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Auckland, April 21, 2021
Residents of the Bupa Sunset Care Home in Blockhouse Bay, Auckland were excited to be involved in cooking demonstrations hosted by the in-house team.
The weekly demonstrations have the staff preparing entrees, mains and desserts from cutting vegetables and preparing for the demonstration to the delight of the hungry residents.
They were then ably assisted by a few volunteer residents to chop, stir or roll ingredients for each meal.
International gourmet
The meal ideas came from the team members and the residents with a wide variety of cuisines including Indian vegetarian and street food, Mexican, Spanish, Nepalese, and Vietnamese delicacies.
Ngaire Burgess has been living in the Care Home for the past year.
She asked the staff to make sure that there were not any seeds in her meal.
“This is the first time that I tried the latest cuisine of both sweet and savoury Indian dishes and found them very flavourful. “I liked the different tastes; it is not spicy which is good. It is nice to try something different sometimes and to watch how they make it,” she said.
Fresh Food ideas
Bupa Sunset Care Home Manager Pauline Mellor praised her team for coming up with the idea to do weekly cooking demonstrations and for keeping it fresh with new food ideas too.
“The residents look forward to it and it is great to see so much engagement from them. Food is very important to them and they love to see how it is prepared,” she said.
The team has also noticed lots of reminiscing from residents about cooking in their own kitchens in their past years.
Nostalgic notes
The cooking demonstrations trigger strong memories of big family gatherings and large amounts of food prepared.
Caregiver Kulbir Gill said that resident involvement and the variety in foods from different countries has meant the audience for their demonstrations within the care home has grown.
“Today they helped to roll out the dough and roti for us, they really like to get involved and of course to have a sample taste before we break for the full lunch,” she said.
All members of the team agreed that empty plates are the result of a dish well-liked.
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