Kids on the coast

by Sandra Smith

Cooking family meals with just four ingredients is a simple concept, but turning that idea into a bestselling cookbook has involved a lot of hard work and determination for mother-of-three Kim McCosker. It’s been an amazing three-year journey for the Sunshine Coast author and entrepreneur, and she is now an international celebrity with four bestsellers and two television series under her belt.

Kim and lifelong friend Rachael Bermingham co-wrote 4 Ingredients for busy mums who are “out of inspiration” and often do not have exotic ingredients on hand for the family’s evening meal. When Kim and Rachael self-published 2,000 copies of 4 Ingredients in 2007, they never imagined that they would go on to sell more than 2.5 million books worldwide.

Kim now lives at Pelican Waters on the Sunshine Coast with her husband Glen and her three children, Morgan (8), Hamilton (5), and Flynn (2). Her schedule is packed with media commitments, but her children are her top priority and she spends as much time with her family as she possibly can.

Tell us about your family.

I have been blessed with the best family in the world. I have a wonderfully supportive husband, Glen, and three happy and healthy little boys who are the absolute loves of my life. Everything I do, I do for them and based around them and their schedules. My husband Glen is just the most wonderful man. He enables me to do what I do, because he gave up his career to stay at home. He doesn’t get stressed out – he just takes it all in his stride and because he is so comfortable doing that, it allows me to travel and do the things I have to do with 4 Ingredients without feeling bad. We are a close, supportive family. My mum and dad live one km from me and are the best parents and grandparents I could ever have hoped for.

How did you learn to cook and who was your main influence?

Without a doubt my mum and grandmothers were my main influence in the kitchen. I grew up on a citrus farm in a little country town called Mundubbera. There were no 24-hour supermarkets, and still aren’t. We were on a really tight budget as Dad was building the farm, which forced my Mum to be really creative in the kitchen. She would use the zest of an orange to flavour our pancakes and use the juice to complement tomato soup. She had the knack of taking something simple and making it taste quite spectacular.

What impact has the success of 4 Ingredients had on your family?

4 Ingredients has been a gift to our family. Although I am far busier than I ever was, essentially I am able to work around Glen and the children. I can still help at school, I can pick the days I travel and the jobs I accept to do. It has taught me so much - never in a million years would I have thought I’d be involved in designing our iApp or creating the packaging for our cookware range. How to deal with media, how to film a TV show...who would ever have thought? 4 Ingredients has brought so much to my life and that of my family. It’s like a fourth child.

How do you balance family time with your busy work schedule?

I try to prioritise my day. I have an online diary that select people can access (to add, delete and alter what is there). At the beginning of every term, I get my children’s schedules and enter them into that diary or anything important our family has to attend. Then my office knows when I am available for work commitments. I try to limit the time I am away so that I am rarely away for more than two consecutive nights. Eighty per cent of the time this works beautifully, but even in the most ordered of schedules there are times when the enormity of what I have to do is quite overwhelming and the work/life balance doesn’t feel so balanced. But that’s life and those moments will always be, so I have learnt the best way to deal with them is just to move forward.

Is it important to have goals?

I think it’s really healthy to have goals, even if sometimes you can’t reach them in the time-frame you originally set. I do have clear goals but I don’t for a second think that they’re easily achieved. Whether it’s a relationship or a job or motherhood, it all requires time and effort and energy. Big things come from a lot of little things. We’ve just got to concentrate on the little things and we’ll get to the big things eventually. It’s good to have the dreams and desires and the goals, but you know that they’re not going to happen without a significant amount of hard work and a little bit of a plan. It doesn’t always work to plan, but you just reassess and alter it accordingly and give it another shot.

What parenting advice can you share with our readers?

Don’t let ‘mother guilt’ rule your life. Mothers are the backbone of a vast majority of homes and often the most neglected. We mums need time out for us, without feeling guilty. Get your girlfriends and have a girls’ weekend – it’s so good for the soul – or treat yourself to a monthly facial. Your face is your window to the world and it needs to shine. Look after number one, so that there is plenty left in reserve for others.

Why did you collaborate with Deepak Chopra for your latest cookbook in the 4 Ingredients series?

He had a belief about food that really appealed to me. When Rachael and I first met Deepak, I was heavily pregnant with Flynn and feeling as big as a house. I remember him telling us “Daily diet isn’t just about protein, carbohydrates and fat. You need to understand food and how it reacts in your body; you should derive enjoyment and nourishment from food.” This was just music to my ears, so we started to read about Ayurveda principles, which is what Deepak and millions of others around the world follow for their health and well- being, I was pleasantly surprised to learn it was much easier to follow than pronounce.

Why is eating healthy food important for families?

Food should be your medicine, we hear it everywhere – “you are what you eat”. Deepak says that food is often responsible for the way we feel mentally, emotionally and physically – it’s all interlinked. What 4 Ingredients has allowed me and so many others to realise is that cooking good, healthy food doesn’t have to be complicated. Eating out is expensive and generally take-away isn’t the healthiest option, but when cooking at home is a chore or too hard, it’s because we make it so. Cooking at home is just so important, because this way you know exactly what you are putting into your food and your body – just keep it simple.

What do you enjoy most about living on the Sunshine Coast?

We moved to Pelican Waters on the Sunshine Coast in July 2007 and we absolutely love it. Peak hour traffic is maybe passing two cars. The boys all love golf and as a family we all love, love, love the beach. Sundays on the water with my boys is my definition of heaven – no mobile phones, no laptops, iPod this, iPad that – just us and the Pacific Ocean.

Kim’s favourite things

Food Chicken, pasta and chocolate – not necessarily in that order.

Rainy day activity The kids love games, including Guess Who, Connect 4, Memory, Battleships and most recently, Boggle.

Fine day activity Anything to do with the water – we are all water babies. Pool, river, ocean, swimming, skiing, surfing, building sandcastles, chasing crabs on Bribie Island and fishing.

Beach My favourite beach is Bulcock Beach at Caloundra. I have an eight-year-old who wants to be ‘gung-ho’ and learn to surf, and for the two littler ones, there’s an inlet and there are tiny trickles of waves, and little crabs in the sand and rocks with oysters in them. What’s really impressive is those big freight ships – for my two-year-old, they look 3D and he reaches out and tries to touch them.

Movie Our current favourites are Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and Aladdin. We make homemade pizza (the kids’ favourite is pepperoni), hamburgers, or popcorn (buttered or dusted with icing sugar) and all sit down to enjoy.