A day in the life of Chef Dave!

Tuesday - cooking at "Share"

I stayed behind at the care point whilst the others went to do home based care.  So I helped two of the care workers prepare the food, this started off by starting the fire in their kitchen which was a brick built building with a door, small cap between the roof and the walls with very little ventilation.  To get the fire started they gathered some plastic bags stuck in the wire fence surrounding the care point, rolled them up and lit them.  Within minutes the kitchen was filled with a thick smoke and the heat began to rise from the burning wood on the floor.  We then placed one of the big metal cauldrons on the fire, which took two of us to lift and filled it with water to cook the maize meal called 'pap'.  Whilst the water was boiling we began to prepare the rest of the food, we cut onions, potatoes, carrots and placed all of these in another smaller cauldron to cook. Once they were cooked we added soya mince along with beef and onion flavouring.  We added the maize meal to the now boiling water and began to stir, the spoon we used was a meter in length and made from wood.  As the maize began to cook it thickened and became very hard to stir, so with the combined smoke, heat and physical hard work of stirring the pap it made me realise what a job these care workers have to do and how much respect I have for them. I will think of these care workers next time I put a ready meal in the microwave and press the on button..once the food was ready the children all lined up and we dished the food out.  The smiles on their faces as they received their food made it all worth while - knowing that this may be their only meal that day too was rewarding.