The Short Cut:
A quick-fire chat about working life with Emily McCorkell
The Short Cut designed to bring you a snapshot of our members’ working lives. Today, we’re speaking to Emily McCorkell, founder of Lo & Slo BBQ and Wild & Fired Cookery School.
At the heart of the Nurture Network is the power of sharing experiences.
From breakthrough career moments to best-ever advice, how to deal with stress and the women that inspire them.
Tell us about your breakthrough career moment
When it really hit off with our career, the first breakthrough moment was actually the Safety Festival we launched – where strangers were eating my food and kind of going, “Yeah, this is good! I’ll pay money – I’m not even asking about the price.” It was so weird. It was like the first moment where I thought, “Oh my gosh, maybe there’s something here.” So I think that was our breakthrough of starting, really.
But later on in our journey, I would say enduring lockdown. Again, we were faced with another moment where we thought, we either fold, you know – the world is shutting down. We don’t know what life is going to be like post-Covid. So we either shut down and we just stay put and stay quiet and just ride out the storm – or we diversify, and we try to figure out how to manage it. So we built a food venture in lockdown. It’s one of those things where, as we were delivering barbecue to people every Friday night, we found that we could do this. It was another one of those really validating things – but if you don’t feel it inside, it doesn’t matter what validation you get outside.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever had?
I would say believe in yourself even when you don’t. Always thank yourself, always choose yourself. Even if you’re not sure of how it’s going to go, or what the outcome is going to be, choose to believe.
Have you ever felt held back as a women? How do you respond?
Yeah, it’s been really weird. My husband’s come with me to some of our meetings, especially site visits, factories and stuff. And he doesn’t know anything about manufacturing – and we’ve gone on some site visits where I’m totally invisible. Totally invisible. Where, you know, the manager or the production officer will just look at my husband. And my husband’s really good; he’ll support us, deflect to me, and say, “No, actually, I don’t know anything. I’m just here to see what’s up. But you know, Emily is the one – these are her recipes. She can answer your questions.” And it’s like, even still, they’re straight out looking at him instead. So that’s been really funny.
And as women, we have to diversify, we have to adapt, we have to change – and it’s a strength I think we have maybe over men because it’s not so easy for us. But it’s actually given me a form of strength and humility where I don’t care how it gets done if I know it’s done right. So if my husband needs to be in front of them or if he needs to be the frontman for me, fine. But I’m still growing my business.
How do you protect your mental health in moments of pressure?
Okay, so my background is in psychology and social work. So when certain things don’t always work for me, I’m like, okay, let me go back to seeing how the brain works out this process biologically. Let me understand those things. For me, it’s a little bit different than for maybe the general public. But I read a lot, I research. I have to learn something every day. I have to do something creative every day. And that rebalances me. I have to listen to music. I’ve actually just ordered loop earplugs because I realised there are too many stimuli. I hear everything, and I’m aware of everything, so I actually just enjoy quieting down. It’s really healthy for me. So finding those micro moments of sleep and rest in the day is really good.
And I do a lot of body talk as well, a lot of self-talk. And I don’t care if it sounds crazy or whatever, but I talk to my body every day. I talk to my feet for getting me where I need to go. I talk to my body, and I’m so thankful – my body is not perfect, but I’m so grateful for it because this is the one thing we have. We don’t get a second body. You know, when you wear out your tyres in your car, you get new tyres. But this is my one body. So I do a lot of self-talk with my body.
The woman who empowers me the most is…
…Gosh, this is really hard. I think it’s the everyday stories of people overcoming and just living their lives despite hardships. Like, we catered this week for a group of people who came up at the weekend. These are people who are living in Belfast and refugees who have been brought over, and they’re living in this war zone right now where the community around them are trying to literally burn them out of their homes. And they came up to where we are in Derry, and they were smiling and happy and optimistic about their future regardless of everything they’re going through. And I thought – If you can go through that, I can navigate my next tax season. It gives me that sense of empowerment, of, “We got this. We can work together. We can figure out a way forward.”
I feel empowered when…
… I’m creative.
The woman who everyone should know about is…
…Lauryn Hill. I’ve been telling my daughter, you need to listen to her music, you need to study her life. She is a super inspiring woman who’s broken through glass ceilings and was doing stuff back when it wasn’t being done. So that’s something I’ve been talking to my daughter about, like, you need to know her – Lauryn Hill was doing it her way, and even though women had a very strict role to fit into, she just said, I’m doing my own thing. My daughter’s 14, and she likes a little bit of soul, a little bit of RnB, so I’ve been trying to say, listen to the good ones – this is a good one.
Do you have any hobbies to keep you busy in your spare time?
I don’t know what that means – spare time?! Oh my gosh! But I like puzzles, so I’ll do puzzles. But I think that it’s a double-edged sword because it’s problem-solving. Sometimes I need to not problem solve. And I absolutely love music – love to get lost in it. And depending on the season, I’ll either go binge-read or binge-watch – anything or whatever book I can get my hands on; I’ll just read it, don’t care what it is. And then I like getting outside in nature. I love it. Just getting out, whether it’s an urban walk, city walk or beach walk, whatever.
Where is your favorite place in the world?
This is so hard because I want to go everywhere. And I’ve recently gotten super sad thinking I won’t be able to go everywhere in the world. But there’s a place called Dunloe here in Ireland – we love it. It’s out in the middle of nowhere.
Ever wondered what it takes to turn a love of food into an award-winning culinary brand?
Emily McCorkell, founder of Lo & Slo BBQ, has mastered the art of bringing people together through the joy of cooking, connections, and unforgettable flavours. Learn more about Lo & Slo BBQ and Emily’s Wild & Fired BBQ School here.
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