Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I do give my chef the weekend off

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

In this special in partnership with The National Lottery, Jane visited ‘Cook For Good’, the Islington based community kitchen and food pantry.Whilst there, Jane sat down with co-founder Karen, and benefactor Amel, and talked about the ‘Cook For Good’ story, the need for services like these, the power of food to bring communities together, and the impact The National Lottery have had on this east-London charity.And since 2021, Cook for Good has received more than £18,000 in funding from National Lottery Players. Our big thanks to Karen and Robienne for a lovely morning!If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to a very unusual, but I hope you find it very interesting, edition of Off Air. Today, Fi, I've been out and about, and you know I don't do that very often because of the temperature, because I'm risk-averse, because I'm also bone idle. But honestly, this was really worth doing. Ask me where I went. Where did you go? I went, by the way, in an episode made possible by the National Lottery to a really cracking project, not very far away from King's Cross Station in North London,

called Cook for Good. And if I'm honest with you, I went with, I don't know, what were my expectations? I actually thought, oh, I'm being very worthy here, but am I going to get much out of this? But you know what? I left feeling a million times better. It was just a really good, life-enhancing idea that was quite evidently making a difference to a lot of lives. So what does Cook for Good actually do? Well Cook for Good is a national lottery funded social enterprise and also a cookery school that's the

important bit. It raises money for the local community via team building days and this is where groups of people from a workplace in fact we could do it actually our team from Times Radio could go along and do it. They go into the kitchen and they make these really tasty, nutritious meals as a kind of bonding exercise. And then the meals, because they're really good, are delivered to local residents, to shelters or to charities in the King's Cross area. Now, since 2021, Cook for Good has received more than £18,000 in funding from national lottery players. And when I was at Cook for Good, I talked to Karen Matteson, MBE, a woman who describes herself as a serial entrepreneur. She has spent the last couple of years building a social enterprise that's since become a really important resource for the community around

Islington's Priory Green estate. And actually, when I spotted Karen in the reception at Cook for Good, Fi, I realised immediately that I'd met her before. And thank goodness I did remember it, because she is right. She is a serial entrepreneur. She has done loads of good stuff in the past. And you'll never guess which city in the northwest of England she's from. I should think it's probably Manchester. No, it's not.

It's Liverpool. Oh, my ears hurt. Let me tell you a little bit more about Cook for Good. It offers free and low-cost cooking classes, community meals, and on top of that, the Cook for Good pantry. And that's the bit that offers an easy, low-cost way to top up a weekly shop. So members pay just £3.50 each week to choose a basket of food worth actually between £30 and £35.

Yeah, and I was looking at the food and you'll hear it described during the course of the conversations you're about to hear. There are some really good items on offer here. And I think it's also, well, as you'll probably hear in the interviews, worth pointing out that they don't include items in that collection of things you're allowed to take, like sanitary towels or tampons or baby milk. If that's available, you can just take it if it's something that you actually need and one of the people I talked to is a lady called Amel who came to the UK from Algeria and now works as a carer in and around London now she was originally a volunteer at Cook for Good and now she's been trained by them to work front and back house at

events with Karen while preparing as well an amazing array of food. And when you hear her describe the impact that Cook for Good has had on her, you'll understand why it is a cause well worth supporting. Shall we join you in situ? Why don't we venture all the way from shimmering Times Towers to Cook for Good on what was a very chilly day near King's Cross station. Karen, we've met before haven't we? We have met before. Because you are a self-confessed serial doer of stuff and here you are again doing more, I have to say great stuff. Thank thank you we're at Cook for Good in Islington

and just very briefly just describe this building because this is um well it's called the old laundry and you don't have to be a brain box to work out why yes it was the old laundry of this estate before before we lived here or occupied it this amazing round building was where people came to do their laundry which is why it's called the old laundry. But over the last couple of years, we've repurposed it. It was an abandoned building and we're now using it for our Cook for Good pantry, which we open every Thursday and set up today, which is Wednesday. How big is the estate? I mean, how many people live here? There are about 280 families who are living on the estate but we also serve families on other local estates as well and it's a mix of ages a mix of a mix of people oh completely so we have people are probably our

oldest members are in their 90s and they will come on a Thursday morning to shop here and some of them will come and cook with us as well over in the kitchen. And then we have, especially in our afternoons, we have a lot of families with very young children who come as well. Now, why did you decide on Cook for Good? I think I've always believed in the power of food and cooking to bring people together. And I think when you come together around food and cooking, you can do other very impactful things and great relationships are born.

