It’s always been about food for writer, author and columnist Skye McAlpine, it just took her a while to realise that she could make a career out of it.
Studying classics at University College Oxford, meant that, for a while at least, being a food writer had never occurred to her, despite her love of food.
Indeed, there’s a famous story about Skye as a student turning up to an Oxford house party with a handmade tiramisu she’d made in her student bedroom, instead of the obligatory six pack.
But it wasn’t until her cousin sent her on a food writing course that she realised it ticked all the boxes. “Cookery writing didn’t feel like an option back then” she admits. “Put it this way, there weren’t any food writing degrees. But it gave me the confidence to find my own path in a less linear way, to make it up as I went along.”
Judging by the enormous success of her cookbooks, Sunday Times column, and huge social media following, it was a wise move, because anyone who enjoys Skye’s wonderfully seductive recipes and tantalising food, will know what a gift her recipes are.
“For me it’s about the ritual of sitting down with the people you care about and caring less about the food. That sounds mad because I’m a cookery writer but cooking can be fun, easier and simpler than people think,” she says.
“Whether you cook for 4, 8 or 12 shouldn’t make much difference when you know the tricks. It shouldn’t be scary.”
The famous cookery writer is talking to me from her home in Venice where she lives for most of the year, with her husband and two young boys, splitting her time between there and London.
Skye moved there aged six, her father, Lord McAlpine and mother, Romilly’s hospitality being legendary, so it’s in the blood.
Her new cookbook A Table Full of Love: Recipes to Comfort, Seduce, Celebrate and Everything Else in Between, was written in lockdown for a time when we could celebrate and eat together once again, which she will be discussing at the Oxford Literary Festival on Wednesday March 29 Book here
“I missed being able to look in people eyes over the table, rather than on Zoom, so during lockdown, cooking lost a lot of its magic for me”
“A Table Full of Love is quite a personal book,” she concedes, “Because I missed being able to look in people eyes over the table, rather than on Zoom, so during lockdown cooking lost a lot of its magic for me.
And yet cooking for big numbers is incredibly daunting for some people. “Everyone loves food even if they don’t realise it,” she says. “Humans need to eat and it makes sense to eat well. Food is what makes things more interesting. It’s the one thing we all have in common but it’s also so personal.
“The important thing is always to appreciate that someone has spent their time and love making something for you so that you can enjoy it. It should be about why we cook more than about how we cook. Food should be fun and a pleasure, not an obligation,”
“i was a student in oxford and it’s where i met my husband, so any excuse to come back”
But isn’t that easier when you live in Venice surrounded by bountiful produce? “Good ingredients do a lot of the work for you,” she concedes, “but there’s a lot you can do with simple things like eggs, sugar and flour.
“So for me recipe writing is intuitive, using ingredients you can get your hands on. I tend to cook in a really seasonal way because you never get particularly good results from food that has travelled a long way.”
Is that harder in the UK? “When I’m in London I tend to buy food in shops rather than markets, its just the way it is there, but when I get an idea I still run with it. If there is asparagus then we’ll make an asparagus tart and tweak it.
“The important thing is always to appreciate that someone has spent their time and love making something for you so that you can enjoy it”
“But that’s the difference between living in Italy and the UK. Here people talk about the weather, in Italy they talk about food and what they are cooking next. It’s just the way it is over there.”
As for Skye’s burgeoning success, is there a pressure attached to that? “No, I love doing what I do. I love food and cooking. I love being in the kitchen. I love writing cookbooks and hope to write more because it’s so rewarding. I’m just incredibly grateful that I get to call this work.”
As for Skye’s return to Oxford, is she looking forward to it? “I was a student at Oxford and it is where I met my husband so it will always have special memories for me,” she says. “Any excuse to come back.”
Skye McAlpine will be interviewed by Gwenan Edwards about A Table Full of Love: Recipes to Comfort, Seduce, Celebrate and Everything Else in Between on Wednesday, March 29 at 12 noon in the Exeter College Marquee. Book here
