Passion Projects: 10-Minutes with Ben Hayes, Co-Founder of Eat My Words
The Doers are a talented bunch, both at work and in their outside lives. And we’re pretty proud of the talented people within our network. So we thought we would bring to you a series, Passion Projects, to introduce you to some of their greatest side hustles. 10-Minute interviews with members of our network who are working on some amazing projects outside of their day-to-days right now. It’s hard to know where to start, but it’s always good to hit up your local wordsmith right? They love providing a few words!
Without further ado, welcome Ben Hayes, our king of copy and passionate foodie. Let’s chat about Eat My Words…
Eat My Words is a free newsletter every Wednesday at 10am that sends you one recipe (which combines Michelin-starred expertise with Italian simplicity), one album recommendation, and some comedy about the state of the world. Take it or delete it.
Hey Ben, what made you decide to work on this project?
We started to Eat My Words at the beginning of the first lockdown to give people something fun to do each week and to put our skills (Fraser’s cooking and Ben’s writing) to good use.
Fraser trained in Michelin-starred kitchens including Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Dabbous, Dinner by Heston, and Murano. So he knows what he’s doing. Ben didn’t train anywhere and has no idea what he’s doing. Hopefully, that means we find a nice middle ground that introduces people to new dishes without being pretentious or try-hard.
You can get recipes from so many places these days. Some are great but most are daunting, with ingredients you don’t often use or techniques you don’t really understand. With Eat My Words the aim is to keep things stylish like the Italians, but simple like the cavemen. No need for any fancy cooking kit or caviar.
What have the highlights been?
Too few to mention.
We’ve just produced a cookbook which is a collection of our first 18 months of recipes. The first batch of those sold out in 24 hours so that was cool.
We’re best friends so really the main highlight is getting to work together on something fun that we both love. And getting to go to new restaurants under the guise of it being for research purposes.
What’s your favourite recipe?
Fraser: malloreddus alla campidanese. The Dolly Parton of Italian recipes. Impossible not to like, and it always works (9 to 5 and beyond).
Ben: gnocchi alla bava. There’s supermarket-bought gnocchi. Then there’s homemade gnocchi. That latter beats the shallot out of the former.
What was much harder than you thought?
Two things.
First: Instagram and general social media promotion. We know we should be on TikTok but we’re not huge self-promoters and don’t have the time or inclination to do daily videos. That comes with a cost i.e. Eat My Words not being the global phenomenon that it so clearly deserves.
Second: taking good food photos. You sometimes look at the photo and think that NOT having one would make the dish more appealing. We once photographed risotto rice pudding with salted caramel sauce and it looked like chicken pie with brown sauce. Not ideal.
How did you establish an identity for your project?
Shout out to Emma Chandler who designed some great logos and posters for us.
But really our main focus has been on our tone: the language we use or don’t use. The jokes we make or don’t make. Given its weekly nature, the content introducing each dish is time-specific which, we hope, makes things more interesting and relevant.
With all this stuff, consistency is key. Doing Eat My Words every Wednesday has helped us create external momentum and a solid process of doing things internally.
Did any other similar brands/projects inspire you?
Fraser has spent a few years working in different parts of Italy so a lot of our recipes are inspired by his time there, the ingredients he used and the dishes that locals love. Then on a weekly basis, we’re always looking at what’s seasonal and what’s going on in people’s lives i.e. if it’s Veganuary we’re not going to serve steak.
From a writing perspective, we try to read as much as possible from all sorts of places. Restaurant critics for how they turn a phrase or Twitter memes for how they tap into the comedy of a week. All of this helps us write in a way that is simple but appealing (and hopefully entertaining).
What is your biggest piece of advice to someone looking to launch a project like yours?
Not every project needs to be big to be worthwhile.
We don’t measure Eat My Words’ worth based on the number of followers it has, but on the fun we have doing it. It sounds cheesy - pun intended and achieved - but if you have fun doing things then a project like this only gets better and more interesting over time.
Oh, and life’s better with butter and cheese.
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