The Blog.

We wanted to catch up with some of our original bunch who really got FoodCycle going – so here’s a little Q&A with Max, who started FoodCycle Bristol!

Tell me a little about yourself.

I’m Max, I started FoodCycle Bristol with friends after hearing about what was going on in London and being well aware of how much food was being chucked in Bristol. I’m still involved nearly 3 years down the line, but as a member of the advisory group, and volunteer when around. After graduating from Bristol University I went on to work as Vice President: Community of the students’ union, a job I will finish in just over two months time. I love being in Bristol and plan to stick around for a little longer after I finish in the Union. I like to travel, despite being terrible at languages, occasionally write a blog, am trying to learn the guitar and enjoy hanging out with mates as much as possible (amongst other things which equally fail to set me apart from anyone else).

How did you get started with FoodCycle?  Where did you hear about it?

I heard about FoodCycle through a friend of a friend at a house party three and a half years ago. I decided Bristol needed this and got in touch with Kelvin. 9 months later we’d formed a team and FoodCycle Bristol was a reality, and still is!

What was the most rewarding part?

Getting it going from scratch.

What was the hardest part?

Interviewing for the first management team with zero experience.

How, if any, did volunteering at FoodCycle impact on where you are now?

Not sure this question is grammatically water-tight, but following the jist: I’m sure it nourished me with confidence and enthusiasm as any successful social project must and should do. It might even have helped get me elected – who knows?

What are you doing now?

Helping run Bristol students’ union as a full time elected representative, with a community portfolio.

Where would you like to see the Bristol FoodCycle Hub in 5 years time?

Blimey. Still here: that would be an enormous achievement for a student project with constantly changing personnel. Assuming that, I’d like it to be serving at least as many meals as it currently does with the same brilliant attitude. And I’d love to see it cooking for its Student Restaurant out of a brand new student union kitchen, fingers crossed.

Thanks Max!

On a cold February morning, I met up with some FoodCyclers at Waitrose in Angel to begin what would be an amazing 5 hours of creativity and culinary amazingness!

We arrived at Waitrose Angel to pick up their leftovers from the day before – a mish mash of stuff – salad leaves, carrots, potatoes, bananas and apples that are a bit bruised are the norm… with some bits of random on the side which are always a nice treat – such as Welsh Cakes, baby carrots with the stalks still on, and profiteroles … and ONE single GU chocolate pod.

After our pickup from the friendly staff there, off we went, carting a shopping trolley full of food to the neighborhood MIND Centre to cook for their Wednesday lunch.  I’m sure we got a couple odd looks – as they’re not supposed to leave the store!! But unlike the other two times that I have had encounters with shopping trolleys on public roads, this one had a legitimate reason behind it…

Once we got to the kitchen at 1015 am – we began the magic that is FoodCycle… which is taking out all the food we got from today, and also the stuff yesterday from Sainsbury’s and then putting it all in front of us, have a look and see what we wanted to cook.  There’s no real planning the day before – we just see what we have, and then off we go ‘creating’ a meal!

Given the coldness of the day, it was decided that a carrot soup was best.  We had all the essential ingredients – adding in a couple odd ones – the green carrot stalks (because it was sad to see them go to waste!) and also juice from about 8 ripe clementines after a recommendation from a fellow volunteer.  This was served as a starter.

For the main, a potato gratin was served, which looks like this.  I called them scalloped potatoes – which no one understood until I described how it was made.  It must be a zucchini – courgette thing.

This was served with the largest side salad I have ever seen, made from about 10 bags of out of date salad leaves.  The challenge this time was the salad dressing – the scientist on our team -     – saw it as an equation.  Salad dressing is part oil, part acid, part sweet, part bitter? – so for us that translated into vegetable oil (as we didn’t have any olive oil left), fresh pomelo, honey, I think some golden syrup, orange juice, cider vinegar, and a bit of whole grain mustard.

Dessert was homemade caramel on banana bread made by our dessert expert Regan from Illinois – one that she accepts with some reluctance – as she doesn’t like to be typecast into the person that just does ‘desserts’.  I understand this perfectly, because for a long time, at FoodCycle, I was typecasted into the guy that does Spanish Omelets.

I didn’t really count as it was all very busy, but I reckoned we served about 40 people.  What really impressed me was the attention to the needs of everyone – as there are a lot of regulars.  Gluten and wheat allergies, special preferences and of course, service with a smile.

I finished the session a bit exhausted, and in a bit of a comma especially after we had our meal after everyone had been served.  I finished the session learning how to make banana fritters after discussing with some of the center’s staff about what we would do with all the left over bananas.  Half normal flour, and half self raising – mixed in with lots of mushy bananas – with some nutmeg – pan fried in some oil – it’s as easy as that!

As always after a FoodCycle cooking session, I leave inspired, impressed and exhausted.  It’s amazing what can be achieved with a few creative minds and hands in such a short time – how much joy, warmth and happiness that a great homecooked meal from surplus food can bring to a community.

