That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Pinch Of Nom

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Kay from Pinch Of Nom joins Gaby for a chat about the joy of food! With over 5 million books sold, Pinch Of Nom know what they're talking about when it comes to delicious, balanced food. Gaby asks about the secret to good soups, how to feed veg to people (kids mainly) who don't like it - and if it's easy to work alongside your partner. We hope you enjoy this joyful January chat! Remember - you can watch all of our episodes on our YouTube channel - AND - find our extra Show n Tell episodes there too! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pinch of nom, cup, tea, hoodie, book, box. We don't need anything else. No, that's it. I mean, I can go now, right? Okay, thanks for coming. So lovely to see you again, Kay. I think you and Kate should be called K, K, K, K. Just the K's.

We are actually known as the K's, like, amongst our friends, so. Well, I don't, we've met a few times. I don't think I'm ready to say the K's. I can't do that. That's just too familiar. Pinch of NOM is a phenomenon. It is. And it was a very unintended phenomenon.

Really, really, really? Seriously. I know. It was never in the plan that that first book would end up outselling Michelle Obama. Like, what on earth? She listens to this podcast. She's going to be doubly upset that you every time you make, I love that you always. Honestly, I remember the pre-auders went up for book.

and I woke up at 3 in the morning to check the Amazon chart because it hadn't updated. And Michelle Obama was riding high. And everybody knows who she is. Like, universally, she is known. And we overtook her and we were only at pre-sales. And I remember waking up, screaming literally, like, and waking Kate up. What did you say to her? I was like, oh, well, there was a lot of swearing, put it that way.

You don't swear as a podcast. But not too much. Don't even tempt me because if I start, I won't stop. And I ended up screaming and then woke, went to wait Lisa up, Kate's sister. And then went to wake her mum and dad up. And it was like, oh my God, what on earth is happening? And we stayed at the top for quite a while. That must be insane, actually.

It was. I know you've told the story and I know you've told me the story before. But yet seeing your face and seeing. How you feel about it? You still can't believe. You're still pitching yourself. No, and it's still, I mean, it makes me anxious. Why?

I think it's a lot of pressure that I heap on myself. We are going really deep very quickly. It's mainly pressure, I think. Yeah. Like, I'm always trying to do better than we have done. So you're like a band with their first album and then, what do we do, the second album? What are people going to expect? And I mean, our publishers told us, they're like, this is amazing.

And I'm like, no, but we need to sell more. Like, but we need to do better. And they're like, hang on. Like, in the terms of books, this is insane. So you are at many, many millions now of books. Over five million books. Oh. Which is a lot.

That's so many books. Whenever I'm at Wembley, I always have this moment where I stop and sit and I'm like, okay, how many... You're at Wembley. What you mean? Just randomly in the tube station? No, no, no. It's usually the stadium. Standing in the street?

In the stadium. Okay. You just said Wembley. People who don't live in London, you know, if they don't know that you're mad about football, they're not going to know. So, yeah, you weren't just standing in the street. No, no, no, no.

And it's that weird moment of what on earth? Like, how many stadiums? And I literally, I'll sit there with my phone and I will work out how many stadiums full of people is it books? And it was seven at one point. And I think it's more than that, no. It'd be a hell of a lot. It's madness.

It's a lot of people. Okay, so I don't know where I want to start. We can start at the very beginning. But also, I just want to talk to you again about your wedding. Oh, joy. Star Wars. Yeah. Well, Star Wars is life.

Star Wars is life. Just big geeks. Okay. You have to choose three things now. Yeah. Okay. You have to choose one. Okay.

Star Wars. I'm not good for choices. Yeah. Football. Food. Oh, that's... One. Only one. It's probably going to be women's football. Over Star Wars? Over Star Wars, yes. Over food?

But the food one's difficult, though. Yeah, it's your life. Okay. Well, it's not only life, but you need it to kind of live. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's life for you, life. We need it. Exactly. Okay, so Star Wars, let's go back to Star Wars.

