Caroline Boquist has stayed up until four in the morning to prepare a dinner party for 10 people. She gets up at six every morning to cook breakfast for her son. All this on top of running a contemporary design shop on Cambie called the Walrus.
Why? We all know of people who love food. Boquist is one of those people who uses food to show her love and on June 10 there will be lots of love to share at the Joy of Feeding.
She's one of the home cooks who will be featured in the fundraising feast for and at UBC Farms. Her Goan lamb vindaloo is on a menu that is as culturally diverse as it is delicious, taking patrons on a culinary trip around the world without ever having to leave Vancouver.
"I believe very strongly that cooking is an act of love," says Meeru Dhalwala, who owns Vij's and Rangoli restaurants with her husband Vikram Vij. She came up with the idea last year as a way of supporting UBC Farms, which embodies her belief in local, sustainable, health-inducing agriculture. She also wanted a way to re-instate the joy of cooking as something we do because we care, not because it's a chore we are forced to do. Sharing home-cooked meals with her family has helped forge the type of strong bonds that can withstand almost any pressure (including teenaged children at odds with their parents) and, in a way, the Joy of Feeding restores value to a woman's role as nurturer. Moms, she notes, are "the first cooks of humanity."
That's why there are no celebrity chefs at this $50-a-ticket event. We're not to bow down to the great kitchen gods. We instead are to be inspired by people who are like us, people who have to juggle work and home and me-time and still enjoy a meal that doesn't come out of a box (or plastic take-out bag.) It recognizes that while there are times when we don't necessarily feel the joy of cooking, we all appreciate the joy of eating a home-cooked meal.
"We're happy that we are capable of nurturing the people we love," says Mary McKay, the head baker and co-owner of Terra Breads, as well as a working mother.
But isn't this heaping more onto a woman's plate? Boquist says "I just make it a priority. For me it's cultural. I saw my mom go to the effort of baking and cooking for us so we could sit around and be together. Everyone puts a value on things. My family puts value on food and cooking for people."
In her introduction to the cookbook that highlights the 16 dishes to be shared at the Joy of Feeding, Dhalwala writes, "Hassles are a psychological frame of mind. You decide what is a hassle and what isn't." As much as preparing food for others can be perceived as just one more hassle in our day, "having the emotional satisfaction that you are carrying on a million-year tradition, which has kept us alive, healthy and together, is not a hassle.
"Cooking satisfies a yearning to love and care for others. And the others will love and care for you back. That is not a lonely hassle. That is the Joy of Feeding."
Organizers promise that you will go home from the Joy of Feeding feeling very well loved and nurtured. To find out more about the festival, and to buy tickets, go to JoyOfFeeding.com. To why UBC Farms is such a worthwhile beneficiary, go to UBCFarm.UBC.com.
To win two tickets to the event go to WEVancouver.com/contests
