Susan Jane White – Interview

In 2014, Susan Jane White shot to success with her bestselling cookbook The Extra Virgin Kitchen, and has recently released her second cookbook, The Virtuous Tart. Following its launch, she went around the different branches of Dubray Books, signing copies with personalised messages to the people who would purchase and pour over her recipes. After all, there is something unique and personal about a cookbook. It is different in the way that is not a book that you read and put away for a long time. If it’s worth its salt, then chances are that you will dip in and out of it, trying various recipes, for years to come. Susan Jane’s blend of quirkiness, imagination and talent make for an excellent recipe in the kitchen. In our follow up email correspondence, I got an automated response that read “I’m gallivanting in NYC until Tuesday 24th November. Just don’t tell my boss. Or my husband.(GSOH!)” I had to look up what “GSOH” means, too (Good sense of humor). I’m getting old. In the accompanying pictures, the one with the cake didn’t make the final cut, but Susan Jane sent it on to tn2. She gave this some context saying “V for Vegan. V for Victory. V for Vuzz off it’s mine!” In an interview with Susan Jane, she claims that her food philosophy is to “Count nutrients, not calories”.

Susan Jane’s health journey hearkens back to her college years of bad eating. Susan Jane described a diet of “Cereal and milk for breakfast, biscuits, cakes, scones for snacks, sambo for lunch, pizza or pasta for supper, followed by hot milky drinks and more white-flour, white-sugar snacks. Where’s the excitement in that? I even counted pepperoni as my one a day. And coffee is basically a bean, right?” She went on to say that: “Giving up these foods for a while offered me new taste buds and a new lease of life. It’s the opposite of restrictive ― it’s the most liberating thing I have ever achieved. Suddenly I was exposed to hundreds of outrageously tasty ingredients that I never knew existed. Chestnut pancakes, soba noodles, buckwheat waffles, chickpea falafel, courgetti noodles, Mexican chilli bean”. Susan Jane’s online fame took off from here. As she says: “I started blogging about this nutritional ‘pilgrimage’ to share my recipes with others. That’s where it took wings. I guess sharing my work strengthened my career.”

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I have more energy now than I ever did in my twenties. My skin glows brighter. My concentration lasts longer. And most of all, my patience runs forever.

Her new cookbook, The Virtuous Tart, is all about sweet treats. For anyone with a sweet tooth, Susan Jane’s recipes will have an appeal. They are a way of assuaging our guilt at munching on sweet things. This cookbook is about turning Susan Jane’s “pesky sugar cravings into a nutritional slamdunk, and giving my taste buds something to rave about.” Susan Jane’s vibrant and energetic personality seeps through the pages of the cookbook. As she says: “I’m pretty cheeky and potty-mouthed. So there’s a lot of sass in this book, and taking the mickey out of the ‘clean eating’ trend.” Susan Jane says that “The Virtuous Tart helps you service your sweet tooth, without the boring stats or dietary instructions” and that she would “rather neck a glass of sneeze than go on a diet.” Let this be a motto for all of us. Scrap the diet, and learn how to eat right.  

The difference between The Virtuous Tart and The Extra Virgin Kitchen lies in the division between savoury and sweet. Susan Jane asserts that: “Apart from the world’s best BBQ kale crisps, everything else contains some form of natural sugar such as raw honey, dates, coconut nectar or maple. I can’t accuse any sugar as being healthy, but these are better choices to tickle my sweet tooth.” She lists examples of some of her homemade sweet treats, such as Honuts (healthy donuts), boozy chocolate cupcakes and chewy teff cookies, all made with natural sugars and battery-boosting flours.

When asked about her process, Susan Jane says that: “I just turned my greed into something fruitful, actually. If I can’t turn my virtues into a career, my vices will have to do!” She claims that she wanted to help readers understand all the types of sugar alternatives available on the market, and provide “kickass recipes to make the switch easier.” She goes on to say that: “I suppose you could say I start with a theme in mind.” When asked about her favourite recipe from the book, Susan Jane responded: “Ah jayney! You can’t ask me that! It’s almost like having to choose a favourite child. Each one is The Snazz. But if you were to make just one recipe from the book, make it the pomegranate halva. Life-changing stuff with just four ingredients, and takes just 60 seconds to make. It will have you feeling more virtuous than a canonised nun.” Adding on to this, when asked where Susan Jane gets her inspiration from, she says: “My fridge! I always try and use up everything in my fridge. Must is a great master.” When asked what she always has in stock in her kitchen, she says: “Soya sauce. I’m an umami whore.”

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I’m pretty cheeky and potty-mouthed. So there’s a lot of sass in this book, and taking the mickey out of the ‘clean eating’ trend.

Susan Jane also has a food column in the Sunday independent. She’s been writing for them for over six years, and says: “Naturally I airbrushed my profile pic to give me cheekbones. Who wouldn’t?! – I was put next to Rachel Allen every week.” Being next to Rachel Allen is also a clear indicator of Susan Jane’s success. As well as this, she was somewhat ahead of the stampede of healthy eaters, but managed not to get trampled underfoot: “At first, everyone thought my healthy vibe was daft. Five years later, I’m still a little deranged, but not daft. Healthy eating has become mainstream so I don’t have to apologise anymore for loving buckwheat noodles or roasted asparagus.”

From her early achievements in food writing, it is clear that Susan Jane has been honing her craft over the years, and it has certainly paid off. She says: “Food writing needs to be sharp and punchy. Cooking should be fun. Food writers should either dazzle you with their writing, like Nigel Slater, or crack you up like Allegra McEvedy. In between is just grey and matted. I constantly remind myself of that middle, and try not to get clamped there. It gives me The Fear.” In food writing, visuals are of the utmost importance. When asked if she placed a lot of importance on the relationship between words and images, particularly in a world that is so driven by the visual, Susan Jane says: “Not particularly. If I have a strategy, it is to be different from all the other moronic tomes out there that feel so prosaic in the kitchen.” She praises the brilliance of blogs, in the way that “visuals can enhance the reading experience. There is a swathe of talented photographers out there who aren’t hugely known or celebrated, but whose talent is above and beyond mainstream media. Just look at Farmette or Green Kitchen Stories for example. Extraordinarily gifted, and driven by visuals.” Susan Jane lists the people she loves following on Instragram, such as Inge Dittsen, Amy Chaplin, My First Mess, La Tartine Gourmande, Golubka, and Dagmar’s Kitchen. Susan Jane says: “All these ladies are impossibly talented in the kitchen, marrying exciting flavours and weird-sounding ingredients. Instagram and blogs are a cheap way of gaining daily inspiration. Think of them as your cheerleaders, willing you to make better food choices.”

So, the golden question. Since Susan Jane is working within the food industry, does it enhance her love of food or has cooking in her leisure time become a different experience? She says: “It’s all one. I’m like Kermit the Frog on LSD in a playground. Everything is amazing. Even after ten years.”

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