From Jack versus Jamie: The great austerity challenge, Evening Standard, 30th August 2013, by Susannah Butter. “Save with Jamie, by school-dinners saviour Jamie Oliver, 38, came out yesterday and aims at getting us to “shop smart, cook clever, waste less”. He says it’s possible to save £3,000 a year by following his recipes and reminds … Read more
“Where’s the straight Pride? Why do the gays get a special day to themselves? It’s not fair.” If I had a pound for every time I was asked that question, well, I’d have quite a few pounds. Straight Pride is being able to walk down the street holding hands with your other half without being … Read more
I’m often asked by my readers and on Twitter what I would suggest donating to a food bank, so I have compiled a list of ambient products that can be found in most supermarkets. They’re ambient on purpose – so that neither the food bank nor the recipient will have to worry about storing them … Read more
BY JACK MONROE. 15 NOVEMBER 2013, 0900HRS. 169 of the MPs that voted YES to the Bedroom Tax on Tuesday evening, claimed up to £25k EACH in their own “spare bedroom” expenses. The highest claim, Richard Bacon’s whopping £25k in 2012-13, could pay the Bedroom Tax for up to 30 families in his constituency for … Read more
I’ve just done my Monday to Friday shop for this weeks Live Below The Line challenge. I live and eat on a very small budget already, and several of my friends have asked me what would be so ‘challenging’ about taking part in Live Below The Line for me. Well, most of my recipes are … Read more
The full text of my article in The Independent, August 2013: By JACK MONROE Tuesday 27 August 2013 “Jamie Oliver has created a publicity storm in the run-up to his new television show Save With Jamie by bashing the food choices of some of Britain’s poorest families. He claims that struggling families could eat so … Read more
So here goes – I shall have to repurpose one of my large empty potato tins as a hat to avoid the comments from outraged food purists after this one, but my skin is fairly thick, I can take it. Do you ever see a fancy-pants ingredient in a recipe and think you can’t make … Read more
An article in the Guardian recently claimed that ‘austerity has been hijacked by the moralisers’ – and judging by George Osborne’s latest announcement that ‘austerity works’, it seems they were right. As though it’s all just ‘cosy frugality’, as though we are all just living in a snapshot of a nostalgic poster of post-War Britain. … Read more
After speaking on panels and at fringe events on food poverty and the bedroom tax, at the Labour Party conference, Green Party conference, and TUC congress recently, this Tuesday I will be entering unfamiliar territory in Manchester, to address the Tories on the rise of food bank use as the direct result of cuts to … Read more
From today’s Independent on Sunday: “When the first Pink List was published in 2000, it was essentially a list of 50 influential people who were brave enough to be “out”. This year we received more than 1,300 nominations and had to reduce thousands of potential contenders to just 101. The judges decided that a Pink … Read more