Spring Forward
It’s time to make a confession: I haven’t been cooking much lately. For months and months during the pandemic, as in big swaths of life before, I cooked nightly (and in the pandemic, daily, too). Cooking was all the things for me that people who cook regularly say it is: my happy place, my way to get centered, the nicest part of my day. And I was so used to it that I shopped and menu-planned and prepared and cleaned up in a seamless stream that didn’t even—usually—feel like labor.
Then I fell off the horse. Maybe a similar thing has happened to you at one time or another, when something interrupts your culinary routine. A vacation, a transition, a move, a dietary change. Something that causes you to find yourself standing in the kitchen, feeling at a loss, wondering how exactly to make all those moving parts move again.
It’s time for me to get back into a cooking groove. Lately I’ve been casting around for what I’ve been thinking of as “comeback recipes”—dishes that represent some magical combination of easy, comforting, delicious, delightful. Recipes that make me think, I can do that. I will do that. And then I’ll do it tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
Here are a few picks from Trivet that have been calling to me:
• A simple, satisfying dinner of lemon dill tuna with noodles, from Dizzy, Busy, and Hungry, is a (slightly) grown-up take on tuna noodle casserole, and would be perfect with a green salad or vegetable side. (Maybe Braised and Deglazed’s sauteéd broccolette with garlic, lemon, and aleppo chili—I wish I had a mountain of it, right now.)
• “Homemade bread” doesn’t usually fall into the no-brainer category, but Flavor Feed has me convinced that it could, in this recipe for easy skillet herb flatbreads, which resemble Chinese-restaurant scallion pancakes.
• Another balanced, one-dish meal in Flavor Feed’s garlicky orecchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage (it feels like something to make before winter is gone).
• Last, there’s something to be said for a kitchen comeback as a time to try new things and maybe even lay down a new routine. This authentic Kenyan tangawizi chai by Paleo Low Carb Kate—a brew of loose black tea, milk, hot water, ginger, and an optional subtle sweetener—has me dreaming about incorporating it into my morning, every morning.
Do you have a favorite recipe that pulls you back into the kitchen after you’ve been away for a while? Share it in the comments.
Finally, a piece of site news: you now have the power to edit items you’ve shared on Trivet Recipes. If you’ve made a typo, need to change text or an image, or want to delete an entry altogether, simply log in to the site and navigate to your profile page. There you’ll see all your shared recipes. Click the Edit link on the lower right to make any needed changes.
In this issue of the newsletter, we’re talking with Renee Rendall, who lives in Glasgow, Scotland, and blogs at How to Be Awesome on $20 a Day
Hi, Renee! Can you tell us where your blog's name came from?
My blog’s name came to me as I was sitting on the beach one day writing in my journal. I loved food blogs, but all the ones I followed seemed to be written by women with a lot of money. I’d compare my life to theirs, searching for the cheapest food and considering a pint of Ben & Jerry’s to be an extravagant treat, and feel like I was failing. I wanted to read a blog about someone who loved to cook but also didn't have the freedom to just spend whatever they wanted. A blog for normal people who are struggling to get by. I couldn't find one, so I decided to write it myself.
To this day, I give myself $20 a day to spend on whatever I want as an easy alternative to budgeting. I also lived in Taiwan for a couple of years and had friends from all over the world. They loved to make fun of American superlatives, and so it was a running joke that everything was “awesome.” So that's how the name was born. How to Be Awesome on $20 a Day. The tagline reads, “Life should be awesome, even if your paycheck isn't.” It's all about making the most of what you have and learning to love your life no matter what. And eating really well along the way.
I appreciate the emphasis on living and eating well without spending a lot. Would you say that cooking at home is almost inherently frugal?
Absolutely. Cooking at home is a great way to save money but still feel like you're not missing out on any pleasure. So many times I've ordered something from a restaurant and then been a bit disappointed knowing I could have made something just as good or better. And I could have made enough to feed four people for half the cost of one serving. I suppose some might argue that you’re not factoring in the value of your time, but to me, time spent in the kitchen almost never feels like a burden. And if you shop smart and plan well, you can save even more money. The more you do yourself, the cheaper it is.
When and how did you start blogging?
I started How to Be Awesome on $20 a Day in April of 2013. It was just a few weeks after my wedding, the first weekend without out-of-town guests in over five weeks. I probably should have been resting, but that's really not in my nature. Instead, I decided to turn that idea I’d had on the beach into a reality. I just made some brownies, took a couple photos with my point-and-shoot camera, went to Wordpress.com and pretended to be a food blogger. It was mainly a hobby for years, something I thought one day could maybe be something bigger, but I wasn’t putting in real money or time to make it a business. In the meantime, life carried on. I had some health problems, moved from Honolulu to Scotland, got a new job. Life got complicated, and blogging was less of a priority. I considered just quitting so many times, but for some reason, I never did.
That changed in October of 2019, when I consciously decided to work toward having my own business and putting my blog at the center of that dream. Now I’m putting in a lot more effort, strategy, and let’s face it, money, to try to grow a community of readers who want awesome comfort food with a heavy pinch of good vibes. It’s slow going, but the progress is undeniable.
