Wealden Times | WT177 | November 2016 | Christmas Gifts supplement inside

Dinner ladies
Two women who met at the school gate now have a successful business delivering home-cooked
meals to hundreds of busy families – here they share some of their go-to dinners
After discovering they were both
keen cooks, Sydney-based mums
Sophie Gilliatt and Katherine
Westwood came up with the idea of
preparing dinners to deliver to timepoor
friends, who wanted to give good
wholesome food to their families, but just
didn’t have time to make it themselves.
What started as a garden shed
project has now grown to a fleet of
delivery trucks dropping off hundreds
of home-cooked meals every day.
Their new cook book The Dinner
Ladies shares their recipes with those of
us not on their Sydney delivery routes.
Easy to make and with broad age appeal,
all the recipes will keep for three days in
the fridge and are suitable for freezing.
“After work or the day’s chores have been
done, children or others ferried around and
the shopping quickly grabbed, we’ve often
arrived home to a pile of unsorted laundry,
unwalked dogs and scary-looking mail.
And then someone – a child, a spouse, a
housemate – will, with an air of happy
anticipation, ask us what’s for dinner…
“It’s a tough gig. We know – we live it
too, with seven children between us and a
business to run. But we still want to cook
for our loved ones and hare good times
and stories around the dinner table.
“Our solution is to cook ahead of time.
It might be at the weekend, late at night,
or in the morning when the baby’s asleep.
If you can find half an hour a couple of
times a week, you can
prepare a few dishes
and stick them in the
fridge or freezer –
then, every time you
pull out one of your
delicious, home-made
dinners you will
congratulate yourself
on your foresight and
wow everyone with
your efficiency.”
wealdentimes.co.uk
The
Dinner
Ladies by Sophie
Gilliatt and Katherine
Westwood Photography
by Ben Dearnley.
£14.99 Murdoch
Books