Kate from Living the Frugal Life’s Desert Island Dinners

I mentioned earlier that I had a bit of a wacky idea a few days ago – “Desert Island Dinners”. Basically Desert Island Discs but with a frugal/simple living theme instead of music.

I picked Kate from Living the Frugal Life to be one of the first castaways – since she’s got such a great, inspiring blog and I wanted to get my hands on some of her simple living secrets!

First up, the premise:

You’re about to become a castaway on a desert island. The desert island will provide you with misc edible vegetation/wildlife and items that can be fashioned into basic pots/pans/utensils — but just before you’re whisked away, you have enough time to grab a herb or spice from your store cupboard; a special kitchen gadget/tool/utensil or piece of equipment; a cookbook; and a packet of seeds to grow on your any-climate island paradise. What would you pick to take with you? And which of your simple/frugal living skills do you think would be the most valuable while you’re there, and why?

And here are Kate‘s replies:

Herb or spice: Unequivocally this would have to be fresh garlic. I use it constantly and am galled when the stores of our homegrown start to get sprouty (round about this time of year), which leaves me with the dilemma of either buying store-bought, or making do only with our dehydrated garlic.

When it comes to kitchen gadgets my answer is pretty boring. I’d take a good knife. A good knife in combination with good knife skills will answer so many needs in a kitchen. I’m not much for gadgets, and a good knife would be very hard to improvise. For preference I’d take the Japanese made santoku my husband gave me as a gift a few years back. It pretty much instantly became my most heavily used knife. I’d been skeptical of santokus up to that time.

When it comes to cookbooks, I’m more of a skimmer than a follower. Almost invariably I end up departing from written recipes when it comes to cooking. I trained as a chef, which provides the confidence to do so. But when it comes to baking, in which I lack formal training, that’s a very different story. In baking you must follow fairly strict guidelines, prepare your dough, and then relinquish control to the oven. So perhaps I’d take a baking cookbook. Tough call between Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Julia, and Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking. Very tough call. Forced to choose, it would probably come down to the first though, since it’s so comprehensive.

One packet of seeds would be tough to choose. I’d agonize over the choice, but would probably end up picking Tuscan kale. It’s reliable, healthy, tasty, versatile, and has a very long season.

Most valuable skill – I probably couldn’t predict which of my skills would turn out to be most most valuable. Whether well founded or not, I have a pretty high confidence in my ability to do most things at least passably well, so I’m willing to try anything once and unlikely to give up in despair. I think I’ve learned to improvise fairly well, which would surely be a useful skill on a desert island. I consider myself a decent observer of the natural world, which would also be useful. I can garden and cook and am quite content with solitude. Again if forced to choose, the first skill, confidence, would be the one I’d predict to be most valuable. On the other hand, I have absolutely no sense of direction, so my exploration of the island would be very slow and cautious.

Thanks so much to Kate for taking part – I’m really interested in learning about santokus now so I’m really glad I asked! I also can’t believe I forgot garlic when I was having my cumin or chilli conundrum! How could I cook without garlic?!!?

Anyone else want to join in the mirth and merriment? :)

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