Photos: Babiche Martens
Growing up as the lone sister among five siblings, it’s fair to say food writer Jane Rangiwahia never thought one of the highlights of her life would come from working with one of her little brothers.
“I think that’s why I only have one child now… I did all my parenting early,” she says as the brother in question, Paul, roars with laughter.
“She’s not wrong,” he adds. “But hey, in a world where one of the biggest issues is loneliness, we’re pretty lucky. We’re definitely never lonely!”
But the Hāwera-born siblings can now call themselves best-selling authors. Their innovative lifestyle book, Kai and Kindness, has flown off the shelves since its launch earlier this year. Combining their separate passions of food, art and promoting mental health, the pair have taken “comfort food” to a new level, after realising that kai and kindness really do go hand in hand.
The book features mental health advocate and artist Paul’s 45 mental health tips. He dubs them his “mental warrant of fitness”. They are accompanied both by his own art, as well as 45 of Jane’s recipes. The recipes have been curated especially to complement each tip.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t say they match perfectly,” tells Paul. “I mean, tip number 12 is ‘covering a poo in hundreds and thousands will only alter its appearance, it still stinks’, so what was Jane supposed to do there? A chocolate log?!
“We came up with the concept in lockdown,” he reveals. “We were missing our family dinner-table chats. I just knew that combining our passions was a nice mix, and a cool thing to do. I thought it would resonate.
“We have so much awareness about the importance of mental health in New Zealand, but we struggle with the actioning. I can’t just sit on the sidelines and not do anything about it. So, my art is my way of action.”
Paul’s passion at improving the mental health of Kiwis is personal. A decade ago, he was in a dark place when he was going through a rough time and bankruptcy.
“I’ve had my own challenges and 10 years ago, everything came to a head,” he tells. “I was really unhappy in terms of my career – I didn’t think I was achieving my potential. So I had to have a really long look in the mirror and I didn’t like who was looking back at me. I knew I wanted to change and it’s been an amazing journey since then.”
It was then that Paul, the founder of Well I Am, a mental health empowerment organisation that uses art and creativity to help people make positive change, created his 45-point mental W.O.F. The original artwork still hangs in his New Plymouth home – and he hasn’t looked back since.
“One of the biggest things I realised is that when you’re feeling down on yourself, you’re anxious, you’re depressed and you’re struggling, is that there is nothing wrong with you. Something is just happening to you. That was a big realisation for me – there was just a lot happening that I needed to figure out.”
Jane’s immensely proud of her brother and felt honoured to contribute her recipes to the book – ones she says are also fantastic for mental health.
“I haven’t made them overly complicated, so it’s an almost fail-safe!” she laughs. “One of the tips is ‘under promise and over deliver’, which I love – so for that one, it’s a platter!
“When I’m writing recipes, I always have my mum in the back of my brain. She always said a recipe would be great if she could buy all of the ingredients at the supermarket in Hāwera, so I make sure that’s the case.”
Food is the ultimate connector, the pair say, with the lack of family dinner-table time throughout the pandemic a real driver in wanting to empower others to use kai to help mental health.
“I mean, we’d never planned on working together, but the timing of everything was the key,” explains Jane. “Now I just feel so lucky I got to do this with my brother.
“It happened very naturally and our family’s really proud of it too. We’re all still so close – we love each other and get along really well.”
Whānau is still front and centre for the siblings, despite the fact their family is now spread out across the world – one of their brothers even took a box of Kai and Kindness back to Australia so he could sell them at his local pub.
“How Kiwi, eh!”
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