Easier than taxes: Bean counter turns to cookbooks

Taupō cookbook author Linda Duncan at her book launch for The World’s Easiest Recipes: Five Ingredients cookbook in Taupō.
From the accounting world to writing recipes, Linda Duncan had one purpose when she set out to write her cookbooks: simplicity.
That purpose drove her to write five cook cookbooks, her latest being The World’s Easiest Recipes: Five Ingredients.
Duncan started her recipe journey seven years ago as a self-published author and to date she has sold about 120,000 copies of her first four volumes, helping people simplify their cooking.
For her latest book, she was approached by Harper Collins Publishers to write one for them.
She told the Taupō & Tūrangi Herald her inspiration was to write cookbooks anyone could pick up and start cooking from.
“I remember when I was working in an accounting business with three kids, my biggest stress every day was thinking, ‘What are we going to have for dinner? What am I going to make for the kids’ lunches tomorrow?’”
She would look at cookbooks for inspiration, think it was too hard with too many ingredients that she didn’t have, close the book and return to the handful of recipes she’d make every week.
Now, out of accounting for three years and with a bigger inspiration for cooking, she found it more satisfying “teaching people how to cook than telling them how much tax they have to pay”.
Duncan doesn’t come from a culinary background, which she considers her “point of difference” when writing her cookbooks.
“I love cooking and being in the kitchen, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not a foodie. If people come to my place for dinner, they get a basic dinner. It’ll be nice but not out of this world, and I think a lot of people just relate to that.
“That’s a reason why I wanted to do a five-ingredient book, to show people that you can make a really good meal with a few ingredients, and it does make a difference to the budget too.”
She believes her books were helping in the cost-of-living crisis.
Her recipes are “accessible, economical, affordable, and easy to make”, only putting ingredients she knows people could find at their local supermarket.
She said all 80 recipes in the book take 15 minutes or less of hands-on meal preparation time, calling them “everyday reusable cookbooks”.
“I think everyone is looking for something or ways that’s just going to simplify life, and so many people tell me they only use my cookbooks due to the simplicity of it.
“That was my purpose and I think I have achieved it.”
People can find Duncan’s cookbook online or in all bookstores such as Whitcoulls and Paper Plus.
To win a copy of The World’s Easiest Recipes, Five Ingredients, please email [email protected], and in your entry let Duncan know why this cookbook would benefit you.

Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakatāne.