Standing room only

As the title implies, Friday was a squash and a squeeze and we sold out of food again.

Once again we were blessed with a sunny day, so when the place was empty at 12.05pm, save two customers, one of whom was asleep, we thought that everyone had decided to take advantage of the weather and picnic in the park.  We were wrong.  At 12.10pm a steady stream of customers began arriving and they didn’t stop.  Soon our 40 seats were filled, one family ate on the sofa and another party had to wait a good 20 minutes to sit down.  Fortunately they are good friends of ours and didn’t grumble in the slightest; thank you Margarita, Val, Isabella, Louis and Charlotte, you are golden.  The only thanks we could offer them was to save the last piece of sweetshop cake for the little girls, which was by that point a bit sticky, but nevertheless in demand elsewhere. 

Like an episode of Sesame Street we seemed to have a letter of the week for our menu. F. Falafel and Fishcakes.  Both of which were delicious and completely gone by the time service was over and I wanted some.  This is becoming a pattern, but I am glad of it, if we can sell out the pilot, then there is a much stronger chance of it working in September when we open every week.  Of course I am aware that the same folk won’t come every week like they are now, but word will get out (even if we have to drag it out with our bare hands) and people will come and bring their friends, just as they have done so far.  We even had some new people who weren’t friends, relations or friends of either.  One lady came in, nosed in the kitchen, refused even so much as a cup of tea and moseyed off again, I think she was a spy! We must be getting good!  Glad she came when we were bursting at the seams, weep in fear competitors!

So it’s off to half term and more funding applications we go.  Fridays will seem much more sedate, until July 6^th that is!

Roll up, roll up

Does your life ever feel like circus, or is it just me?  Although I appear to be the Ring Leader, I am actually a combination of Juggler, Lion Tamer and Clown; the latter mostly due to my ridiculous clumsiness which causes frequent comedy trips, slips and falls over invisible objects!  There is a slight irony here as I am, in fact, very scared of clowns, very scared indeed; what are they hiding in those giant shoes? 

Maybe it’s because I have just finished reading and loving ‘Water for Elephants’ (haven’t seen the film, anyone know if it’s any good?), but the circus seems like and ideal analogy for café life just now.  Fantastically enjoyable, exciting and energetic and I certainly hope we are putting on a good show.  Yet in the back of my mind I am always terrified that if I drop the ball just once, the show is over, the tent will fall down and there’s a possibility of a stampede!  Not that I am extreme or anything!

Our wonderful customers are in no way animalistic: they are charming, faithful and polite.  My, and indeed Renee’s, sense of anxiety stems from the fact that until we get our much needed funding, it all feels dreadfully precarious, sort of like walking a tightrope.  We are jumping through banking hoops, filling in forms and keeping the plates spinning and all of these things are necessary, but they feel like they are a distraction from the main attraction: the café we are trying to create.  The sideshow is necessary in order to facilitate the main event, but that what makes us feel like Jugglers.  The Lion Tamer comment was more a reference to my kids.  Have I extended the metaphor enough?  Actually I wrote ‘like a circus’ didn’t I, so that’s a simile…………………

This has to work, it is our collective passion for our very own neighbourhood.

This Friday, the last café session until July 6^th, we will be serving up delicious falafel followed by a chaser of either feisty ginger squares or sweetshop cake.  Please come if you can.  Bring your friends, enjoy the sunshine and we promise not to throw knives at you.

Yeeee Haaaaaa

It's cowboy week this week at Filling The Gap N15, although I am hoping that it doesn't turn into the baked bean scene from 'Blazing Saddles'!

We will be serving delicious home-made cowboy beans with sausages or halloumi, depending on your preference, with crispy salad.  Followed by either marble cake or gingerbread sheriff's badges (stars!).  We will not insist that you drink coffee and wear a Stetson, but our coffee is real and amazing.  The choice of head-wear is entirely yours!

