This week Women Connect sits down with Seray Hussein, who has kindly volunteered her time to take part in the Furloughed Foodies food donation scheme during lockdown. FF has a very simple concept, volunteers can cook food for frontline workers or deliver the food to the hospitals. The cost of the food cooked is entirely covered by the funds kindly donated to the cause.
So, how did you hear about the Furloughed Foodies scheme?
Seray: I heard about Furloughed Foodies through my best friend Becky. She explained the concept and how the meals would be picked up or you deliver and I thought it would be a great idea to be involved in while I’m currently placed on furlough myself.
How many meals did you make in total? Seray: We had 30 meals to cook. So we had to think of what would be easy to cook in quite a short time frame, as the food must be cooked the same day as delivery. Also we had to take into consideration how easy things would be to reheat and portioned. 30 meals?! That sounds like a lot. How long did it take to prepare?
Seray: It took the three of us, Becky, her mum Jacqui and myself, 3 and a half hours in total to make bangers and mash with gravy and garden peas. We made everything from scratch except for the sausages which we sourced from the local butchers. Jacqui had kindly asked her local Indian takeaway to donate 30 Tupperware boxes. We also needed to make a food list of the full ingredients and label all 30 meals.
That sounds like such a rewarding way to spend your afternoon. Did the three of you then drop them off at your local hospital too? Seray: The delivery can vary. We had another FF volunteer collect the food from us and pick up 2 more food deliveries after us to take to a hospital so they had 90 meals to deliver in total.
So you can volunteer to deliver the food as well as cooking, that’s great. For those wanting to do it with friends, how did you make sure you were able to keep yourselves protected? Seray: We were wearing masks, aprons and gloves. We disinfected all surfaces and anything we were cooking with prior. We also made sure our hair was out of the way and in French plaits to avoid touching our faces and it falling into the food.
Now that lockdown is easing, which is the first restaurant you’re going to & your order? Seray: I need to restaurant hop for each meal!
For Breakfast I can’t wait to go back to Starfish loves Coffee in Palmers Green, North London.
For Lunch would definitely be a big fat pork belly roast in my favourite pub in Barnet called The Green Dragon.
Then for Dinner I would go for Turkish food at Diyar Bar & Kitchen in Green Lanes and have lamb ribs and chops with salad, rice and lots of mezze!
Interested in becoming a Furloughed Foodie too? You can register here.
Lots of love,
Women Connect x
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