WGBH Forum Network; Amy McCoy: Poor Girl Gourmet; Harvard Book Store

I am delighted to welcome you to this evening's event with blogger and took book writer Amy McCoy. Before we get started tonight I just want to take a moment to remind you of a couple of events coming up in the store. We still have tickets on sale for this Wednesday's reading with Jennifer Weiner the bestselling author of Little Earthquakes and good in bed among many others. And she'll be reading from her new novel fly away home on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Brattle Theater. And $5 tickets for that are on sale now. And next Thursday the twenty nine joined some of Harvard bookstores buyers along with local publisher Representatives for a preview of titles coming out this fall and they'll be talking about new books by favorite writers as well as buy first time novelists next Thursday at 7:00 p.m. in the store. So please for more of us for more information about upcoming events pick up events flyer on your way out this evening or visit us online at Harbor dot com. And now it's my pleasure to welcome to the story Amy McCoy in a four. In a former life Aimee McCoy was a successful freelance producer for a network in cable television

and she ate great food without trying without worrying too much about what it cost. But when the recession hit her work started to dry up while her gourmet appetite remained. Thus began her blog. Poor girl gourmet devoted to delicious and eye catching recipes that wouldn't over extend the budget. Her new cookbook also called poor girl gourmet contains a number of budget conscious recipes shopping tips wine suggestions and a whole meal ideas. And topping my list of things to try are the pea soup with mint and the cinnamon roasted chicken with orange cinnamon sauce. I was drooling writing my intro this morning after the talk tonight we will have time for questions followed by a signing and there are cookies and cous cous and all sorts of great things tonight so she'll tell you more about that. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank anyone who purchases a copy of the book here this evening by doing so you're supporting both a local independent bookstore and this author series. And now please join me in welcoming Amy McCoy. Rachel thank you so much I really appreciate it I want to thank Harvard bookstore for having me here tonight and for all of you guys for

coming out in this heat. Maybe there's a little of a draw out of the air conditioning which is nice but there's also free food. So as Rachel was saying oh and also I'm told all about those supporting or independent local bookstore I've been doing my tour all our independent local bookstores not at chains. And I think that's an important thing because we want to support our local businesses and and support people in our communities. So you know I can attest to that coming from my unemployed place that I was in. So we want to support people that we know. So I wanted to start out before I start talking about me and my book. I want to ask you guys if there are any things that you do to save money on your food bill. I mean there's something in it for you. Yes. OK well that is something I have never tried but for that you are going to do that.

OK. You are going to get a red leaf on this plant. Yes very smart. OK so let's see I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you some easel. I propagated these bays also all the basic plans I'm going to get you. One I guess. Yes but only for things that you actually would normally use not for things that you would not use that are just a liar. Right. You go right on the side. Yes. But that does count. Absolutely no ways. OK so I'm giving you know this is what I mean see it start. This is just in case anyone's wondering like I don't want to spend the money on the terra cotta

pot when you need to transplant your basal or your lettuce. You'd just take a little tin for these called their tin cans that have and you can just cut little holes in the bottom using a screwdriver and a hammer and you know you know put some dirt in there and off you go. Anyone else. Yes I like you. Yes exactly. That actually was a lot of what I did when I first started my blog so I'm going to try to give you a look see it will give you all just so I'm going to give you some typos. You know. Yes. That absolutely counts because you're not wasting food. OK I'll give you that. He talked

about cutting me cutting them. OK we talked about making our own bread. Yes. OK. Can I give you some fresh lettuce. Jerry Lance and were soon to share seeds in a moment. OK so I think that you do get another now OK we'll share it with someone nearby. OK. All right anyone else. These are all great answers and really I'm thrilled everyone has participated. And so anyone who is feeling

a little left out of the plant thing. Raise your hand you can have a plan and plans. OK I also I just want to show you guys because I thought I would show you how I propagated Faizal So one of the things that I do is I grow a lot of my own food. And I realize it's not practical in Cambridge and in city environments all the time. But I do try to advocate for people to grow at least one potted herb or like the lettuce is a pretty simple thing to grow on a windowsill and you know you can just pick the leaves off as you need them. But what I did was I'm don't tell any farmers that I told you if you go to the farmer's market and you just get the already cut bezel and you put it in water it will eventually sprout roots. So does anyone want a pet. Nobody wants a pat I can't believe it. Would you give away free pots right. So anyway what I thought is one of my things is that I do like to grow my own food so for those of you who are interested I've got some lettuce seed here which I'm going to hand out and you can pick one up one you don't want but it's all good.

