On a blustery Saturday in late July, the EFS team went along to the Trade Unions in Communities Family Fun Day to provide a community lunch. Our kitchen porter, Andrew, tells us a bit about the event.
We left the kitchen with our crates of prepared food and headed to the Family Fun Day to set up. After doing a bit of gymnastics and passing our supplies over the fence, we set up our trestle table and got to work plating up salads and heating up soup.
The event was already packed, with almost 200 people attending. The weather was windy and blowy, but that didn’t stop kids from enthusiastically playing on the bouncy castle and eagerly getting their faces painted.
On the menu was traditional Scottish Cullen skink, a broccoli and courgette soup for the veggies and vegans, and an array of seasonal salads. The attendees were keen to try all of the food, and the beetroot and chocolate brownies and biscuits went down well with the children. My personal favourite was the smoky Cullen skink which went down an absolute treat!
The salads went like hot cakes and by the end of lunch time, the soups were wiped out. After the mains, it was time for our homemade banana cake, which went very quickly in between people’s pleas for the weather not to turn to rain.
People were very interested in our work at Edinburgh Food Social, and very appreciative of their tasty lunch. Everyone was keen to learn about the food they hadn’t tried before and I enjoyed telling them about the recipes and ingredients we used to create the dishes.
The feedback from the crowd was fantastic, I love to hear the feedback from all the events we cater; whether it’s weddings or community events, it is always so lovely to hear that people are enjoying our food and service, and it gives the whole team a wee boost.
It was my first experience of being involved in catering an event like this, having only been to weddings before hand. The biggest learning experience was seeing the different in setting up an outdoor event. I loved 99.9% of the experience – the worst part was loading up the dirty dishes!
It’s great to see that no matter the event or who we are cooking for, we always provide delicious dishes with the highest quality local and seasonal ingredients. I’d love to do another event like this, as connecting with the local community was so enjoyable.
Photo credit: Craig MacLean Photography