And I met with Robin who's the co-founder of Cook for Good and she had a background in food and mine was more in social enterprise and supporting people back into work so we had an idea of working in a place base like a social housing estate like where we are now and having our own community kitchen and a surplus food pantry which would be a real focus for people on the estate who may want to improve their lives in one way or another. Because they can not just meet people here and not just get food, they can acquire skills as well.

Yeah, exactly. So I would say food is the way in, and that's why people join us, because they can come and do their surplus food shopping on a Thursday, and they come as members. You can see in the space we are now we're unpacking our delivery now which is for tomorrow but once they're in it's the connectivity and all the wraparound services that they stay for. So they'll have tea and coffee, they'll have pastries that we get donated from local businesses, they will stay for some soup and bread, they will meet friends, they are really reducing byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweithgaredd, byddant yn gwneud gweith where they'll do every job that we have, and that's a really good stepping stone back into work. And then those who really kind of graduate from that may go on our employment programmes like our hospitality,

like getting our Cook for Good Brigade, essentially, is a six-month programme training people to work in front-of-house, back-of-house hospitality roles. And they're already working for us now, our graduates of the first cohort. Oh, fantastic. So they've actually gone out there and got jobs.

Yeah. Do they pop back and see you? No, they come and work for us on our are graduates of the first cohort. Oh, fantastic. So they've actually gone out there and got jobs. Yeah. Yeah. Do they pop back and see you? No, they come and work for us on our events as well. Yeah. And, you know, some of them are working, some of them are setting up their own businesses. Just taking a step or two back, how hard is it for some people to just come for the first time?

Just make that cross the threshold, knock on the door and come in? For a lot of people, they were sort of watching us a while. We'd. For a lot of people they were sort of watching us a while. We'd been here a few months and they were sort of watching us. Some people watching us from their flats thinking what's going on. Making that first step can be really difficult. I think what's helped them is seeing that the volunteers are people they recognise from the estate. So you're not allowed to volunteer here unless you live on the estate? Unless you're a member and you're local. So you've got to be connected.

You've got to be connected. And we're joined now by Amel, who is one of the people who, well, you work here now, don't you? At Cook for Good. And I was talking earlier about what it's like to come here for the first time. Were you nervous before you came? Very nervous. I used to be working always in the kitchen i used to tell them leave me in the kitchen and i will do everything i am quite social person but i

like to be in the back i like just um i used to tell them um i like just to talk into the dishes rather than people but by the time i was more confident, I gained a lot of skills. So I started talking to customers. I started being like knowing everyone doing the cashier job. I was trained in multiple places in the pantry and then did the brigade. It was the first cohort. It was for six months. We learned to cook in bulk. We did food and hygiene. And then we did training as a KP, kitchen porter, training for a front of house, how to serve customers, how to welcome. And then I started doing casual work, paid casual work with the kitchen. And how has it helped you with your home life? Because I know that you're a carer.

And how has it helped you with your home life? Because I know that you're a carer. Yes, it helped me a lot as I am a full-time carer for my husband. He's disabled. He suffers for years now and my son has got ADHD. So I didn't have time where I could work and keep my work. I used to be a TA, but I didn't do it for long as it's like time that's working in schools yes yeah I couldn't keep up because every time I had problems with school calling kids are sick this opportunity gave me time first to gain my confidence be part of the society and then work when I can work like the hours that I can work, I would say yes. When I can't, I just decline the work. So what is the best thing about spending time here?

Having fun. We're not having like just, yeah, when we gather as volunteers, we talk about everything. We are as a part of family. All this, when you see the pantry, the layout, everything is volunteer suggestions. So it's not just them suggesting things but us we used to have like a monthly volunteer team where we talk about what we feel about what do we think about good okay and do you think that you'll keep on coming for a long time keep on spending time here i love it like sometimes

if i even if i'm not well, I will always do something. Karen, Amel couldn't really be any more positive. But do you remember the first time Amel came and what she was like then? Yeah, I think she was definitely more shy then. And it's just been amazing to watch her blossom. Do you mind me talking about you? The third person. At least she's here.

