Q & A with Lucy Tweed - Every Night of the Week

The sun’s always shining when food stylist extraordinaire, Lucy Tweed, is around. She’s not only  a food stylist for Gourmet Traveller and brand such as Merivale and Veuve Clicquot, she’s also the creative genius behind Every Night of the Week (ENOTW), the must-follow Instagram account making home-cooked dinners effortless for the whole tribe. We spoke with Lucy to find out her mid-week dinner hacks, daily rituals and so much more... 

Describe a day in the life of Lucy Tweed…

It’s hard to say when it begins. It’s usually at the mercy of tiny nightmares and their dreams or gym goers or the chirp of synthesised birds. The rest is basically time-lapse until I’m cutting an onion at 5:30pm. These are the two staple moments… Everything else is really work and mood dependant and could look like this:

  • Shower

  • Coffee

  • Green smoothie

  • Kids food, teeth, clothes, car, daycare

  • Favourite food shops for fresh ingredients: whether I’m testing or shooting, a fresh baguette is usually necessary… If not just to stop lift doors closing from a distance.

  • Coffee

  • Studio, either mine or a photographer’s.

  • Assess the day: props, recipes, things to write, meetings

  • Coffee

  • Settle in. Sometimes this is prettying things all day, others it’s on-site at a Merivale venue consulting, and occasionally, like this week, it’s event planning for the first ENOTW workshop.

  • Freak out about what I’m posting on ENOTW

  • Post something

  • Laughing laughing laughing

  • Eating because of my job is usually done in graze form which my body LOVES despite nutritionist’s warnings. A chicken wing here, an apple chunk there, half a plate of coleslaw… Is that fried potato?!

  • Race home. More out of excitement… favourite bit of the day is near!

  • Post a recipe from a previous night while cooking today’s one for the family.

  • Lots of shouting and nakedness occurs from here on in – sometimes in love, sometimes in fury.

  • We eat standing, perching, sitting or picnicking, basically whenever the food is hot and wherever it’s suited to. We all try and listen to each other's stories and get to know each other. Someone is ALWAYS laughed at, and someone else cries about something entirely unrelated.

  • We all peel off to bed separately.

What’s your number one mid-week dinner hack?

You know what – and this will make so many people angry – feeding everyone the same dinner is often more painful, exhausting, frustrating and fight-feeling than just making a few things.

Last night my kids ate at 5pm and it was my fave one pot pasta. Literally everything goes in at the start, you stir and simmer and serve. They all went for a swim in the neighbour’s pool and my husband and I had chilli garlic prawns with rocket and a bottle of wine. EVERYBODY is happy and full and relaxed. This to me is a hack. We don’t all eat at once, so we only do it once a week, but holy crap it’s a relief.

The big pan family dinners are fantastic, but you can’t please all every time, which is disheartening. So make them try everything 10 times, but also give yourself a break… They have baked beans and you can have raw salmon draped over enokis with alfalfa sprouts if that’s your vibe (gross, btw).

Desert island. Three ingredients. Go. 

G&T (I’ll take a premix here so it’s only one)

My phone. Don’t worry I won’t call anyone, it’s more for social media.

If I can’t take my family I’ll take a bag of their dirty laundry so I can just smell it whenever I miss them.

What dish are you making on repeat this summer?

Salads… But not lame leafy ones. I’m really into cooking or cutting the same veg multiple ways:

  • Roast broccoli heads and raw shaved stalks

  • Julienned big zucchini and shaved baby zucchini

  • Also, every salad has to have three toppings… A dressing, a crunch factor (pangrattato or seeds) and a seriously committed herb.

What’s your favourite Coco Tribe product?

I literally ate an entire tub of the Maple Pecan Crunch yoghurt before I finished answering Question 2…

What’s surprised you most about using Coco Tribe products?

I used to hate coconut products… Maybe I always got the rancid one. There was always too much gelatine, I don’t know but it had ZERO appeal. Look it may be that Tedy, the founder, is my kindred gin spirit, but the product is so amazing. It’s delicate. Its texture is smooth and real. The flavour combinations seem obvious but so considered. I’ve gone back to other brands occasionally, usually by accident, but they disappoint me.

What’s next for you?

40. Wait, professionally? Well yes. 40. And a little bit of... Watch this space @everynightoftheweek.

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