Substacks recommended by Lisa McLean | Spice Chronicles & Recipes

Recommended by Lisa McLean

The Awe Files

By Julia Baird

Field notes from a joy-seeking thalassophile

Thomas DuBois

Cooking the Stacks

By Shell Plant

A guide to cooking from Substack. Cooking from a foodie stack each month, and recounting my adventures. Stuffed with tips and recipe recommendations. Newsletters on Sundays.

Shell is cooking her way through other writers stacks and telling us all about it. A fantastic resource for foodies, writers and hungry people.

- Lisa McLean

Sami Tamimi

I always loved writing, sharing stories, recipes and dishes I’m cooking

Cooking with MARCELLA

By Lisa McLean

Cooking with Marcella is a personal journey through all of Marcella Hazan’s cookbooks, exploring her timeless recipes and their roots in the Mediterranean diet with storytelling, practical cooking insights, and a deep love for authentic Italian cuisine.

Cooking Marcella Hazan's recipes one at a time.

- Lisa McLean

The Secret Ingredient

By Harrison

Learn to cook hit restaurant recipes at home!

The Black Butter Club

By Sam Cooper

slow and savoury writings on fermentation, flavour, and seasonal transformation. A love letter to old techniques, curious ingredients, and the art of time.

He's the fermenting expert, a kind and generous writer, and he seems to have green hands not only fingers.

- Lisa McLean

Undergrowth

By Ian Winter

Digging down, hills to shore

Bake Experiments

By Shell Plant

Charming English Baking. Recipes that play with flavour and technique, with forays into food history and folklore. Do pull up a chair, join me for some tea and cake.

Shell is an inspiring writer on baking, patisserie and all things delicious.

- Lisa McLean

Wendy’s World

By Wendy Varley

Arts, books, history, life!

Wendy is a gifted writer, she never fails to amuse, delight and stir my heart and mind.

- Lisa McLean

Recipes and Stories from Eastern Europe

By Irina Georgescu

Free e-newsletter with culinary traditions, news and recipes from Romania.

Memorie di Angelina

By Frank

One of the most popular Italian food blogs on the internet is now on Substack! Presenting Italian home cooking with a strong but definitely not exclusive focus on the traditional dishes of Rome—my former and future home—and points south.

Just really good recipes

By Sheryl O'Connell

Cooking recipes inspired from kitchens near and far. Sharing the good stuff.

Taisty Bytes

By Mark Thomas

The adventures of a thirty-something finding his way around the kitchen. Better with pictures than words!

Mark writes about baking, with such enthusiasm it makes a non baker want to bake. His photography is pretty good too and so is his dog Hiro.

- Lisa McLean

Healthy Farming Healthy Food

By Lucy

Healthy Farming = Healthy Food = Healthy People

Lucy writes about life on her farm in Queensland, pigs harvesting sweet potatoes and other interesting tales of daily life on the farm.

- Lisa McLean

On the Acre by Rachel Hardacre

Sharing what I gather in my garden, from the harvests that fill my basket, to the dishes that fill my table.

Flour Power: by Felicity Spector

Telling stories of food and resistance in wartime Ukraine - and other scenes from an accidental baking life.

Weeknight Pasta from Italy

By Lolly Martyn

Motivating you from slow life Italy with simple, seasonal, no-stress pasta recipes (including GF options!) that Italians actually eat. Inspired by my Italian MIL, approved by my son.

The Downsizing Diva’s Substack

By Lizzie Wingfield

Fat foodie and demented cook-from-scratchatarian sharing recipes and stories about losing weight eating fabulous food. Also Food-Giant Slayer.

Real Simple Food

By Sophia Real

A newsletter for those who want to make the most of the flavour bombs in our modern pantries (think Sake-poached pears, Strawberry and Sumac Tiramisu-ish or Prune and Chinese Five Spice Powder Sticky Toffee Pudding with Miso Butterscotch).

A Private Chef

By Will Cooper

Working as a private chef on a small family farm, deep in the countryside of rural England. I make vinegar, forage, preserve, smoke and ferment the ingredients around me and am also the guardian of two rather obstinate honeybee colonies.

A talented chef, with a writing voice that invites one to share his remarkable life living and working on a splendid organic farm in the English countryside.

- Lisa McLean

The Recovering Line Cook

By Wil Reidie

Recipes, techniques and stories from a British restaurant cook living in Finland.

Will writes like a friend telling you a good yarn in the pub.

- Lisa McLean

Life's a Feast by Jamie Schler

By Jamie Schler of Life's a Feast

Life's a Feast with Jamie Schler

Classic French recipes and historical musing providing context to recipes in a way that makes you want to cook them again or for the first time.

- Lisa McLean

Bitter & Sweet

By Jo Candiano

Sicilian-Australian author & mysanthrope exploring my Sicilian traditions, music, mythology, family and a Sicilian house reno. Join me on this mad trip where storytelling, culture, myths, travel and food melt together like a cheese and anchovy toastie.

Jo essays on life, flamingos, and Sicily make me smile with delight.

- Lisa McLean

Mark Diacono's Abundance

Food and everything connected, by James Beard shortlisted and multi award-winning author and photographer Mark Diacono, of Otter Farm, once of River Cottage.

Mark writes about growth, in gardens, kitchens and life like a friend leading you along an interesting new path.

- Lisa McLean