‘If I want to be on a diet, I’ll be on a diet — it’s nobody else’s business but mine’

We’re here to talk about the couple’s third book, Bold Food Made Good published by Gill. With a following of over 200k on social media, the couple has carved a niche in the Irish food landscape, centred around healthy eating, their way. Bedded in the ethos of Slimming World, though by no means affiliated to the brand, the Daly Dish takes all the rules of slimming groups and throws them out the window. From Hoisin Fries to Double Smash Burgers, they offer a delicious route to family mealtimes based entirely on their own experiences.

“The thing I noticed from the slimming clubs I have joined over the years is that a brand will have all their recipes and meal ideas online and in their booklets, but in the classes, the people who are in the club all rely on each other for inspiration,” Gina says.

“A lot of it is about thinking about how to make your dinner so delicious that you actually want to eat it.”

This club-within-a-club mentality is the community that Gina and Karol foster, offering a bird’s eye view into their lives, warts and all. It’s not their intention to showcase picture-perfect scenes, full of before and after photos and an idyllic family life. Living in the countryside with their three children, Holly, Ben and Gene, their life centres around togetherness. Pre-pandemic and pre-Daly Dish, they worked in marketing and design.

Since the publication of their first book, they have shared their personal struggles along with their kitchen successes, and it’s their ability and willingness to be vulnerable that has earned them legions of fans.

In 2020 the couple gave voice to the unthinkable when they shared their experience of baby loss in the middle of a pandemic. At a time when Irish families were experiencing the most painful of losses completely alone, the Daly’s story made them feel less so.

On the rainiest of days, sometimes the sun peeps through. Ten months ago, Gina gave birth to Gene by emergency section. Born with as the Daly’s like to say “an extra chromosome of awesomeness,” Gina says she knew from the moment she met him that he had Down syndrome.

“There was almost an element of knowing, even though I didn’t know, so it didn’t come as a massive shock or anything like that. We were just so delighted that we had this perfect little baby.”

Gene was always meant to be in the Daly family. The first positive pregnancy test was on March 21 2021 – World Down Syndrome Day – and Gina and Karol know that they were meant to be his parents. In the book’s intro, they say, “we have never, ever known a love like the one we all have for him. He is the best thing that has ever happened to us as a family, and has brought us even closer together.”

Gina describes herself as the kind of woman who only has to look at a cake to put on weight. After years of dieting and struggling, losing and gaining weight, her belief system around weight loss and its importance has shifted her own scales of self-belief.

“My focus now is not to fit into the size ten skinny jeans. I’m trying to mind myself a little bit better. I know that I’m only human and I have gone through all of these ups and downs over the last number of years where I just thought to myself, ‘I don’t give a shit anymore, I just want to eat, I want to drink.’ Now, my attitude is that if I’m going through the tough times, I do what my body wants to do and if that means eating the ‘bold’ food then that’s it.”

The connotation of food being good or bad, fattening or slimming, is one veterans of slimming clubs come up against on a daily basis. To train your brain to look at food groups as good or bad is one of the first lessons of Slim Club, and it’s one that the Dalys rail against. Why then, I wonder, did they call their latest book Bold Food Made Good?

“To me, bold food is exciting, amazing, delicious food,” says Gina. “People can take the title … whatever way they want, but for me, bold food is food that is full of flavour, not full of calories. There are people who call some foods, ‘naughty’ or ‘guilty pleasure,’ and I don’t think that way.”

There is a place for the idea of ‘bold food’ in the slimming club interpretation though, interjects Karol.

“Say on a Saturday night, when people are thinking how much they’d love to order a curry or a burger. What we are saying is you can make it at home, and it will probably be much tastier and definitely much better for you.”

The fakeaway recipes that the Dalys excel at are not just for those on a weight loss journey, he says. They’re for beginner cooks or those of us who don’t have a lot of confidence in the kitchen.

“We are trying to say, ‘if we can do it, you can do it.’ Our recipes are cheap, simple to make and you don’t have to go to 100 different supermarkets to find the ingredients.”

The first Daly Dish book was released just as the first Covid lockdown began, in March 2020 and it was an instant hit.

“I don’t think we could have predicted the viral explosion of it,” says Gina. “The timing saw people stuck at home and having no choice but to cook. We have people telling us about how they started off cooking the chicken curry and now they make the full Sunday roast with the roast potatoes and it’s amazing to watch the journeys that people have been on with us.”

Just as lockdown started us all making our own sourdough, it also began for many of us a love affair with the kitchen gadget of the moment: the air fryer. The Dalys own two and are evangelical about the devices. From chips to full roast dinners to baking rolls in just four minutes, an air fryer is an essential piece of kit, they say.

“For me, roasting a whole chicken in the air fryer is a game changer,” says Karol. “A bit of oil, lemon pepper, into the air fryer for an hour and you’re done.”

Cook it breast side down though, or “diddies down,” as Gina likes to say and you’ll have the best roast chicken of your life.

