really knew I was like, what have I been doing, I

really should be working in food.

Lucy Dearlove: Right.

Helen Graves: And then so started the kind of long road

towards making that happen.

Lucy Dearlove: I think one thing that really struck me

about...not just Live Fire your book, but also like other

writing that you've done around barbecue and live fire cooking

is kind of like misconceptions that people have about that sort

of cooking. Can you talk a bit about the sort of misconceptions

you've encountered and how you in the book went about pushing

them off the table?

Helen Graves: Yeah, I really wanted it to be just about

cooking but outdoors and not all about meat crucially, there was,

there are plenty of meat recipes in the book. There's also plenty

of seafood and plenty of veg and a few desserts and I just I

thought that was really important because there's a lot

of barbecue culture...there is a side of barbecue culture that's

very much just about stacking up meat and I don't have anything

against people...you know, do what you want to do like but

it's just not my thing. I have been known for saying like

barbecue not bro-becue because I think there is a quite a bit of

like masculine culture and bro culture around this around

barbecue. And it's about like, you know, sticking as many

sausages as you can on skewers or like having like five

cheeseburgers and covering it in cheese and that's, you know,

that's fine. But I just think there are so many more beautiful

ingredients that you can cook on a barbecue, especially like for

vegetables, you can really bring out the characteristics of

different vegetables like one of my favorite things to cook on

the barbecue is tenderstem broccoli, because you've got the

two parts of the, of the...I was gonna call it a floret but I

feel Like it's not really because it's got a longer stem.

You know what I mean?

Lucy Dearlove: Yeah, I wonder if it is called something

different. I mean, I guess it is technically still a floret but

is a floret part of the bigger head? I don't know.

Helen Graves: I don't know. But yeah, because the stalk sort of

shrivels and goes like, like in like a dry fried green bean or

like an asparagus. Yeah. And then the ends they go really

quite burnt and they get the bitter bits, but then you can

put like a dressing on them and balance out that bitterness and

the frilly bits soaks up all the dressing. And I just find that

so delicious. But then with you know, more sturdy vegetables, I

like to give them a bit of a soak in the marinade sometimes

even like overnight if it's just really simple, and I remember!

And they really suck it up and that you can really, you know,

like carrots, for example, I love to do.

Lucy Dearlove: You mentioned parsnips in the book as well.

Helen Graves: Parsnips are in there, yeah, and I smoked them I

put like a little bit tiny bit of wood in there, or you could

use wood chips...smoked parsnips are just delicious. And I do

like a quick pickled chili dressing on the top. And I think

just something different to do with parsnips. Because

personally before I wrote the book, I think it probably ate

parsnips like once a year. I was like I wonder what what else

could you do? That's the great thing about writing this book

some of the recipes in there. I was like, Oh, just try it

probably won't put it in, you know. And then when I tasted it

I thought no, actually this is a real banger...it's gotta, it's

gotta go in. There's a duck with a Blackberry hoinsin sauce.

Lucy Dearlove: Oh, wow.

Helen Graves: I thought I'd probably don't want to mess

around with hoisin because it tastes pretty amazing already.

But I thought actually, I wonder what it's like with, with sort

of sweetness and sharpness of blackberries in there. And it's

really good with the duck and the pancakes and you know. But

yeah, vegetables, root vegetables I love but it's just

about cooking them a little bit differently to the the more

delicate vegetables. And the other thing is I wanted it to be

seasonal. So obviously I'm not suggesting like stand there in

the pouring rain. Like or if it's snowing or something. I

wouldn't do that. But I just think it's really nice way to

get a different dimension of flavour into your food. And you

can, you know, smoke something a little bit and then maybe finish

simmering inside, or do it the other way round. Or to like do a

whole pumpkin...I've got a pumpkin in there filled with

like a beer fondue.

Lucy Dearlove: Yeah, the picture of that is...I mean, all the

photography is incredible. But the picture of that is like,

wow,

Helen Graves: Yeah, Rob's photography is really amazing.

And Valerie Berry who did the styling, she's like, she's

just...I just idolize her. I just love her so much. She's

really talented. I just really fangirled on her. She was just

really nice about it.

Lucy Dearlove: Well, it looks beautiful!

Helen Graves: Yeah, it does yeah, I'm getting emotional

thinking about it actually because she's just really great.

But yeah, there's a big, a big cheese pull on the fondue. So

yeah, stuff like that. You could do that for like a bonfire party

or something, for example, it'd be great.

