Sneak Peek at my new book, Mediterranea (AND more announcements!)

I've been hiding all the news... here today, I'm sharing it!

Kalimera all,

Lots of BIG NEWS from me this week!

My new book, Mediterranea, Life-Perfected Recipes from Grandmothers of the Med is published by Penguin Random House at the end of July and is now finally available to preorder.

The book is packed with delicious recipes from my journeys across the Med, from the more obvious Greece, Italy and Spain to the south of France, North Africa, Slovenia, Croatia and the Levant. As well as recipes and beautiful travel photography and portraiture of these incredible grandmothers, Mediterranea is a testament to living long, full and healthy lives in the Med. It's interspersed with essays that focus on the Mediterranean lifestyle and diet, from 'Picky Eating' to Breakfasting and the concept of 'Filoxenia' (hospitality) across the countries I visited.

Here’s the new cover in all its glory and below, I’m sharing some beautiful photography from the book in advance of it coming out. I’d so love to hear your thoughts on this as the cover image took about three goes to get right.

The first time we flew Marco Arguello (my photographer) out to Corfu to get THE shot of Yiayia eating by the sea, our dream cover image completely fell through. I’d prepared Yiayia for her cover shoot and she’d even agreed to coming down to the coastline and posing in front of fishing locals and teenage boys swimming off the rocks (just out of shot of the final cover image) but just as we timed golden hour, the sun dipped behind grey clouds and the water, instead of looking like somewhere you would want to instantly plunge, looked like murky pond water. Sunlight is SO necessary for the perfect image - especially when you’re trying to convey summer in the Med!

The second time Marco was due to fly out, a catastrophic storm occurred — fire, brimstone, lighting - all of it. This instantly cancelled his scheduled flight and our shoot (after an evening in the kitchen spent preparing two trays of perfect Yemista (stuffed peppers and tomatoes).

Third time’s a charm, all the ingredients for a perfect shoot were there. Yiayia was being uncharacteristically co-operative, the weather was clearing up after yet another weekend of rain and I had brilliant

Allegra D'Agostini

on hand after my retreat to help me with the food and styling. Hilariously, Yiayia hadn’t quite understood that the tray of Yemista was to be included in our photoshoot, so she gave it away to our neighbours (“how much food do you expect me to eat?”) before we had a chance to pick our winning stuffed tomatoes for the photo. Alas! We got the shots we needed, regardless…

I’m sharing some of my favourites below from the new book along with another announcement on retreats…