Star Wars. Yeah. Who is the one that said we've got to do Star Wars wedding? I think it was a group decision. So Matt, who you met before. Yeah. Matt, who works with you, who's behind the glass now,

whose birthday is tomorrow. He's 40 tomorrow. He looks 21. Oh, don't. Don't. We had to tell Matt. He's behind you. Oh, is he?

Yeah. Oh, hi. We had to tell him to start dressing down when Matt started to work for us because he made us all look so scruffy. He's beautiful. Oh, sorry. It's not just Matt that's beautiful.

Amy. Amy there? Where is Amy? She's there as well. Yeah, she's around the corner. But yeah, when he started working for us, it was like, Matt, please put some jogging bottoms on. Please.

Like, he is so... You hard task master, you. I know. Like, literally. I'm like, Matt, please dress down to come into work. Who does that? I love that. Yeah, it was kind of a group decision, I think.

We had baby odour cocktails. Matt did like all the planning. he was, I can't see him and I don't hate talking about people No, he's there But yeah, oh, he's going to love this His head is going to grow Matt, you can come in if you want

His head's going to grow To the point where he's not to be able to get out of the door So he helped organise them Yeah, he like he organises our life Like entirely He's just, oh I'm ADHD Kate's autistic and ADHD ADHD and we find

I especially find organisation extremely difficult So yeah, Matt is the key. How wonderful. Okay, so that's the wedding out of the way. But the whole pinch of nom. Now, the name was from Lisa, wasn't it? Yeah, Lisa.

It was just to annoy Lisa. Entirely. I love that. But the phenomenon, and I love the way it's got that, it's got N-O-M there, but it is that moment of you looking at the Amazon charts and everything. But it's the stuff that went before that. The hard work.

The hard work. The hard work. It didn't just land in your laps. No. I mean, we'd been, before the book came out, it was about six years prior to that. I think. Six, five, four. I can't remember.

I can count backwards as well. They're all numbers. Yeah, thanks. And there was, like, I used to get up at about eight in the morning. I'd start work at nine. And I'd work. In the restaurant? No, no, no.

Like, on the website. Oh, on the website. Sorry, right. I'd worked until about 4 a.m. Because four, five o'clock in the morning. Because we literally. built everything. We didn't have anyone to help us at the beginning because money was really tight and we wanted to make it work. So I built the website. We had to make sure that that

worked and we were kind of like not a victim of our own success, but a victim of our own success, especially in the beginning. The website would go down every weekend and I'd be like, how do we fix this? I need somebody to help me. But how did it, but what was the back, that moment? Because suddenly there was no pinch. of nom and then everybody knew about pinch of nom yeah we were on the down low for a while though we'd been we'd I think we ended up in a newspaper at one point um there was a row about sausages and the fat content of the sausages oh yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes and it was oh those were crazy times imagine when sausages

used to be front page news who knew um only in britain right only him and it just went, we were just really on the down low. But the people that knew about us, knew about us. And so did their friends. And so did their friends. And it was literally like, it was word of mouth for quite a while. And then the book came out and, I mean, the rest is kind of history. Who is your reader, your follower, your audience?

Do you know them so well? You really passionately care. I mean, I know you do, because we've met before, and I completely fell in love with the two of you, and you really care. But do you know who they are? Yeah. I mean, they're in our Facebook group.

We talk to them pretty much. Near enough, every day I'll have at least 10 messages asking me for help with someone's dinner. Or if a recipe hasn't worked out, what can I use instead? I got a message the other day, say somebody that didn't like paprika, and they were scared of putting paprika in the dish. And I was like, just try it.

Honestly, just try it. And they loved it. But it's that access. I think for a lot of people, it's having access to us to ask questions. Because cooking for a lot of people is difficult. It's hard. I mean, one of the,

I know for me, one of the hardest decisions of the day is deciding what to eat. Like what I fancy when and how do I reach that end goal with minimal effort, minimal cost. And that's what our readers, like, they have issues with time and money. Everyone does.

