Ending the Isolation: A Vision for Collaborative Hospice Kitchens

Hospice kitchens across the country are reinventing the wheel every day. Quietly. Alone. Under pressure. Each cook, each volunteer, each small team is solving the same problems in isolation, often without training, without mentorship, and without a community to lean on. 

For years, I dreamed of belonging to a hospice kitchen group, ideally a Canadian one, where we could share best practices, kitchen protocols, and recipes. Nothing existed. And I felt very isolated and alone. Now being retired from the kitchen, I have shifted my focus to advocate for hospice kitchens across Canada.  

It is hard to stay inspiring for your team and remain creative when you feel like you are working in a silo, where nobody in the other disciplines truly understands the daily performance pressure. Hospice cooking is not simply “making meals.” It is improvisation, emotional labour, clinical awareness, and artistry — all happening in real time, with no margin for error and no room for indifference. Doing that work without a community is not sustainable. It is lonely. 

But it does not have to be this way. 

Imagine a network of collaborative hospice kitchens nationwide, sharing recipes, techniques, and solutions. Imagine food styling training so cooks feel confident sending out trays that honour the person receiving them. Imagine community cooking courses that build skills and spark creativity. Imagine local restaurant chefs stepping into hospice kitchens to inspire, mentor, and remind staff that food is an art form. Imagine bringing celebrity chefs to a hospice conference? 

Imagine a YouTube platform featuring hospice cooks and volunteers from across Canada, sharing their go‑to recipes, tips, and stories. Imagine a “Cooking for the Sick” cookbook, each Canadian hospice contributing its top three recipes — part fundraiser, part legacy project, part cultural shift. 

These ideas are not frivolous. They are infrastructure. They are how you build pride, consistency, and community in a profession that is often invisible. 

Hospice kitchens are sacred spaces. They deserve investment, connection, and celebration. When we end the isolation, we refine the care. We inspire the cooks. We honour the guests. We elevate this noble work based on hospitality at its best. 

A collaborative future is not only possible — it is necessary. 

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About the Author

Compassion Cuisine is dedicated to elevating culinary care in hospice and palliative settings through training, mentorship, and support for cooks and volunteers. Founded by hospice food advocate Lisa Gautreau, the initiative draws on her decades of experience—from gourmet food and wine sales, to working with Chef Art Smith in Oprah Winfrey’s Chicago kitchen, to discovering the profound impact of food while cooking in an AIDS/HIV hospice in Montreal. Most recently, Lisa opened and led the kitchen at her hometown hospice in Moncton, N.B., before shifting her focus to teaching, advocacy, and mentorship.