She is here. I feel like it's been amazing to watch Amel blossom because she's got a lot on in her own life a lot of responsibility a lot of things that could burden someone to not do things but actually she's incredibly positive and can do she's also very very skilled and an amazing cook we've loved tasting her food but really she's done every single job that there is here. And then, as she said, she's taken the opportunity of going on a hospitality training course. She's now working for us on events. And I know that Robin, who's my co-founder, who you'll meet in the kitchen,

just knows that Amel is one of those people who's a safe pair of hands. If she's there, she can be front of house, back of house. She can just do the job. And that's amazing. What is your favorite thing to do, Amel? If you had a choice, what would be the job you'd pick? Cooking. Always cooking.

Yes. Yeah. Is there an Algerian dish or just a dish you've learnt here that even someone like me could do? Because I'm not really a writer. I actually did a demo, Algerian food demo, and I tried to choose something very easy for even a kid. Even me, just saying? Yes.

That's all right. Even you can do it. I did three course meal, like a sorbafrique with burek, Algerian burek. What's that? It's like spring rolls, but it's usually made with tuna or minced meat. Right. Gathered with potato. And then I taught them how to do it, how to wrap it, how to cook it. And a dessert as well.

I made a cup, a mug used from home, how to do like just easy recipe and have a nice dessert for tea. Okay, that sounds very, very tasty. I'm almost sure I could do it. I can't be completely certain. And honestly, I can tell just how much this place means to you. Yeah. It's been very important, hasn't it?

It does, yeah. It is like, as I said, it's like a family. If I don't come, I have to do something. But Amel is a brilliant example. Are there people who come for a while and then move on because their life changes? Yeah. Perhaps because you've changed their life. Yes, and I think we almost have an informal contract of six months with our volunteers.

So then we'll have that touch point with them and say, OK, well, obviously you can carry on if you want to, or would you like to progress to this? Would you like us to help you find some work? A lot of people have stayed and maybe just do it once a month now. And some people just like to come every week now soup is really significant here i i'm actually a bit of a i do love making soup myself my kids don't always appreciate my efforts but i did there's something there's something very lovely about being in your own kitchen if you're lucky enough to have one with all the bits of

space you need in the equipment and just conjuring something tasty out of ingredients that don't always look too promising 100 agree at cook for good we are completely obsessed by soup it's been a growing obsession so um but i agree i think there's something so comforting about a bowl of soup a mug of soup it's such a great way to show you care about somebody and at the beginning we would make soup with leftover vegetables that even you know our shoppers rejected and then we they would resurface the following week and we'd give to the volunteers or we would come up with different recipes and now it's become an integral part of what we do here so

people come in and they have their tea and coffee and then at about 10 30 we then serve the soups of the week now those soups might have been made by a team of our corporate team building. But also we have soup that our community cooks make. And they will, like Amel and others will make soup in the kitchen and then go to local businesses and they'll do a service over lunchtime. So we're constantly inverting who's cooking the soup for who. And planning a book of soups and stories that's going to come next year sounds like a good money-making idea we think so yeah i'm sure it will make sure i'll make sure i buy a copy and is that the soup today is that is actually

last week's soup but you're going to taste this week's soup we always have a choice because we think the theme of choice so we're doing an aromatic lentil and one of our pantry favorites cauliflower cheese soup. I'm glad it's not borscht because my former mother-in-law made me that after I gave birth once. And it was the repercussions were deeply unpleasant. No, you wouldn't. No, no borscht. No, no.

I mean, she meant well. She's Croatian, I should say. Happy memories. OK. Right, Karen, here we are so Cook for Good your community pantry and the first thing I see on my left is is your store cupboard you've got lots of lots of tins and packets in there so today's Wednesday so it's our setup day and tomorrow we open to our members but today we've had a couple of well we've had the first of our two deliveries. So we're setting up, stacking the shelves ready for tomorrow.

And this is the area where Pauline's sitting here. This is the reception area. So where members will come in, they'll give us their membership card. They'll pay their £3.50, which is what they pay to use the pantry on a Thursday. And for £3.50 you get? So for £3.50 you can see on the wall how it works. So you can choose 10 different items and that's different every week

because we don't know what we're going to get on a Wednesday. Oh, of course. So we will decide on Wednesday night how we price the items. So if we have lots of bananas, you might get 10 bananas and that can be one choice. Yeah. If we have loads of cauliflowers, you might get two ca and that can be one choice yeah if we have loads of cauliflowers you might get two cauliflowers for a choice yeah a bag of pasta might be one choice

there are high value items that we don't get often like oil that will will be one choice and then there are also items that we for sanitary products we don't count as a choice you can take those once a month so you've got um you've got baby milk and what else have you got over there you've got sanitary towels nappies baby milk yeah okay um and do i mean i'll ask you the question do some people take the go too far uh no because we're and also the way they're respectful they respect it sometimes you can choose it slightly wrongly but what happens is after you've done your shop, you pay your £3.50, you get a black basket like this, you go round, and we have volunteers at every stage of the process who are all residents on our estate.

