A Different Type of Creepy, a Different Kind of Meal

Halloween has always been my favourite celebration. I even went trick or treating last year much to the amusement (or pity?) of my neighbours.

This year my Halloween has been extra special since I got to take part in throwing down an amazing feast at my work with my awesome coworkers and the participants of my weekly community kitchen in honour of all things creepy and crawly. Well maybe not the usual creepy crawlers around here (aka bed bugs, roaches and other things best left unmentioned.)


Community Kitchen: A Different Kind of Meal

Once a week I run a community kitchen and we make amazing food that we eat together around the table, family style. While community kitchens come in all shapes and forms they generally are reformist  by design. They are a form of small scale yet powerful food activism that deliberately operates in stark contrast to the prevailing soup kitchen type arrangement low-income people are expected to feed themselves with.

For my program I purchase all the food that we prepare as opposed to using donations, unless something truly amazing comes in that I would buy if my budget permitted it. I tailor the menus to fit the nutritional needs of the participants present rather than basing my meal planning on what the food bank brings for the week. The group fosters a sense of community by working together, sharing our diverse knowledge (and some laughs--usually at my expense) over the stove and the table.

The meals we make are healthy, tasty, whole, and inspired by dishes from all corners of the world. They are also budget conscious as I only have 25$ each week which typically feeds 12-15 people.

 I look forward to sharing many of our fabulous recipes in this blog.

Mega-CK-funtastic!

On the last Monday of every month with the help of my fabulous kitchen coworker Jessica,  the group opens its circle to create a meal for the whole drop-in (about 100 people!) that we serve buffet style so that we can engage with everyone in a cheerful, personalised way while giving people the rare opportunity to tell us what they would like on their plate.

We always pick a theme such as Mexican fiesta, spring bounty, or fall harvest (just to name a few). The staff dress up, we select the appropriate music to play and decorate the space. It's kind of like having a Halloween party every month, which is awesome for me and secretly my main motivation to do the theme dinners (I'm half joking). Personally I am looking forward to a space theme, though I don't know yet quite what that would entail.

Its only natural that we would really go all out for the actual All Hallows Eve! For a week we centred the activities of the drop-in around decorating the space, for example by having a hyped-up pumpkin carving contest for the members a few days prior. We even got the pumpkins from a local farm thanks to one of Lookout's outreach workers--how folk activist is that! My coworker Devon who runs a comfort-food based seniors community kitchen ( I like to say mine is west-coast fusion weird) got her group to hand roll 700 meatballs the day before, a rad contribution to the event.

Outside of the kitchen all the staff and many volunteers were abuzz with decorating, testing out creepy music, tinkering with lighting and trying to find costumes from the donations for any one interested in dressing up. In the hours leading up to the actual feast the kitchen was also in full swing working on an our Halloween themed offerings.

The menu consisted of:

1. A harvest curried squash and chickpea stew
2. Raw coconut date balls (we rolled 100 of those puppies!)
3. Brown basmati rice 
4. Garlicky meat balls which we decorated to look like eyes
5. Green salad

The turnout was fabulous and we had so much fun, despite the fact that at one point I thought I might pass out under my mask! 

Once again I was reminded of how great the people I work with are and of how fortunate I am to have a job where I am encouraged to let my creativity flow full force!

the food was NOT donated, but the costumes were!

Tin Pan Chef

What a blast!

Yesterday I had the honour to represent the Lookout Society at the Tin Pan Chef cooking competition. This is an awesome event that raises awareness about food security issues in the Downtown East Side.

The Tin Pan Chef is part of the the 9th annual Heart of the City Festival that aims to celebrate and showcase talented DTESers as well as serve as a forum for the issues many people have to deal with here on a regular basis.

Food security issues are huge in the DTES where many residents don't have proper cooking facilities, have very limited income, and rely on charity for meals as a result. Many also face challenges like HIV/AIDS, Hep C, diabetes, cancer, food allergens, mental health issues and heart problems. These health issues are in large part caused and made worse by poverty and could be avoided or at the very least managed through regular access to healthy, tasty food.

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My team mate Jordan and I competed against Anna and Andrea from the Carnegie Centre and Kevin and Marliene from VANDU (Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users). Our food was rated by three judges from the DTES Community who awarded points based on taste, presentation, and creativity.

We were given 1 hour to cook as many courses possible with items from sealed boxes donated by the Food Bank.

Here is the catch--we did not know what we were getting until the timer was set for the hour! And we only had a two hotplates and very little running water to make the magic happen, much like those many folks living in the single room occupancy hotels down here.

Tin Pan Chef aptly demonstrates the challenge of meeting nutritional needs through charity since all the food used was donated by the Food Bank, save for three dollars worth of secret ingredients. This mirrors the food situation at many local non-profits including the kitchen I work at since we purchase less than 15% of the food we serve--not a whole lot.

