Features & Stories

Newsletter: 🥔 Potatoes for all occasions + a postcard from Sri Lanka 🇱🇰

29 May 2025 · ckbk newsletter
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Hot potato, cool recipes!

The humble potato: endlessly adaptable, quietly brilliant and capable of stealing the show in everything from comfort food classics to elegant dinner-party dishes. No wonder there are celebrations for International Day of the Potato on May 30. Whether you’re in the mood for something indulgent, inventive or timeless, these three potato cookbooks prove the spud is anything but ordinary.

Paul Gaylor’s A Passion for Potatoes explores global flavors with dishes like Sweet Potato Laksa and Rotolo di Patata.

Or pourquoi pas go over all classic French with Potatoes from Le Cordon Bleu Home Collection’s edition? Elegant staples such as Fondant Potatoes and Gratin Dauphinois bring French finesse à la table. Délicieux.

Or count the passing of time in potatoes.

The Potato Year offers 300 ways to enjoy potatoes year-round—from Garlic Potato Purée to sweet Cinnamon Potato Buns.

Turns out there's a recipe—and a potato—for every occasion.
Visit ckbk’s potato bookshelf
Pictured above: Baked Mashed Potatoes from The Side Dish Handbook by Tori Ritchie

Antonia Lloyd's postcard from Sri Lanka

Food TV producer Antonia Lloyd takes us on a mouthwatering journey through Sri Lanka in the latest in our 'Postcard from...' series. From the lush hills of the Cultural Triangle to the surf-kissed southern coast, this island is as rich in flavor as it is in history.

Expect tales of climbing an ancient rock fortress after breakfast of Pol Roti and Seeni Sambol, an unforgettable farm lunch served on banana leaves, and roadside dishes, all packed with centuries of colonial influence. Lloyd dives deep into the country’s vibrant food culture—one shaped by spice routes, Buddhist and Tamil traditions, and a legacy of Portuguese, Dutch and British occupation.

Along the way, she tastes everything from fiery curries and creamy Coconut Dal to Love Cake scented with rosewater and lemon. Feeling inspired (and hungry)? Join Lloyd’s flavor-packed journey—and discover why Sri Lanka’s food, like its people, leaves a lasting impression.
And if all that has whet your appetite for curry, check out Roopa Gulati's Curry Lovers Cookbook, which has just been added to ckbk, a celebration of Indian communities across the world.
Read Antonia Lloyd's postcard from Sri Lanka

A Trio of Prue Leith

This month all three of Prue Leith’s cookbooks feature as cookbook(s) of the month on the ckbk Facebook group. Join the group if you’re not already there and show us what you’re cooking!

Prue's latest cookbook Life’s Too Short to Stuff a Mushroom includes helpful videos embedded within many of the recipes—nail the technique of her Tear-and-Share Star Bread, for example, with the Handy Hack video that accompanies it.

Prue: My All-time Favourite Recipes—from comforting Family Fish Pie and Peri-Peri Spatchcock Chicken—and The Vegetarian Kitchen’s Shakshuka with Baked Eggs, Curried Pea and Potato Samosas or a slice of Dorset Apple Cake are all guaranteed to get you cooking.
Join ckbk's Facebook Group and share your Prue Leith photos

Ingredient focus: cucumbers

Cucumbers—crisp, cooling, and endlessly versatile—are summer’s quiet stars. Cultivated for thousands of years and cherished in cuisines from Tokyo to Tehran, they’re more than just salad fillers. At their peak, real cucumbers are sweetly fragrant with a delicate crunch and grassy snap—nothing like the thick-skinned, bloated supermarket imposters many of us have learned to tolerate

Try them in a deeply savory Miso-Sesame Cucumber Salad, blended into a Chilled Minted Cucumber and Honeydew Soup or made into a Vietnamese dish of Tamarind Beef and Cucumber Salad. ckbk's 12 Ways with Cucumbers collection explores everything from Ukranian Pickles to Korean Quick Cucumber Kimchi, and even Cucumber Curry—proof that the real thing deserves a starring role in your kitchen this season.

6 of the best milk recipes

We might be milking it a little for World Milk Day on 1 June—but with the UN’s seal of approval, this celebration of milk’s nutritional benefits is the real deal. So, we’re raising a glass of the white stuff and trying out these creamy, dreamy recipes in its honor.

Rice Pudding

from My Big Fat Greek Cookbook: Classic Mediterranean Soul Food Recipes by Evdokia Antginas

Macaroni Cheese

from The Frozen Peas Cookbook: 100 Everyday Recipes for the Most Versatile Ingredient in Your Freezer by Samuel Goldsmith

Cold Coffee Milkshake

from Malai: Frozen Desserts Inspired by South Asian Flavors by Pooja Bavishi

Breakfast Smoothie

from The Mountain Cafe Cookbook by Kirsten Gilmour

Chilled Pea Soup with Parmesan Ice Cream

from Maze: The Cookbook by Jason Atherton

A milky bread

from Pomegranates & Artichokes: Recipes and memories of a journey from Iran to Italy by Saghar Setareh