‘It’s about community and resilience’: Dennise’s story
Community, togetherness, and resilience: for Dennise, this is what kai appreciation is all about.
Dennise loves fresh, locally-grown food that is good for people and the planet. There’s no two ways about this. She’s always grown her own, whether in the Hawke’s Bay where she lives, or in Chile where she’s from. She gets a lot of satisfaction out of cooking from fresh ingredients from her garden, making the most of every edible part, and experimenting with new recipes. (Her ‘leftover veggies’ burger patty recipe is below - highly recommended!).
Dennise with her homegrown produce. Photo: supplied
But it gets better than this. For Dennise, it’s all about community. She talks about making the most of every bite as a way to ‘nourish body and soul’.
In Chile, Dennise started on her food waste prevention journey right before Covid. With some neighbors, she started a group of enthusiast home growers as a way to build relationships with like-hearted people and share knowledge. Maybe share vegetables too, sometimes?
Dennise makes a stock regularly, to use up offcuts and create a base for soup.
Being part of Every Bite, which she took part in with Sustainable Hawke’s Bay, is yet another community for Dennise to feel a strong sense of belonging to. “It’s a new group, but with the same feelings about food,” she says. They share values, they share knowledge, and they share their own progress with one another. Not only does she have a few more tricks up her sleeve now, but she’s noticed that the programme has reignited her curiosity for food systems, and she’s doing more reading than ever before to grow her knowledge and understanding of the issues.
Another really important community for Dennise is the children she cares for every day at Montessori 3-6, the Napier preschool where she works. She brings her homemade lunches to work, and loves talking to the children about them: where the food comes from, how she prepared the lunch, why it’s so tasty, etc. She’s also actively involved in the beautiful veggie garden of the preschool - a great way for little hands to get dirty and little minds to be amazed. They even make their own fertilizer with banana skin!
It is clear that Dennise takes a lot of pride in spreading the word of sustainable eating and sustainable lifestyle as part of her passion for early childhood education. And she doesn’t stop there. She loves encouraging teachers, friends and neighbors to take little steps and make a difference to people and the planet!
According to Dennise, food appreciation is about “taking baby steps, and taking them as a circle of people”. This is what community is about. Togetherness, appreciation, and resilience.
Gardening with the next generation. Photo: supplie
Dennise’s ‘Leftover Veggies’ burger patties
Leftover vegetables
Tin of tuna
Coriander (or other herbs/seasonings)
1 egg
Flour to bind - add until mixture is a good texture to be shaped into patties
“I chopped and fried the vegetables that were still edible. Then I mixed everything with a tin of tuna, coriander, egg, and a little flour, and ended up with some delicious vegetable and tuna burgers to make sandwiches for several days.”