DELANEY MES

We met Delaney at a private (lol) Coffee Pen BBQ. I feel like we are mentioning Coffee Pen 24/7 atm but truthfully a lot of things originate from that place and also Yas & Fumi are the best so whatever. If you’ve met Delaney you will know it is pretty hard to not warm to her - immediately. She appears to say exactly what she is thinking, whatever the topic and she's pretty no bullshit which is always a nice start. 

That evening we stood around an extremely smokey hibachi bonding over the commonalities dominating our existence - not sleeping and food. In moments of despair (of which there are many with small children) there is nothing more satisfying (and relieving) than finding another hysterical adult willing to cackle and commiserate at the mundane but equally thrilling tales of parenthood. Pair that with a beer and a skewer and you’ve pretty much got a friend for life. 

Delaney has been into food from a young age (mostly on the eating side of things but had a few signature dishes up her sleeve). Her first job was in a Y2K (ICONIC name) Cafe where she was honestly pretty stoked to work because she got to be around food and coffee and lunch was whatever she wanted to order off the menu. Delaney got really into food living in Wellington as a student. She worked as a waitress, her flatmate was a chef so between that and the handful of great cooks amidst her friends and family she was just like a ladyfinger, bobbing happily in the marsala, soaking it all up before taking her full form as a tiramisu. 

Fast forward and Delaney is 28. She triumphantly quits her legal job to “throw dinner parties and write about food”. After almost a decade in Wellington where she had started a food blog (RIP Heartbreak Pie), she returned to her hometown of Tāmaki Makaurau where got a column in Metro Magazine and was dabbling in pop up’s herself as a cook. It was then that her boss at the time gave her the stern word that it was time to give it a go. From then the deal was sealed and food would be her life - officially. 

With barely a business plan a chaotic time ensued, and over the next five years she ran what essentially became a rogue catering company, doing dinners in old halls and basement garages, managing weddings and doing private cheffing. This extreme over-achieving recklessness is something we can wholeheartedly relate to, it takes a special kind of person to really commit to really having all their fingers in the goddam pie. Before burnout fully took over, Delaney wrapped it up and decided to focus on writing, having nabbed a few more writing gigs and some food-focussed travel writing for the Herald. 

Having always been a very keen eater, travelling to eat and then write about it was the dream. The PR-fuelled travel junkets were fun if sometimes vapid, and adding on her own time on the trips in order to hunt out local favourites was exhilarating. Delaney hit Sri Lanka, Fiji, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan - those places alongside memorable trips to the wine caves of Victoria’s high country and a visit to the then-world's best restaurant in New York just added fuel to her fire. 

At the time influencing was becoming a thing and whilst the lavish bundles showing up on the doorstep were great for fancy olive oil supplies and cast iron frying pans, it was firmly where she didn’t want to go. Finding it increasingly hard to make a living from freelancing, despite having good gigs doing recipe creation and social media for hospo businesses (she even did a restaurant cookbook) the chance to move to Melbourne proved just what she needed. She veered into a semi-regular job marketing for a craft brewery, ran a sour beer festival, and embraced the epic farmers markets and neighbourhood wine bars. Her cooking flourished, and she learnt to love it all again to the point where she even joked about starting a wine bar off their communal laneway garden and into their backyard.

Lockdown, a baby, and a move back home to Aotearoa have seen Delaney continue to be utterly food obsessed and somehow amidst having a toddler, growing another baby and working a full-time job she makes time to talk about food on the radio and has an endless pipeline of fun food plans. 

Delaney’s Instagram is one of my favourites because it is like her, unfiltered and honest - but centric to edibles. She does document what she eats but not too selectively in the contrived algorithm way we are all too familiar with. She genuinely documents what she is eating and although sometimes that is a fancy meal out - it's also scraps of highchair porridge and fridge lunch and some insanely wholesome baked goods that someone's aunt managed to get in front of her. Delaney reminds me that food SHOULD be JOYFUL and she reminds me that even when it’s not, it can be tragic but that’s all good too? She reminds me that seasonal can be celebrated through the simple and not just another throwaway phrase to sell something.  She reminds me that other people eat their kid's weird leftovers and that other people sometimes just give their kids chips for tea too. 

What I like about Delaney’s approach to food is what I like about her, it's well just - a bit of everything. Good people make good food - and undoubtedly this sumptuous, generous and wintery feast by Delaney will be better than good.