OASIS CARDIFF HOME SUPPER CLUB | FEATURE
How often can you say that a takeaway is genuinely life-changing? All the time – if you order from Oasis Cardiff’s Home Supper Club.
Operational since 2008, Oasis is a charity that runs a variety of projects to help asylum seekers and refugees to settle in the city. One of those initiatives is The Plate, which – in the words of Oasis catering manager Matt Davenport – uses “a universal love of food for education, communication and integration … championing, and ultimately capitalizing on, the food heritage of our clients’ home countries. The Plate serves the wider Cardiff community by inviting them firstly to try new and interesting cuisines, and secondly to engage with Oasis and the incredible individuals we work with.”
Ordinarily, events take place once a month at Oasis’ hub in Splott – but when the pandemic struck, necessity proved to be the mother of invention and the Home Supper Club was born. Each week, a different menu is on offer. Email your order to [email protected] between 9am on Monday and 5pm on Thursday and your food will be cooked fresh and available for collection on Saturday evening. And if you’re sufficiently inspired by what you’ve sampled to want to try cooking it yourself, there are handy recipe sheets supplied.
Our South Korean feast featured punchy and crunchy kimchi, japchae noodles, umami-rich mushroom bulgogi and a portion of hotteok – fried pancake fritters filled with cinnamon and nuts that our resident seven-year-old raved about for days. “The menu for each event is completely client-led,” Davenport says; “it’s important for us that The Plate speaks true to the sources which we receive them from.”
If (like me) your wanderlust is driven at least partly by your stomach, the Home Supper Club goes some way to sating that appetite, offering the opportunity to escape the constraints of local lockdown and tour the world – from Africa to Asia and beyond – from the comfort of your own home.
The scheme is about much more than merely serving up global delicacies for armchair gourmands, though. “On the other side of this culinary exchange”, Matt says, “is the development of skills, qualifications and experiences that The Plate provides for our clients” – whether through working in the kitchen or through participating in the courses in catering and hospitality (such as food safety certification or barista training) funded by the income that the Home Supper Club generates.
Clients’ future employability is evidently a key concern – but so too, Matt points out, is equipping them with “the essential skills needed for effectively budgeting and cooking for oneself”, as well as boosting their self-worth and helping them to feel at home. And don’t just take Matt’s word for it; Mohamed, who joined the Oasis kitchen as a volunteer and is now a full staff member, gives further glowing testimony thus: “The friendly environment gave me the confidence to improve my cooking skills and implement a good friendship with my colleagues and supervisors. Matt brings the best out of his team – very organised and definitely not a ‘bossy’ boss.”
So how can you support the scheme? By ditching the cheeky Nando’s Deliverooed to your door and opting instead for food with the feelgood factor, for starters. And by emailing [email protected] to start helping to simultaneously tickle tastebuds and transform lives.
Info: www.oasiscardiff.org/events
words BEN WOOLHEAD photos TESS SEYMOUR
