photography: Babiche Martens.
Food writer, author, presenter and former cookery school dropout, Sophie Gray is the doyenne of cuisine on a budget. The 59-year-old knows what it’s like to struggle on a low family income. So through her popular Destitute Gourmet classes, she dishes up not only great-tasting meals but also tips to help the average Kiwi household.
As the former editor of Food magazine, Sophie now manages the Good Works Trust food security hub on Auckland’s North Shore. It operates a social supermarket emergency food bank and provides a
“hand-up not a handout”.
At the heart of Sophie’s work is a simple ethos – breaking down the stigma around lack of money.As she talks about clients going through a vulnerable time in their lives, Sophie too has been dealing with her own type of heartache: the grief of losing her first grandchild earlier this year, followed by her father six months later.
Can you share a fond food memory from your childhood?
We moved from the UK when I was a toddler and I remember walking up to the post office with my mum, who was eagerly awaiting her latest Cordon Bleu cookery book. She also got the Robert Carrier’s Kitchen magazines. My dad worked in advertising, so she would cook these phenomenal dinners for advertising people. Then my sister and I would be in the fridge on a Sunday morning, eating leftover rum pie cold out of the pan. I also still have the old dinner set I grew up eating from. It’s called Blue Baltic.
Growing up in a foodie household, when did you start cooking?
Not until my teens. Mum had missed out on an education, so she decided to enrol in high school – in her thirties – to get her School Certificate and University Entrance. Then she went to university and became an accountant. At which point, my sister and I needed to put dinner on the table when we came home from school. Mum died when I was 22. She’s the one who should have gone to cookery school, not me.
So you didn’t enjoy culinary training?
I had undiagnosed ADHD, so I was in trouble all the time at Carmel College and on leaving, in the absence of any plan of my own, Mum encouraged me to go to cookery school. Hospitality was then very male-dominated with a lot of alcohol and drug use. I wasn’t happy, so I moved from the kitchen into front-of-house.
Part of your job involves helping to support people navigating hard financial times. What has been your personal experience of this?
At 21, I managed to get into significant credit-card debt. I was working in the financial sector and living a Champagne lifestyle. The stock market crashed, and I suddenly found myself unemployed with no money to pay rent. I was flat broke and on the brink of having my things repossessed.
What impact did that time of your life have on you?
I had an epiphany about debt and what the stress does to you. The three Ds ‒ depression, debt and divorce ‒ hover around people who are struggling. I found it difficult to get re-employed, but eventually I got a job as a sales rep for Nestlé. Budgeting became a hyper-focus. By the time I met my husband Richard, we had both saved some money and we were able to buy a little house to raise our children, Belle and Jack. We formulated an idea for a small business, but I was terrified of getting into debt again. So Richard agreed that we wouldn’t borrow any money.
The day he gave up his corporate salary and company car, we became a low-income household, living on $20,000 a year. It was a shock to the system ‒ we had the most embarrassing car. When we went to client meetings, we would park it around the block. Our friends were talking about holidays or renovations and we couldn’t do that. That’s what Destitute Gourmet was born out of. After I hauled back all the obvious things in our budget, the biggest expense is the grocery bill. So that’s the one I tackled, experimenting with what’s cheap, in season, what’s in the cupboard and what can I grow?
And your grocery budget?
I fed our family of four on a food budget of $50 a week. When I started to make all our bread, pasta and jams from scratch, I realised not only were they cheaper, but they tasted better.
How did Destitute Gourmet get an audience?
I was chatting to another mum at a party, who asked, “How are you guys getting on after starting your own business?” I told her I’d learned this whole new way of cooking I called Destitute Gourmet. She told friends about this and they asked if I’d teach it to a group of 20 kindy mums. That was my first-ever cooking class, showing them how to make a crustless quiche, bread dough and to extend mince using cooked red lentils.
The word spread, and suddenly you were doing a nationwide tour and writing multiple cookbooks!
Yet I don’t love cooking or think I’m an amazing cook. I’m ordinary! But it was about taking back control over something that made me feel like a failure. And if my household thinks something I’ve cooked is tasty, then maybe others would too.
Which recipes became fan favourites?
When my last Destitute Gourmet cookbook came out in 2022, I asked my followers for their faves: Dana’s Chocolate Cake, Cowboy Casserole, Spicy Mexican Lentil Soup and Lemon Curd Krummeltorte Slice came out on top.
Name one small thing you do to combat food waste.
Cook and eat the stalks and leaves of your cauliflower and broccoli. I also scrape the mould off the top of the tomato paste because the stuff underneath is still good to eat, but I’m not sure it’s something I should recommend!
Sophie, how has this year been for you?
It’s been really hard. My daughter Belle had her first baby, William, in February, and he died at six weeks old in NICU at Auckland Hospital. Those weeks became a rollercoaster of hope and despair. The doctors found he had heart complications and diagnosed him with Cornelia de Lange syndrome, which wasn’t picked up during pregnancy. It’s rare and William had the most severe form. Initially, there were hopes of heart surgery before learning his heart defects were not survivable. It’s the hardest thing we’ve gone through as a family. And I have a theory there are a certain numbers of tears you need to shed for every loss and there’s nothing to be gained by holding them back.
We are so sorry for your loss and can only imagine how ongoing that grief is.
Yes, I have spells where I’m okay. But recently I was working in Melbourne and while shopping, I accidentally found myself in the baby department in Target, where they have a range called Tiny Baby. We couldn’t get clothes small enough for William. So I stood there sobbing. Grandparent grief is something we never hear talked about. Then, six months to the day after farewelling William, my father John Gray left us aged 95. So I’m baking my feelings once again, making Angus bread ‒ a dense Scottish fruit cake that he regularly baked.
How has ADHD shaped you?
I’ve been on ADHD medication for 15 years, but before then, I worked very hard to overcompensate for things that might fall through the cracks due to my concentration. I tend to overwork. I currently have three jobs: managing the Good Works Trust full-time, presenting Destitute Gourmet classes when invited and developing a software shopping platform for food banks called HelpingHand with my co-founder.
Tell us where you met your husband of 34 years.
We were introduced by my mother’s best friend Grace after Mum died. Grace decided it was her responsibility to find me a husband. At her birthday party, she invited all the single men she knew, most of whom were gay hairdressers! But this new guy had just started at her work, after arriving from the UK. I remember seeing him walk down her driveway holding a bottle of wine and thought, “Oh, this just got a lot more interesting.”
How do you relax?
I garden, play computer games and read. One of my favourite book series as a child was the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. I recently realised that Laura was a food writer. I read her Little House in the
Big Woods when I was seven and that book is a catalogue of the things her mother made, like butter, cheese and bread.
What makes you proud?
I think it’s all those people who’ve contacted me to say how Destitute Gourmet helped them so much. I get women coming up to me at classes going, “Your books saved me after my husband left me and my children.” I hear that over and over. Food is more than fuel – it’s such a deep part of humanity. Helping people do food well within their means has given me a purpose.
What’s the most underrated ingredient?
Hunger! Everything tastes better when you’re hungry.
Your last meal would be…?
Hot chips with a glass of bubbles.
For money-saving tips and recipes for food that doesn’t cost a fortune, follow Sophie Gray on social media @destitute_gourmet or go to destitutegourmet.com
