I hadn’t realised how much I had in common with Cate – of Cate In The Kitchen fame – when I found myself sat on the opposite side to her on a Bumble Bizz panel discussing “how to be in a healthy relationship with food”. After the event, we did the usual ‘follow each other on Instagram’ thing, and I soon realised that this was a girl after my own heart when I saw she had posted a photo of packet-bought potato waffles, sausages and beans.
Cate currently lives in Brighton and works in customer service alongside running her blog, after leaving school at 14 for a “variety of reasons”. She then went to a college to get three GCSEs – “that’s all I’ve got! I have ADHD so the natural conveyor belt journey of educational institutes didn’t suit me very well as a child, I’m sometimes a little jaded about having missed out on the ‘uni experience’ but the university of life has treated me well enough.” As you probably know already, I myself missed out on uni life too, having to drop out twice for the sake of my mental health.
Although the typical education route didn’t suit her, Cate set up her blog when she was 19 to create a channel for her obsession with food. “I was in kind of a weird place at the time. I didn’t have much of a social life because I worked at a small company where my colleagues were all middle aged men and I’d lost touch with most of my school friends. I was lonely, really, and looking for something to do. I was also binge eating a lot – which is something that I actually haven’t talked about very much on the blog or on my social channels because I’m unsure how to safely approach it – and I think half hoped that if I began publicly talking about food, I might stop privately forcing it upon myself as weird self punishment.” I hear that.
Before we started Not Plant Based, I’d poo-pooed what it meant to have “internet friends”, in some ancient way believing conversations didn’t count if they were typed, but over time this view has changed to align with Cate’s. “I’ve got an amazing community behind me now that I can share ups and downs with, people that are always in my pocket to celebrate highs and commiserate lows with. I think people that haven’t experienced ‘online friendship’ really underestimate its power.”
She adds: “Aside from the wonderful people its brought into my life, it’s also become this excellent way to hone my creativity. I work a relatively mundane job because that’s just what’s available to someone with a small amount of qualifications and an unfortunately short attention span. Having a hobby like food blogging means I don’t need to define myself by the 8 hours I spend in an office, and can instead lead the colourful part of my life outside work. Cooking and eating and sharing and then writing all about it.”
Another thing that Cate and I have in common, is a tricky relationship with binge eating. “I struggled a lot with binge eating in my teens. To be honest, it’s not a problem that’s ever really gone away. If I’m feeling particularly sad or out of control or like I’ve done something wrong, I cram food that I’m not even enjoying into my body until I feel like I couldn’t possibly manage another thing, then cram some more. It’s a bizarre habit that’s eased off as I’ve come into adulthood but is always semi present and something that I need to keep an eye on. I don’t think I’m at all alone in this, either. It’s a very cheap and low maintenance form of casual self destruction.”
Our blogs differ in content, as here at Not Plant Based we are very heavy on the talk surrounding disordered eating, but Cate prefers to focus on the food. “I sometimes feel almost fraudulent for not mentioning this very often, or writing about the fact that I do have my fair share of struggles with slightly disordered eating in the nature of full disclosure. It’s difficult, isn’t it, because I wouldn’t want to trigger this behaviour in anyone else or put a foot wrong in the way that I talk about it, and disordered eating (and the conversation around it) can feel like a minefield.”
Her style of cooking is very relaxed and approachable, which I crave through the falsities of Instagram. She explains: “I cook things that I know or hope will taste good, that’s really it. I like to shake things up every now and then, though. For example, I started a series on my blog called Around the World in 80 Dates, in which I use a random country generator to force me into cooking from other cuisines, that’s been very cool.”
Speaking of relaxed…Cate doesn’t feel the need to push the plant based way down people’s throats, despite being raised vegetarian be a “hippie Mum”. “It’s just how I eat best, really. Meat is more expensive, and I always feel better if I’ve snuck enough greens in somewhere.” Cate says that the power of Instagram, blogging and dabbling into plant based eating has not exactly swayed her to change her appearance. “It doesn’t make me feel pressured to look a certain way but, historically, it has made me feel pressured to eat a certain way. Up until I read Eat Up by Ruby Tandoh, I felt inferior for not being able to afford to peruse farmers markets and shop all organic all the time. I thought that as a food internet person I should be keeping up appearances and sort of not letting anyone know that actually everything I eat comes from ALDI, cause ALDI allows me to buy nice food and go to the pub on a Friday, and if I shopped the way Deliciously Ella shopped, I’d have to choose between the two. However, Ruby (angel that she is) has given me permission to shop and eat the way that I shop and eat and not feel embarrassed or less worthy for it. If you’ve not read that book, get it in your life ASAP, it’s solved like most of my complexes around food in the space of two weeks.”
Despite it sounding like she’s juggling a million and one things, Cate started her podcast in December, which goes out weekly. “I started by just interviewing friends and family to ease me in. I spoke to my Swedish friend about her Christmas food traditions and my Grandparents about how food has changed through the decades. I’ve since had the pleasure of interviewing someone from the BH Food Partnership about their new community kitchen kickstarter and Helen from Knob Butter who makes this amaaaazing butter in her kitchen like ten minutes from my house. I’m trying to create a laid back, snobbery-free environment to talk about food, particularly cool food stuff happening in Brighton.”
So, what about the future? Cate says: “I tend not to think too much about the future. I’m not particularly interested in making blogging my full time job. I guess I hope to continue making friends and inspiring people in the kitchen and having conversations about how we all cook and eat.” How refreshing.
