Every month, the Supported Employment Team here at BOB hosts what we call a SHINE supper for clients of our program. Anyone who is currently participating in the program, or has in the past, is welcome to attend. Most times, the meal is catered (usually by Potluck Café and Catering) or purchased from Costco. This month, we decided to try something different.
Produce selection at Quest
We have been giving out food vouchers for Quest Food Exchange to clients for quite some time now. An idea came up that perhaps we should see what kind of meals we could come up with ourselves with supplies from Quest. It would not only be a test of our creativity, but would give us a scope of the opportunities and restrictions for a person living with limited resources.
Quest has several locations around Metro Vancouver. Their mandate is to rescue food that is on the brink of becoming waste and see that it gets used.
Ada and I visited the Dundas Street warehouse location, as it has the largest selection of food and goods. We met with Pardeep Khrod, who gave us a quick tour of what was available and helped us make a meal plan for the dinner. Searching through the aisles, many possible meals were running through our heads. Pardeep helped us narrow down our options to a chicken parmesan-type meal, complete with lots of fresh vegetables to include in the sauce and garlic bread to accompany.
Our total at Quest, including 30 pieces of breaded chicken, came to less than $50. Even with a couple of last minute provisions from Nesters Market, the amount spent was nearly ¾ less than the usual cost of putting on a dinner for 15-20 people.
Ada with our purchases
Shopping was the easy part.
The kind people at Jacob’s Well graciously let us use their kitchen space for the afternoon before the dinner. We carted our Quest goodies over to their kitchen. Jacob’s Well had all of the cooking utensils we could ever need, which we realized might not be realistic for most people shopping at Quest. However, our meal was still rather simple to prepare and required only the most basic of items.
The preparation was a little scattered: “What should we make first?”, “How long will things take?”, ”These onions are making me cry!” As a vegetarian, I was worried about my lack of knowledge on chicken cooking times; Ada assured me that it was pre-cooked. After that wave of relief washed over me, it was back to tearing up over a cutting board of onion slices.
We had two hours to put it all together, and managed to pack everything up just in the nick of time. When we returned to the office, we were pleasantly surprised to be met with a sizable turnout of clients.
At the dinner, a discussion is often led about the pressures of working or successes on the job. This time, we got everyone chatting about what they do in terms of feeding themselves. We had lots of interesting suggestions. The best one was to cook for a whole week at a time, to save on preparation time later and ensure that nutritious meals are available for several days. One client said that he combined beans, rice and vegetables with spices or a sauce, kept it in several containers and had that over the week. This can also be done with food like oatmeal, pasta, or stir-frys. Shopping at Quest serves this style of eating well, as its best to use food purchased there fairly soon. Once cooked, though, it can be refrigerated or frozen for later use.
While cleaning up, we discussed the success of this month’s dinner. It was definitely great to see how Quest works firsthand and we had fun preparing everything. When all was said and done though, we probably would not “cater” a meal for 20 people again. We’ll leave that to the experts. I’m sure they know the secret to cutting onions without crying.
Potluck Café and Catering 
