florence pugh cooking
Photo by Suzi Pratt/Getty Images for Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

Florence Pugh’s Instagram Cooking Videos Are the Cheer We Need Right Now

So far she's made ratatouille, butternut squash soup and... buttered toast.

In these troubling times, we need levity more than ever. Whether that’s in the form of a heartwarming show like Schitt’s Creek, feel-good Instagram accounts (read: lots of dog vids), or some uplifting podcasts to distract you from the ever-present threat of the coronavirus, injecting a dose of cheer and joy into your day is more important than ever. Enter: Florence Pugh and her Instagram cooking videos.

The Little Women actress is cooped up in her house just like the rest of us, but her positive attitude and charming, unpretentious cooking videos are the pick-me-up we all need. In a video last week, she admitted she’d been “feeling a bit glum lately” but a phone call from her dad inspired her to turn her mood around.

“My dad called me yesterday and said, ‘Why aren’t you dancing and why aren’t you cooking?’ So this morning I woke up and I danced and I felt better and now I’m going to cook,” she said in the video. “So as my dad said yesterday we have to do things that keep us happy, keep us bubbly and keep moving basically. Get all of the weird horrid anxiety out of your system.”

In one of her earliest videos, pre-self-isolation, she made marmalade from scratch, and has since followed that up with dishes that use up ingredients in her pantry (a skill we’re all learning to develop). Her most recent tutorial—some of which are saved to her Instagram Highlights—featured canned chickpeas, tuna, leftover pasta sauce and feta, along with a hodgepodge of vegetables from her fridge.

“Today is the day that I use the cans that I bought a week ago —yes, the cans that you have no idea what to use in, but that you bought because they last in your pantry for many, many years,” she said.

While the dishes vary from day to day—so far she’s made ratatouille, butternut squash soup, and over the weekend she shared a satirical “recipe” of toast, butter and Marmite—her self-deprecating humour is present throughout. Now, these are no professional Bon Appetit Test Kitchen-style videos. There’s no fancy lighting and neatly-lined up ingredients but there is a lot of swearing, wine slugging and candid monologues. Do yourselves a favour and follow Pugh on Instagram, not for complex recipes but for warmth and some much-needed good cheer.