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Do you ever wonder why you lick the spoon from your cake mix? Or why you instinctively try to upcycle something before throwing it away? Chances are, your mum or grandma would’ve done it.
After chatting with four of our makers about the influential women in their lives, we discovered that some of life's most powerful lessons come from the simplest of moments.
From picking flowers together and preparing family meals to devouring delicious homemade sweets, these small moments – shared with mothers and grandmothers – are the very reason these four makers do what they do today.
Picking garden flowers with Nan
Jemina Richards left her nan’s house every weekend with a bunch of garden flowers wrapped in tin foil. Little did she know, she’d be running her own florist from the age of 19.
“I often talk about how beautiful Nan's garden was [in my classes] and how she had things in her garden that people had never seen before,” Jemina says. “And I find people nod their heads because they can relate too.”
For Jemina’s Nan, her garden was “her pride and joy”; a way to express her creativity outside of her career. While she was a milliner by trade, her garden was her happy place, a space she could turn to for some much-needed me-time.
“I was always taught [in trade school] that you never put pink and red together and Nan loved pink and red together. Now pink and red is done all the time in colour palettes for flowers, [she was] ahead of her time,” Jemina recalls.
“It’s not rocket science what we [florists] do. It's not saving lives, but I do think in a lot of ways it does give a little bit of a happiness,” Jemina says.
Cooking Sunday lunch with mothers, grandmothers, aunts and sisters
Sivine Tabbouch and Karima Hazim spent most of their weekends surrounded by mothers, grandmothers, sisters and aunts. Their hands were always busy stuffing and folding vine leaves for family lunch on Sunday.
The mother-daughter duo both come from large families (Sivine is one of 15 kids), so mealtimes were beautifully chaotic. However, cooking was never a ‘must’ for the women in their lives. It just happened to be their love language.
“[Food] generates conversations and connection, and it brings people together. It’s this universal language,” Karima says.
Sivine remembers the gracefulness her own mother (Karima’s grandmother) displayed in the kitchen. She oozed confidence and relied solely on her senses, with no recipe books in sight. Karima recalls a similar experience watching her mum, Sivine, cook growing up.
“My mum never forced us into the kitchen with her… but when you see your mum's absolute happy place is the kitchen, you naturally gravitate towards that.”
Discovering Grandma’s secret passion for embroidery
Reilly Case had no clue her grandmother embroidered until she had passed. It was when cleaning out her grandmother’s home that she stumbled upon masses of hand-stitched artworks.
“My mum tells me that she would do so all the time but when the grandkids were visiting it was much more important to her to spend time with us,” Reilly says.
This sparked a deep desire in Reilly to learn how to embroider.
“I found a piece of embroidery she had started but not finished – a tablecloth with a rose pattern. She had only just begun one of the vibrant red roses. I cut out the piece and finished it, had it framed and gave it to my mum,” Reilly explains.
With a little more practice, Reilly opened her own business selling little hoops of sunshine and sharing her newfound skills with others. Embroidery became her own colourful form of meditation – and that’s when she realised, it probably was for her grandmother too.
“This was something special she kept just for her. I do my making when I want to unwind and perhaps she was the same.”
Taste-testing Mum’s mouth-watering desserts
Carli Allen could never quite understand why her mother spent hours alone in the kitchen baking. But when home-baked vanilla slice with pink icing is an after-school staple, why would you question it?
“My mum was a hobby baker, of old-school bakery desserts,” Carli says.
Despite the sweet memories of rock cakes, eclairs, fairy cupcakes and melt-in-your-mouth brownies that filled her youth, it wasn’t until Carli developed a nut allergy at 19 that she decided to give baking a go.
“I spent years playing around in the kitchen,” Carli recalls. Years of experimenting eventually turned into running her own business, Cakes By Carli (now, Bake With Carli).
While her mum never turned her passion for baking into a business, Carli finally understands why she spent all that time whisking, baking and piping desserts.
“Thinking back now, it was her way to relax and take some time out,” Carli says.
Eating desserts is still something that brings her family together. “I’m now gluten and dairy-free and my mum makes a wicked chocolate slice that I love.”
