Now that life in isolation is coming to an end and cafes and restaurants are opening again, I bid farewell to my own little café / kitchen which provided takeaway meals for my aged in laws. I have always been a foodie and when I was much younger and a little bit delusional, I thought it might be fun to run a quirky little café.
Luckily, for everyone in my life, reality kicked in and my MasterChef aspirations went up in a puff of smoke. But this odd time has brought strange opportunities – my parents in law (who are in their eighties) needed meals delivered to their home. We could not take them out for meals (or even visit them as a couple) and it wasn’t safe for them to get takeaway food.
I became a chef in my own kitchen and my husband, Scott, became the food delivery service. The challenge of cooking tasty food and presenting it as a restaurant meal was an entertaining challenge and allowed me to indulge my youthful fantasy of running that zany little restaurant.
Over the past weeks I have enjoyed planning and designing little menus for these elderly customers.
The first meal of corned beef and vegetables was actually cooked by my daughter, Tarla, who also prepared some ginger kisses.
I packaged the meal for delivery and so began my takeaway kitchen.
My business is closed now but it was fun while it lasted…
© Anita Patel, 2020
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Published by anitapatel
Anita Patel is a writer (and retired teacher) who has lived in Canberra since 1982. She is as Australian as a banana paddle pop and a pair of sandy thongs and she is also a part of the Asian diaspora. Her collections of poetry are: 'Petals Fall' published by Recent Work Press in 2022 (https://recentworkpress.com/product/petals-fall) and 'A Common Garment' published by Recent Work Press in 2019 (https://recentworkpress.com/product/a-common-garment/).
In 2019 she collaborated with acclaimed artist, Annie Franklin, to produce 'Heart Stitched' (a story (in paintings and poetry) of the quirky, unexpected and dazzling layers in the natural world).
She has had work published in the Canberra Times, in Conversations (Pandanus Press, ANU), in Block 9, Burley Journal, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Demos Journal, Mascara Literary Review, Not Very Quiet Journal, Cordite Poetry Review, Backstory Journal, Other Terrain Journal, Pink Cover Zine, FemAsia Magazine, Plumwood Mountain Journal and Eucalypt: a tanka journal, The Australian Poetry Anthology (Vol. 8 2020) and Print Issue 42 of The Blue Nib Journal. Her children’s poems are included in an anthology Pardon My Garden published by Harper Collins. Her poem “Women’s Talk” won the ACT Writers Centre Poetry Prize in 2004 and her poetry was selected for and published in Australian Book Review’s States of Poetry ACT, 2018.
She has performed her work at the Canberra Multicultural Festival, Poetry on the Move Festival, Noted Festival, Floriade Fringe Festival, In Other Words Festival (at Lost in Books, Fairfield), the Queensland Poetry Festival, the National Folk Festival, at Smith’s Alternative, at Word in Hand, Glebe and La Mama Poetica.
Her reviews, “Found in Translation”, on the performances of four Japanese women poets and their translators at Poetry on the Move Festival, 2017 and “No More Silent Waiting”, on the anthology Autonomy edited by Kathy D’Arcy (2018) have been published by Not Very Quiet Journal. She was the guest editor for Issue 2 of Not Very Quiet Journal. View all posts by anitapatel
teapotsandincense 
What a lovely idea Anita. I am sure you brightened their isolation days.
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Thanks so much Wendy! I am trying to find your blog but it seems to have been deleted. xxx
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Yeah, I deleted it a while ago and replaced it with a private one which I use just for uni as a digital diary for my project.
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