So OK my situation is that I had been a television producer for 13 years when the recession hit in 2008 and I had done very well financially it was a good job except that I didn't like it at all it was not creative it was not very stimulating and I was really in charge of budget schedules managing personnel managing the clients. So I'd always been looking for something else to do my husband I had always been into food that was always a thing that we were into my husband. When I first moved in I sort of just showed up with my toothbrush and toothpaste in a little overnight bag and when I arrived on his doorstep and he already had house. So. We cows when we when I first moved in and then we started we tried making cheese we were not terribly successful at that. It was just a hobby. We had a very big garden which the first year that I got to his house because it was his house first year I got there I was like OK I want a huge garden. Right so when this enormous garden 20 by 60 I planted mint I planted oregano I

planted things that take over your garden like in abundance. So I had like five different plants of mint five different plants right now and two years later I spent my entire summer digging up with a pitchfork all the oregano and all the mint. So I wasn't a very talented gardener at the time not very experienced either. But so we always have this background in food and every time I asked my husband what I want to be when I grow up and be like I don't know but I think it has to be something in food. So I went and I like to call Mary schools. I try to figure out whether or not I could pull that off I don't really want to be a chef so I wasn't sure what I was and spent all this money on. Congress will begin with. So I kept on marching on in my little job that I didn't like. And then all of a sudden the words start to dry up. It was sort of around June of 2008 and I was still working on a project I see one of my friends who was in production nodding yes. So to really slow down in June and then this dear friend of ours came over the house in August and he said he listens to NPR all day long. And he said oh I just heard on NPR that there's going to be this huge meltdown after Labor Day everyone come back from their summer vacations in the credit markets are going to freeze. And the

economy's going to go into a standstill and I was like that just seems a little extreme don't you think. Flash forward four weeks and all of a sudden the entire economy is and you know to a standstill. To put it nicely. And so anyway I I had this freelance job and I didn't you know I wasn't going to get unemployment benefits and so most of my clients get their funding from advertising so projects are contingent upon people spending money on advertising and car companies tend to be big advertisers with cable networks so they don't you know they just don't have the money to spend. So they're never sort of thinking well maybe this will be four weeks maybe eight weeks and I had a conversation with one of my better clients and she said Well. We're not going to be doing anything out of house for a while. We've just had layoffs. It's probably only nine months to a year. Bless you. It's probably nine months to a year before we're going to be able to hire you again. I was like oh it's like my bank account. I was like so that's all the money I have.

So I realized that I had and I wasn't going to be able collect unemployment. So I knew that I wouldn't have to really rein it in. And because my husband I was so into food it just wasn't negotiable that we go and start eating things like ramen noodles or I used to eat Lipton bags of rice with the like freeze dried broccoli in them in college the cost of things 79 cents a pack. That wasn't happening am. So it just happened that it was October which was fantastic because it was harvest season and I live in a sort of rural community in Southeastern Mass. So I was able to collect a lot of butternut squash. We had a lot of butter on squash for like two months and then you know I just started being more and more creative and I would do things just to see how much I could entertain myself also with the food because I don't have anything else to do it and have a job so I need to keep myself sane. And I needed to be creative and I need to feel like you know I was doing something productive and I wanted something for us to look forward to at the end of the day I don't want to have my husband come home from work and say So do you go to work today and we say no insert crying in my soup so. I want to make it so that was something that was like a little fun

game. Now in the meantime I had taken a classic Grub Street in Boston maybe three years earlier. It was a food writing class so when I took a class it was like all the hate of Julie and Julia everyone was all excited about that. And so the instructor had said you know one of you guys should start a food blog that'll force you to write every day and I was like well it's time to write every day. I have a job. So anyway. Again Fast forward three years and now I don't have a job so I have all the time in the world to write every day. So I did I wrote every single day I started this blog and it was like OK well this is how I'm going to make it seem like it's a game that we're trying to save this money and. And so it's not depressing and it's a creative outlet and who knows maybe once someone will see my writing in they'll say that we can write an article for us not to be great and I'm like that would be great if I could get 50 cents a word. Supplement my non income is going to be so cool. So I'm So anyway that was sort of the promise I went with I was like I'm going to treat this as a game in my first post actually was about calling this a game. I'm trying to feed us as well as I can for the

least amount of money that I can so that I emailed the people across the street and I said oh by the way I finally took your instructor's advice and I start this food blog. So about two weeks later they put in their you newsletter and the next day I got an email from an agent. I know you guys know that that's not how this works. So and I know that's not how this works either but I got the email and I nearly had her ventilated and I thought about reading into a plan into a paper bag but then I went for a walk instead and I finally called her back and she said so I'm just wondering do you think that you could do a book proposal. And I said yeah I know what she's asking me but sure. So we went over and I remember I had my little notebook and she was like OK so first of all you're going to write about the market and like to market the market. So I wrote all these notes. And I started writing this book proposal and I did it between Thanksgiving and New Years of 2009. So I sent it off to her on the Monday after New Year's and she said wow I can't believe you gave

me the right after New Years unlike what you told me you wanted it right after New Year. I worked in television you don't miss a deadline. So anyway I guess that's not always typical either. So anyway I didn't quite get it right because as you might imagine saying yes to something I didn't completely understand I didn't really know what I was doing. So there were some sections like the marketing section that I didn't understand and so we reworked that. And then she wound up sending it out to 11 different publishers that she had pre-qualified and so on the lake. That's a great idea except no one knows who this woman is she's like you know this imaginary person and we hope Massachusetts sitting in our barn you know three people that know who she is. So anyway we finally got down to we talked to four different publishers and we did conference calls with them and it came down to three of them three bed and I went with the publisher I went with. First of all because they were just so friendly on the phone. But they also wanted to include color photographs and I thought that was really important in a cookbook. I personally don't like a cookbook that doesn't have pictures. I don't want to making you want

to see it. So anyway there was that and then also the other thing was that my editor who was like I said very very nice I told a girl crush on her. She was so so nice and she said you know I want you to do a couple of different side bars she called them at the time. Well turns out they actually were more her way of getting me to write essays because on the blog I sort of I'm very longwinded surprise. So anyway I on the blog I tend to write a long essay and then get to the recipe. And so that wasn't going to happen in the book because I was going to read four pages before they get to like how am I going to make those really cuckoo salad right. So you know I mean going on about my childhood. Not enough really good. Not going to work so this was her way of getting me to do essays and there are two of them. And so one she said I want to do a side bar thing you sideboards like those instructional bits almost sides of articles on gardening and canning. And I of course immediately fell into a panic. You know like I'm not a master gardener you know Master camera.

But I have been doing those things for a long time and as we know I do grow my own food so Marija just a little excerpt about gardening. Just to reinforce that anyone really can garden. OK. So my husband's name is JR. And this is if you have a book in your hand you want to read along it's Page 32 kind. Joe had lived at the house we share now for just about 10 years before my tooth brush and I showed up and when I did there was already a full complement of Black Angus cattle seven in fact far too many for our property. Living here so I didn't read that very well. J I did keep a garden before I unpacked my bags but I wanted something a little larger a little more ambitious than his normal we garden. I stood by the chicken coop watching him till the soil with his tractor that first year. Oh yes I wanted something quite grand I did My only previous experience gardening had come the year earlier and I live alone apartment and that garden hadn't been a terribly successful endeavor. The apartment house an anti-colonial sloping floors and

bowed walls was where I began cooking in earnest making my first dinner for JR one that caused him to repeatedly tell his friends she makes cream of mushroom from scratch soup from scratch. I created elaborate meals fancy sandwiches to take along to the beach fresh lemonade stews cakes. Many of these dishes are still in my repertoire today and I started to garden during the second week of June in New England. An elderly man who lived in the building came out to assess my progress. What's that you're planting he asked. Oh these are tomatoes I cheerfully replied. Now if you don't garden you might not know that tomato plants are easily recognizable as such. The gentlemen who come out to House because planting seed during the second week of June. He sighed softly took a moment to determine how precisely to let me down and said I believe you want to start those tomato seeds a little bit earlier brushing the hair out of my eyes like this. As I stood up and not yet deterred I replied Oh ok

like how much earlier like March. So that was my gardening experience up until the point when I moved in and started enlisting. We call it the my start enlisting my husband to do all my garden bidding. So this was a but this was my editor's way of allowing me to do some creative writing within the context of a cookbook which was really a nice combination of the two things the food the recipe development and also the writing and then of course the fact I was able to do the photography this was a way that I combined all of the things I'd been interested in while I had been whining about my television job. And I actually was able to do something with it in the end and so that was it was a really amazing amazing experience an amazing opportunity to have. Being a woman in the barn and robust knowing three people in the world so. So that is sort of the story of my of my book. Questions. Yes. I did yes I do in my back pocket was very high brow.

