This week was a busy week with over 70 guests gracing our kitchen. We have noticed that the demand has not dropped after the winter months, in facts its still rising. A sign our community is suffering, more than ever, under the cost of living crisis that has been manufactured by the government.
We have recently doubled the quantities of all our popular lines like tuna, sardines, cereals, rice, etc. to cope with the demand. This ensures that we still have enough food left till the end.
Recently we also introduced a staggered queuing system so only a few guests from the queue enter the serving area at a time. This allows space and time for guests to choose which items they want from our selection without being rushed, and also enables the volunteers to serve guests without being overwhelmed – giving time to restock the tables, serve pizzas and bag pastries and make tea/coffee without a queue building behind the guest being served.
Vegetarian Option Popular
We are seeing a higher demand for vegetarian hot meals – more guests from an Indian heritage are in need of our service. To meet that demand we have doubled our vegetarian hot meals. Our vegetarian option consists of lentil curry (daal) with rice, whilst our halal meat hot meal is chicken biryani.
Pizza Options
We have also changed our pizza provision. Our generous local pizza shop that donates pizzas every week has kindly allowed us to choose which flavours we want. Initially we received a margarita, a vegetarian, and a chicken pizza. The most popular by far was the chicken one, followed by the vegetarian. So from this week we requested two chicken pizzas and one vegetarian pizza. If you are one of our guests and prefer a different flavour please do let us know.
Ramadan
This week we welcomed the blessed month of Ramadan by giving gifts to our cherished guests. Traditionally fasts in the month of Ramadan are broken with dates, so our gift pack included a box of finest Palestinian medjool dates.
Israel has a history of falsely labelling its dates, grown on stolen Palestinian land, as Palestinian in order to attract customers during Ramadan. For authentic Palestinian dates which help sustain Palestinian farming communities living under brutal Israeli military occupation, it is recommended to choose either Zaytoun or Yaffa brands. Our dates were from Yaffa. Yaffa were very obliging in rushing our order through so it reached us on time.
We also included a box of biscuits with the dates. We couldn’t source a large enough quantity of any single item so we bought four different types of biscuit boxes over several days, allowing time for the supermarket to restock, in order to meet our demand. This worked out well as it gave our guests a choice of which biscuits they wanted. Some guests, careful about the sugar content of their diet, chose the box of savoury ‘biscuits for cheese’ instead of chocolate ones for example.
Gaza
Mindful of the dire situation in Gaza, our Ramadan Kareem card asked people to remember Gaza in their prayers this Ramadan. The other side gave five facts about Gaza from reliable sources which are often missing in the media.
- Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war against Gaza civilians ~ Oxfam
- Families are eating leaves and scraps left by rats, in desperate attempt to stay alive ~ Save The Children
- Barely a drop of safe drinking water is left in Gaza… Babies are slowly perishing under the world’s gaze ~ United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF
- 4 out of 5 of the worlds most hungriest people today are in Gaza ~ United Nations World Food Program
- Israel has killed over 12,500 children in the last 5 months ~ Save the Children
Ramadan Kareem to all our dear guests, and readers!
