We talk to Brendan Wan about GOURMET LAZY. 

What inspired you to create GOURMET LAZY?

Even though parents work their hardest to provide for their kids, sometimes cooking a nutritious healthy meal can be an effort. Sometimes it’s easier just to cook up something lazy to satisfy that hunger. In our household, that lazy meal was: a bowl of rice topped with slices of pan-fried Spam, a sunny side up fried egg and a dash of soy sauce.

Every household has a version of that meal that holds a special place in our hearts but is not necessarily seen the same in someone else’s eyes.

We live in a time where cooking shows emphasis too much on the glamour of the food and not enough on the single most important ingredient: heart. 
Shows about fine dining cuisine are aspirational but not accessible to the everyday Australian. 

Your normal could be someone else’s special.

What challenges did you face in creating this production?

Like most productions in 2020, one of the biggest challenges to our production was without a doubt dealing with COVID lockdowns. Especially as this was my first ABC-funded production, it was hard enough to learn the ropes of working with a national broadcaster but also dealing with a global pandemic. 

As our series focused on emerging talents from a multicultural background, finding a variety of ethnically diverse talents was somewhat difficult. The traditional means of sourcing talent through talent agencies proved to be ineffective. Ethnic diversity is an ongoing issue in Australian TV, on-screen and off-screen. We scoured through countless Facebook groups and art communities to source a variety of emerging talent that reflected a modern multicultural Australia. We felt that our show was a platform for performers of colour to showcase their talents and represent their stories.

What are you hoping audiences will take away from watching this film?

You will not find another show that takes an original twist on the cooking show concept. We’ve been excited by the discussions it has already attracted on the lazy meal. As mentioned before, every household has their own unique lazy meal which they hold dear. Food is what unites us all. Fine dining cuisine you see in shows like MasterChef is aspirational but not accessible to the everyday Australian. There is space to celebrate the favourite lazy meals that are part of our families and Gourmet Lazy aims to provide that. Although I regard my gourmet lazy meal of spam, eggs and rice as just a ‘lazy meal’, this is an insight into my Chinese heritage, my family and the cuisines and flavours I grew up with. Your normal could be our special. Gourmet Lazy is more than just a cooking show for the social age, it’s about growing up and the foods associated with our childhood, cultural heritage and families.

What is one piece of advice you would give to aspiring filmmakers?

Doing is better than talking. We can get caught up with overthinking the idea and thinking it’s not ready but at the end of the day, doing will be better than not doing. You will inadvertently make mistakes or be unhappy with the product but at least you’ve done the thing! 

For more on GOURMET LAZY follow @mrbrendanwan on Instagram.