Monday Mama :: All About MamaBake!

WHEN Maddison was born some of the women from my mother’s group organised a meal roster for my family. Each day one of the mums would arrive at our house bearing a home-cooked meal to nourish and sustain us through those first hectic, fuzzy, wonderfully busy first days with a newborn.*


Along with those thoughtful meals they delivered love and support and strength. They cleaned up around the house for me; listened to my birth story, safely allowing me to de-brief from that most intense of life experiences; they held and cooed over my new precious baby girl and, really, they held me up as I made the enormous transition from mother of two, to mother of three.

I will never forget what a gift those meals, and accompanying support, were.

Seven months later I’ve hit the wall – and boy-oh-boy could I do with some of those home-cooked meals now! Tired, depleted and often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of domestic work involved in this new mother-load; some days I have felt like I was sinking. I’ve shared snippets of that here with you and I’ve also shared my way of remedying that – namely finding support and time for myself and my new attempts at learning to cook so that I don’t get to 5pm pulling my hair out trying to work out what I’m going to produce for dinner that night... I find that the killer-stress moment of my day. Basically that is where my new cooking blog, My Recipe Journal, has emerged from, the need to find support and inspiration with cooking for my family.

And on that topic, today I want to share a wonderful new discovery I’ve made – a beautiful way to reclaim some me-time, provide my family with those nourishing home-cooked meals and give myself some lovely mothering support along the way. Something you can share in too...

It’s called MamaBake.

The MamaBake idea is that a group of mothers get together and spend a few hours cooking up a big batch of meals that are then divided up among the group to take home. You then get a few nights off cooking for the family because you already have a variety of meals stocked up. Brilliant!

MamaBake has been cooked-up by a couple of mums in the Byron region and six months along now there are MamaBake groups popping up all over the region, across the country and overseas too. Mothers getting together, cooking up a feast and sharing it out to all.

I travelled up to the hills last week to attend my first MamaBake cooking day At Bec’s home, (she and her friend Michelle started up MamaBake) and it was huge fun. I cooked up the biggest batch of Moroccan-style pumpkin curry I’d ever attempted (a massive feat for me, the L-plate cook!) – and in return I came home with a range of delicious meals (curries seemed to be the theme of the cooking last week) that have kept my gang well-fed for days.

And, just like the food roster after Maddison was born, it isn’t only food that is delivered through ideas like this.

Being among other mothers who have come together specifically to support each other – that’s where the real nourishment lies. Our kids played together, there were cups of tea, yummy cakes, advice, honesty and wisdom shared up and heaps of laughs – all mixed in with the business of chopping and stirring, baking and serving up take-home meals to help us all in this important job of mothering.

A mothers’ group with a difference.

I’m looking forward to joining those MamaBake girls again on another day, and I’m already talking to a couple of friends about starting up our own group closer to home.

Maybe you might be keen to save yourself the hassle of cooking for a few nights and connect up with some mothers too? If you are, there is a MamaBake website up and running and it has a heap of good advice on how to get your own MamaBake group going. There’s no obligation either – no sign-ups or joining fees or anything like that - just freely shared information and inspiration.  You'll find it here: http://www.mamabake.com/

Some of the MamaBake groups around here meet up once a week, some once a month – it’s entirely flexible, you make it work in a way that supports you. And if you don’t know of any mums to link up with, the website also has a forum – you could send out a request to find interested mothers in your town/suburb etc. There’s a guide on how to start your own group and big-batch recipes... everything you need to get going.

I’ll finish this post with a quote written by Michelle for the MamaBake website, it really sums up what I love about the whole idea –

“MamaBake was created as part of a much bigger idea. Mothers, whether they are stay-at-home or in the workplace, perform the lion-share of domestic labour. It can be repetitive, dull and overwhelming but, as we know, it needs to be done.


MamaBake is about saying: "I am going to value and take pride in myself as a mother performing the invaluable task in raising the next generation as well as nurturing my own creative, physical and mental needs with the same priority as I give those of my children.


To do that I am going to learn to ask for help when I need it and reciprocate when other Mothers around me need it."


-http://www.mamabake.com/



I’d love to hear what you think of MamaBake, and if you start one up yourself I’d love to hear about that too. Thank you Bec and Michelle for starting this and for sharing it with all of us.

x
Megan

* If you are looking for a gift for a new mum: Cook for her! Clean for her! Make it as practical as you can. That is the best gift ever, in my opinion. And, if you are about to give birth, be open to this gift – ask for it even. I wish I had done so for my first two babies – but at least I “got with it” the third time around. It was so very nurturing – for my whole family, not just me.

PICTURE CREDITS: The photos in this post are a combination of mine, Bec's and Michelle's xo