Last week's cafe was fantastic, so much so that we ran out of food.  Renee's Meze was outstanding and received much praise and the chocolate brownies weren't bad either.  It felt good to be back and no Ark was required because this amazing warmish yellow thing appeared in the sky, just for us, I believe the people of the southern hemisphere call it the 'sun'!  Terront Road Salvation Army Hall was once more a-buzz with chomping, slurping, chatter and play.  Thank you loyal, lovely and supportive friends, for coming back to us and welcome to anyone who visited for the first time.

Looking forward to doing it all again tomorrow.  See you at high noon folks.

The Ark

Having sloshed to nursery to drop off my youngest, before the slosh to school to drop off my eldest, Gideon, he commented that we should just borrow Noah’s ark to make it easier because it’s been raining ‘like forever, Mum’.  Although he is old enough to realise that although I am a control freak, the weather is not at my command, Seth, my youngest still believes that I have sent the rain to prevent him from wearing shorts even though it’s summer (apparently) so he should be allowed, Gid does, sort of, have a point!  I know there’s a drought, we should be grateful etc, etc and I am, honest, it’s just that I’m short, my trousers are too long so I have wet trousers and my wellies leak!

However, I am hoping that this wet spell, which is due to last throughout May, I hear, will make you all want to escape the dreary greyness by joining us for the Filling the Gap N15 May Café (see how I did that, so slick you never noticed!)  Although none of you resemble animals, we are happy to be the ark-esque safe haven as the torrent flows and even if it doesn’t!  We even have a new 2-by-2 price plan, sort of!  £5 buys a main meal for an adult and a child with as much water as you can drink.  Each additional child costs £1 each.  Tea, coffee and yummy, local apple juice and a selection of home-made cakes are available too costing £1 - £1.50.  Yes, this is a little more than last time, we admit it, but we had to find a way to make everything sustainable whilst remaining dedicated to our ideals and principles so that our little café will one day be able to stand on its own currently Bambi-like legs and feet.

The May menu looks like this:

Week 1- Meze plate: a selection of homemade delights including feta and tomato bread, served with salad and humus.

Dessert options: Chocolate brownies or fruit salad

               

Week2- Sausages or halloumi with cowboy beans and guacamole served with flatbread and Mexican street salad.

Dessert options: Victoria sponge or gingerbread stars

Week 3- Fishcakes, or veggie cakes served with two types of salad, bread and sauce.

Dessert options: Feisty ginger squares or sweetshop cake

Rain or shine, we hope you can walk, swim or sail along to join us, but please leave your menagerie at home, if your kids are anything like mine, they are animal enough!

Tandoori and truffles

Not on the same plate, you understand, but these were the courses on offer last Friday, the final instalment of Filling the Gap N15’s pilot scheme part 1!  It was, in fact, tandoori chicken or paneer with brown rice pilaf and chocolate cake with truffle topping.

                                   

The stunning, sunny day enabled us to throw wide the backdoors so that the kids could enjoy racing around the yard before, during and after they had eaten.  We had fewer customers than in previous weeks, many folks were picnicking, I believe, but this enabled us to take time and discuss what had come before with some of our cornerstone attendees.  The response made me emotional to say the least, although I hope I hid it.  People want more! They want us to do it again and to keep doing it!  They complimented the food, the venue and the atmosphere.  Renee and I were bowled over, every bit of angst, juggling, staying up late, getting up early and trialling dishes with our sometimes reluctant families (‘Not this again, Mum’) was worth it.  Now we really feel like we have a business of our very own.  We have even had our first review, thank you very much; please take a look at the lovely blog of our lovely friend Rachel: www.londinimum.wordpress.com

Our deepest and most sincere thanks go out to everyone who attended and supported us in many and various ways this last month.  You are invaluable to us and not just as paying customers.  Ian and Rich, our encouraging and often patient hubbies, had even planned a congratulatory surprise dinner on Saturday night.  Bless them, they are both balding and lovely.  Rich had to tell me, however, because I am a control freak who in his words ‘doesn’t do well with surprises’.  Guilty as charged.

