Two top Harrogate chefs have donated time and skill to cook meals at a local church’s ‘Pay as you Feel café’ which uses rescued food destined for landfill.
Martin Cooper, head chef of Baltzersens, a Norwegian inspired café in Harrogate and its owner Paul Rawlinson, conjured up some special dishes with a Scandinavian flavour when they joined the volunteers at ‘Resurrected Bites’ in St Mark’s Church, Harrogate on Wednesday, January, 9 - the cafe's first birthday -to serve around 100 diners..
“We decided to create ‘The #MyBetterJanuary Challenge’, 31 tasks across the month and we are challenging ourselves, and our guests, to do get involved and try and achieve something each day in January in a month when people can be short of money and haven’t got much planned.” says Paul.
“The task for day 9 of #MyBetterJanuary is Donate Something, so we’re at St Mark’s Harrogate donating our time to their Pay As You Feel community cafe, Resurrected Bites which uses food that otherwise would have gone to landfill."
He added that although the food being used would have gone to waste, it did not create a problem. “It’s been absolutely fine and there’s a lot you can do. All the food that we have had has been absolutely fine. It shows how important something like this because the waste can be phenomenal.”
Baltzersen's trademark Scandinavian recipes were much in evidence.
“On the menu today we have had the Lapscouse which is something we serve in the café. We’ve also created Pytti Panne, which is something we have in the café," said Martin (pictured far left with Michelle Hayes and Paul Rawlinson).
"Baltzersens is so named because my grandmother was Norwegian and it was her maiden name. Our strapline is ‘Yorkshire sources, Scandinavian inspired’ and that’s what we try and do with dishes you could expect to see in Oslo or Stockholm.”
Organiser at St Mark’s, Michelle Hayes said, “In the first year of Resurrected Bites, eleven shops and supermarkets have partnered with the cafe allowing us to intercept around 9.000kg of 'waste' and preventing it from going to landfill. We have raised over £2100 for charities including our mission partners and Christian Aid and we have fed thousands of bellies, not bins.”