Special thanks to Amy who came along from the Islington Tribune to write an article about us and also to take pictures.  These are her pictures, and here’s her article – which I must say is much better prose than mine – which is probably why I am not a journalist…

Kelvin Cheung, founder and CEO of FoodCycle, recently bumped into an ex-FoodCycler from way back – and was super excited about all the things she’s been up to since leaving her studies at LSE and also FoodCycle.

Here’s her story:

“I was a volunteer for FoodCycle in 2009 and was actually there during the first cook off in May.  In 2010, I became a Hub Manager at the LSE project. My role involved sourcing food at the Islington market and preparing meals weekly for a group of beneficiaries at the Holy Cross Centre Trust.  The entrepreneurial spirit and energy that I got from FoodCycle inspired me to do something different.”

What’s that you ask?

At the social innovation camp in July 2011, I started Room for Tea and have been project manager since then. Room for Tea is a new kind of home-sharing network: it connects guests in need of short-term, affordable accommodation in London with hosts who have spare capacity in their clean, comfortable homes.  In exchange for cheaper rents, the guests will help out around the house with chores and things like babysitting and the like.

Who is this for?

Well, everyone. But my motivation is to help aspiring interns and apprentices access affordable accommodation in London during their work experience, offering anyone, from anywhere, a fair chance at starting their dream career.

Why this?

This was one of the things I was very frustrated about when I was in London – trying to get a job in the charitable or international development sector.  One was expected to work for free, get a second job to pay the rent, and keep doing that until you got enough ‘experience’.  So I decided to do something about it, but tackling the other side of the issue – which was about offering affordable accommodation in a way that works for the host as well.

What’s next?

The first Room For Tea stays are now complete, and we have a posse of happy hosts and grateful guests. We’re looking for more hosts and guests to start in the summer?  Do you have a spare room? Fancy sharing your room with a friendly guest for a little while? Sign up here.

It’s all early days, but the initial response has been great!

“ Room For Tea is different from other home-sharing networks I’ve used, because my host was really open to the experience being about more than just rent, and I in turn was open to having more than just a place to stay. ”

Natalie – guest of Mike, Enfield.

This afternoon we went on Radio 4′s ‘You and Yours’ to speak about food waste – here’s the bread sauce recipe we mentioned for ya!

FoodCycle presents: Giorgio Locatelli’s Bread Sauce Recipe!

2l Milk
600g loaf of white bread without the crust
2g Grated Nutmeg
1g pepper
3 g Salt

“Pour the milk in a pot with the cut bread, nutmeg, pepper and salt, bring to the boil and with a blender mix everything till you have a thick cream. Add more bread if you want a thicker sauce.”

Simple but oh so tasty! Enjoy!

(By FoodCycle’s Amy Berkhout)

“Now when the good old people at FoodCycle HQ suggested that a couple of us might want to go along to the Bristol Hub’s 2^ndBirthday Celebration last week I jumped at the chance, in fact I think I may have positively leapt.

Not only was it a chance to go back to my beloved university city, where it all began for me and FoodCycle, but the event itself sounded incredible – a carnival themed student restaurant chef takeover – and it was.  This time Arthur Potts-Dawson of the People’s Supermarket fame took the reigns helping the Bristol team cook up an awesome three-course meal for a whopping 120 guests!

By the time I arrived at the kitchen mid-to-late afternoon work had been going strong for several hours and the room was a flurry of action. The atmosphere was great though; there was something akin to how I would imagine the cheerful bustle of Santa’s elves. I could virtually hear ‘whistle while you work’ coming into my head.  Almost immediately and with seamless efficiency I was thrown into chopping a load of melons. As it turned out this was quite a luxurious task considering that Rosa, our office’s Hub Graduate, was put on pealing a bucket full of garlic while some of the students along the table were diligently halving grapes.

At about 6 I left the kitchen, an ITV crew and a remarkably chilled Arthur, to help with setting up the hall.  Preparing a room for such a large amount of people is, unsurprisingly, not a small task but everyone helping out was amazing. No-one needed to be told what to do so the magic just seemed to happen before our very eyes. Never in my life have two hours passed as quickly as they did while we lavished the student union room with bunting, balloons, tissue paper and more. Before we knew it the event was starting – avocado soup (yes avocado soup…) and garlic& anchovy bread ready to serve.

It all went amazingly smoothly and by the time we’d served up the special stew and fruity rice it was time for some entertainment. On the agenda was capoeira dancing, poetry, singing, drama and a wonderfully rousing speech from Arthur, calling us to arms on the issue of food waste ‘I hate food waste, food waste is a crime that we must fight against’.

I don’t think that I had any one highlight of the evening but it was awesome to see how brilliantly the Bristol Hub worked on their faultless event.

Happy Birthday and thanks for having me!”