How have things changed in the blogging world since you started out, and how have these changes affected you?
Food blogging is definitely more of a business these days than when I started. In 2013, there were a few people making money, but I don’t think it was as strategic as it is today. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention back then. I’ve definitely changed the way I approach my blog in some ways. I have a much more consistent posting and social media schedule, and I’ve worked really hard to improve my photography. I’ve been learning about SEO and site speed, which has been so boring but absolutely crucial. But at its core, the mission has stayed the same. Share great recipes. Help people remember that they’re awesome just as they are. It sounds cheesy, but it's so easy to forget.
How much effort do you put into promoting your blog and trying to gain traffic, versus just blogging? How do you find where the sweet spot is for you?
I try to automate and schedule ahead as much as possible. I could always put in more effort and continue to hone my strategies. To be honest, certain social media platforms really bring me down, so I try to set up social sharing from an external app and focus my personal energy and engagement on the platforms that bring me joy. The biggest difference for me in the past year has been learning SEO and trying to get more traffic through search. I’d say I spend about half my time creating the best content I can, and the other half trying to figure out how to get it seen.
What’s your favorite thing you made last year, and what are you looking forward to tackling next?
I absolutely love a good cheeseburger, and I’m a total evangelist for making your own burger patties. I even served homemade cheeseburgers at my wedding. I’m also still an obnoxiously picky eater, and I know I wouldn’t have survived childhood without peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So my favorite recipe from last year has to be the Peanut Butter & Jelly Burger. It’s got crispy bacon, smoked cheddar, a thick slather of natural peanut butter, and spicy pepper jam. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
I’ve been on a boozy milkshake kick lately, and I've got a Nutty Nutella Boozy Milkshake coming up soon that's pretty awesome. It's got Frangelico and Amaretto. Again, I much prefer to make cocktails at home because I can usually buy a whole bottle of liqueur for the price of two drinks at a bar or restaurant. Then I can have cocktails for months rather than spending all my money in one night.
This isn't directly food-related, but: you live in Scotland! That’s exotic (to me). How’d it come about?
I’ve lived in Scotland for over five years now, and it’s definitely been an adventure. No one here believes that I willingly moved here from Honolulu. My husband is British, and we met while both teaching English in Taiwan. We then moved to Hawaii, but the cost of living was so high, we knew we’d never be able to buy a home. My husband wanted to be closer to his family, and he managed to get a job offer in Glasgow so that I could get my immigration status approved and we could both move together. We didn’t know if we’d stay long term when we arrived, but we’ve since bought a tenement flat built in 1895. We have a cat and a dog, and I’ve allowed myself to rebuild my cookbook collection, so I think we'll be here for a while.
What’s the food like in Glasgow?
The food in Glasgow is . . . mostly awesome. There's still plenty of opportunity to partake in the greasy, bland, or weird stuff that has given Scottish food such a bad reputation. But there are also so many creative restaurants popping up all the time that are really making the most of the gorgeous local produce.
I’ve learned to love pub culture. I’m definitely a cider drinker these days. And I’ve grown to appreciate chips in a way I never thought I would. They’re not exactly equivalent to French fries. They tend to be fatter and fluffier, sometimes crispy on the outside, which I prefer, unless they're covered in cheese and gravy. And they’re served with absolutely everything, but I'm not complaining.
Find Renee at How to Be Awesome on $20 a Day, or on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. You can also check out her profile and recipes on Trivet Recipes.
In closing, Renee’s comment about making cocktails at home reminded me of a book I’ve loved for years and which proves its relevance again and again, How to Cook a Wolf by M. F. K. Fisher. Published in 1942 as a primer on how to survive and thrive under World War II rationing, here’s what it has say about booze:
. . . Given a number of present-day ways to be poor (and whether you earn an immediately impressive salary or not, you will feel poor for several days or hours before each new check is cashed, in wartime), there is one sure way to feel poorer. That is to form the specious habit of stopping at the local grogshop, the Greek’s around the corner, Ye Cozie Nooke Cocktail Lounge. Even if cocktails keep their prewar prices, the liquor is bound to fluctuate in quality, and it is easy as scat to pile up astonishing bills in one or two predinner drop-ins, and even more horrendous hangovers.
The first thing to do, of course, is to stop going there. The next thing is to find a reputable substitute, since even a young man cannot too easily quit such solace as is offered by the dim jukey confines of the neighborhood gin mill.
One of the best antidotes, if anything so pleasant could be termed so damningly, is to decide the person you like best to drink with and see if you can arrange to have a predinner nip with her or him . . . alone. Alone does not necessarily connote salaciously, lasciviously, or even amorously, since if you like a person well enough to drink alone with him, he will be the kind who will have worked all day and be as glad as you to sit back and absorb a little quick relaxation from a glass and then eat, quaffing immortality and joy. He will if possible be your husband or your own true love, and you will find in this sudden quiet and peacefulness something that has sometimes seemed much too far from you both, lately.
Wishing you quiet and peacefulness, & till soon,
—Katherine
PS Don’t forget to set your clocks forward an hour this Sunday, the 14th.