Food to spare, food to share

Our new community cafe, aimed at utilizing surplus food as an initiative in sustainable living, is finally getting into its stride. Not quite formally open yet but preparing and serving meals to friends and supporters. Today we had five guests, as well as the volunteers, sampling the menu. Here you can see, top left, Margaret putting the finishing touches to the carrot muffins; bottom left, one of our learning-disabled youngsters serving soup on her first day's work experience; and top left, Gary's delicious potato and onion pie, made yesterday.

With three professional chefs each giving their time and expertise on consecutive days there's bound to be some conflicts of opinion when one discovers that another has done things quite the wrong way. But for me as a humble kitchen assistant sous-chef, it's an opportunity to learn some tricks of the trade. Who knew, for example, that it's better to refresh lettuce in tepid, not ice-cold, water? And that scooping the seeds out of the cucumbers gives a much better result in a salad?

It's barely a year since we took over this building as an empty shell. The fixtures and fittings, the equipment, the staffing, the training, the ethos, have all involved a massive amount of discussion, argument and compromise, in short a huge learning curve with an unknown outcome. The next hurdle we have to face will be an unannounced spot-check by the Environmental Health Officer. Since another local eatery has just been fined £6000 for breaches of the health and safety regulations that's a seriously scary prospect. Will my washing-up pass muster?

For my earlier cafe blips, in reverse order, see here.