Emily Wight, author of Well Fed, Flat Broke (photo: Tracey Kusiewicz | Foodie Photography)
Interview by Megan Cole
Thanks to the creativity of Officer Jackson Bradford and his Bullshit Meals for Assholes, we’ve had some interesting budget-food suggestions for junk food enthusiasts on the road. But let’s be honest, not all of us want to create a dish based on the contents of a 7-11 nacho station.
For those of us on a budget, with maybe more refined tastes, there are the great ideas of food blogger and cookbook author Emily Wight. In Wight’s cookbook, Well Fed, Flat Broke, she guides the reader through some mouth-watering and even indulgent recipes that won’t break the bank.
We caught up with Wight to talk about her blog, cooking on a budget, and making food for the one of the pickiest eaters on Earth, her three-year-old son Hunter.
How did you start blogging? Is that where things started for the cookbook?
The blog started about six years ago. I had completed my bachelor of fine arts at the University of British Columbia in creative writing, and I started a job, also at UBC, and was getting married, and so the year before finishing school was insane and busy, and so all of a sudden that all stopped because I had graduated and was going to work. I was actually kind of board because, and I don’t know if you did creative writing at all, but there’s this requirement for how many pages you have to produce in the creative writing program. In the program there are three genres you have to produce for, so you are writing a lot of content all the time, and that was on top of everything else. I had been in the habit of writing a lot, and then all of a sudden had nothing to write about because no one was making me do it, and that’s how the blog started.
Had you always had an interest in food and cooking?
Oh, yeah, for sure. I had kind of wanted to go to cooking school when I was figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up. It was super dumb at the time, but I thought I didn’t want to be a chef because I’d have to work evenings and weekends and that’s when you see all your friends. Now all my friends have kids, so it doesn’t matter anyways. My friends never had cable, but my parents had CBC and The Urban Peasant was on every day.
What was food like at home when you were growing up? Were your parents good cooks? Is that where you got your interest?
This is a point we’ve been arguing since the book came out. I say my parents weren’t great cooks. Some things were good, but they were busy, too. They both worked and were busy, so food wasn’t ever terribly complicated. I would say it was the food of the ’80s. There were a lot of cans of things. But they were super annoyed at me for saying that, because they thought they were doing really well.
How did you learn to cook? Was it trial and error for you?
It was a lot of trial an error. Just before I turned 15 I got a job at this little farm market near where I lived. I was the cashier there after school and on weekends, and there were all these weird ingredients that I didn’t eat as a kid, or that I’d never seen before, so I started bringing them home and my parents didn’t know what to do with it. I learned through their cookbooks and through The Urban Peasant or whatever was on PBS.
Did you hone your skills for budget cooking as a student? I was a student on a budget who liked to eat well, but couldn’t afford all the ingredients.
Yeah, that actually came as a big shock, because when your parents are buying all the ingredients you can do anything, but when I was on my own at first it was a lot of sad lentil dishes, or soups that features things that were on sale. It took a bit of practice and a few cooking classes here and there, but it was definitely a bit wakeup call.
In your cookbook you struggle with something that a lot of people battle, and that’s picky eaters. It sounds like you are working on that with your son as well.
Oh yeah. It is getting better though, and we’re wearing him down. It’s still nowhere where we’d like it to be, but he’s eating a variety of things now. It’s so hard though, and you make all this food, and I remember at one point saying, “I’m not going to be a short-order cook and make multiple meals.” But now I do, and we lie a lot, too. He likes hotdogs, so all the meats are hotdogs now. We aren’t proud of ourselves, but you do what you have to do.
Broccoli with tofu and peanuts (photo: Tracey Kusiewicz | Foodie Photography)
What are some your favourite meals to cook currently?
There are a couple in the book. If we have fancy company I like to do the slow-cooker pork shoulder, or the pork belly if I have lots of time. There’s also broccoli with tofu and peanuts, and it takes like 10 minutes to make, and my son likes everything in it. It’s served on rice, so that’s even better, and we eat that a lot. We also eat any of the pastas because he likes noodles, so noodles it is.
We went through a phase where lots of women weren’t cooking, and there was this feminist revolt against the kitchen. Do you think you’re part of the generation that’s part of the move back to the kitchen?
I think so. My mom didn’t cook a ton because she worked, so I grew up with the advantage of having a dad who cooked and cleaned, so for me it’s not domestic drudgery to cook. I cook because I’m better at it than my husband, and he cleans because I won’t. I think somebody cooking is important to keep the household good, happy, nourished and healthy, but I don’t necessarily think of cooking as a feminist act. I don’t know if you read a lot of Michael Pollan or things like that, but you get this sense when you hear them talk that it’s women working and leaving the kitchen that’s causing so much nutritional havoc, and obesity and things like that. I’m sensitive to it, but I don’t feel like I cook because I’m the cook. If you enjoy it, then you should do it.
Do you listen to music while you cook?
Sometimes. I find that I don’t work well with music, so if I’m writing I don’t listen to music because I find the tone of the music can be picked up in what you’re writing. But with cooking, I can listen to music more. I like a lot of instrumental stuff like Max Richter; that’s nice because it’s in the background. But if you’ve had a bad day, sometimes it’s better to have some NOFX or Rage Against the Machine. I find for cooking I listen to music a bit, but now that I have a son, children have terrible taste in music, and so now that I have to defer to a three-year-old, I don’t listen to music as much.
Well Fed, Flat Broke is available now through Arsenal Pulp Press.
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