Covid. The Nurse. And the Future of our Grandparents food.

I didn’t eat vegetables until I was 22 years old. That might sound like an exaggeration, but I can assure you, it isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I loved food. I ate a lot of food. But only foods that were on the ivory colour scale. Like every fussy child born of Irish descent, I ate Weet-Bix, cheese, mashed potatoes, and sausages. Literally. I was known for picking the tiny specks of parsley off garlic bread and when my friend tried to hide one single pea in my mashed potato, I didn’t speak to her for a month (I wish I was kidding). It wasn’t until I hit my mid-20s did I really start to eat. It was at this age that I discovered my love of food.

The food journey I am telling today doesn’t begin when I was 22. It begins when I was 33. Around the time when I decided to quit my full-time nursing job and dive headfirst into the food world. With no real talent, no experience and absolutely no street cred, I boldly decided to unite my two loves. Food. And Oldies. Oh, that’s one thing I haven’t told you. I am totally and unapologetically obsessed with Oldies. I always have been. And that is where this food journey begins.

When I was nursing, my favourite patients to look after were Oldies. I would sit by their bed, and we would talk about music and family, sometimes the weather and politics, but the one thing we always spoke about was food. I had an idea in early 2018 that always lingered in my mind but like most fantastic ideas born out of whimsical dreams, they sink away with the business of day-to-day life. Come the pandemic, the idea reignited in my head. Oldies and food. So, I did what almost all burnt out nurses wished they could do. I put my big-girl knickers on, and I quit. Straight up quit. I won’t bore you with the ins and outs of returning home and telling your beautiful wife that you have quit a perfectly good job to now have to survive on two-minute noodles (don’t worry, we’re still married), but I will tell you that this bold and terrifying decision allowed me to begin a journey of something really special. This risk has allowed me to tell the food stories of my favourite age group. Oldies. And that is how Recipes on Paper was born.

Recipes on Paper exists to inspire people to connect with heirloom recipes. Recipes that have comforted us when we have needed protection from the world. Those meals that when put down in front of us by a little old lady with enough lines on her face to tell all the stories in a library, we instantly knew everything was going to be ok. My mission is for everyone to see just how fascinating oldies are. I want people to picture pokey kitchens with a pottering oldie. A kitchen that has been decorated with countless family photos in mismatched frames. An array of woks hanging on a wall, stained with decades of delicious family dinners. Piles of coins scattered on a faded tablecloth, waiting to be exchanged for the daily newspaper and wooden spoons, battered with more history than you and I will ever have.

This particular food journey is not about me, it’s about my Golden Oldies. Or ‘Goldies’ as I call them. Like the wonders of suburban Australia, they come to us from all different cultures. I have been privileged enough to feature recipes from Vietnamese kitchens, German, and Italian kitchens, to Chinese and Irish. Lottie’s granddaughter told us how her grandmother fled the German war and migrated to Australia where she brought her incredible family recipes including her German Christmas Short Bread. Julie, who gifted us with her incredible Hungarian Goulash, reminded us to never worry about lipstick that has run. Marilyn made us all sit up straight when she told us she is 74 and still competing in triathlons so it was only appropriate that she gave us a healthy Cherry Ricotta Cake recipe. Hahn gave us her quick Chicken Pho recipe that is powerful enough to cure any sickness. And Nonna Anna’s granddaughter painted a picture of playing Briscola after school while eating her Nonna’s lentil stew. These are the recipes and stories of our Goldies.

These recipes have been cooked in kitchens for decades and now they are travelling through to my kitchen, my friends’ kitchens and hopefully the next generation's kitchens. My mission is to suspend these recipes in a time capsule of love, because if I don’t do it, who will? I want to create a space for Goldies to tell their food stories. A respectful and loving space.

Recipes on Paper encompasses MY journey with food but more importantly, my Goldies food journey. It has taught me that no matter what culture we come from, no matter where we were born or raised, we ALL have those recipes that provide us protection from the world.

My food journey has seen me evolve from an adult who would shriek at the sight of vegetables, to being a nurse overwhelmed by the pandemic, to coming up with an idea that required 6 months of taking rubbish photos of glorious plates of food, to now being utterly obsessed with collecting (and eating!) recipes of time gone by. I now spend my days finding those Oldies with special, heirloom recipes and cooking them in my kitchen for my family. All the while feeling like my heart will burst from thinking that for a brief moment in time, I am part of their kitchen.

So, in an effort to showcase society's most underrepresented generation, celebrate multiculturalism, and to feed my obsession, this burnt-out nurse will continue her mission to tell the stories and share the recipes of our community's most wonderful people. Goldies.

Oh, and she is happy to report that she now eats green things.