On Tuesday morning, Louise and Sue from Support Staffordshire came into Café 43 to deliver The Lunch Kitchen, a project which aims to engage adults with maths learning through cooking. Maths, being a lot of people’s most detested subject at school, is often something we’re not keen to take part in. Our friend’s nerves were soon set at ease as Sue quoted Elbert Hubbard who famously said, ‘The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one’. Being in a safe place to make mistakes our friends settled down and the lesson was delivered using basic maths skills to work out portion sizes, costings and best value when out shopping.
There was lots of great advice for ways to save money. One useful idea was ‘Buddy shopping’ whereby you shop with a friend and split the cost. This is especially useful if you want to take advantage of bulk buys which are often cheaper, but you may not have enough money to buy them, or sufficient storage space at home or may even struggle to carry large amounts home. Shopping with a friend and then splitting the cost avoids this and you both benefit from the best offers in the shop.
Ways of adapting meals were also discussed. If, for example, you had a vegetarian or vegan coming to dinner suggestions were made as to how to slightly alter the dish to accomodate them. Halal, Kocher and food allergies were also discussed, again with recommendations for changes to the dish.
The next part of the lesson was working out how much the meal they were about to make would cost per person. Again, our friends were encouraged to use their maths skills and were surprised to learn that the one pot pasta dish worked out at a mere 52p per person.
In small teams our friends then peeled and chopped their onions before nominating a team member to do the cooking. Soon, Café 43 was full of sweet aromas as the one pot vegetable pasta dish began to sizzle in the pans. And finally, everyone sat down to a hearty, homemade meal with their friends.
More information about Support Staffordshire’s The Lunch Kitchen can be found at the link below.