Picky

A culinary journey like no other - sharp, funny, and full of heart. – Jamie OliverJimi writes with such warmth, honesty, and humour about his family in Lagos, his childhood in South East London and his glossy yet frantic life as a restaurant critic. His writing truly comes alive when he talks about food. Picky is a rich and nourishing story of food and identity. – Angela HuiHis words leap from the page and take a fully addictive delicious form! Exquisite, evocative writing from the heart, soul and very witty pen of Jimi Famurewa. – Andi OliverA feast of a book packed to the brim with honesty, bravery, nostalgia and humour. At its heart is the tale of a young boy who goes on to become one of our best food writers but present throughout are big universal themes that we can all relate to: love, loss and identity. I found Picky truly affecting and brilliantly written. – Caroline EdenJimi Famurewa shows us that food is never just food - it’s memory, identity, and home. His journey from picky eater to food critic is a powerful reminder that what we eat can reconnect us to who we are, where we’ve come from, and who we’re becoming. – Asma KhanPicky is a wonderful book. It’s a gift to write so incisively in such a seemingly effortless way, and this is what Jimi does so well - melding the personal and the cultural, the intimacies of his own food story with the broader social currents that guide his appetites and ours. This is a moving, charming but also wonderfully astute exploration of food today, across continents, and from the home table to the school canteen and the high-end restaurant. It’s also a beautiful reminder that our appetites, like us, can transform beyond what we ever thought possible. – Ruby TandohVivid, funny and deliciously frank, I tore through this like an after-school bag of Monster Munch. – Felicity CloakeAn insightful, engaging and often profound memoir about what it means when a child adopts a selective attitude to food. – Bee Wilson * The Sunday Times *‘Instantly likeable, Famurewa reflects without the rose-tinted (and grating) impression so many memoirs have … Engaging … There is a palpable hunger (pardon the pun) in the pages for all cuisines.’ – Katharine Spurrier * The Mail on Sunday *Picky is absolutely beautiful. Funny, warm and nourishing. – Hasan Semay (‘Big Has’)From fussy eater to embracing food not only as sustenance, Jimi takes us on a (mostly) delicious journey through his Nigerian South London roots. Picky is filled with honesty, humour and packed with flavour. I devoured it. – Georgina Hayden

Jimi Famurewa is a British-Nigerian author, broadcaster and freelance journalist. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, Wired, GQ, Empire and Time Out London. He is the former restaurant critic for the Evening Standard, regular guest judge on the BBC One series MasterChef and was also one of the lead judges on Channel 4’s The Great Cookbook Challenge with Jamie Oliver. He hosted the award-winning podcast Where’s Home Really?, and, in 2021, he won Restaurant Writer of the Year at both the Fortnum & Mason Awards and the Guild of Food Writers Awards. His first book, Settlers: Journeys through the Food, Faith and Culture of Black African London, was published by Bloomsbury in 2022 and was shortlisted for Foyles Non-Fiction Book of the Year.

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