MITCH’S KITCHEN: Jan Juc cook starts community mission

A JAN Juc local’s aptitude for cooking has seen him generously prepare, cook and deliver free meals to the Surf Coast’s vulnerable during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mitch Knapton whipped up a sizeable pot of spaghetti bolognese for his wife Louise and their three-year-old daughter about four weeks ago before the family realised the meal could feed more than three mouths.

“My wife started the idea. We make big batches of food to put in the freezer for us but she’d been making up big piles of mini loaf style banana breads. Instead of putting them in our freezer this time, she said ‘Oh, some people would probably love these’,” Mr Knapton said.

“She dressed up our daughter like a little fairy and called her the “Isolation Fairy” and she would go around and deliver these banana breads and a little bouquet of flowers to people, but then as things got stricter, we couldn’t take her around any more.

“I was cooking up big batches of food and I just went ‘Let’s do the same thing for some of the older people’. I did a big batch of spaghetti bolognese and that walked out the door and then I did it again the following week with bangers and mash.”

Mr Knapton said it dawned on him that many people, particularly the community’s elderly, would be going without nutritious meals as a result of COVID-19 restrictions.

He also said his personal struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and insomnia inspired him to rattle his pots and pans in the hope of keeping busy and serving the neighbours he’s come to know and love.

“We’re on a disability pension ourselves, so we know what it’s like for money to be tight at the moment. It helps me feel better, and it’s pretty daunting at the moment for a lot of people with mental illness, so it just makes you feel like you’ve been helping out.

“I just felt like it was the least we could do. There’s got to be some kind of silver lining out there.”

Each meal is made out of Mr Knapton’s kitchen, with the local fitting the bill for the ingredients he ventures out to get every Friday afternoon before he throws on his apron.

He said he had received a handful of personal donations, including assistance from Brooke Murphy of the newly established Feed Me Surf Coast group.

“People have offered to deliver meals for me, people have offered to help me cook some meals, I’ve got another friend who said she’s going to help me make up a big batch of garlic bread when we do the next batch of spaghetti bolognese,” he said.

“There’s heaps of ideas for meals and we’ll just keep it going for the foreseeable future until it all sort of plays out and everything turns back to normal.”

Mr Knapton has been sharing photos of his culinary creations to the Surf Coast Community Noticeboard on Facebook where he offers his free homemade meals for delivery every Saturday.

“It’s a really bizarre, strange time. We’re all going to be fine, everyone’s just go to learn to do what we’ve been asked to do for the time being and then once it’s all over, we’ll all be able to return to our normal lives.”