A Look Inside the Church Ave BID’s Soup Kitchen Event

Last Saturday, the Church Avenue BID hosted its second (and reportedly final) neighborhood cooking class/soup kitchen event at the Flatbush Reformed Church. Marshaling some local restaurant — and restaurant-to-be — talent, the BID served up a pretty delicious lunch for our community’s less fortunate.

Just to be clear, the church’s soup kitchen program is still going strong and could use volunteers on a weekly basis. They serve at noon every Wednesday and Saturday. This is the man you’ll be working with, the kitchen’s regular cook, Gary:

He’s very friendly and has been running the program for about a year and half. If he’s going to be serving by himself on a Saturday, he gets started prepping on Friday night. So help him out and give him a night off! If you’re interested, contact Reverend Cheri Kroon, the pastor who heads up the program, at cherikroon@yahoo.com.

Now, what should you expect when you volunteer? Here’s a little rundown of what happened this past Saturday morning.

The first thing to say is that there was lots of smiling and laughing throughout. Folks were having a great time while getting the meal ready. Pretty sure you can expect that kind of spirit whenever you go.

An example of that spirit? We got a last-minute influx of unexpected 9th grade volunteers from YSOP (Youth Service Opportunities Project) ready to work. And since a lot of the cooking jobs had been assigned, they decided to do some refrigerator and oven cleaning:

I mean c’mon!

In terms of the food prep, a lot of work had already been done off-site on Friday with Ernesto of El Acuario and Joyce of Shayna’s. But there was still plenty to do. Here’s the menu we served:

Am Thai Bistro‘s Pad Gra Prow (chicken with basil)

Shayna’s Chicken Pilau (chicken with vegetables, rice, and pigeon peas)

Wheated‘s Raw Root Vegetable Salad

El Acuario‘s (formerly La Huasteca) Vegetable Fajitas, black beans, and Spanish rice
(unfortunately, I missed a shot of this one)

While Num from Am Thai was huddled over the stove whipping up her basil chicken, David Sheridan of Wheated had a small army of people peeling, slicing, and julienning for his salad (which included yours truly, dutifully if somewhat ridiculously hair-netted). It’s a fairly simple, seasonal salad you can put together at home. Here are the basic steps:

Prepare your vegetables by…

Slicing your radishes.

Peeling and julienning your carrots (either by hand or with a nifty tool).

Do the same to your kohlrabi. (An Aside: if you’ve never had kohlrabi, it tastes like a mild radish – crisp and refreshing. Also, while this is a root vegetable salad, kohlrabi is apparently not really a root but a swollen stem that grows above ground.)

And chop some celery.

Meanwhile, juice some limes and oranges for the dressing.

Also, toss some walnuts in a bit of the orange/lime juice mixture, a little vinegar, salt, and whatever other spices you want to add, and roast them until fragrant.

Chop some dried fruit.

For the dressing: While whisking vigorously to emulsify the mixture, add to your juice some honey, salt, and olive oil.

Combine everything together, mix, and you’re done!

That’s David in the green hat above. While we worked and in between cooking tips, he gave us a quick update on Wheated’s progress (which you can occasionally find updates about on Facebook). They’re still short of cash to purchase the pizza ovens they need and are waiting on approval for funds from the Small Business Administration. But, regardless of whether they have the ovens by then or not, they’re hoping to open in some fashion sometime in March, maybe with small plates and cocktails.

Speaking of cocktails, the bar at Wheated will be a full sit-down bar. It won’t simply serve the restaurant. As David said, “Bar in the front, pizza in the back.” Sounds good to me.

In addition to all the savory offerings, there were plenty of home-baked desserts dropped off by neighbors.

Also, while prepping, we got a very nice thank-you from Reverend Kroon.

And right before service started around noon, Councilman Eugene showed up to help serve.

After Reverend Dan Ramm led everyone in a short prayer, service started.

Service continued through the early afternoon.

Lauren Elvers Collins, Executive Director of the BID, sent a thank-you email to all the volunteers saying:

We served over 100 people with many coming back for seconds. We also made enough that anyone who wanted to was able to take extra with them, a welcome bonus for many.

One of those people was a woman named Victoria, who saw me shooting photos and was very eager to have hers taken with the food. As with everyone, she seemed really happy and grateful for the meal.

While this will be the last soup kitchen event from the BID, they will be having another food event at their street fair on April 21 and plenty more volunteer opportunities. We’ll let you know about them as we get closer to the events.

Thanks again to Lauren and Melissa at the BID, Gary and Reverends Ramm and Kroon at the Flatbush Reformed Church, and all the volunteers for a really great event.

Top photo courtesy of Church Avenue BID