Soup, stories and a borrowed recipe: inside the Community Kitchen

Four o’clock, and the onions are on

By four the prep crew has arrived and the first onions are in the pot. The menu is decided that morning from whatever the pantry received, so nobody knows what is for dinner until lunchtime.

The cooks are mostly neighbours. One week it is a jollof rice from a volunteer who learned it from her grandmother, the next it is a lentil stew that has become the kitchen’s signature.

At the table

Seats fill by six. There are no tickets and no queue for a seat, only a long table and people who make room.