The Two Raw Sisters' Simple Fancy book tour starts later this month. Photo / Susannah Blatchford
The Flanagan sisters are becoming two of New Zealand's most successful cookbook authors, but the road to success hasn't always been smooth.
Margo and Rosa Flanagan are on a roll. The Canterbury siblings known as Two Raw Sisters have just released Simple Fancy, their fourth cookbook, hot on the heels of their bestselling cookbook of 2021, Salad.
"We're not vegetarian or vegan ourselves and we always say all eaters are welcome in our kitchen. If you're a vegan, you can use our recipes and if you're a meat lover you can also use our recipes," Margo says.
"The classic Kiwi diet is meat and three veg. Our parents grew up on farms and we grew up on a lifestyle block. So many Kiwis will think about the meat first and then the veges are the last-minute, boring stuff. There's nothing wrong with that, but we want to give people skills on how they can start with plants and then add their choice of protein," Margo says.
The sisters' recipes are not raw food – cooking is involved. Substituting ingredients is encouraged, and meals can be created easily and economically using fresh seasonal produce and pantry staples.
Running their successful business together, Margo, 24 and Rosa, 26, are the picture of health and the best of friends, but it hasn't always been this way.
"When we were teenagers, the relationship got really toxic between the two of us because we were almost competing against each other," says Rosa.
An elite athlete for eight years, competition was part of Rosa's life. She represented New Zealand at the 2015 World Athletics Championships in Beijing in her specialty event, the 3000m steeplechase.
Rosa's serious training influenced her younger sister. "Margo was trying to keep up with me all the time. There was the sister rivalry I suppose – what I was doing, Margo needed to be doing," Rosa recalls.
Life as a top-level athlete took its toll. With only 5 per cent body fat, Rosa didn't start menstruating until she was 21. She also developed an eating disorder. "I had a really unhealthy relationship with food. Through my running, I was restricting myself heavily on what I was eating. I was obsessed around being "healthy" and that led me down quite a deep hole," Rosa says. "I loved food, but I had a bad relationship with it as well."
She was awarded a Prime Minister's scholarship and completed a Bachelor of Applied Science, majoring in Human Nutrition, at the Ara Institute of Canterbury.
"Learning about the importance of food and how to fuel your body with the right food really helped me and was a massive part of my recovery," Rosa recalls.
Margo developed chronic fatigue syndrome at 16. "I was training a lot with Rosa and was just super-exhausted. I did a World Challenge [expedition] in Costa Rica, and I came back and never really recovered from my jet lag," Margo says.
"My whole immune system totally crashed – I picked up every illness and infection out there, my face was covered in red rashes and swollen. I crashed and was pretty much in bed for two years, really."
Adding to Margo's health issues was endometriosis, which wasn't diagnosed until a couple of years ago.
Fortunately for Margo and Rosa, they had plenty of family support, and still do. The sisters grew up between Lincoln and Rolleston with their parents Chris and Juliet, who have a real estate business, and their older brother Matt, 28, who lives in Auckland and works as a sales manager for an Auckland boat company.
"Our brother has all our books on his desk at work," Margo says with a smile.
The sisters attended Rangi Ruru Girls' School in Merivale as day girls and were three years apart at school. Margo finished year 13 in 2016. "Me, with my expensive taste, looked up 'plant-based culinary schools in the world' and found a three-month course in Venice Beach. It was an awesome experience," she says.
Rosa was training in athletics overseas and travelled to join Margo at cooking classes in California. The pair threw themselves into studying and training – so much so they ran themselves into the ground and hit rock bottom when they returned to New Zealand.
"We were both so unwell. We used to be fully vegan, but we got really deficient in iron, B12 and calcium. Something that works well for for someone else may not work for you. Eat what you feel works best for your body – everything in moderation," Rosa says.
Back living at home, they rested, relaxed their exhausting training, expanded their diets, and slowly got better.
"The core of what we do is about gut health," Margo says. "And we are both very interested in women's wellbeing."
Using their parents' kitchen as a base, they started posting food content on Instagram at the end of 2017.
"We told Mum to get a group of friends together and we ran workshops," Margo says. The workshops grew, with family and friends coming along, and then expanded into hosting people they didn't know. "Mum and Dad went on a lot of date nights to get out of the house!"
"We were lucky because we hit the market at the perfect time, not that we knew it at the time," Rosa says. "Our objective for why we do what we do is to help other people. A year down the track [we realised] we came in at the right time, because all of sudden a lot of other people were starting to come into that scene a little bit more, but we had already established a bit of a brand behind ourselves, so that was cool."
"What we did was very niche, but now it's very mainstream, which is awesome because it's about getting people to incorporate more plants," Margo adds.
In 2019, they were approached by Bateman Books to produce a cookbook, which they simply titled Two Raw Sisters and on the day the book launched, Two Raw Sisters the business moved into an office with a commercial kitchen in The Welder in South Christchurch, former industrial premises billed as New Zealand's largest health and wellbeing complex.
Since then, there's been a book a year for Two Raw Sisters – even during the disruption of Covid. Margo takes care of photography and styling in her role as creative and marketing director. Rosa is recipe and logistics director. Both develop recipes – Margo is the "dessert queen" and Rosa is the savoury specialist.
Two Raw Sisters' recipes are also available on their web-based app, with an iOS app set to launch early next year.
The pair have also taken on staff. Marketing and app manager Alexia Kotzikas lives in Christchurch and manager Dean Buchanan is based in Australia, where Margo and Rosa are working to expand their brand's presence.
Last year, Salad was the biggest-selling cookbook by New Zealand authors in Australia.
As close as Margo and Rosa are, they find it easy to separate work and family life. "We're pretty good at drawing the line between work and being sisters. It was difficult at the start because we lived together and it was all work, but now once we're done at work we switch off and go home. We have quite separate personal lives which is good, because we never used to, but we actually need that time apart from each other. If we do catch up on the weekend it is very much as sisters," Margo says.
Rosa lives on her partner Rupert Power's farm near Geraldine and makes the two-hour drive to Christchurch a couple of times a week. Margo lives in an apartment in central Christchurch. Her partner of four years is musician Will McGillivray, who performs under the name Goodwill and is the former lead singer of Nomad.
"I personally could not live on a farm, but Rosa loves it. Rosa is sh*t at what I do, and I'm sh*t at what Rosa does. That's the only reason why we can work together as we grow as a business because we have totally different strengths and weaknesses," Margo says.
"We're very different people. We know each other so well. We both bring a lot to the business. It would be different if we were both living in the city," Rosa adds.
"We've both become our true selves and are comfortable in our skins. We were different versions of ourselves back then [as teens] and it's really interesting; as we've met our partners, they have helped us figure out who we are," Margo says.
"We've got the tallest boyfriends out there," says Rosa. Describing her partner of two years, Rosa says: "Rupert loves the land" and Margo adds: "he's loud, outgoing and social, whereas Will, my partner, is stress-free, relaxed, go-with-the-flow."
The sisters both say they have big goals and are always planning far ahead. "We need to sit back, take note of everything we've done, be proud of ourselves and take the time to celebrate," Rosa says.
The Two Raw Sisters' Simple Fancy book tour starts later this month. See tworawsisters.com for details.
Where to get help
If it is an emergency and you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
Eating Disorders Helpline: 0800 2 EDANZ / 0800 2 33269
Anxiety Helpline: Call 0800 269 4389 (0800 ANXIETY)
Depression Helpline: Call 0800 111 757 or text 4202
For more information and support, talk to your local doctor, hauora, community mental health team, or counselling service. The Mental Health Foundation has more helplines and service contacts on its website.
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