Lucy Dearlove: I was gonna ask you about the seasonal aspect to

it because I think...I think you shared an Instagram story about

it, there was...someone was talking about that I can't

remember the context. But somebody referred to it as

"seasonal and achievable", which I really liked. And it's so...we

just don't think of barbecue or like outside cooking in that way

at all. And I thought that that was just really refreshing,

like, as an approach. And also as some...my dad is like, big

into barbecuing in the rain all year round. So I was like I

personally relate to this.

Helen Graves: Love it. I have stood out there with a brolly

over the barbecue before but the first time I did it, I tried to

use the brolly again. And obviously, absolutely reeked of

smoke. It's not just a little bit, it's unusable.

Lucy Dearlove: Oh, wow, okay

Helen Graves: Yeah. So just a warning.

Lucy Dearlove: And so the last thing I wanted to say is

that...So like many people in London, I don't have any outside

space. I live in a top floor flat. I don't have a balcony. I

don't have a garden. But I feel like you've written Live Fire in

a way that means it's also for me, which I think is really

clever! Was that something that was important to you?

Helen Graves: Oh, thanks for saying that. That's a really

nice thing to say. At the end of the day, I just want people to

cook from the book. You know, I just want people to eat

something nice. I want people to enjoy the food because that's

what I do. And so basically almost every recipe, the jerk

chicken, for example, I didn't do a recipe for indoors. Because

like I was saying earlier, it's so essential to have that

flavour of smoke in there, but nearly 99% of recipes there are

alternative instructions for cooking in a griddle pan. That's

the ideal situation, is to have a cast iron griddle pan, but you

could just get something really hot, you know. And like for

other things like the slow cook dishes, you know, like a

shoulder of lamb, a leg of lamb sorry, you can obviously do it

in the oven. The dessert recipes...like there are some

peaches cooked in wine that you have with like gingernut

biscuits and clotted cream. You could just do those in the oven.

So yeah, there were...there are alternative instructions because

I just want people to eat the food. Even if they don't have

any outside space, and then maybe one day you will.

Lucy Dearlove: Well that is...that is truly the dream!

Helen Graves: Or you could just go to your friend's house and

hopefully they will have a...

Lucy Dearlove: I have said that to my my garden having friends,

that I am bringing the book round.

Helen Graves: When I get my new place, I'll have a big barbecue,

come round

Lucy Dearlove: Great, great. Everyone can just have a go at

one recipe, you can..you can you can take the night off

Helen Graves: That'd be great, I wouldn't be able to help myself,

I'd have to get involved.

Lucy Dearlove: After I stopped recording, Helen was talking

more about the process of writing the book. And she told

me that finishing it had a very unexpected side effect for: her

cooking changed. She started to be drawn towards different

dishes, different flavours, like she'd needed to get this book

out of her, and then she could move on to a different stage of

her cooking. I think recipe books can be easy to take for

granted for readers sometimes, that produced such enormous

volume and it's hard to keep up. But this small detail seemed so

profound, and really highlighted that it's easy to forget how

personal books like Live Fire are for the writers.

Helen Graves: Obviously, I'm really excited. But also I'm

really nervous because it's such a personal thing. Making a

cookbook especially this is my first...I've written a small

sort of a small sandwich book before that was about eight

years ago but this is my first proper cookbook. And I put so

much of myself into it. It's so personal and it sort of feels

like when you, when you're releasing a first cookbook

you're sort of setting out...you're setting the scene,

like here I am you know introducing yourself and and

that's really hard emotionally and like when I finished I just

ate cheese sandwiches for a week because I just could not face

cooking anything and I had no creative juice, no...no brain

power at all. And I was just emotionally wrung out you know.

So now like a year later, I feel I can actually enjoy it.

Lucy Dearlove: Lecker is written and produced by me, Lucy

Dearlove. Thanks Helen Graves for being my guest on this

episode. Helen's book Live Fire is out now on Hardie Grant.

If you'd like to support Lecker financially, you can donate to

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All the music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions. I also

just wanted to say that this episode is being released later

than I planned because I've been really busy. I'm producing a

brand new Radio 4 food podcast presented by the incredible Andi

Oliver. It's called One Dish and I'd love for you to give it a

listen. Each episode features a guest talking about a food with

significant meaning in their life, from Cheryl Hole on

lasagna, to Candice Brathwaite on fried plantain. It's

available now on BBC Sounds or wherever else you listen...this

is not sponsored, although it probably should be. But I'd love

for you to listen to it. Lecker will be back in your podcast

feed next month. Thanks for listening.