Yes I would because I would get up in the morning I also wrote I'm sorry I probably left out a little bit that you might might be interested in. So the book deal was done on March 23rd and I delivered the manuscript on August 4th so I basically had like four months to to write the book and shoot all the photography which was insane but again it was like the book proposal I didn't know it. I didn't know that it was insane so I just agreed to it. Sure that sounds great I can do that. So in one of the other things about I'm sorry one of the other things was that in writing the recipes for the book you know where I was able to source things from my farmer neighbors my prices were lower usually on the blog and so when I started doing the prices for the book I want to make sure that everything was under $15 for four people. That was easily under $15 so that I don't use sell prices and say you need to clip coupons I just said OK here's the price if you're just going shopping and then I want to make sure that all the ingredients were easily available for people like me. There was an aisle like you have to jump through hoops to find this one particular ingredient I want them to be things you could easily find the supermarkets.

That's how the a lot of the recipes came to be very simple because it was all about what's commonly available. And also we don't have a lot of money you can't use a lot of ingredients. So it was really just trying to figure out the best way to bring out flavors using the least amount of ingredients in the least amount of money. Yes. You know I'm the food stylist. Yes absolutely. It absolutely does. Yes there was nothing there were no no brushes No there was no press powder put on anything or anything like that no hairspray. Yes it was all OK well that looks pretty today great. I'm going to take a picture of it now. You know I did initially I started out trying to get a good representation of the different seasons because I felt like that was important mission my initial idea was I was going to do this book but broken out by seasons.

And then I realized with my four months that I wasn't going to have enough time to get into the fall and winter to test those recipes as well as I would have liked. So I had to go with things I already knew I had in my repertoire so part of it was recipes I was already using. Family Favorites to start with and then once we got into spring and summer that actually allowed me to start thinking about I would think about what flavor do I really like and what do I want to try. And so if it was like OK well if I puree the peas and I combine them with freshly caught and I make a peep puree laws and yet what's that going to be like. And so I would you know so some of it was my stand bys and some of it was all right let's cut loose you can be all creative all you know do whatever I want as long as it met the recv the price requirement and I had one one side dish I'm really sad about it was a mushroom and potato hash and it was delicious but I couldn't find anything to pair it with that would keep the whole meal under $15. So I was like well I'm sorry mushroom potato hash you have to go. So there was a lot of back and forth between like the ideas and then the reality of the money.

No it's not I have a post I will you know I promise I have actually a whole backlog of recipes from working on the book that are things that are very tasty and you know with the right sale now the other thing because I wasn't pricing it for you know if you want to get sirloin tips to go with that mushroom and potato hash that would be delicious except I can guarantee you're going to find those on sale and I don't want to make it so that it was like you know here's the pressure you know you can only do this when you can find this on sale. So that was that not thinking anyone else. Yes you're right. Yes there's a guinea pig in the front an area just right there. There were a few people but there were not a ton of people that I thought he was I would send them off my sister in law made a lot of the recipes and then I recruited a few friends here and there to try them and I primarily tested them and retest of them and made sure that I was. The language was clear

but they did actually taste good the second and third times around so. So to answer your question yeah. OK. Anyone else. Yes. Yeah. Well back in eighth grade I did. I took photography as you know in eighth grade honestly and I did like darkroom photography and all that good stuff. And I went to college for television radio film production so I did shoot video when I was in college but I'm not a trained photographer and I actually had started maybe in 1970 or so I started fooling around with my husband's old SLR like the whole manual like all manual all the time. So I start fooling around with it and I would take pictures and people were like those are artsy. And then I eventually got to and I was doing I was because I was always trying to figure out what it was I was going to be when I

grew up I was always taking continuing ed classes so I was taking this class a risky and they're continuing on program and it was a handmade paper class and I was like oh I love him the paper it's the greatest thing ever. So I'm going to do some of the heavy paper because you can see there's a lot of commerce around him in paper. Right so. You can just make a living at that. But I took them out of taking his workshop on Martha's Vineyard on handmade paper and they did a little Polaroid transfer session there and so I started employee transfers and I did those starting to thousands and I want to doing them to a point where I do license some of those. I make like 40 dollars a quarter on my license. So it makes me so rich. But so I had sort of gotten to a point where I've gotten to a point where I was actually able to at least market professionally. Whether that not being paid professionally but so then with the food it was actually a very different thing though because I went from my poor transfers to more landscapes and so then to come down to the macro level and really look closely at food it's really fascinating actually if you photograph food because you get right in there and you

see just there's a lot of beauty and food and some very corny I realize but I'm going with it. I did I shot all of them digitally so and that was actually really fortunate because I had managed to get a digital SLR just before I would stop for it like at the beginning of 2008. When I was convinced I was going continue working for the last year so but it worked out in the end. So yes you know I come from a family of really good cooks my grandmother actually had an Italian restaurant in Rhode Island and then in Southeastern Mass. So there was a history there my mother was a scratch cook. I mean she's a fabulous cook and baker and so we just were raised as cooking is just what you do. And so cooking always even when I was producing television I make it home at 8:30 at night. But I would still start cooking a full meal because that was my creative release after a whole day of. Are we on schedule are we on budget. And by the way you know have you called us what have you done.

And so be like OK I want to chop onions now. But so that was my release so I had been definitely Soul Train but through a family tradition of it you know. Yes. Oh it's a nice way to phrase what is your favorite dish in the book I like that as a person I've heard a phrase that way. Well here's the thing I know for me I of course really love all because I like my little children you know so I've got it's sort of hard to be like oh this is my favorite fare recipe. Right now though I'm craving the tomato tart. I also people been talking about the roasted callers I have not roasted the cauliflower in like maybe since March and so I've heard actually this woman on Twitter because I'm on Twitter all the time. So this woman on Twitter was like to say is my payday so guess what I'm going to have to have the cauliflower the Navy force. But they call it roasted cauliflower with whole wheat spaghetti is delicious. You know the if you're splurging the fish cakes are really good. Pork

chops are really good in fact I was thinking I might make pulled pork. Oh and also the blueberry crumble blueberries are in get that go in you know. So not very helpful but my husband if he were to pick one dish from the book it's the untraditional Bowl and I say so and I make that probably every other week during the winter. Does that still stick to your ribs and. Doesn't feel like it's you know $3 I mean I'm some sort of meat you have it for a few days so. So I'm sorry that wasn't a very concise answer. So I mean for anyone else. Yes. Blueberry. I haven't but that's a really good idea I think that I will let you know I've got all these things on my list of things I'm going to make from scratch like crystallized ginger. You know I'm going to

catch up I go you know am I going to do this and do that. But I think I actually making some sort of an herbal wine or like a flower wine would be an interesting experiment. So I like that thank you for the suggestion. And then I have friends over. Yeah. I would be happy to do that. Honestly I work I work with slow food Rhode Island I'm a leader of Slow Food Island so we do a lot of educational outreach and I really feel like that that is a need that you know that's a segment of the population that really needs some assistance and understanding like it's not that difficult to cook and I understand there are problems of course with what neighborhood you're in in order to have access to the food but you know I would definitely be I'd be happy I'll give you my card if you so I would love to do that I think would be great. Thank you.

Anyone else notice that the two buck chuck for three bucks now yeah they're inexpensive you know. You know I think you know if they're to someone's taste then that is perfectly acceptable and I know I just finally got to the legacy place. Whole Foods which is like you know it's like the Mecca of of Whole Foods really on the East Coast I think I mean man I'm sure there's something else that's better. But anyway they have a crazy wine section and they do have a bunch of $4 and $5 and $6 wines which I haven't tried yet. My interest in wine is I like to have wines that are lesser known so they're a little more interesting. And if I can get to $7 or $6 or even five dollars a bottle then you know go for it but not just on price alone you know. And I honestly was just wondering your brand I but I do think I mean I know a lot of

people that that's a that's a great wine you know it's just I guess I have access to other wines that are also there we have it for three right now. I just sort of like to mix it up to some and I think also great value for cooking like if you go to Chuck for cooking. Oh yeah definitely. And freeze it in cubes and then you can use it and stews later like whatever's left over. I'm here to help you. Any other questions. Yes. Well I'm not sure that I do and that's a problem. Yeah and I have been think you know I I actually had done a production job one of my friends who's here with me up with a job thank you for the job when I was

done with the book and I worked on that up until just the beginning of July. So I I needed to work I mean I it was ugly at the news it was not a pretty time. But I started thinking about I'd like to do cooking classes. I would definitely like to write more. You know it's trying to figure out how you make a living as a like a working writer. But and that's something I'd just sort of it's I know that sounds really ridiculous Probably but it's sort of foreign to me and it's a whole new territory that I'm entering into. So and you know hopefully if the book does well enough they'll give me a second book deal like my second cookbook and hopefully not only for. Anyone else. Well it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you all I'm so glad you all came out this is exciting. Yeah. For one thing it's like a buffet and then you can get some Israeli couscous in a cookie if you like. Plates napkins forks they're all here.

Thank you. For still registers here. Here come this way. Thank you so much.