The YamDaisy Cafe Dragon

This dragon picture describes just how I am feeling about my YamDaisy project at the moment.
The different dragons fighting, dancing, some hardly visible, but one standing out strongly!

It is a common problem, but still really hard, to have a good idea and not have the resources: health, money, networks... to get it into practice.
I am an ideas person and even on my worst days can have six impossible ideas before breakfast! But my impossible ideas have got better and better, and this one, the YamDaisy Cafe idea, is one that just should be possible.

It is the idea that could most simply and sustainably solve the most problems, and improve the most lives, of all the good ideas I have ever had.

But here I am with the worst health, the least money and the fewest resources I have ever had in my life. What to do?

My current aim is to get it into as complete an argument as I can, in as engaging a form as I can, on my website and then see if I can invite people to consider it for their community, or other endeavours, that have the YamDaisy aim of providing delicious healthy food in a sustainable way to everyone who needs it.

But even the work of sorting ideas and finding the right words and images and the right presentation style is hard work and my health has been in a down swing for a few weeks, so the project feels like my knitting, sitting patiently in my workbasket for years, waiting for me to get back to it.

While I always knew I might never get the project off the ground, my heart hadn't quite believed me. But I was giving my heart a good talking to over the last month. That is.... until the feisty black dragon jumped out again.

I only need to hear them talk on the TV or radio, or see an article in the newspaper, about worsening food statistics, the awful health of people who can't feed themselves properly, the different attempts of people to address the issue.... and that heart of mine jumps up again saying 'Listen to my idea!'

So here it is at the top of my priorities again, hoping for a health upswing to come quickly!

Cheers dragons! Keep moving! My heart believes.

 And who knows, I might even be able to do some knitting again too!


PS The dragons come from a beautiful book 'Chinese Textiles' by Verity Wilson.

YamDaisy and Children

I am still working on my presentation folder, and it is a great discipline in thinking what I need to say and show. It is also a lovely creativity, which I am cheating at as much as I can, to get it done quickly! I find illustrations to help me explain the points I want to make, and I am enjoying these pictures from the 1944 book 'Ameliaranne gives a concert' very useful!

As you may have guessed I am doing a page about children at the moment.

There will be children's meals at YamDaisy Cafes, half the price of adult ones. But no chicken nuggets and chips here! They will be child sized portions of the daily meals.

And children will have the same opportunities as adults for feedback and a level of negotiation.

And both children and adults need to know that bad behaviour in a YamDaisy Cafe is not acceptable!
Maybe we need something like this to keep people in line! (wink).

Okay, okay, I will keep that one out of my presentation folder!

YamDaisy Presentation

A couple of years ago I made a book/folio to help me explain my YamDaisy project. I am now revamping it to prepare for the next phase. So I thought I would share my work with you!
These are the first 2 pages:

YamDaisy, M, and Obesity

My correspondence with Maree has really helped me to consolidate where I am with this project. Feedback number 4 said:
You'll need to spend +++ on an accountant familiar w franchising;
Issues that spring to mind:
*Storage of ingreds (I paid $+++ on my business insurance policy) for same (and that was human-grade pet food);
*Storage of prep'd food;
* Transport of food (will need refrigerated vans or insurance will not cover you)
* Just realised that, while I can cook from home for human-grade pet food, I (we) need a commercial kitchen(s) for cooking for humans.
Just stuff for you to think about. And it's stuff I've been through.
Am no way trying to discourage you but you need to think about.
Add the (NSW) Central Coast to my area :)
M xo

This makes me so hungry to have things starting! I can't organise on my own but I need to get things moving at the level where resources and support start building.

To respond to Maree's comments, I explain that I am not able to start off the cafes myself. (I bought a tattslotto ticket last week, but unfortunately missed out on the $6 million. Such a pity! Again!).
The cafe will be set up a little like a family kitchen, and a bit like a restaurant. A cold room and other storage is important. Organising how to bring the food in will vary from place to place, and so will getting the food out. Perhaps there might be home delivery as well as eat in and take away!
Certainly health and food safety regulations will be followed conscientiously!

