Welcome back everyone! Some will be back at work while others will still be on holiday, those lucky ducks should stay away because Wellington has been throwing down a ‘weatherbomb’ lately – not as dramatic as it sounds but still many more raindrops than is proper in the middle of summer! Pomegranate Kitchen had a great two weeks off, and some of our cooks got to explore a bit more of the New Zealand countryside with their families.
Our latest news is that we have launched our individual lunch delivery. If you live or work in the postcode 6011 we can deliver lunches to your door. They change every week and you have to order a few days before – check out our 'Order Lunches' page on this site for details. On the first day we sent out some yummy lamb koftas and kuku sabzi (frittata) with salads, as well as a sweet treat. It was our first time so we had some logistical challenges - how to serve a wrap with insides that you can heat up without wilting the lettuce, and having to delivery in polystyrene packages while we sort out some more eco-friendly ones. We are using Food Ninja for the first time to deliver the food. Our cooks (and us too!) are used to making food and serving it straight away so the catering challenges of what is tasty when cooled and then reheated is an interesting brain tease for us.
Story from the kitchen – one morning we were having a cardamom spiced coffee and one of our cooks remarked that she can’t even taste cardamom any more, because in Iran they put it in everything – even whole (smashed) pods in their water on a hot day! Perhaps if Wellington gets warm again we can try it!
Blown away once again by the goodwill and enthusiasm our supporters have had for the business. On our first day delivering lunches we received some useful feedback via email about what is important to people, as well as lots of compliments. We hadn’t even done an official launch and people were talking about us on Facebook and Twitter, and we have been contacted by a number of radio and tv stations wanting to do a story.
Another exciting challenge for us is how to produce food at a larger scale – at the moment we can provide food for up to 150 easily enough but we were recently asked to make lunches for 300, which we would struggle to do as we share a small kitchen. If anyone has any leads on commercial kitchens, let us know!
We have some great things coming up this year – a training programme, fundraising dinner, and expanding out into different menu items such as morning teas. I tried some of Genet’s spiced Ethiopian bread the other day so we are hoping to be able to bring some of her culture’s food onto the menu as well.
Happy New Year everyone, we look forward to sharing our journey and delivering tasty food with heart to you over the coming year.