Sumeet has been cooking for the food delivery business for just a few months, but she already knows she's found her true calling.
"It's like stepping into my food dreams," says , who is a full-time technology salesperson by day, FoodSt wonder chef by night. "Cooking is something that I've always enjoyed, but I never had the opportunity or the platform to say, right, you love cooking, can you share that with us?"
This is a story Lorraine Gnanadickam, ex-chef and co-founder of FoodSt with her husband Sanjay Gnanadickam, hears regularly. "Our ethos is around making sure that what we do and the people we empower are benefiting from what we do," she says. "We want to make sure they are sharing and being proud of what they do. It's a compelling opportunity for them to cook without having to go and become a chef, or take on the risk to open their own café or restaurant."
Lorraine left school to become a chef and worked in the industry for years before starting FoodSt with her husband five years ago. Source: Supplied
A whiff of a good idea
FoodSt itself started when Lorraine and Sanjay were new parents. Strapped for time as only a new working parent can be, Lorraine questioned why it had to be so hard to feed her family well.
"The people on our street, which is where the name FoodSt comes from, well, the lady across the road was cooking Mexican and we could always smell the food coming in through the windows, and the idea was, well, imagine if we could tap her and say, 'could we buy some of your food?'"
How do we bring these people together?
The idea snowballed quickly when the pair realised that there were more people like their neighbour who might like to cook for others and there were plenty of families like theirs who didn't have time to cook for themselves. "How do we bring these people together?" they wondered.
Sharing food stories
However, they made that happen, from the beginning it was important to Lorraine and Sanjay that their food delivery business had culture and storytelling at its heart. This wasn't just about the food; it was about connecting, nourishing and sharing.
"I come from a multicultural family and food has always been the centrepiece of our lives," says Lorraine. With a Swiss mother and Palestinian father, by the time she married into Sanjay's South Indian family she had good food well and truly covered. Every dish FoodSt delivered needed to embrace authenticity and bring people together.
This is exactly why Sumeet loves cooking for FoodSt. She's adamant you won't taste anything like it at an Indian restaurant and that's entirely the point.
Sumeet's butter chicken is entirely made by hand and cooked just as she'd make it for her family. Source: Supplied
"This is my special dish that I want to share with everyone [and] homecooked is so much better - it's fresh tomato, fresh herbs, it's spices that I've roasted and ground to a garam masala... in terms of its freshness and the care that's taken, it's made like I would make for the family and that gives you so much joy."
Intimate family recipes cooked for many
is another FoodSt contributor who finds great joy in sharing her family recipes. "My mum is Polish... so I've grown up with my mum passing down recipes from my grandmother," she shares. "Back in Poland, they had a farm and pretty much lived on what they had. The dumplings that we make, , are from a dough that they made - with farmer's cheese and potatoes. And the farmer's cheese they used to make themselves from the cow that they had."
Natalie's husband pushed her to get the cheese and potato pierogi online. "It's great that we can now share this with other people... but the cheese that I use is extra-special," says Natalie. "I can only get this cheese in one place in Sydney, there's only one dairy that makes it and I have to drive an hour to get to the factory to get this farm cheese."
Natalie's family dish of cheese and potato pierogi. "It would blow [my grandmother's] mind that her recipe is on FoodSt," she says. Source: Supplied
It's worth the trip to to achieve the authentic taste that honours her grandparents. "There's nothing like it - it's quite sour. I've tried substitutes and even tried making my own version, but it's not the same flavour."
"Food has always been a big part of my life," says Natalie, whose grandparents migrated to Australia from Poland after the war. Source: Supplied
Authentic recipes from the heart
Lorraine would be happy to know that the cheese and potato pierogi are exactly as Natalie's grandmother made it. "Customers love FoodSt because they know that when they're eating Indian curry, that curry is cooked authentically. It's not homogenised."
This wasn't just about the food; it was about connecting, nourishing and sharing.
The unofficial FoodSt rule is that the cooks need to make their dishes exactly as they'd cook it for their family. If they dull the chilli down or second-guess what broader tastes will like, Lorraine is quick to put them back on track.
"Don't change it, we want cooking from your heart," she says. "It tells stories about your culture and the history of that culture and we're able to get those beautiful stories into the homes of customers and customers love that."
Grandma Inez goes large
Tina's is one such family story, loaded with decades of delight and community. migrated from Southern USA around five years ago, lured over when her first grandchild was born in Australia. On FoodSt she shares her grandmother's recipe for .
"That's what we eat after church on Sundays when we get together for a takeaway or a cookout," reminisces Tina. "After church, everyone would go to my grandmother's house for after-church dinner, and we'd sit down at the table and she'd fry the chicken and we'd all be waiting for it to cook, smelling this aroma coming from the kitchen and we just couldn't wait for this chicken to get finished!"
Every Sunday at church gatherings, there would be fried chicken. "You've gotta have the chicken," says Tina. Source: Supplied
It still amazes Tina that her grandmother Inez's recipe is loved by so many people, a world away from where Inez first cooked it. "My husband will say to me, 'boy, Grandma Inez never knew that her recipes would be given out and cooked for people in Australia. She could never imagine that.' And I say, 'no, she could not.'"
Tina was a caterer before cooking with FoodSt and says that sharing food is always the best part of her day. Source: Supplied
Sharing history as well as food
Natalie also finds great satisfaction in sharing her family's cooking traditions through FoodSt. "I think it's great that I can share with everyone a bit of my history and it's something really special to me," she says.
The element of family is strong for Sumeet as well. She cooks recipes inspired by her father and grandfather (who she says was a "wild cook, ahead of his time") and it was her 15-year-old twins who encouraged her to join FoodSt. "I've obviously cooked for them their whole lives and they've always said to me, Mum you need to do this as a business. So when I started doing this with FoodSt they were super-excited. They think it's fantastic because they can see the joy I have in cooking and following my dreams."
Sumeet, Natalie and Tina are just three of the scores of stories on FoodSt, each one as unique and compelling as the next. Sharing this food history is one of the many reasons why Lorraine and Sanjay have found such great satisfaction since starting FoodSt all those years ago.
Sumeet is thrilled to be able to follow a lifelong dream to cook commercially for others. "Deep conversations about food are what I know," she says. Source: Supplied
"It's more than just a food service," says Lorraine. "FoodSt is about connecting people and their cultures and the stories behind their food."