After two years of blogging about my idea I am more confident of how I can communicate it, more solid in the structure I have for it and really grateful of the support shown to me by so many of you out there!

In my last post I mentioned looking at completely revamping my website. Right now, the energy I would need to put into that is being rechanneled. I will update the current website and get my presentations ready. And I will do the big revamp as soon as possible.
My objective now is to get to the movers and shakers (she says confidently! Yes! I can do it!) and convince them that the time for YamDaisy cafes is now.


Look at this news item from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation!

Today's teens 'the heart attack victims of tomorrow'

By Lucy Carter

The first comprehensive national study of young Australians since 1985 found a quarter are overweight or obese. (ABC News: Giulio Saggin, filephoto)

• Audio: Survey finds one quarter of teens overweight (AM)

Health experts are warning the current generation of Australian teenagers could be the first with a decline in life expectancy and an increase in heart disease.

The first comprehensive national study of young Australians since 1985 found a quarter are overweight or obese.
Run by the Cancer Council and Heart Foundation, the study of more than 12,000 teenagers also found 85 per cent of respondents are not doing enough exercise.
The survey questioned teenagers at 237 different Australian schools about their diet and exercise habits.
"The secondary school students' poll showed that one in four were either overweight or obese, and this sets them up for chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease later on," Cancer Council CEO Professor Ian Olver said.
He says the future does not look bright for this generation.
"What we're going to see is an increasing incidence of heart disease and diabetes and cancer," he said.
Heart Foundation CEO Dr Lyn Roberts is even more dire in her predictions.
"Some of these high school students today are going to grow up to be the heart attack victims of tomorrow," she said.
"There are predictions now that this next generation of children may not live as long."

Responsibility

Professor Olver says the results show obesity is more prevalent in areas of low socioeconomic status.
"I think governments have to adopt a very broad approach to this," he said.
"At one end of the scale there is making sure that good food is both available and affordable; at the other end of the scale it's perhaps restricting advertising to children of junk food that will be harmful to them."
Dr Roberts says parents also need to take responsibility.
"This study showed that the majority of students have at least three television sets in their homes and almost half of them have a TV in their bedroom," she said.
"There's really recent research that shows that if you've got a TV in a bedroom it's associated with a risk of [being] overweight, particularly amongst males."
Teaching young people good habits at school is recommended by both organisations.
Patrick O'Reilly is the principal of Southern Cross Vocational College in Sydney, where they have incorporated the preparation of healthy meals for the students into their hospitality course.
"In our canteen we offer a cafe service before school and a canteen service in our two break times," he said.
"It really was about looking at the ingredients that have gone into the food preparation as well as sourcing good nutritional food and drink."
He says it is an option other schools should look at seriously.

YamDaisy, M, and Gluten Free

This is the third in a series of posts inspired by feedback from Maree as she read about my YamDaisy idea.

Maree wrote:
* I'd add more gluten-free /lactose free options. Such intolerances didn't exist 15-20 years ago but are all the go, these days.

(The picture above is an example of a gluten free and lactose free dish from Portugal: Pork with Pickles and Potatoes, from Tess Kiros' beautiful book 'Piri piri and Starfish')

It is very true that food intolerances and allergies are so much more common now, and the numbers are only likely to go up. The YamDaisy is 'mumfood' and needs to feed all the children.... customers!

This is the basic obligation that the YamDaisy Franchise would ask of every cafe. Everyone should be able to have suitable food for their diet, at least once a week. So anyone registered with their local cafe can explain their needs to the chef and expect that at least once a week there will be a meal they can eat.

Each YamDaisy Cafe will have its own Chef/Manager who will sort out the menu that suits the community (for more about this see here). If there is a large number of customers with particular allergies, it will affect the local menu.

