Cafe Forsaken
Cafe Forsaken is a food and arts initiative in Brooklyn, NY. We focus on mutual aid and community service; one of our key programs is our Meal Drop program, in which we take donated excess produce from local farmers and food distributors and transform them into healthy, nourishing meals for the Ridgewood community.
We start a “meal drop” by surveying our potential ingredients and produce (aka, what donations did we receive this week?). Rice, chickpeas, and mushrooms (thank you @Smallhold!) are main-stays of our larder; whereas the availability of proteins, leafy greens, and other vegetables vary wildly from week-to-week.
Deciding how to cook the main starch (usually rice), helps us decide how to compose the rest of the dish. Golden turmeric rice is a community favorite: a tablespoon of turmeric stirred into the grains prior to cooking, sometimes with a helping spice (toasted coriander and cumin or Chinese five spice powder are equally delicious in this dish), and salt to taste, of course. If available, we’ll crush garlic cloves and dried peppers and toss them in as well. The key is to develop flavors, layer by layer, with whatever ingredients we have on-hand.
While the rice is cooking, we start working on the side dish and main protein. We’ve recently acquired bags of waxy purple potatoes (all donated by a community member), so we discuss how to incorporate them into the meal. Raina (our culinary director and cofounder) mentions quartering, boiling, and tossing the potatoes in an herb oil made earlier in the week. The oil, made by Leanne (our program director and cofounder), is a good example of the resourcefulness and zero-waste methodology our kitchen practices. To make the oil, Leanne sorts through herbs, picking out the ones that are wilted (no longer fresh enough to serve as-is, but not quite gone), and blitzes the leaves in neutral oil, salt, and garlic; creating a thick, intensely herbaceous oil that’ll keep awhile in the fridge, waiting for a chance to inject flavor into whatever dish requires it.
Next, we focus on the main protein. No meats were donated this week, so we turn our attention to the ever-steadfast cans of chickpeas in the pantry. Raina starts outlining our main dish: a chickpea, mushroom stew made with white wine. Working quickly, we all tackle the stew. Leanne and I begin the prep work: draining and cleaning the chickpeas, tearing the mushroom into bite-sized pieces, and chopping onions. Then, Raina starts the base, cooking down onions and mushrooms, tossing in herbs and salt, and adding in white wine (donated to us by our host kitchen, Honey’s in Bushwick) and some pickle brine made earlier in the week. When ready, we toss in the chickpeas and all give it a taste. Add a touch more salt and brine, and it’s ready to go.
Once we’re done cooking, we reset the kitchen tables for plating: clearing dishes, wiping down surfaces, and setting out the to-go boxes for our meals. We chat for a minute about how to best arrange the food (we want people to feast with their eyes as well as their palate!), then working simultaneously, we begin plating the meals. Once packaged, the meals are dropped off to our local Ridgewood community center, Woodbine, where they’ll be distributed to community members in-need.
In our kitchen, for the Meal Drop program, deciding what to cook is an ever-continuing dialogue between the cooks, the available ingredients, and the desires and needs of our community. In this way, we utilize food as a way to engage with one another, our neighbors, and the environment around us.
If you are interested in learning more about or supporting our Meal Drop program, please follow us @CafeForsaken on Instagram!
