Hello! I’m Lucy Robinson, author of The Grain-Free Vegetarian. I’ve been cooking and eating vegetable-led, grain-free meals for over 40 years now. I enjoy using seasonal, organic produce from local growers – as well growing some things myself.

By profession, I’m a musician and musicologist, but cookery has always been a dominant countermelody in my life. I’ve been collecting local recipes since my teens, and am a passionate member of Slow Food, the global grass roots movement that links the delight of good food with a responsibility to community and the environment.

I would say I’m a hopeless Francophile: the result of many childhood holidays in the Dordogne and Lot, where our evening meal was the focal point of the day. I now divide my time between my home in Cardiff, Wales and a cottage in the tiny village of Marnaves, in the Tarn in South-West France. Both places are a haven for fabulous vegetables and good food in general.

why grain-free?

The grain-free aspect of my recipes originally stemmed from a diagnosis of a severe intolerances to grains, as well as to meat, and also to the petrochemicals that are used in intensive farming. At the time, trying to avoid these things seemed like a radical change to my eating habits, and quite unusual, but it made an incredible difference to my health and well-being. The ‘restrictions’ of my diet didn’t leave me feeling deprived – in fact, I discovered a new appreciation of the food on my plate, and of the wonderful energy it gave me.

Decades later, people everywhere are finding their way to eating in a similar way: reducing their intake of meat and animal-based produce, cutting down on carbohydrates, and seeking out foods that are free from additives, pesticides and over-processing. The latest research tells us that health is dependent on feeding our gut microbiome a widely-varied diet – which is very much in tune with how I eat.

Through my book and this website, I hope to share my recipes and ideas about the way we cook, eat, produce and think about food.