Gluten free and lactose free meals will suit those people who want or need to eat them, and others may not even notice that the meal they choose is wheat free. I think it would be simple to have a wheat and/or dairy free meal on the menu every day!

Because more people are being diagnosed with such food allergies and intolerances, there will be people who would find it so useful to have their local cafe showing examples of wheat free meals, alternatives and substitutions and recipes as well! The YamDaisy chef can be a really useful resource!

Some people with coeliac disease would not be able to eat at a YamDaisy Cafe unless no wheat or other gluten grains were used in the cafe at all. They could not risk a gluten free meal from a kitchen that also uses wheat etc.
In large populations (inner Melbourne or Sydney for example) I think there would be a place for a completely gluten free YamDaisy Cafe. Locals would still find everyday, delicious, seasonal food there, and people with gluten allergies could come from the wider community to get those delicious affordable meals they need.


YamDaisy, M and Hospital Food

YamDaisy, M and Drop the Sick Bit

YamDaisy, M and Hospital Food!

This is the first of some YamDaisy posts inspired by my friend Maree who has given me a whole progression of interesting feedback about my YamDaisy idea.

I will begin where we began: with Maree stuck in hospital and disgusted with the hospital food.

(The picture above comes from an article in Sydney Morning Herald about Traction Man's blog. He is a journalist who was stuck in hospital and wrote about the horrors of the food. He has recuperated enough to be at home now, but you can find his blog here: Notes from a Hospital Bed.)

It was Traction Man's blog that made me realise the YamDaisy Cafe model could fit perfectly well into hospitals (like the Macca's in Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital but much better!).

It could be an extra, that served visitors and those staff and patients who could get down to it... But there is plenty of possibilities for a greater role than that. There could be one on every floor, or in every wing. Or maybe there could be several in the hospital, one catering to people with allergies, another catering to religious food restrictions. In some places it would be possible for a YamDaisy Cafe to supply all the meals for hospital patients. There is enough flexibility in the YamDaisy Cafe model to make it suit a whole variety of contexts!

That is why, after I had commiserated with Maree, I invited her to look at my YamDaisy Cafe Website and tell me what she thought. I asked the right person! Maree has run several food businesses, building them up and looking to Franchise them! So much so that I have several more posts to write exploring the things she raised, and then the YamDaisy Menu she has given me, that I will share with all of you.

Lovely!

YamDaisy Take Away Containers

When I first was thinking about my YamDaisy idea I wasn't thinking that takeaway would be a large part of it. But as I have looked more at the needs of those who struggle to provide themselves with delicious, nutritious fresh affordable food, I have realised that takeaway may be the biggest part of the service.

But how to avoid hundreds of disposable, wasteful, environment damaging containers?

There are some eco friendlier options ~ such as this one. But one of the features of the YamDaisy Cafe is to have local people who use it again and again and so reusable containers become an option.

My first thought was something like these:

I imagined the cafe having a big industrial washer so it could wash them as well. But what a lot of extra work! and they aren't microwavable.

There are local health laws that need to be taken into account, but I was very relieved to find that it isn't impossible for customers to bring their own containers. I kept thinking, thinking, and then I saw Ju's blog about the tupperware tapau container: The Little Teochew

How exciting. I checked out this product ~ and I must recommend watching the add on this page which is daggy to start with and even more so when dubbed into English!

The other package that I saw to impress me is the cute green one I put at the start. Here it is open so you can see how it works:

And also the laptop box shown in Mrs Q's post which is also inspiring.

I think the YamDaisy organisation (when it gets really big and there are thousands of little local cafes) will be able to work with manufacturers to design a range of suitable containers: for hot food, cold food, families (as a backpack perhaps?), so that YD customers can easily transport takeaway in a safe, practical way that is also good for the environment.