At the end, you come here and you get it bagged up by a volunteer who will help you count, so if you've gone over or under. Sometimes some of our older members will say, I don't need 10 items, give it to somebody else. So if they live on their own, they may just not need much. And just out of interest, cooking oil, I must admit, or vegetable oil, I'd never, you know, occasionally, not every time, but I do give to the food bank at my supermarket.

Should I actually focus on giving oil? Because I've never done that before. Well, that's the sort of thing that doesn't go off. So it's very rarely in the surplus food chain so anything that doesn't go off quickly you should it's very high value item yeah yeah because you clearly would like more oil yeah all right and here is there are the tampons and the sanitary towels and the baby milk I mean baby milk is incredibly expensive yeah yeah I've never quite understood why it is so expensive, but it is really expensive.

Yeah, it's a high value item. Dog food is another one. Dog food, we hardly ever get, but in terms of cost of living and people who've got dogs, I just know what I spend on my dog every month. It's a lot of money. No, they are expensive, but good to have one. Says the woman who's only got a cat. Anyway, I say only and I mean only.

I think one of the things that we do so brilliantly is give people an incredibly warm welcome. And remember back in the day, somebody would help you with your shopping. We do that. We help our older members. There's no self-checkout here. No self-checkout here. Somebody will be sitting at the end of your shop, counting your items, chatting to you. But there's a chance to interact with people at every single point. It's also just worth saying, actually actually this is literally a warm place.

It is warm in here. It's blooming freezing out there today. You also put a scented candle on for me which I'm very grateful for. I thought it was for me but you've given me the official explanation. It masks the smell of bananas that are slightly on the turn. Right, thanks very much. And it's for you Jane. And it was for me, yeah yeah you got there in the end okay

thank you obviously people are going to be thinking well this all sounds fabulous but how do you pay for everything else and the fact that you've got the heating on for example and it's so cozy yes so um the food is donated by felix project and food bank aid who both give to different food banks and food pantries but the kind of model is sustained by the work that we do over the kitchen. I suppose that's where we're social enterprise, not just a charity, where we can earn our own revenue, where we do corporate team building events. So instead of maybe taking your team on a bino to Paris and sipping champagne, we've got corporate teams that come in and have a kind of master chef style experience they'll cook 200 meals for a local food bank or charity and the revenue that

we get from that we then use to do community cooking classes cooking on a budget cooking for diabetes our older men's grub club where we have a whole group of yes I like the idea the older men's grub club is this a a way of making men interact with each other and making them talk without letting them know quite what's going on? And cook. And cook, yeah. I think what we noticed was that even though men and women were shopping here on a Thursday, the men tended to shop and go and they didn't stay.

And so what we wanted to do was something that was almost just for men who maybe were living on their own or needing to cook for the first time, who maybe didn't want to sort of stay and sit and have coffee with everybody. So the average age is probably about 80. They come, they've selected the menus, they come to our kitchen, they work with a professional chef, they'll cook. Like the one I went to last time, they did burgers, wedges and a really nice coleslaw. Then they sit around and eat it together with us and the chef.

They chat. They've really made friends with each other. And then they take a Tupperware home so they've got another meal for the week as well. What we've noticed is that the men who've been on the Grub Club are now coming and shopping in the pantry and they're staying. And they come to our community meals that we host over in the hall on the other side of the estate so it's been a way of men feeling that connection that I think they didn't naturally have at the beginning when you talk about it you're honestly your face lights up doesn't it well no it really doesn't there's an energy about you I mean do you you really can tell I think that this has made a difference like I wouldn't miss a Thursday coming to the pantry, even though a lot of my job is going and doing other development and running the organisation.

You can see the journey that people are going on here and people may be starting, like one of our volunteers who really hadn't been out for 10 years since a bereavement that she'd had. She's probably in her 80s. She started volunteering. There's a limited amount that she can do, but it's become like a family for her.

