THE ONE WHO BOUGHT THE CHURCH

a stranger to do it. From the washing of undies to the cleaning of one’s toilet, from the mending of a broken heart to insomnia or nightmares, from toenail clipping to hair removal, these days one need never turn to one’s family or friends for help in caring for one’s ailing body or soul.

In general I find this enormously liberating. Who wants to assault one’s friends with yet another round of howling over a lover’s betrayal, or the details of that (let’s face it, unpleasant) intimate medical issue? Professional help, if affordable, is a fine thing, allowing the maintenance of one’s dignity and privacy in matters of the heart or hoof.

And yet. I think of Ruby, and the freezer, and Jim, and my neighbour dissolving in tears over a baconand-egg quiche. And these incidents reinforce what I already know: food is not just food, and cooking is not just a practical act. A casserole on the doorstep can be nourishment not only to the body—which is essential—but also an act of love, a refreshment for the mind and the soul. When things are too terrible to talk about, an offering of home-cooked food is a silent, loving letter telling your broken-hearted friend or your ailing aunt that they are not alone, that someone cares, that they are loved.

There is one more incident I’ve remembered. My friend Paul, an excellent cook, was devastated to learn of the serious illness of a family friend who himself had a young family. Paul came up with the obvious way to help: he would deliver a weekly meal to the family home without fuss, without intrusion. He rang the friend’s wife to make his offer, relieved he had finally found a practical way to help. Her response was unexpected. No thank you, she said icily. She was not a charity case, his social work was not required, and he should find someone else to patronise. Paul, of course, was mortified. Not only had he not found a way to help, he had made things much, much worse.

This is a dreadful story, but it’s rare. To my mind the story only shows that the woman was in a state of such grief that she could not respond to kindness. Which brings me to realise that there is more than one gift happening when you offer a dish of food: the gracious acceptance of it is a gift in return. What my sisters did every time they took one of Ruby’s pineapple-and-Vegemite pizzas was let her know that her kindness was helping them, and it did. The food may have been inedible, but the love in it was one of the many acts of simple humanity that sustained those young women through six months of caring for a dying mother.

Just as importantly, offerings like Ruby’s taught us how to do the same (with a few adjustments!) for others. In The Gift, Lewis Hyde’s much-loved book on creativity, Hyde says: ‘Whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again, not kept ... In fact, it is better if the gift is not returned but is given instead to some new, third party. The only essential is this: the gift must always move.’

If your gift is refused, there is nothing to be done but mark it down to experience. But I can guarantee that there are many more neighbours who will be grateful for the smallest plate of home-cooked food than there are those who might lash out at the offer. Amazingly, most human beings intuitively understand—even in the depths of their despair— that the gift must always move.

So, to anyone who has ever heard of a friend in need and thought, ‘I wish there was something I could do to help,’ there is. It’s called chicken cacciatore or lamb tagine or couscous with pine nuts or soupe au pistou or beef Bourguignon or linguine al pesto. It’s also called, simply, love. n

there is more than one gift happening when you offer food

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE SOUP

Serves 6 When my friend Di’s sister died, a big pot of this green-and-white chicken noodle soup kept her going for several days. Inspired by Karen Martini’s chicken brodo recipe, I have also found it to cure many ills of body and spirit.

1.5 kg chicken wings olive oil 2 L (4 cups) chicken stock 1 bunch silverbeet, stems nely chopped, leaves cut into strips 1 leek, nely chopped 1 fennel bulb, nely chopped 5 garlic cloves, nely chopped 1 cup white cabbage, nely chopped 2 celery sticks, nely chopped 1 carrot, nely chopped ½ cup arborio rice 50 g spaghetti, broken into 5 cm pieces a handful of green beans, chopped into 2 cm lengths 2 zucchini, sliced ½ cup cauli ower, broken into small orets ½ cup frozen peas ½ bunch parsley, chopped, to serve salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Toss the wings in olive oil with lots of salt and roast until golden (about 20 minutes).

Bring the stock to the boil. Toss in chicken wings and cook on a rolling boil for another 20 minutes.

Turn o heat, remove wings from stock and leave to cool.

Meanwhile, in a heavy-based pan fry silverbeet stems, leek, fennel, garlic, cabbage, celery and carrot over high heat until it all begins to turn golden.

This is the ddly part. When wings are cool enough, pick o the meat and discard the bones and half the skin, leaving a little bowl of deliciously moist shreds of chicken.

Bring stock to the boil again, and throw in the rice, then add the pasta a few minutes later.

Add the sautéed vegetables, then the remaining vegetables.

Season well and cook until everything is tender, giving the soup a stir now and then to make sure nothing sticks.

Add the parsley and check the seasoning before serving.

SPINACH QUICHE

Serves 6

1 quantity frozen shortcrust pastry or rough pu pastry olive oil 1 bunch silverbeet, washed, stems and leaves separated and nely chopped 1 onion, nely chopped 3 tablespoons chopped bacon or pancetta (optional) 6 eggs 200 g natural yoghurt 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Line a tart shell or an tin with pastry, prick base with a fork and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Heat some oil and sauté the silverbeet stems and onion with bacon or pancetta (if using) for a few minutes until bacon is crisp and vegetables are soft.

Add silverbeet leaves and fry for a few more minutes, then leave to cool.

To blind bake, line the chilled pastry with baking paper and ll with baking beans, rice or pastry weights. Bake for 8–10 minutes.

Remove baking paper and weights. Return to the oven for a further 5–10 minutes or until light golden, then remove from oven and set aside to cool. Reduce the oven to 180°C.

