Food photography with Rupa: Part 1 – iPhone Settings & Setup

I’m a professional food and lifestyle photographer, content creation educator, and founder of Your Creative Vision. I’m based in London, and I teach foodies, chefs, bakers, restaurateurs, and food entrepreneurs all over the world how to create beautiful, scroll-stopping content using just their phones—no fancy camera needed.

Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing with ckbk a series of bite-sized tips from my upcoming online course, “7 Steps to Standout Food Content”, a simple approach that will help you photograph food more confidently, consistently, and creatively, whether you are doing so for work or just for fun!

Read More
Newsletter: 📍New 'pin recipe' feature for instant access + take a tasty tour of Switzerland 🇨🇭

Chef and best-selling cookbook author Andie Pilot grew up in Calgary, near the Canadian Rockies. After visiting Switzerland every summer as a child to see her grandparents, she moved to Switzerland in 2010, and now lives in Emmenthal, near the Alps, with her Swiss husband. In Pilot's books, two of which are newly available on ckbk, she shares her experience of cooking Swiss recipes, and her journey of exploration into Swiss cuisine and its traditions.

Read More
Newsletter: 🥬 Eat your Greens + your last chance to enter our photo competition 📸

Executive chef of celebrated Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, Katie Reicher is only the fourth chef at the helm of this restaurant whose 45 year history is renowned for its all-female leadership, sustainable locally-sourced ingredients and vegetarian cuisine with global flavors.

Katie’s first book Seasons of Greens: A Collection of New Recipes from the Iconic San Francisco Restaurant is a gorgeously photographed gathering of the philosophy and fresh recipe style that are at the heart of Greens Restaurant.

Read More
Newsletter: 🐣Spring into Easter + meet The Baker’s Daughter 🍰

You might think that a baker’s daughter, for whom the bakery had been a second home, would follow in her father’s footsteps and take over at the stoves. Certainly Louise Johncox spent much of her young life watching her father bake, and sampling all his comforting, much-loved wares. But she chose to train as a journalist, and it was only when she set out to tell their family story—a job her training is well suited to—that her own baking really began.

Read More
Newsletter: 📸 A callout to all you budding food photographers + a trio of new books to fire up your grill 🔥

As days lengthen, the sun shows its face, and coats are cast off, thoughts turn to outdoor cooking, to lighting the grill and revelling in the taste of food cooked over fire and seasoned with fresh air. We’ve got three books newly live on ckbk to inspire your grill cookery throughout the outdoor season.

Read More
Newsletter: 🍜 Xi’an Famous Foods from Jason Wang & a feast of noodles with Dennis Yen 🍜

‘You’re going to get the secret to several incredible bowls of noodles, but you’re also going to get a story about immigrants leaving a place called home and creating a new one, both in China and in the United States. You’re going to get recipes that showcase the malleable language of food, the transformations that take place through time and through space, and the magical powers familiar flavors have in unfamiliar environments.’  Jason Wang

Read More
Newsletter: 📚 A trio of books from Trish Deseine + St Patrick’s Day food aplenty ☘

‘I made a conscious decision when I started writing cookbooks not to make it into a science or an education. I wanted to stay on a level with the readers of my books, who mostly didn’t go to culinary school’. Trish Deseine

Kicking off our St Patrick’s Day celebrations we have three books from hugely popular Irish-French food writer Trish Deseine, newly added to ckbk.

Read More
Author profile: Trish Deseine

To celebrate the addition to ckbk of several cookbooks by Irish-French author Trish Deseine, and with an eye on the impending St Patrick’s Day celebrations, we spoke to Trish about her Irish roots, her love of the regional cooking of France, and some of the dishes which have meant the most to her over the years.

Read More
Newsletter: 🥫 Store cupboard heroes: frozen peas and canned tomatoes + a feast of pies 🥧

From March 3 to 9 it is British Pie Week, an annual opportunity to indulge in a British national obsession, the pie. There is a long history of pies in Great Britain. They have been around since the Middle Ages, with the first recorded recipes appearing in the 1300s. Originally a way to preserve meats for longer by encasing them in a paste crust, once hot-water pastry was developed the pie became a vehicle for elaborate shaping, and decoration fit for a banquet table. As ovens became more widespread, they also became part of more ordinary mealtimes. And after the arrival of the potato in Europe in the 16th century, the main meal staple ‘pie and mash’ was born.

Read More
Author Q&A: Samuel Goldsmith (The Frozen Peas Cookbook, The Tinned Tomatoes Cookbook)

This week we are delighted to add The Frozen Peas Cookbook to ckbk, ahead of the book’s print publication on 13 March 2025. Like author Samuel Goldsmith’s previous book (The Tinned Tomatoes Cookbook), the new title showcases creative ways with a familiar staple, ensuring that you are never out of ideas.  We spoke to Sam about the motivation for his two cookbooks, his work as a food editor and podcast host, and his tips for success in the kitchen.

Read More
Newsletter: 🍰 The best cakes in the world + how to personalize ckbk for you 📚

‘If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake…’ As the song says, sometimes a cake is the very thing. A cake says celebration like few other foods, and baking a cake for someone always says something special. Which is why we can never have enough cake books, and are extremely excited to get baking from World’s Best Cakes: 250 Great Cakes from Raspberry Genoise to Chocolate Kugelhopf—by Roger Pizey and newly added to ckbk.

Read More
ckbk newsletterckbkCake
Newsletter: 🍞 A spotlight on sourdough + celebrating Australian community cookbooks📚

One of two authors featured in this week’s newsletter, bestselling author and chronicler of rural and regional Australian food and community histories, Liz Harfull learned to cook from recipes gathered together from family and neighbours. Whether created informally and organically, or through organised collaboration, community cookbooks are at the heart of cooking culture and recipes in the South Australia that Liz grew up in.

Meanwhile, esteemed professional bread instructor Michael Kalanty honed his teaching methods over years teaching students at the artisan bread course he designed at the California Culinary Academy, and we are delighted to add a new and updated edition of his book How to Bake Sourdough Bread to ckbk.

Read More