It was the start of lockdown and she was “going through a rough time” personally, but after a grilling by her future flatmates she passed the test.
They wanted to make sure she was up for communal living – sharing the responsibility of cooking meals for each other – and it became a defining moment.
“Like a lot of people I was desperate for connection and community, and it was all I could afford,” she says.
“But to my surprise it was the single greatest choice of my adult life. The interview around the kitchen table was super intense, but I understand now they had to be careful about who moves in – being willing to chip in and share is not for everybody.”
Housemates “claimed” their cooking day on a chalk board, and Rosie would see what was in the fridge, then request additional ingredients for the weekly shop, which was meat-free, apart from tinned fish.
“There were seven of us, one for each day, some vegan, some veggie and some with allergies,” she said. “But we would often have guests and delicious leftovers for lunch – a budget dinner doesn’t have to be a punishment.”
When her TikTok posts about communal cooking for £25 per person per week went viral, she was offered a book deal and In For Dinner was published today (May 1).
“I grew up telling everyone that acting was what I wanted to do but I had been at it for 10 years and I was absolutely miserable,” she says.
“It was just before my 30th birthday and I felt like such a failure. I thought ‘I don’t have any money, I want to do something that makes me feel fulfilled’.
“It took me a while to see that the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is food – what I am going to cook and eat.”
Between acting jobs she had worked as a PA for film star Samantha Morton, and for The Meringue Girls cake stall at Broadway Market.
“My role was logistics, making the maths and staffing work, making a big job like that happen,” she said.
After moving into the warehouse, she started posting TikTok videos of her cooking.
“I wanted to make something of myself and although I cringed at the idea of putting my face on the internet, I asked my housemates to teach me the ways of TikTok and started posting three videos a week,” she explains.
“My motto is ‘delicious food is possible on any budget’ – if you don’t know how to do it, it can be difficult. I wanted to give everyone the secrets and tips on how to make your money go further with the message that if you share your life, it will be cheaper, more enjoyable and more delicious.”
At first only her mum and grandma would comment on her posts, then one day she filmed a recipe while talking about “how we live, cook and share food”.
“It took off overnight,” she recalls. “On the Monday I had 1,000 followers and by Friday I had 100,000.”
As well as plenty of likes she and her housemates were trolled for “glorifying poverty”.
“There’s a risk to putting yourself out there,” she says ruefully.
“It was totally horrible. They said we were playing at being poor – but I went to state school and didn’t go to university. So much good has come of it too, but I was sad my housemates got dragged into it.”
She thinks her posts about eating sustainably on a budget coincided with “a multitude of crises – of loneliness, and cost of living while the world is on fire”.
She added: “I didn’t have have it in me to do a deep clean, so the videos look pretty feral, it’s a messy and chaotic working house, I am cooking with pantry staples from Asda.”
Rosie has now moved to a shared house in Finsbury Park with a “really crap small kitchen with nowhere to sit”, but she still does cooking videos and recently had 12 people around for Easter.
“I am so proud of this book,” she adds. “Its been a family affair with lots of people helping. My biggest hope is that it is useful and helps people to have a delicious life – which we all deserve.”
In For Dinner by Rosie Kellett is published by Square Peg.