She gets a warm welcome. She's like a different person, and I think we've seen that time and again. And for me, the joy of this place is to watch the proper impact that it's had on people. You can touch and feel, and that's something way beyond the kind of numbers that you report on. And the funding you receive from the National Lottery, how significant has that been for you?

It sort of got us on the map really because we're really lucky that when we set up and it was, we were just an idea, we knew that the most important thing was that we had to do really meaningful outreach with the community and so the funding that we got from the National Lottery enabled us to employ Martha who's our community coordinator and she's an absolute linchpin of all the work that we're doing here and I think that got us on the map. And you've just received I think another another load of National Lottery funding. We have we've just absolutely thrilled last week that we heard that we'd got a grant for this year. And it's been an incredibly tough year for all food projects.

So it makes an enormous difference to us in what's going to be a tough winter. Martha, you're the, well you just better explain what your official title here is. Okay, so I'm the community coordinator here at Cook for Good. So for me, my key role here is to engage with the community sort of try to really identify help in areas that we can help them introduce them to this amazing pantry so they'll initially come to me we'll get them registered you know try to get a little bit of background what their story is and get them registered where they'll be able to registered, they'll get a lovely membership card, then explain the process of the pantry.

They'll be able to come, and for £3.50 they can take up to £24, sometimes even £30 worth of shopping. Do you mind if I just ask you a few more questions about the economics of it, if you like? You say you apply. How do you qualify? For us here at Cook for Good, it's very much about bringing the community together. We're helping people with food, but we're helping people out of isolation as well. So for us, the processes, the criteria,

first and foremost, is that they have to live on the primary green estate. So obviously they live on the primary grass. We are not means tested. But for me, I do go through certain questions where I really identify where they are at this moment. And just to give you an example, it could be somebody that has just suddenly out of the blue, they've lost their job, they've got a family. Which could happen to so many of us.

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, and it could be that or even if it just could be that, you know, the hours have been cut back. They've really, you know, struggling now to pay utilities, to pay their rents. So for me, it's about really getting a good grip of what their background is, where they are now, and putting a plan together with them on how we can help them in order to move forward. So this is, it's like a one-stop shop for many, many needs, actually. Absolutely. You know, when people do hit that time where they've become vulnerable, they're in a place where they haven't been before, it's a very lonely place to be in. Even if you do have people around you, sometimes you're too scared to even say what is going on with your life. And I think what they have found here, our members have found here, is not only dignity,

because when they come, they shop. They go to their local shop, you know, and buy what they need. They have the choice. What they have here is trust. So they're able to actually talk to me. They're able to talk to somebody. And just even they could go come in, you know, feeling a little bit down, leaving with a smile. Come in not knowing what to do, leaving with a direction where they're able to go and get

some help and support. You know, coming back to us and saying, wow, thanks for that. That really has helped. I've lived on this estate. I have been through many challenges in my own life. You know, many of our volunteers have as well. So they're really able to challenges in my own life and you know many of our volunteers have as well so they're really able to engage with us and they're you know it's okay not to be okay and that's the message that we give here we are one and we all go through our ups and downs and it's okay it's actually okay for that to happen yeah i mean the great thing that comes across is that there's no judgment but absolutely there is a sense of community yes and somebody

will have a smile on their face when you walk in always yeah so it's so important it really it really is and you know just to give an example of one of our members you know that came she was very very nervous you know she's very well qualified teacher she fantastic job you know standard of living were great for the first time in her life she really hit rock bottom due to ill health she was so nervous she was literally starving where she did not want to go into a food bank because for her to go into oh my god that that just wouldn't just wouldn't happen i remember her standing outside and she was so nervous coming this look it's okay just come in just have a choice you know The minute that she saw that she was able to choose, she was given a shopping basket. We asked her for a fee.

She was shown what to do. We had a chat. She had a coffee followed by a soup. She just gave me a big hug and she just said, I just can't believe that you are here. And she said, I'm so blessed. And she's been coming ever since. She's on the road to a better place herself at the moment and we're helping her through that process and that is yeah it's amazing magic

okay right hello this is my co-founder robin hello robin i'm jane nice to meet you hello can i ask if i'm just to wash hands before we start in here? Do you mind? Thank you. I'm very tough on my hygiene here. I know, it's very sensible. Karen wants to give you the credit for setting up the kitchen, is that fair? Oh yes, and she should. And she should, okay. Well, she has, in all fairness.

