LAST year’s MasterChef champion, has become the face and brand ambassador of a new social concept, Foodie Book Club.

Irini Tzortzoglou, who won the competition in 2019 and is now helping Weardale business owner Lee Majhen-Todd of Lee & The Sweet Life, who founded the Foodie Book Club.

The club brings together the traditional book club with cooking and community focus, aiming to encourage people to cook for fun and experiment with tastes and flavours as well as providing a much-needed support structure in the form of a network of groups.

Mrs Tzortzoglou, whose new book ‘Under the Olive Tree: Recipes from my Greek Kitchen’ launches later this month, is to represent the Foodie Book Club, sharing her recipes and expertise and offering the opportunity to win a copy of her book.

Mrs Majhen-Todd explained: “I want to cater for all manner of tastes but also challenge some people to explore outside of the genres they usually stick to. We’re selecting new authors, established ones, some people may never have heard of, we may even throw in a few children’s books, too."