Everybody does. They're the two things in short supply for so many people. And to be able to give them that back to something that is really difficult, especially if they've got little ones that are a little bit fussy about food. Like, I know my friend, she has, oh, how many, a few, children and some of them that's like you not knowing how many books I know how many it's actually she's got a few

and some of them are a couple of them are really fussy they don't like mushrooms so I was like okay whack your mushrooms your celery your carrots any veg to bulk it out put it in a blender and just grate them down a little bit so they're unidentifiable and fry it off in the pan

and it's like secret veg it is really really difficult especially when feeding little ones. Like food bravery is so hard. That's your next book. Food bravery. Yeah. It's a big thing.

Like, a few amongst this neurodiverse. Yes, I was going to say a lot of friends of mine who've got sons who are autistic and I've got another friend who's got a son who's ADHD. And he will only eat five different foods.

Yeah. And then I said to why don't you do hidden food? She said she was too scared. Anyway, she has done hidden. He loves soup. So she puts everything into soup And she just says it's soup. I love soup.

Soup is my absolute go-to and it's cold and I'm feeling a bit under the weather. I don't know how to tell you this. Can't be it a good seat. You don't like soup? No, I do. Oh, but. I'm going to say. When I don't.

The cameras, the mic said, when I make soup, it tastes of dishwasher water. Even more salt or stock. I do, but it doesn't. Well, it just doesn't work. It doesn't know. I'm very good at buying a ready-made delicious soup. But if I know, if I make a sauce, soup, it just sort of goes...

Nah. A bit me. Nah. Yeah. Okay, secret for soup. Soup. Soup secrets. Soup secrets, probably lots of veg.

Yeah, no, I do that. Don't be shy of using a stock cube. Okay. No, there's... I'm gluten-free because I have an allergy. There are vegetarian gluten-free ones. And luckily, no... Well, a very popular manufacturer of stock cubes.

I've started making their whole line gluten-free, which is really good news to us. Have they? Yeah. Most of their stock cubes now are gluten-free. Oh. I wish my mom might would do that. Very odd thing. So funny because I also work for the BBC

I think, we're talking products, but we can on here. Yeah, my might should be gluten-free. Yeah. They don't make a gluten-free one. It's mad, though. It's mad, how restrictive it is. Like, we suspected I was gluten-free a couple years ago. You gluten-free as well?

Oh, hello, welcome to my word. It's just, it's a nightmare. And people treat it, especially if I go to eat out, and I don't eat out often. But they treat it as if it's a preference. And I'm like, no, this is actually an illness. They'll say to me, yeah. Do you mind if you have a little bit?

No, I'm not able to breathe. Oh, well, so you, so I... I'll be sat in the toilet all week, that. Oh, my God, I can't breathe and I'll swell up and I'll get itchy all over. But you, no, please don't. And I get it, I've been on the other side of that pass, like in the kitchen when we had the restaurant. I've had a customer come up to us going, at the end of their meal, I'm shit you not. And this guy came up and it was his wife that was alleged to be.

peanuts and he's like oh there weren't any peanuts in that way. At the end? At the end. I'm like, what? That's interesting because I think restaurants should, there should be a legal requirement actually that it says everywhere. Lots of restaurants these days do say, as does, this is a nicely nifty way into your book. All in one, which I love, one pan, slimming meals, but also, when you say slimming meals,

they're not like, you can't eat anything. It's everything. But also, I love the. idea of one pan and when I because I work away from home a lot and my husband he was going to why should I cook this recipe book is

his will be his go to I was going to say but it's just one part just one pot but it also says if it's gluten free batch cooking freeze me yeah like just there's not good I think there's nothing worse than working through a rest especially cookbooks and

having to dig around and find if it's gluten free if it can be made vegetarian And you'll notice as well there's little chili markers on there I know, yeah, because I'm a bit funny when it comes to spice. Oh, are you?

Well, you don't like it? I do like it. Oh, okay. But only if it's tasty. Because I find that a lot of, a lot of food nowadays is spicy just for the hell of it. Yes.

And it doesn't really taste of much. That's interesting. So they add spice because everybody likes spice, so it's just add spice. Yeah. Or it's like the... the new thing.

Like, there's been a lot of chili and spicy stuff recently. And I'm like, no, just give me into the Ashton. Can I tell you, I think I said this to you before, I love pickles. Oh, pickles are the back. More than, no, pickles and ice cream. We have had this conversation. We have. But I love pickles.

And I was looking to see if you had any pickles in it. They'll be in there somewhere. There'll be pickles in here. I mean, no, you've got this. Hold on. Yeah, there are pickles. You've got a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, the thing I just, just said to you, with your burgers, it's like a...

Yep. Burgers and a... With everything in it. Where is it? Where is it? It's somewhere in there. Oh. Do you know what?

Trying to keep trying to work out what recipes are in which book. Because we've done so many books now. You've done so many. It's like children. It's like trying to keep track of where they are. How are they? Do they need updating? I love that.

I mean, some of the recipes certainly on the website are. as old as pinch of nom is. So when did, how old is... And that was eight years ago, well, nearly nine years ago. Nine years ago. Which is quite a while. But you've been together much longer. How long have you two been together?

Nearly 18 years now. It's a long time. Oh. Mm. Very, very, very long time. But very happy and lovely and loved up. Yeah. I mean, we have ups and downs. Like, living and working together is difficult.

I was going to say, how on earth do you cope with the triple? Yeah. It's fun. put it that way. Sometimes. I hope you argue like normal people. Yeah. Oh, without a doubt.

Like, I don't know anyone that doesn't, that would be very weird. Yeah. Imagine working with her other, I've never owned an argument. But also, you work together. Obviously, you live together because you're married. But also, you've then got all of the craziness surrounding it. And the pressure that comes with that, like, five million books in. Yeah, she's just said five million again.

She said five million again. Yeah. It's a lot of people. But it's a huge amount. It's insane. It's gigantic. And trying to come up with new stuff is difficult. What's the next one going to be?

It's really difficult. Apart from the kid, one for the kids. Well, we can't talk about that one. Oh, there is one. There is another one, though. There's another one out. I can't really say. But yeah, next year.

Next year. No. There is, you know, behind you. Amy will be like this. No. Don't say anything. Okay, we won't say anything. We're talking about this one.

Okay. Yeah. Like our audience, they're still, they still want it. And I think they really, there's a part of me that doesn't understand why they like it so much. Really? Yeah, honestly, there is a part of me. But I think it's because we're really humble. You want me to explain it to you?

No. I'm going to tell you why people love you. You're going to give me sweat. Yeah, you're going to get really embarrassed. She's going to be clenching her buttocks. Okay. The reason is because you two are so real. Yeah.

And there's no BS about you. And that is really important. Why haven't you got a TV show yet? Which is the conversation we have before. We've been asked. I know. We've been asked so many times. I know.

We had that conversation off air, so I'm doing it now on air. We had, I remember when, so when the first book happened, and when pre-orders went up, and then there was a bit of a gap. So we announced in September, this is where my weird memory is going to come in because I remember everything so perfectly. So the book was pre-order in September, came out in March. from a just in time from mother's touch. Very good idea.

And it was just like, it was just, it just went crazy. I had about five emails from, we had Good Morning Britain, the one show, like all the usual. And I'm like, no, I don't want to do this. Like, no. Well, you told me this off air and I, and we will have, we will have that conversation off air again. But I think television needs you to. Because you're so real.

And I think people want joy. Well, I hope they do. This is all about joy, this podcast. But they want joy, but they also want, they want real, isn't it? They want real. They don't want any of the rubbish that surrounds it. And there is too much. And you're very unshow-biz.

You're huge stars. Like a lot of, snow boots. Yeah, the whole thing. No, but also it does say pinch of nom everywhere, all over it. You have to. Yeah, yeah. A bit of merch. fabulous and I like that you do the

And we don't sell it This is the thing though What do you mean you don't sell it? We don't sell much Never have done I don't think we will do either We might do some stuff It's just for you

It's just so we We have it for us But also if we see That someone's done something really nice in the Facebook group Or if someone's help We'll give it out I love that

Like we will do We will embroider about 10,000 aprons a year That we just hand out Because I mean For a start We'd need a warehouse that rivals an Amazon warehouse and I really don't want to handle

the logistics of that but it just seems very sellouty and it's not what we're about that's exactly what I mean about you doing your own show it's just not what we're about no and that's what's so wonderful

so I don't want to know more about the next book I don't but I do it's so funny but this book that you have out now it is about time, money and caring about what you put in your stomach. Exactly. With ingredients that you can get from anywhere, I think that's really important.

I like that. Because there's nothing worse than someone saying, or if you see a viral recipe on TikTok and it uses some really obscure ingredient that you can only get a very fancy supermarket that you're only going to use once that we'll go in the back of the cupboard, never to see the light of the day.

I mean, we've all got ingredients. Somebody gave me this really, posh pot of mustard with a corkin and wax and everything and I'm like, I'm ever going to use this. I don't even know how to open it. Like this is too bougies. What a wax and cork with them? Yeah, proper dejean mustard from France. Very nice. Is it not? Well, I didn't. It's nice for cooking with. Nice for dressing. But I have a cheap, but I have a cheap, like I've got. Um, I, I, I, I, you know that I love you, okay? Thanks. But I don't now. Because you've got, oh, okay, I have to, I have to, I, there is nothing, really, really.

There's not, I, you know, but rice pudding. Oh, you're not a fan. You've got a rice pudding, no. You're not a fan. Take it a good, I, I'll. Is it a text, do you think? Yeah, yeah, no, it's not the same. It's just wrong.

No, on every level, and you've gone and made it all fancy, schmancy for people who might not. Chocolate orange, rice pudding. No. No, just no. Rice pudding. Why is it? I went on somebody else's podcast, and they force fed me. No.

No, that's me. But no, I was sort of expecting it. Oh, okay. And I spat it out. He wasn't expecting me to spit it out. But it's, um, uh, no, I'm going to look again. I'm not going to look at that page. Do you have any other foods that are a big no?

Rice pudding. Just rice pudding. Yeah. Um, I'm just looking. Because I do, I'm a... See, I'm a bit funny about hot beans. I'm a bit with... Hot beans?

Oh, yeah. Like baked beans? Yeah. You like cold baked beans? I like cold bait beans. So do I. And it's, isn't it? The looks I get.

But my granddad used to work at the Heinz Files. Oh, did he? As you can imagine... What did you do there? I have no clue. I have no clue what my granddad did in the Heinz factory, only that he worked there and he got mystery tins. So tins with no label.

Mystery tin? Mystery tins. We have mystery food as a kid. Oh, and you didn't know what was in them. But when you tasted it, you knew. A lot of bait beans, so that's why I like them cold. Oh, I love that. I'm just looking at what you've got in here.

So, right, I've got... That's what I'm going to make the family. I like how you're in the dessert section. For me, I like, I'm savoury. Yeah. But my husband likes the cakes. Is he a sweet tooth? He does.

So batch cooking. That's the other thing that I think is really important. And actually, at this time of year as well, to freeze stuff, if people have got a freezer, because obviously not everybody can afford a freezer. But it's a good idea. Batch cooking's a funny one as well. I think if you set out to batch cook, it can be really intimidating. because it's, you're making food, not for now.

And to me, that organisation in my head just doesn't happen. So what I tend to do and what we do in the books is there's more than enough for those serving specified. More than enough. We love our food. But you can put that leftovers in the freezer. And I find that batch cooking that way is a lot easier. Like you can get maybe two portions, which you can be. obviously isn't enough for everyone, but if it's just you, or you're on behalf, it's easy,

it's in the freezer, you can have it for lunch the next day. People are scared about food out of the freezer because, you know, there's the fear of you got to reheat it. Yeah. It's, oh, honestly, the amount of questions that we used to get about it. Chicken, especially, that's the one, or rice or mince, anything that is, anyone that anyone's been told that they shouldn't reheat. And it's usually rice. Really? So rice is. you're meant to have with rice, you're meant to cook it and then let it go cold. Yeah, cold as soon as cold as quickly as you can. And then you can reheat it because it's some of the sugar and starch has been reduced.

So it's better for you. Did you know though? And I only found this out the other day that pasta and rice, and this could be absolute bollocks, to be fair. Okay. So let's not take this out of verbatim. But they contain less carbs once they've been cooked, allowed to cool and then reheat. Yeah.

Which is mad. Nutrition is my absolute passion. It's something I've worked on for years. And they do. It reduces the sugar. So because basically if you have a plate of white rice, it's like a, it's a lot of sugar. It is. It's a lot.

There's a lot of carbs in there. Yeah. But I do like a bit of rice every now and again. Not if you're gluten-free and everyone makes you risotto. We're back to where we started. Okay. So where do you see? I know it's a crazy question.

But where do you see Pinch of Norm going? Because obviously you have it, you do have plans. We do and we don't. It's a weird, I don't plan for anything. Really? Do you live in the moment? Yeah. Yes.

A lot. I like that. Because I can't, I have PTSD and it's a very weird symptom of PTSD. It's something called foreshortened future. Say that again? It's a foreshortened future. Oh, okay. Which is really weird.

Don't call you a something. of weird. Lots of people probably have it too, so it's really good to talk about it. But I just can't, thinking ahead makes me so anxious. Makes you anxious, okay. And so for me, I'm like, oh. Apart from a book? Like, we just carry on what we're doing. It's what people want.

Okay. And I think as long as people want it, we'll keep giving, if that makes any sense. Absolutely it does. But actually, I really like that because I'm somebody who believes very much. I go on about it a lot, but live in the, live for today. Tomorrow's gone. And yesterday's gone. You don't know what it's going to.

You don't know what it's going to. You don't know. So just enjoy now. Exactly. I make such an effort not to be on my phone as much as I used to. That's probably one of the biggest changes actually since this has happened is I try and stay off social media as much as I can personally. And it's a work thing. So pinch of nom is massive.

I'm at Instagram. well over a million followers. And then you're all over social media. So do you keep an eye on what's going on? You do? Even though you don't do it. Even though I don't do it personally. I'm with you.

You do it work-wise. Work-wise is fine. But personally, I'm like, no, I want to live in that moment. I don't want to be taking photos of it. I mean, I will take photos if I want to remember it. But I don't feel like everyone, everyone doesn't need to see what I'm doing today. Do you know what I mean? I totally, I totally agree. Oh look, I'm going on holiday. Now I'm on the aeroplane. Oh, hello, burglars. Come and... Exactly right. It's like,

come rob me. Oh, I've just got a new pair of tights. Fabulous. Just keep them to yourself. For me, it'd be trainers. Trainers. And have you got snow boots on today. I've got snow on today because we had a smattering of snow which wasn't forecast about a good like three inches of snow. Sorry? You had three inches of snow? Like proper snow and we never get snow. We're right by the sea. It doesn't snow. We have like this weird little microclimate. We've got water on all three sides. It is usually quite warm. It is not at the minute. Okay. Please tell me you took a photo today. No, I didn't. Oh. I actually don't think I did because I'm really.

She's living in the moment, which I get. I know. But yeah, like a good, decent amounts now. And getting it off the car this morning was what. You are just honestly such a delight. Give the other K, a big kiss of love from me. Congratulations on the new book. Thank you.

Looking forward to the next one. And I'm looking forward to your TV show as well. We'll see. One day. I'll get them on telly one day. Thank you very much. No, more than welcome.