She has things that keep her up in the night and I have things that keep me up in the night. This is a much bigger space than I was imagining it. And it looks to me, high techness no wonder you've got corporate corporate courses going on yes yes it is high tech we set it up so i hope we got the balance right everyone says that we do between a teaching kitchen that's warm and welcoming for our community and a production kitchen that's intimidating and scary for our corporate clients it is quite intimidating i'm glad because it's all this metallic and yes there's lots of equipment yes some very sharp knives i mean you mean business in the nicest way we totally do i mean this is a proper kitchen

we've had professional catering companies hiring this from us on occasion our partners only though we don't just sort of open the doors to anybody. But no, this is a fully fledged, we could put a thousand meals out a day here. Really? Yeah, but our focus isn't to do that. It's about the quality of bringing people together through food and cooking. So it's about depth and just really making people connect in that way. And you can't do that when you're just sort of churning out meals. Now, I know at the corporate, the courses that you run for organizations and companies are very important and bring in money.

I know at the corporate, the courses that you run for organizations and companies are very important and bring in money. But just be honest. I mean, have you ever had someone in here who was so inept that you could not believe it? Multiple times. Yes. We give them prizes to make them feel better at the end. How bad are they? Some of them.

Oh, my goodness. I mean, we had somebody who didn't know what a rolling pin was. And there was no language barrier. There was just... Was it a man? It actually wasn't in fairness no I think she had a private chef at home it was one of these very sort of important big corporates organizations and I do think she had a private chef actually that's probably what it was but we had we did some instruction I remember on some chicken where we were going to put some parchment over you know like a cartouche and the there was a chef at home yeah yeah but your chef exactly and the

instruction we forgot to put you know scrunch it up in a ball wet the paper a little bit and then spread it out over the chicken because you know tuck it in and then cook it so we obviously in error left out the spread it out bit and we had four identical trays of chicken with a rolled up piece of greaseproof paper just sitting on the top of it serving like a tennis ball none let's say we've got a course on the go here and they do three three courses of a meal do they give me an example of something that you you would do with that sort of group well i mean we rotate our theme so that the community that we're serving the food to gets different things every time

because it's often the same people so that there's a rotation. To be clear, the food made here by these courses is then given over? The corporate courses, yes. And we're looking to some of our more advanced community teams now also maybe to do some production as part of that. But yeah, the outputs of the corporate events,

obviously the food that they make for themselves, but for others others which are in the multiples of what they're making for themselves and also all the profits obviously that they invest with us goes directly to supporting our community program i shouted them a bit and then action starts to happen i was going to ask are you one of those temperamental ask karen uh i do it with love let's put it that way you still do it don't you yeah when things are when we. But you still do it, don't you? Yeah, when we've got a community to feed and people are faffing about, they're going to get directed

in the nicest possible way with love. Yeah, I'm just really glad I haven't been on the receiving end of that. And I mean that nicely. Generally, mostly I do not have to do that. The corporate clients who come in here are so motivated. They're coming in here with as much heart to give as we have. So actually some of them have exceeded

expectations. They've delivered far faster. There's no faffing about, I mean, I'm sort of just telling you the funny bits, but people are incredibly task oriented and what they leave with is knowing that if they, as a team, focus on a common goal and just focus on doing it and leave all the other stuff behind, because kitchens are know very you know quick communications in and out they can achieve greatness and they they actually have an experience of that here so the national lottery when when people play it i wonder whether they really make the connection between doing that and here and what's going on and what's been made possible yeah i mean i think that um this this place i a'r hyn sy'n digwydd, a'r hyn sy'n cael ei wneud yn bosibl yma. Rwy'n credu bod y lle hwn, y profiad yma, y gallwch chi ei ddod a'i teimlo'n dda, ac rwy'n credu pan fyddwch yn gwneud byddech chi ddim yn meddwl am hynny.

Rwy'n credu bod y lefel o wahanoledd yn gwneud nad yw cymuned ymlaen yn gallu cael ei ddim yn ddigwyddiol. Mae wedi bod llawer o siop am ystafell. Ie, rydyn ni'n ymddygiad. Felly, a been a lot of talk about soup. Yeah, we're obsessed. So can I have some, please? Oh, with the greatest of pleasure. And you have a choice today. Do I? OK. Well, she can have both.

