We had a lovely easy Wednesday cooking recently at Catching Lives, the charity where I am a volunteer, which supports homeless people in finding accommodation and getting their lives back on track.
Three out of four of the regular Wednesday cooks were there, but in addition three other lovely new volunteers turned up to help. What was special about these three was that they were what I call “self starters”. They could see what needed to be done: they tore into washing up the dishes and popping toast in the toaster for clients’ breakfasts. It was an absolute joy having them there, as we regulars were freed up to put away donations of food that had come in and get cracking on the lunch. Actually, even that was not too taxing, because pudding was already well on its way to being made.
Every so often a group of students from Jae’s old school – the Simon Langton Girls’ School – come in to cook for a couple of hours, and they had clearly been in the previous afternoon. They had made scones and biscuits, which were put out to supplement breakfast/elevenses. They had also made some banoffee pie and cup cakes, some of which were iced. I think they must have left abruptly, as they had also left behind some bananas and a tin of carmelised condensed milk. So it was a very quick job to make enough puddings to go round out of that for lunch. The un-iced cakes got a dressing of condensed milk and we quickly had about thirty plates, probably containing about a thousand calories each.
There have been times when we have not been so well endowed with helpers. Some months ago a young graduate in computer science spent a few weeks with us. On the first day we asked her to open a few tins of beans. After ten minutes of struggling, she gave up in defeat. One of us went to find out what the problem was and realised she had been trying to open the tins with the garlic press! We thought that potato peeling might be an easier job, so set her up to do that: she somehow managed to inflict several cuts to her hand with the potato peeler, which put an end to her activities in the kitchen that day.
When she returned, we thought that washing dishes might be more of a success. Washing dishes is a constant activity at Catching Lives – there is an endless supply of dirty crockery all the time. However our young volunteer could not grasp this. If asked to wash up, she would wash one plate and then sit down: she seemed to be quite comfortable watching four old age pensioners cooking, cleaning and rushing around, while she sat watching. We did wonder how she had managed to survive and feed herself as a student.
We were rather relieved when she disappeared and was not heard of again, until this week. Terry, the manager of Catching Lives, came into the kitchen to tell us that he had been asked to provide a reference to another charity for our young friend. None of us wanted to do anything to cause her difficulties, and looked at each other wondering how it could be phrased. Terry then said that one of the things he was being asked was whether she would be able to work on a one to one basis in a kitchen with vulnerable teenagers. Paula, who is a nun, said quick as a flash – “oh God no!” The rest of us fell about laughing. Terry said that that seemed to be a definitive answer. We all wish the young woman well and admire her desire to do voluntary work – but just not in a kitchen, please.
I am really looking forward to seeing how food is cooked on Kilimanjaro. It must take real skill to feed a group of about forty people – for that is how many there will be – en route on a mountain, climbing higher every day. There can be up to twelve walkers, but we will have about thirty guides, porters and cooks to support us. We cook for that kind of number at Catching Lives and find it hard work. How much more expert must these cooks on the mountain be?