The storm over Isabella’s cupcakes

By Jade Lawton
CUPCAKES, quiches and mini-sausage rolls have caused indigestion for Casey Council.
The veteran cook Isabella Price has refused to back down after being told she was not allowed to share her treats with friends at the Berwick Senior Citizens Club.
Ms Price, 76, recently elected president of the club, baked a selection of savoury and sweet delights to share with friends at weekly meetings until she was told she was breaching council bylaws because she does not have a current food-handling certificate.
Ms Price said she ran a nursing home in England and had never had a complaint about her cooking. She slammed the decision as “a load of bollocks” and was last month sent a letter from Casey confirming she was allowed to bring food to “private functions”.
But the cupcake saga took a new twist last Monday, when Ms Price, who doesn’t drive, was driven to Casey’s Civic Centre for a meeting with council officers.
“They gave me a whole lot of blarney about the health issues, because I don’t have a food certificate, and said I could cook in the club kitchen but I needed someone to supervise me,” Ms Price said.
“I said I’m a very clean person, I cook in hygienic circumstances. Anyone can come see my kitchen and, if I can’t take my stuff in, there is going to be a lot of disappointed pensioners. Ever since I can remember it’s been an Australian tradition to take a plate when you visit friends. I told them they were destroying an Australian tradition.”
Ms Price said that some of the club’s 75 or so members were widowed or lived in aged care homes, where they did not have the facilities to cook treats for themselves.
Casey Council has previously told the Gazette that it “strongly discouraged” bringing home-made food into senior citizens centres to be shared among members because of potential health and safety risks to participants.
But Ms Price has vowed to fight the decision and, instead of bringing cupcakes for her members to next Friday’s meeting, she will come armed with a petition calling on Casey to revoke its ruling.
“I’m not going to be intimidated by them,” she said. “Cooking for friends is a right, and this is bureaucracy gone mad – they are like a lot of little Hitlers sitting behind a desk making their laws.”