The Third Place<\/a>\u00a0 caught up with me before the event for an interview. Read on to find out my thoughts and personal food journey.<\/p>\nSammy: Can you tell me about your relationship with cooking?<\/h2>\n
Lim:\u00a0It goes back a few years actually to when I was 18; I finished school and moved to Edinburgh. My aim was to get some experience in kitchens as I wanted to become a chef. And then, I found myself doing a degree in furniture making [laughs], so I swapped one sharp tool for another sharp tool, but still continued to cook.<\/p>\n
After the degree, I came to London and took a loan to do a Masters. I set up a furniture company with a friend, but any sales we got we had to put straight back into the business. We were taking home about \u00a3900 a month living in London, whilst trying to pay off Masters debt, so that\u2019s where the idea of eating well on a small amount of money came about. It was a totally necessary thing for me at the time, you know? What is it that they say? Necessity is the mother of all invention, or something like that. So I was learning how to cook and eat on the cheap, and my housemate at the time said \u201cI think you should start writing some of these down\u201d.<\/p>\n
I left the furniture world around three years later to set up an ecommerce company selling design products from British makers \u2013 totally, totally failed! I think I made \u00a3411 that year, it was nuts. At that time, I thought \u201cWell, if I\u2019m in this position, there must be a lot more people like me\u201d, and that\u2019s how it sort of kicked off.<\/p>\n
S: Has eating well always been important to you \u2013 keeping those those small budget recipes nutritious?<\/h2>\n
L: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the questions people always ask me is \u201cBut is it actually good food?\u201d, because it is very easy to eat cheaply if you just buy rice and spaghetti all the time! It\u2019s doable but it\u2019s not healthy and there\u2019s not going to be any variety, so that was one of the main reasons for the book; it was to show people that actually, you can eat really great food and a massive variety, some succulent meats and nice vegetables\u2026 it\u2019s all in there on a small budget.<\/p>\n
S: What would you say is different about what you are doing with budget cooking and recipes compared to previous budget recipe books?<\/h2>\n
L: I\u2019m looking at food from a top-down view; it\u2019s not just about money, it\u2019s also about time, confidence and knowledge. These four key obstacles get in people\u2019s way of eating well. Whilst some chefs might price per meal, in my opinion it\u2019s not the right way forward because if that recipe needs one whole chicken, a pinch of salt or teaspoon of curry powder, the cost to buy all of those ingredients is going to cost way more than the headline price of 82p a meal.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about eliminating all of the barriers to good food, and everyone is different. For some people, it\u2019s about the money side and for some people it\u2019s more work, travel, getting home at 8 o\u2019clock and wanting to make something in less than half an hour. 85 out of 100 recipes in the book take between 5 and 30 minutes, but you\u2019ve still got your tagines, roast chicken, tray bakes and things as well (that take a little longer).<\/p>\n
One of the other differences is that each recipe has the original ingredients list, but I\u2019ve also added a column of swappable ingredients in. It gives people options, and my hope is that if you use the book, and maybe you\u2019re not too confident with what ingredients go together, you\u2019ll start picking it up.<\/p>\n
S: I see that you endorse a lot of own-brand produce from supermarkets. Did that take you quite a lot of testing to come to that?<\/h2>\n
L: Yes and no! I think most of the supermarket own brands have come on leaps and bounds in the last few years, and they\u2019re winning awards as well. The difference between a \u00a31 tin of tomatoes and a 29p tin of tomatoes \u2013 you know, maybe unless you\u2019ve got super taste buds, you won\u2019t notice a difference!<\/p>\n
S: I guess there is a big difference between own-brand produce and own-brand time saving products like jar sauces. What are your thoughts on those, do you tend to steer away from using these types of products?<\/h2>\n
L: I do. I think they\u2019re more expensive, firstly. I actually borrowed my housemate\u2019s sauce a couple of weeks ago because we were going away for the weekend and needed something to eat quickly \u2013 it was just the sweetest, weirdest thing! It wasn\u2019t good. I\u2019m sure there are some really nice ones, but for the effort it takes to make a nice tomato sauce? It\u2019s just better to make it.<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago, I really wanted a pizza. So I thought \u201cOkay, I\u2019m going to order a pizza. It\u2019s going to take about 45 minutes to get to me and it\u2019s going to cost about \u00a312\u2033\u2026 and then instead I just made one. It took me 25 minutes from scratch, and it was pretty decent.\u00a0I think there\u2019s a misconception that cooking takes such a long time and is labour intensive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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