Pinch of Nom
The unlikely couple behind Britain’s biggest diet sensation
By the time I come face to face with Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson, I’m beginning to wonder if they are but myth. Their debut diet cookbook Pinch of Nom was 2019’s bestselling book and the fastestselling non-fiction title since records began; just nine months later, the follow-up went straight to the top of the chart, ousting David Walliams. They have shifted well over a million copies and, to date, have only been dwarfed in UK sales by a handful of authors including JK Rowling.
In spite of their meteoric success, Featherstone, 34, and Allinson, 48 – who met on a dating site 15 years ago and have been partners, both personal and professional, ever since – have stayed firmly in the shadows.
They have had numerous television offers, and media outlets clamour to sit down with the incognito Wirral women. Repeated efforts to interview them last year were batted away on account of their dislike of publicity, undergoing root canal treatment and personal tragedy; their new cookbook doesn’t even bear their photo.
“It’s not about us,” is how Allinson, the quieter of the two, explains their aversion to the spotlight. “It’s about the community and the people we’re helping.”
That community – many of whom began following the pair after they visited a Slimming World meeting in 2016 and began posting recipes – is now millions-strong across social media. Their main Facebook page alone has 1.5million followers, not to mention those who have bought their books, the first of which topped the Amazon chart six months before it was published.
So how did a pair of unknowns become Britain’s biggest publishing phenomenon?
Contrary to what Allinson and Featherstone think, their success surely is about them.
For the 400-calorie meals contained in the pages of Pinch of Nom are not being touted by clean-eating types with washboard abs but a pair who are, by their own admission, very much still “on that journey” – one they hope will culminate in a shared 30st weight loss (they have knocked about 12st off that target thus far).
Surprisingly, their lives had been devoid of diets until a few years ago.
Working together in the restaurant business – Allinson the chef, Featherstone front of house – it was only when Allinson’s mother, Kath, suffered a brain haemorrhage that things changed. The couple decided to close their much-loved local eatery and help with her rehabilitation.
“That’s when we were like, no, work doesn’t come first any more,” Featherstone says. “But we grieved for a long time. That was us. It was our personality,” she says of the restaurant. “It was just time to give up,” Allinson chips in. “It would have killed us,” Featherstone agrees.
Consumed by grief, eating well went out of the window, until Allinson’s older sister, Lisa – who lives with them and their father in the family home in New Brighton, Wallasey – suggested trying the local diet club.
What surprised them, the pair recall from that first meeting, was just how little people knew about food.
Their passion reignited, they began devising low-calorie recipes that were all distinctly un-cheffy: chicken tikka drumsticks, sausage casserole, fish pie – low on carbs and cost.
At a Slimming World meeting, they overheard someone discussing a meal they had shared online; that, combined with Allinson’s father eating their concoctions for a month and losing a stone, suggested that they were on to something. Today, those social media responses take centre stage: to decide what will end up in their cookbooks, the pair post recipes on a secret Facebook group for its members to try.
Two larger women promoting an enormously successful healthy living plan are not, they know, the norm.
Featherstone checks off the adjectives routinely used to describe them – “jolly”, “middle-aged”, “fat” – the latter of which didn’t bother her. Until it did. “It’s an ownership thing,” she explains. “We own it, we are [fat], we know this, someone telling us that isn’t going to achieve the right message. It’s going to do more harm than good.”
They are fans of Lizzo, the pop singer and arch proponent of body positivity who has recently stepped back from social media due to abuse, which they describe as “disappointing” and “sad”. To that end, they stay off Twitter, not wanting to engage in online negativity – particularly when the real world has provided enough sadness of late following Kath’s death last year, the day after they told her their book was to be published. “We’ve been through some s---, haven’t we,” Featherstone demurs to Allinson. “We’ve dealt with a lot.”
Featherstone (the “gobby” of the two) first messaged Allinson on a dating website 15 years ago. Or at least she thinks she did – she can’t exactly remember who began the conversation, nor its opening line. On their first date, they drove to Rhyl, had a flat Coke, and Featherstone (“they call me Calamity Kay”) hit her head on her door; the rest is history. “When you live and work together, it’s a bit of a weird dynamic,” she admits. “But we do try to carve out some time for ourselves outside work which can be difficult, especially now.”
Separate rooms during business hours are, they say, key, as is enjoying Netflix together, going to gigs and having some much-needed time away from their laptops.
The small glimmers of the spotlight they let in provide mirth, too: on the day we meet, they are star-struck having just encountered Anton du Beke during an appearance on Chris Evans’s Virgin Radio show.
When I suggest they must be of at least approximate fame to occupy the same space as the Strictly star, they stand firm. “It isn’t a word I associate with us,” says Featherstone – instead they prefer “crazy” or “bonkers” to describe “what on earth is happening to us. It’s just a bit weird. And I think we are coming to terms with it.”
“Slowly,” Allinson adds. “Very slowly.”
Shunning publicity (for the most part) means they are rarely spotted, though a recent trip to Costco – where a shopper began shrieking on realising she was sharing a conveyor belt with Pinch of Nom – reminds them they have entered new territory.
Still to them, the chefs they love – and whose book sales they have pulverised – are what really constitutes the A-list.
“People we look up to from afar and that if we ever met I would die,” they say, include Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigella Lawson and Angela Hartnett. But being spoken of in the same breath as industry-leading names is becoming increasingly common: last week, their publishers held an awards ceremony for passing the million sales mark (which they did inside five months), an honour extended to a small number including Douglas Adams and Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father. “I think it caught us all with a proper bit of a tear,” Featherstone says. Allinson inhales sharply, demonstrating their shock. “That was massive for us, and just a little bit overwhelming.”
Their next book, due in June, is a meal-planning guide: the Pinch of
Nom formula is, they say, to “give people what they want and hopefully they will come back”. Which all signs say they will. In their millions.
Pinch of Nom Everyday Light by Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson (RRP £20). Buy now for £16.99 at books. telegraph.co.uk or call 0844 871 1514
‘We know we’re fat – telling us that isn’t going to achieve anything’
‘When you live and work together, it’s a bit of a weird dynamic’