What a difficult time it is for so many people all across not only Australia but the World so I can only imagine how hard it is with social distancing to keep life going on as close to normal as possible.
The great thing is that it is not a directive from the Government that visitors to Aged Care Homes have to be stopped altogether, but managed, and that there is now a groundswell of examples of how many Homes are managing to have safety as a key component for visitors, staff and residents so that people can continue to visit their loved ones.
However, in putting pen to paper for this newsletter I’m doing so with a very particular request. Some background: As you have been following us and keeping engage with our monthly newsletter, you’ll know that our aim is to look at every way possible to give beautifully simple food, full of flavour and goodness that will give pleasure as well as well-being to residents in Aged Care and also find ways to share, ideas, skill and knowledge of what is an incredibly complex arena of looking after residents often with a huge variety of needs. We are certainly wanting to give the resources and the pride to the Cook or Chef who is to me, the most important person in the team of an Aged Care Home! It is a big undertaking and we are so proud of the cooks and chefs who have already been through our Masterclasses and are making a difference in their Homes and understand this is a long involved journey on one hand, yet incredibly exciting about the change that is possible to bring about on the other.
We are a very small team at the Foundation and I’m looking for help to find a Chef from Aged Care who might be retired but still be a passionate advocate of how good food can make such a difference to the lives of all and never more than those unable to cook for themselves to help me.
With Eliza Thomas, our incredibly talented chef, we have developed recipes already and working on them all the time with every thought in mind of:
- Seasonality
- Freshness
- Flavour
- Pleasure
- Familiarity whilst also inputting all the nutritional needs
- the evocative smells of ‘home cooking’ even if cooking for 50 or 100 people or more
so my quest is to find a Chef with the experience to understand the limitations within a kitchen cooking for a large number of people with different dietary needs who could help advise us firstly as to whether a recipe we’ve devised could scale up for a large volume so that we can keep every bit of flavour, nutrition to give pleasure; something so very important to us all.
I’m so aware that every Cook or Chef in Aged Care at the moment is working possibly harder than ever which is why I am hoping that someone retired might answer my call. If you’d like to make contact, I’d love to hear from you, initially please email info@maggiebeerfoundation.org.au
Maggie