So with much happiness and much too much delicious Malaysian food in our bellies we have set about planning our next steps………………………drum roll……………………………………………………….

Filling the Gap N15 will be reopening in May 2012 for three dates only:

·         Friday May 11^th

·         Friday May 18^th

·         Friday May 25^th

@ Salvation Army Hall, Terront Road, N15

We hope to see you there.

You gotta give the people what they want!  Modest aren’t we!

Cat Women

Pushing a borrowed (now returned) Tesco trolley around your very own neighbourhood is an interesting experience to say the least.  Clunking with a deafening metallic rattle as the pans and tins collide with every bump in the uneven pavement, Renee and I have been hard to ignore when transporting bits from our houses to the Terront Road Hall.  Our neighbourhood being Haringey, there are one of two reactions from most passers-by:

1.       They are so conditioned to the general state of anything goes craziness that they look once and then consciously look away for the fear that we are in fact lunatics who have cats following us everywhere, much like that school teacher in ‘South Park’ (my flagrant use of stereotyping will be explained below)

2.       They laugh out loud and point!

I prefer option one, although it does raise some interesting thoughts about our perceived attitudes to homelessness in Haringey, hence my somewhat offensive use of generalisation.  No doubt we Londoners have learnt to ‘look away’ as a defence mechanism to avoid unpleasant confrontations or an even more unpleasant knuckle sandwich, but are we happy to just write people off if their behaviour or circumstances make us uncomfortable?  I think we are all guilty of that sometimes aren’t we?

This feels particularly resonant because on my way home from an amazing week three of the pilot, I met a man on my street picking through the wheelie bins which were awaiting collection, loading up his trolley with anything even barely edible.  I had some of our leftovers with me, and he accepted them with too much gratefulness, I ran home to get him some more food, but he was gone when I got back out.  I wish I had told him to come next Friday.  I am nothing short of grateful for the amazing, beautiful families who are coming to eat week in week out at our pilot, they are our bread and butter, no pun intended, but I’d really like us to be able to meet the needs of some of our other neighbours too.  I bet we could learn loads from each other.  If you know anyone who could use a good meal, free of charge, of course, if it is not within their means, send them along to us.

WHEN: FRIDAY 12 – 2

WHERE: TERRONT ROAD SALVATION ARMY HALL, N15

ASK FOR RENEE OR KATE

Sorry if I have disappointed anyone with my philosophical rant!  The title is misleading if you were hoping for references to the skin-tight lycra wearing DC femme fatale.  I can’t speak for Renee, but I look nothing like Halle Berry in, or out for that matter, of a catsuit, mores the pity.  Good job I can cook, eh!  (Just joking, I am a feminist, I promise)

All are welcome

Having learnt the tough ‘never say no’ lesson in week one of our pilot scheme, the doors were well and truly flung open last Friday!  We served around 50 people with healthy turkey or feta burgers and fudge cookies and I even got my husband to eat courgettes, so, all in all, I’d say it was a great success!

Renee and I were slightly daunted by the 44 pre-booked covers who promised to come, so when a few people arrived with friends and some ‘walk-ins’ stopped by, all hungry and expectant, we were bordering on hyperventilation.  Being the consummate professionals that we are, no one noticed, I hope, and we kept on serving.  To our surprise, no loaves and fishes style miracles were required, although I was very prepared to pray for such things, and everyone left  fed and happy.  Moreover, the atmosphere was brilliant; friendly, laidback and nothing short of energetic, as far as the kids were concerned.

It seems impossible that we are half way through and even more impossible that we should be thinking about what comes next.  One month on, one month off?  Pop-ups?  Events?  There are many possibilities and variables to be considered, one thing is for sure, we don’t want the buzz of interest to die.  Yet without funding the café will never get off its feet, not in any sustainable way anyway.  So it is back to the plans and applications processes, but with renewed vigour fuelled by the knowledge that Filling the Gap N15 can be a success.  There is most definitely a market, clients and a gap that we can fill!

Looking to break our current record this Friday, so if you feel like coming along……………………….