Well, yes, a choice. One, then the other. Yes, yes, yes. We've got lots of fabulous soup. So these soups are the soups that we produce with our community brigade. Right. And then we take these out into our corporate client partners

and have our brigade come with us. So they get back of house experience on production, but then they get front of house experience serving as well. These are also the soups that corporate clients will make to serve our pantry. We do the double soup every Thursday, and there's often a lot of competition about that. So today we've got a beautiful – these are our favorites of the moment. There's always new ones. But this is a cauliflower cheese soup, which is magnificent. So today we've got a beautiful... These are our favourites of the moment. There's always new ones. But this is a cauliflower cheese soup, which is magnificent.

I didn't make it, so I can say that. And this is an aromatic lentil soup. And we've really kind of worked on trying to get the flavours right. And I've laid out a little bit of garnish for you because... I know, it's amazing. I like people to choose their own. So we've got a bit of cheese and parsley and onions, crispy onions to go with this and more Asian and flavours to go. Can I just be confused matters and say,

could I have some of the aromatic lentil but have some parsley with it? Oh, yes, you can do what you like. It's like wine, you know, you don't have to match wine to food. Just drink what you like or gin and tonic, whatever it is. Well, I don't know about about you but it's only half eleven so give us a chance let's have a sip thank you very much

that is lovely that is genuinely absolutely delicious it's my weekend done now just the whole time making soup I do give my chef the weekend off

you see oh yes I think yes as any good employer should. That really is lovely. I'm just going to drink it now if that's all right. My manner's just completely abandoned. Robin, thank you very much. My pleasure, my pleasure. Do you know what, Jane? I am so delighted to be surprised by everything that you found on your trip because like you, perhaps I imagined at the beginning

that this would be a project that didn't have quite so much life in it, actually, not quite so much oomph, and a very thoughtful way of approaching one of the toughest problems around, which is simply, you know, how do you feed yourself and your family in a cost-of-living crisis? Well, we all know things are incredibly expensive at the moment. It perfectly possible isn't it i've done it myself lately gone to the supermarket and for no obvious reason spent 80 or 90 quid and i just find it astonishing so some people really are struggling and what was lovely about the cook for good hub in that old laundry

on the estate was that it really was welcoming it was warm there was a sense of purpose about the atmosphere and about the the people who were bustling around there and you really did get the impression that people felt welcome and although some of the people I spoke to said they'd initially been hesitant about going they were really really glad that they had and it was a place on a freezing cold day where you could pop in, see a friend, do something useful, maybe grab some soup, a cup of tea, and maybe take some food away if you were in need. But there was no judgment around any of it. And it was also, I'm going to sound positively emotional here, but it was in its own way a

tribute to what London is at its very best a place of sanctuary for people from all over the world who've not had the easiest time and Britain has many many faults but it can be an extremely welcoming place and I really did get that impression from the the various different sorts of people who were using that place. I'm amazed Liverpool didn't get a mention there. No, it didn't. I've not. It just happens to be that Karen Madison, MBE, is from Liverpool. And I met her in a...

No, you're good. I met her in my previous life. No, you're fine. She was doing good stuff five, ten years ago. She just kept on doing it. Well, you're doing good stuff too if you're listening to this. And you may well be part of the whole kind of infrastructure that supports this because if you play the national lottery that's you over 30 million pounds a week

is raised for good courses just like cook for good and it is amazing sometimes to just peek behind that curtain and find out a little bit more about what the national lottery actually does for people yeah it isn't all glitz and glamour uh there's some proper stuff going on there thank you then to the national lottery for making this episode of off-air happen and remember of course every time you play the national lottery you help support amazing good causes all over the uk We're bringing the shutters down on another episode of the internationally acclaimed podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover.

Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. But don't forget that you can get another two hours of us every Monday to Thursday afternoon here on Times Radio. We start at 3pm and you can listen for free on your smart speaker. Just shout Play Times Radio at it. You can also get us on DAB Radio in the car or on the Times Radio app whilst you're out and about being extremely busy. And you can follow all our tosh behind the mic and elsewhere on our Instagram account. Just go onto Insta and search for Jane and Fee and give us a follow.

So in other words, we're everywhere, aren't we, Jane? Everywhere. Thank you for joining us. And we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon.