No Waste Within

A new campaign is being launched by Zoe Morrison of Ecothrifty Living blog and Emma Dawson of The Food Brood to highlight the issue of food that gets wasted during food photography sessions and to champion a movement of food bloggers, food stylists and photographers who refuse to waste food.

I first read about the waste that goes on within the food writing industry in Shane Jordan's book, Food Waste Philosophy. When I was writing my own book, Leftover Pie, there was no way I was going to allow that to happen. Before my first photo shoot session I said to the food stylist that all of the food was going to be eaten. I am very glad that I found people to work with who care as much as I do about food. Part of the planning that day involved planning what we could eat when, everything was cooked according to the recipes as they are in the book and the tweaking and rearranging that did get done was with strict instructions that the food would still be edible and yummy! and Oh   ...boy! There was a lot of tweaking and rearranging.  I had no idea how long it would take to get the perfect amount of pickle to run down the side of the jar!
Most of the photos on my blogs, both here and on Leftoverpie.co.uk are photos I snap while cooking everyday food that my family are about to eat.  But stories I was told as we were getting the perfect picture of my scones were horrifying. Leonie's fridge and freezer were packed full of f ood she had rescued from photo shoots.  I even took some kale  home with me. She said it would take her weeks to get through all the kale she had rescued so I felt obliged to help out.

I  know this is a much needed campaign and it is great to see it being well supported by food bloggers across the UK. Please do share it widely.  And join in with the hashtag #nowastewithin.

I am always surprised when people ask me if we ate the 'Leftover Pie.' Of course we ate it!

Here is my pledge...

“I promise that no food waste was created by the development, cooking, styling and photographing of this recipe and that, where it wasn’t possible for me to enjoy it myself, I have redistributed, repurposed, retained or recycled the food.”

Judges go bananas over banana skin curry

 Last weekend I was invited to take part in Low Carbon West Oxford’s ‘Ready, Steady, Cook’ style competition at their ‘Beet the Waste’ 10th anniversary celebrations at Tap Social in Oxford. My fellow competitors were cooking professionals, Christina from Relish and Sandra and Marie from Waste2Taste.

I hadn’t realised that I was supposed to be a team on my own.  I thought I was joining one of the other teams, so I had only brought one frying pan, a chopping board, one knife, some spoons, some spices and a big bunch of herbs I’d picked from my garden.  When I was shown to ‘my station’ and saw the two gas burners I was a little daunted.  What was I going to cook with just me and my one pan?

As three competing teams, we had an hour to select our ingredients from the food surplus at Oxford Food Bank, and then cook up a feast with what we found.  Read more...