HQ signs Gizzi Erskine's Slow cookbook

HarperCollins has signed up TV chef Gizzi Erskine to write a cookbook, Slow, which promotes "quality" over convenience.

Rachel Kenny, senior commissioning editor at HQ, negotiated the deal with Severine Berman at Roar Global. HQ will publish Erskine’s first cookery book for HarperCollins in hardback in October 2018.

It will contain more than 100 recipes “you can give yourself permission to take time over”.

An HQ spokesperson said: “These are recipes for a Friday night or a leisurely weekend, where quality is put over convenience and speed, the joys of technique and process are appreciated and love and care is poured into the food.”

The chef will “celebrate the whole unadulterated food experience” including sourcing produce and understanding the heritage of food.

Erskine is working on her first restaurant, Pure Filth, with nutritionist Rosemary Ferguson, and is due to open Hackney food hall, Mare Street Market, with Barworks in winter 2017.

Her books include the bestselling Gizzi’s Healthy Appetite (Mitchell Beazley), Cook Yourself Thin (Michael Joseph), Gizzi’s Kitchen Magic (Virgin Books), and Skinny Weeks & Weekend Feasts (Quadrille).

Kenny said: “Slow is a complete departure from the Gizzi cookbooks that came before. Gizzi has grown up and honed what it is that she cares about: cooking conscientiously, ingredients of the highest possible quality, treated with the respect they deserve.”

She added that Erksine had “lost none of her passion and energy since she came onto the food scene 10 years ago”.

“This is exactly the book Gizzi was born to write, and we’re overjoyed to be publishing it,” she added.

Erskine said: “Slow is the book that has always been simmering in the background. It's a coming of age book that comes entirely from the heart. This is – unapologetically – the food I like to cook, the way I like to cook it. It may not be fast, but I guarantee that it’s incredibly rewarding and great for the soul.”

Erskine described the cooking style as “practically therapy”. She revealed that HQ’s “empowering ethos of ‘books for bold, curious women’” had resonated with her and that she “can’t wait to show all the cookbook lovers out there that I’m not just eyeliner and a beehive”.