Maggie Beer is telling me all about the meal she cooked on the weekend. She roasted lamb necks, with quinces and bay leaves, and a good dash of cinnamon; it's been sitting in the fridge, settling, and tonight she'll take the fat off the top and slowly bring it back to heat.
"And that will be dinner tonight," she says.
At 79, Beer is as youthful as ever. Her eyes sparkle, she laughs readily, her voice is kind, but her resolve is firm. Maggie Beer is one person you'd find it very hard to get cross with.
Which is probably what makes her the ideal person to be leading the charge in her decade-long campaign to transform food in aged-care homes.
In 2010 she was appointed Senior Australian of the Year and was asked to be the keynote speaker at an aged-care conference in Tasmania. In front of hundreds of administrators, she didn't hold back; she told them their culinary offerings were not up to scratch.
In 2014 she established the Maggie Beer Foundation, with the vision "to improve the food experience and quality of life for current and future generations of older people".
In 2023, the foundation received $5 million from the federal government's Department of Health and Aged Care to begin to improve the nutrition in almost 3000 aged-care homes across Australia.
The foundation now runs training programs for chefs and cooks in aged-care homes, offering mentorships and ongoing education. It's about to launch an initiative which will address older Australians still living at home too.
She is proud of the work her foundation has already achieved but acknowledges the situation is far from fixed.
A recent study of 21 aged-care homes in Victoria, done as part of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, found that 68 per cent of residents were malnourished or at risk of malnutrition. Beer believes that number would be standard across the whole industry. More than 200,000 Australians live in aged-care homes, and that number is set to increase by 80 per cent over the next 20 years.
She wants people to know that many of our nation's oldest, and most vulnerable, people are at risk.
Her most recent mission is just that: Maggie Beer's Big Mission. The three-part series, made in collaboration with the ABC, Screenwest and Screen Australia, follows Beer and her team as she attempts to transform the meals and dining experience at an aged-care home in Perth, Western Australia.
Over four months, they reinvigorate the menu, dining rooms, gardens and the care model with the aim of increasing the overall quality of life at the home for both the residents and the staff.
Early episodes make for hard viewing.
She arrives at the home and can't find the dining room.
"I should have asked where the dining room was ... but I should be able to smell it ... there's no scent of food," she says walking down a bleak corridor.
She sits down for lunch with Thelma, Loretta and Hazel. Thelma would like to see more Italian food on the menu. Loretta doesn't miss cooking at all but misses the flavours and spices of her Indian heritage. On the table were paper napkins and paper placemats, and a drink which Maggie thought was water but was sweet lemonade.
She couldn't eat her under-cooked fish. At least the roast potatoes were nice.
"Perhaps I wasn't as hungry as I thought," she despondently tells the women as she leaves the table.
Back home in the Barossa Valley, where she's lived since 1973, Beer reflects on the mission.
"Changes were made, but that doesn't mean I was able to change as much as I hoped for," she says.
"But I'm an optimistic, driven person and I truly believe this is just the beginning.
"It's such a complex road, and everyone working in aged care knows how complex it is, but you have to believe that beautiful food, cooked with love, will make a difference to the wellbeing of older Australians."
Food has always been an important part of her life. She wants to share her passion with as many people as she can.
"I love to walk into a kitchen where there's that aroma of food being cooked," she says.
On August 8, she'll walk into Parliament House to give a talk about the mission.
"My plan is to ruffle some feathers," she says with a laugh.
And I bet they'll be more than just pheasant feathers.
- Maggie Beer's Big Mission premieres on Tuesday July 9, at 8.30pm on ABC TV, with all episodes available to stream on ABC iview.
- Her cookbook Maggie's Recipes for Life: Over 200 delicious recipes to help reduce your chances of Alzheimer's and other lifestyle diseases (Simon and Schuster. $49.99) has also been updated to include recipes from the series.
Karen Hardy
I've covered a few things here at The Canberra Times over the years, from sport to education. But now I get to write about the fun stuff - where to eat, what to do, places to go, people to see. Let me know about your favourite things. Email: karen.hardy@canberratimes.com.au
I've covered a few things here at The Canberra Times over the years, from sport to education. But now I get to write about the fun stuff - where to eat, what to do, places to go, people to see. Let me know about your favourite things. Email: karen.hardy@canberratimes.com.au