Their top air fryer tip is to ignore the pictures on the packaging.

“Don’t overfill the baskets. There is a tendency to fill them up – and even the pictures on the box when you buy the air fryer will show the baskets jam-packed. But if you overfill the baskets, it will take longer to cook – and the food doesn’t cook as evenly,” says Karol. “We make chips, for example, in two batches. We cook the first batch and set it aside.

“Then we do the second batch and, when they’re ready, we throw the first batch back in to heat it through.”

The book has an entire chapter devoted to air fryers, and another on slow cookers too – as well as midweek dinners that can be whipped up and demolished with ease.

Bold Food Made Good is reminiscent of early Jamie Oliver books – no messing, no complication, just decent food on the table with minimal fuss. They don’t want to be instructional or dogmatic about recipes either. The Daly Dish recipes are jump-off points for people to experiment with flavours that they love.

When it comes to healthy eating, the Dalys want to flip the mentality of slimming clubs on its head.

“I would rather throw all my delicious calories into a gorgeous dinner that I really enjoyed preparing rather than hoarding them for a small packet of crisps or bar of chocolate and then eating meals that taste like cardboard,” says Gina.

“I always say that I eat what I eat because it suits me and that’s my choice. We are trying to give people choices in what they eat and what they feed their families.

“Enjoying your food is what’s going to keep you on track for your life. A diet and depriving yourself is not sustainable.

“If you feel guilt over eating a Freddo bar, that’s not sustainable. I’m like – throw two of them in your porridge and enjoy it!”

Stigma around diets and diet culture will not change in the near future, says Gina, but what we can change right now is ourselves, and that begins with refusing to apologise for yourself.

“I’m 42 this year and I’m at the stage where if I want to be on a diet, I’ll be on a diet – it’s nobody else’s business but mine.”

Last year, Gina’s father passed away following a short illness with cancer. He spent the last twelve months of his life living with the family, and memories of him are in every recipe of the book.

“My Dad was the foundation of our house. It was so lovely having him here, knowing he was safe and he had us. When he found out I was pregnant with Gene, he was just living for the baby to come.

“He had the heartiest laugh and to watch him laughing and enjoying the dinners we were making him and tasting all the food was just such a special time.”

In what Gina calls the mad cycle of life, he passed away on March 22, the day after World Down Syndrome Day, the year after that positive pregnancy test.

“That whole year with him was an incredible time and it was just magic. ”

In the majority, the Daly Dish community are a clatter of typical Irish Mammies.

Sure, Gina gets the odd message offering her ‘helpful advice’ in dealing with the pound or two she may have gained, but the support she receives far outweighs the bad. “That’s the thing with social media, you’re trying to be relevant because it’s your business at the end of the day. But then you get messages from people saying things like, ‘no matter how long you need to take, we’ll be here for you and even if it’s not about food, if you just want to come on and have a whinge – we’re here for you.’ That’s what spurs you on when you are having a shitty day.”

As for the trolls or the overzealous weight loss tips? Gina calls these people her superfans.

“When [other influencers] tell me about the dreadful messages they get on social media I tell them that those people are their superfans. They are only adding to your viewing and numbers. They are helping you to be successful.”

With a slew of fans ready to lap up the new book and a compendium of recipes that will keep families on a budget well fed this winter, the Daly Dish has once again pinpointed exactly what people need, when they need it.

“We are who we are, and I think people respond to that” says Karol.

“We’re just a normal couple with kids, having the craic and there’s no airs or graces and we don’t pretend. We’re not chefs, and we don’t pretend to be either.” Gina thinks that the attraction is simpler: “we’re not f*ckin’ assholes and people see that.”

Chefs or not, they are definitely not assholes and as we finish up, there is one thing on my mind: roasting a chicken in my air fryer, diddies firmly pointed down.

• The Daly Dish – Bold Food Made Good is published by Gill and available now.

Breakfast Kebabs

French toast pieces dipped in cinnamon and sugar, layered onto a skewer with blueberries, strawberries and marshmallows and drizzled in a little Nutella.

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Ingredients

• 4 slices of white bread

• 2 eggs whisked

• salt to taste

• ½ tsp cinnamon

• 2 tbsp sugar

• blueberries

• strawberries

• marshmallows (optional)

• Nutella to drizzle

Method

1. Start by making the French toast. Crack the eggs into a wide bottom bowl, add a pinch of salt and whisk.

2. Dip your bread into the egg on both sides.

3. On a hot nonstick pan pop on your eggy bread, turn down to a medium heat and allow to sizzle until golden. Flip over and repeat on the other side.

4. Next, mix the cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle out onto a plate. Remove the French toast from the pan and dip in on one side in the cinnamon mix. Then slice it up into 2-inch squares

5. Grab a skewer and layer up a square of French toast. Then half a strawberry, a blueberry and a marshmallow and repeat until the skewer is full.

6. Heat a tablespoon of Nutella in the microwave for a few seconds and drizzle over the skewers – a treat breakfast of dreams