The ABC for the YamDaisy Cafe

I am beginning to think that there isn't one person who wouldn't find a YamDaisy Cafe useful sometime! But I began this list to show the times where making good meals at home can be just too hard.
I put them up on the YamDaisy Cafe facebook page, but here they are, all together. I expect you can think of more!

Mr A has been diagnosed with Diabetes, he is really confused by the diet. He would love a YamDaisy Café so that he could eat there, the chef will help him find meals he likes, and he can grab some takeaway when he needs to.

Mrs B needs a YamDaisy cafe. Her mum is in hospital, her work is busy, her sisters family is down to see the mum in hospital and two of her kids have allergies, they all need sustaining home style food!

Ms C is a single mum. Life is chaos with 2 young children and study and part time work. She needs the YamDaisy cafe for an early family tea a couple of times a week, and some takeaway available to make the day easier but still to have delicious healthy family food.

Mark D is recovering from radiation therapy and trying to get back to work. He needs the Yam Daisy cafe so he can drop in on the way home and pick up a good meal that will help him recover his health by its good nutrition and by making life so much easier.

Ms E wants a YamDaisy Cafe. She picks up a frozen packaged meal twice a week to take to her housebound neighbour, but it isn't the delicious fresh cooked food YamDaisy would provide.

Mr F is lying in hospital dispairing about hospital food and thinking what a good idea it would be for a YamDaisy Cafe to open in every hospital.

Lindy G wants a YamDaisy Cafe. She is 14 but her mum has MS so she has to do the cooking. She knows her mum needs good meals and her mum says Lindy needs good meals. They don't like the local Meals on Wheels more than once a week. They really need the YD café.

Dr H would love to recommend her diabetes patients to a YamDaisy Cafe. They could walk there and eat well: diet and exercise just like that! This week is National Diabetes week.

The I family want a once a week no cooking, no washing up delicious seasonal meal they can afford. No junk food. Bring on the YamDaisy Cafe!

Mr J looks after his kids every weekend, but he finds it hard to cook for them. He wishes there was a YamDaisy Cafe to take them to.

Sue K has been homeless for 5 months. She has just got a flat and is working hard to manage her new life. She wants a YamDaisy Cafe for good meals and to feel part of her community.

Tim L is perfectly healthy and not a bad cook, but with his new job and sports commitments he would like to get meals from YamDaisy a few times a week to make life manageable.

M is moving out of home. Her parents would be so relieved if there was a YamDaisy Cafe nearby.

N has moved to a new address and is gradually working out how to negotiate everywhere with his wheelchair. He would like a YD cafe to just make life a bit easier!

Ambulance driver O has long difficult shifts and organising meals is difficult. She wishes for YamDasiy Cafes so she can get a good meal when she needs it.

P has broken her arm. Everything is hard. O for a YamDaisy Cafe down the road!

Quentin is moving to independent living after five decades of institutions. He would like to eat at a YamDaisy Cafe every day.

Ms R is learning to cook. She finds help and inspiration and a welcome day off at the YamDaisy Cafe!

S has just begun night shift and the hours are making everything hard. He wants a YamDaisy cafe to make good meals easy while he settles in.

T has 4 children and is a great cook, but just one night a week she wants a break and regular dinner at a YamDaisy Cafe would be perfect!

Jen U is organising help for her neighbour who has had a tragedy in the family. She would love to bring them food from a YamDaisy Cafe.

V is looking for work! It takes longer and is more stressful than working full time! She would like a YamDaisy Cafe to get her meals from during this hard time!

W is looking after his elderly mother. He needs a YamDaisy Cafe to help them eat good food every day.

X burnt the rice and then dropped the casserole on the floor. She wishes a YamDaisy Cafe was there for emergencies!

Y can't cook, and has no interest to learn. But he would like to eat well on his small income. He would like a YamDaisy Cafe nearby.

Z is isolated, not exercising, and eating poorly. A walk to a YamDaisy Cafe each day, to eat good food and be with other people, would be the perfect solution.