The secret ingredients we asked for  were cilantro, limes, chilies and ginger which are staples in my own pantry as they pack a lot of flavour and health punch! But something tells me these ingredients would be considered real luxuries down here where the majority of residents only have 26 dollars a week to feed themselves with, and this is if they are able to find housing under $375 a month--highly unlikely in Vancouver.

After ripping the boxes open with gusto and excitement we discovered an array of often donated items like canned beans, tuna, corn and tomatoes, as well as cream of mushroom soup, taco seasoning and of course Kraft dinner. We also had access to a pantry that provided staples like oil, potatoes, eggs, carrots, onions, garlic, packets of soy  and hot sauce, jam and peanut butter, as well as a loaf of bread.

The three teams turned out some pretty interesting dishes.

Team Carnegie placed third and created three dishes:

1. Mexican black bean salad with rice, corn and cilantro
2. Salmon and potato pancakes with a mushroom gravy
3. French toast with icing sugar and raspberry jam

Team Lookout (mine!) place second (by only .3) and made three dishes that were similar to the Carnegie:

1. Rice, bean, corn, tomato, cilantro salad with a lime chile corn chowder vinaigrette 
2. Food Bank pad thai
3. Egg battered peanut butter and jam sandwich

Team VANDU made two dishes and blew us all away with their creativity:

1. Tuna Sunrise: a groovy looking loaf made with Kraft dinner noodles, mushroom soup gravy, tuna, and hard boiled eggs
2. A carrot soup, which rocked considering they only had an hour to develop flavors!

I could not believe my eyes when I saw VANDU wrapping their loaf in a bunch of tinfoil to create a makeshift oven with the hotplates. Amazing. 

The atmosphere was  terrific with a super supportive audience, fabulous MCs, kind yet non-sugarcoating judges and friendliness between the teams.  Team Carnegie were even nice enough to give us some of their basil which we used to garnish our plate earning us a few points for presentation, I am sure!

Check out some more awesome video and photos of the event by AHA media

The Tin Pan Chef would not be possible without the boxes provided by the Greater Vancouver Food Bank, the hardworking crew at the Carnegie, the DTES Neighbourhood House and Diane Brown of the awesome Carnegie kitchen. Diane is kind of my hero and the author of the One Pot Cookbook, a terrific resource for people living in single room occupancy hotels who must feed themselves with Food Bank staples and hot plates every single day.

Check out Diane's website:

http://onepot.ca/wordpress/

Journey Not Destination

Welcome to Melodie Unchained!

My name is Mélodie and I am a cook, a sociologist, a holistic health nut and an avid people watcher. I am hoping to bridge all these interests here. I love what I do and so I've named this blog after one of the most interesting and endearing clients of the mental health drop in that I work at. He is quite OCD and every time I walk by he asks me "are you an unchained Melodie?" The question can get a little frustrating when it is asked for the twentieth time in less than an hour but it's one of those things that makes me chuckle on a daily basis no matter how chaotic my day happens to be at the moment—and it is often that chaos reigns!

Food is a huge part of my life: I read about food, I research food and develop recipes, I cook and I eat. I also work on healing myself and others through food. I can cure a hangover in two bites! But in all seriousness I am amazed on a daily basis how life changing a commitment to eating a whole, natural foods diet truly is. Now if only this type of diet was accessible to everyone...

As a kid I thought I would become a chef when I grew up, but I ended up studying food security programs in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) where  few people have access to even the basics of a somewhat nutritious diet, never mind organic, free range, grass fed, super food, green,
locally grown...you get the point.

The DTES is an amazingly rich place where one comes across as many inspiring people as there are sad stories. During my research I got to know awesome folks at the DTES Neighbourhood House who really opened my eyes to food justice issues, holistic nutrition, who inspired me with some of the best vegetarian food I have ever come across and who taught me how to run kick ass community kitchens. I could not have asked for a better education and like to say that I have a masters in food. 

After school I was starving to get my hands dirty in a kitchen, to do rather than write. I can honestly say that I have my dream job because I get to cook for 150 people on a daily basis and to run community kitchens where we make awesome and interesting food on a very tight budget. It is both frustrating and creatively stimulating to work within the limits of charity while trying to push these. I feel very fortunate that I get to learn and work in the DTES. Like many determined people here I have learnt to sometimes pick my battles and that success is often measured in smiles.

For me it is always about the journey, not the destination (my favourite cliché after freedom, of course). Now that I am "doing" I am stoked to start writing again! Full circle...I hope you will enjoy my recipes, my observations, and my successes and struggles both in and out of the kitchen.