In a mixing bowl, lightly whisk eggs and yoghurt together until well combined. When spinach mixture is cool, add to egg mixture and pour into blindbaked tart shell.

Bake the tart in the oven for 20–30 minutes or until the top is golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

VEGETARIAN OPTION Omit bacon.

This is an edited extract from Love and Hunger by Charlotte Wood, published by Allen & Unwin, 2012.

Sarah Hall writes about buying a public building, and how she saw the turning of the tide from community concern to community support.

Adam and Sarah share a love of history and old buildings, which has stood them in good stead during the renovation of their heritage-listed home in the old church. Gothic arches on the windows and doors are certainly striking features.

The large wallhanging, found rolled up and unloved in the back of someone’s shed, is the perfect scale and subject for the space.

At rst it was hard to buy and renovate such a public building. The deconsecrated Blue Doors Church belonged to the community: it was used for local music gigs, yoga lessons and school concerts. Everyone offered opinions about what to do with it and told us of their fond memories as children and the good times they’d had in it.

We couldn’t set foot in the front yard without unsolicited advice, curious questions about what we were doing, or running into a National Trust tour group (we’re stop number 19 on the Willunga Slate Trail.) We were scared to paint the walls and change the lighting and make it ours. The community judgment and expectation felt weighty.

But buildings need people who love them. My sister Em, who had lived in the town longer than us, gave me lots of pep talks: ‘You can do what you want. It’s yours!’ Slowly, slowly we started to add ourselves and our lives into this historic space. We started to have fun with it, and we gave ourselves permission to make mistakes. >

The old bright blue doors are now painted a subtler shade. Opposite A new mezzanine level divides the interior.

‘EVERYONE OFFERED OPINIONS ABOUT WHAT TO DO WITH IT AND TOLD US OF THEIR FOND MEMORIES’

The mezzanine level was designed by Adam. Sarah uses rugs to make room divisions in the large open living space.

In 2017 the church, named for the shade of electric blue that the gothic arch doors were painted (the colour was beloved by the town, although I had strong aversion to it), had stood empty for ages; just a building that had held various community events, the ins and outs of a small town’s needs over time. Built in 1870 without religious adornment, it had since served many purposes: prisoner of war control centre, Country Women’s Association rest rooms, Masonic Hall, then a venue for local dances and 21st birthday parties.

My husband Adam and I, my sister Emma and my brother-in-law Matt had seen it for sale. We’d gone to the open inspections—along with half the town— more for a love of history and old buildings than anything else. Adam and I made a ridiculous lowball offer because we had always wanted to live in a romantic old building and this one had the advantage of being near my sister’s house and the school our kids were already attending.

Our offer was dismissed by the agent; then the church went through several failed contracts for restaurants, cafés, wedding reception venues. Failed because the enormity of the task at hand became apparent and the sane among us walked away. We went back to life in our rented house. Six months after our mostly forgotten offer, the agent nally called us back in the middle of the dinner-bath-bed routine. ‘The vendor will accept your original offer. You have until 9 am tomorrow to decide.’ The agent’s contract with the vendor was about to expire and we were the last ones standing.

We said a hesitant but secretly excited ‘yes’ despite the fact that it had no kitchen, bedrooms, backyard. It had a gaol-cell toilet, State Heritage listing and a protective community of townsfolk who did not want to see it turn into a single family home, especially a new-to-the-town family. But man, those windows.

Feeling sheepish and unsure and not at all con dent in our ownership, a period of honouring prebooked events ensued: kids’ parties, Persian classical guitar gigs and a ‘sound bath’ in which I was blessed as the new custodian of the building. In the general store one day I heard whispers of how sad it was that Blue Doors Church was ‘closing down’; the local yoga teacher stopped her lessons for lack of a venue and everywhere my sister introduced me, I was already known as ‘the one who bought the church’.

In the meantime my drafter husband was in overdrive with mezzanine plans, my Pinterest board was full, and Em and I were in heaven planning and dreaming. Possibilities of mending and restoring with reclaimed salvage, without the size limitations of a regular house, seemed thrillingly endless. Our children ran wild in the empty space, which was perfect for scootering, rollerskating and handball.

Two years in and this is how it’s going: the mezzanine is complete and—stunningly, gloriously— two more windows have been installed at the front, for the rst time in the building’s history. They let in the north-facing sunlight, and introduced us to some of the lost trades of the town: the blacksmith and the stonemason. But more importantly, the renovation has made the church ours and, yes, it has given us a level of street cred amongst the locals. The forgemade front gates were given the tick of approval from the many unof cial town mayors.

We nally painted over those blue doors. And it’s gone from feeling like a former church hall to just our house, complete with lack of adequate heating and gaol-cell toilet. We are still working on those, >

Above Blue kitchen tiles add depth to the colour palette. Opposite A banquette seat is an ideal reading nook.

and that’s the thing with old buildings, they are a project and a commitment which some days feel like something we didn’t sign up for.

It’s now treasured and loved and marvelled at each day. We truly feel we’ve breathed life into it. A big part of yearning for an old building with a lofty ceiling and majestic windows is the ability to ignore the reality that they usually come with a barely functional tacked-on bathroom, heritage delays and rats. Oh, and in many cases, years of waiting for the money and the time for it to function like a normal house. But still, the majestic windows, the old doors, the history in every not-straight floorboard!

It was Em who emboldened me to share our house on Instagram. In truth, this is what helped me own the space: seeing others on the same path of oldbuilding love and all it entails. We love hearing all of the multigenerational local memories, and mostly how they love seeing the smoke from the chimney and the lights on every evening. n @readandhall

Internal windows in the upstairs rooms maintain the feeling of light and space while ensuring privacy.