Our catering team has been pushing to get even more members involved in our kitchen, including cooking food, serving it and cleaning up. We have recently restarted ‘short orders’ in our cafe, which is the option of toasties, on top of our usual main meal. These have been on hiatus since the pandemic, due to the need to limit how many people worked in the kitchen at one time. We decided now was the time to restart these, with members taking the lead. Short orders are only offered on the days that members are available to do the prep (chopping veg, grating cheese and making fresh coleslaw) and make the toasties during lunch service. Lots of members enjoy these tasks, even though the pressure is on with hungry customers waiting for toasties, and toasties are a welcome addition to the menu!
We have also been encouraging members to take the lead in the kitchen for making the main meal. This means planning the menu and taking charge of the dish being made and served. This is a great opportunity to develop confidence, share skills with other members, and support staff, who would struggle in the kitchen without member support and ideas. Member Jim hadn’t been in the Flourish kitchen for years, but is now a regular:
“I was asked to go into the kitchen by staff member Kelly on a Wednesday morning. I made sure I knew we had the ingredients, and another member offered to come in the kitchen to learn to cook chilli con carne. We did the prep – chopping onions, cooking mince, etc. We had to send out for Quorn mince. I used that to show the other person how to make chilli for people who are vegetarian. We found out staff member Steev’s weakness – he had a taste then he wanted it for lunch, and every time from then on when I cooked Quorn mince he was the first to try it. The other member did well, and she took everything in. To make her feel good, I told everybody she had made the vegetarian one. When people gave her compliments, she felt even better. It also made me feel good to be back in the kitchen again, and gave me a bit of confidence in myself, cause I hadn’t had the courage to be in the kitchen for a few years. I am thinking about doing a cooking course to try and get more experience. I plan to cook maybe every second Wednesday in Flourish House.”