Flavours of Change: How Life Kitchen helped this couple rediscover the joy of food

Cookery classes set up for people living with cancer has helped the Masseys find happiness in the face of a devastating diagnosis
Karen and Nick Massey
Victoria Stewart25 September 2018

As soon as Karen Massey heard about Life Kitchen, a series of specialised cooking classes designed for people living with cancer and their families, she booked herself and her husband, Nick, into a class in London.

Life Kitchen was set up by a young food writer and stylist from Newcastle named Ryan Riley by way of a tribute to his mother Krista, who had died of small-cell lung cancer. There has been national news coverage, support from celebrities including the comedian Sue Perkins and the food writer Nigella Lawson, and cookery classes hosted by the likes of TV chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver.

“I’d grown up watching these people on TV, it was ridiculous! And yet they all supported me from day one!” says Riley, who admits his project has beaten any of his initial expectations.

The response has indeed been massive. Since starting Life Kitchen last year, Riley has held around nine sell-out classes across the country, in Dorset, Manchester, his home town Newcastle and London.

Ryan Riley with Duck & Waffle executive chef Tom Cenci
Life Kitchen

Having worked with Professor Barry Smith, a world leader in taste and the sense at the University of London, they developed an original set of recipes that had “strong, flavourful flavours and were fresh and easy to do,” including umami-rich things such as miso paste, caramelised onions and mushrooms, that could create a flavour burst, even to people who had lost their sense of taste.

For the Masseys, attending the class was transformative.

When they first met, aged 57, on an online dating platform in 2014, going out to eat and cooking together was what Karen called their “fun go-to place.”

Karen Massey at Life Kitchen

Their first date - and many further dates - took place in restaurants. Nick, meanwhile, had spent years working in the hospitality trade, rescuing failing pubs and restaurants by improving their kitchen offerings to boost business. “Basically, I was food-oriented,” he recalls.

Two years later, in early 2016, just after the pair had discussed getting married, Nick was diagnosed with a cancerous colorectal tumour; ever since their lives have been wholly unpredictable.

They did get married, but Karen - who used to be what she calls “a planner person” - says that these days, there is no point trying to control anything.

“The thing is, this is a ‘we’ thing because my cancer is terminal, and we’re together,” explains Nick. “I was diagnosed with it around April or May that year, and I was given 26 months to live, basically.”

He was promptly signed up for 12 fortnightly cycles of chemotherapy, and so began a strange and uncertain journey.

Nick Massey presenting a dish at Life Kitchen

“We don’t sweat the small stuff anymore. But what the chemo did mean was losing hair, and it also affected my skin - so I looked a bit like Donatello from the The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! And in terms of taste, it completely and immediately took it away. And that was it - food was like eating cardboard and all I could smell was the chemical. And for us, and certainly for Karen cooking, it was a complete nightmare.”

While Nick’s cancer has metasised to several sites in his liver and he is now on his 37th cycle of chemotherapy, Karen perks up their visits to the Royal Surrey hospital together by baking gin and tonic cupcakes to share with the other cancer patients there.

“There are 102 people checking in there for treatment every single day,” Nick informs me. “So there aren’t enough for everyone. But we always make friends with people in the queue because of them... Plus, we have the Three Cs (the Chemo Comedy Club), where we can laugh about all this!”

When it came to attending Life Kitchen’s cookery class at Duck and Waffle restaurant, they didn’t know what to expect.

“Normally they’d have carried out that kind of course in a commercial kitchen,” reflects Nick, “but by putting it there in a restaurant setting it felt like a huge party!”

“It was the gift of somebody paying attention to you - which really matters,” adds Karen. “We made salmon with harissa, tacos with prawns, chilli and pineapple, and tried Puy lentils with caramelised onions and mushrooms. We had fun, and since then I have made one of the dishes back at home - and I’ve been more adventurous with my cooking since then. Even just knowing about miso, caramelised onions, caramelised mushrooms, pineapple and so on, has added some great flavours to our eating.”

But it wasn’t only the flavours that made the evening special.

“Nick also began talking about his cancer on the night. That opened things up, and enabled other people to talk. People always talk about the horrible bit, but we like to talk about the fact that it’s amazing that we’re getting treated, that the NHS works, and so on. We want to normalise it and socialise it.’”

“Life Kitchen will be huge,” believes Nick. “What Ryan has done is make a good thing out of a extremely tragic situation… there is so much potential! And the thing is, if there’s one good thing that comes out of all of this i.e. if we can drive interest towards Life Kitchen by speaking about our situation, then it will all have been worth it. So we want to be as open as possible.”

Riley, however, thinks the classes have launched several conversations: “For me, after I lost my mother, about people living with cancer. And it’s opened a conversation for each other where cancer can normally be quite isolating. And then it’s also just launched a conversation that life can be fun even when your life is spiralling in a different direction.”

His work is ever-expanding. He has organised an upcoming trip to a French chateau, for which 600 people applied for just eight places. Having also submitted a book proposal revolving around recipes for people living with cancer, he is now in the middle of planning a permanent home for Life Kitchen in Sunderland.

Yet for all the positives, it is hard work - and Life Kitchen needs funds.

“Because of this I have probably earned very little [myself] this year - so the personal sacrifices [like that] have been hard, but also… I’ve really just enjoyed doing what I’m doing now. It’s also created opportunities that I didn’t have before. It’s a strange one but I’m also loving it. I’m 100% surprised [by it all],” he laughs.

As for the Masseys, their sense of fun is still intact. They have started a Galloping Gourmet WhatsApp group where they and local friends take turns to host dinners, while Karen has also begun to think more about presentation and making food look more attractive: “because it's important - we partly eat with our eyes!”

A few times during our meeting, when the conversation turns sadder, the Masseys assure me that it is important to continue talking.

“We’ve had the hard conversations. We sat down the day that we had the news and we cried. It was devastating. But we designed my stone, set everything out, and we know where we’re going with this. The positives are that, yes, I know it’s going to kill me, but I just don’t know when and we still have a life together.”

“So we may as well make it count,” adds Karen.

Life Kitchen is running classes at Duck & Waffle restaurant at the following times: Tuesday 9th Oct / Tuesday 6th Nov / Wednesday 16th Jan 2019

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