Lockdown but not out for favourite eats
Popular restaurants shut for lockdown have teamed up to release a collection of recipes for their signature dishes, writes Mikaela Wilkes.
Sixteen Wellington eateries have co-authored a digital cookbook of signature dishes for Kiwis missing their favourites during lockdown. Under alert levels two and three, the group called The Pandemic Pack created a contactless delivery service for their restaurants.
When the pandemic alert level was raised and, with it, the closure of non-essential businesses such as bars and restaurants, leader Jackie
Lee Morrison of Lashings cafe was disappointed, but not disheartened.
She knew local chefs wanted to keep sharing their food, and she knew people wanted to support their local businesses but didn’t know how.
‘‘This was just an idea I came up with to help people give that support to the places that they love,’’ she said.
The Pandemic Pack Collaborative Cookbook launched online last week, with recipes from establishments including Leeds Street Bakery, La Boca Loca’s Mexican food and the Wooden Spoon Freezery’s icecream, along with brownies from Lee Morrison’s Lashings cafe.
The book is available in a pay-what-you-can format, with a base price of $10.
‘‘When our original delivery system got shut down, everyone was still trying to figure out what that meant for their businesses. We settled into lockdown but I kept baking at home and kept engaging with my Instagram followers.
‘‘A lot of us were already posting recipes for free.’’
The posts received incredibly high engagement from locked-down wannabe cooks who were searching for inspiration and substitutes for their favourites.
A friend of Lee Morrison’s suggested a fundraising cookbook might help the eateries survive, so she floated the idea to the group.
The recipes came in on April 3 and
Lee Morrison edited the book together over a weekend.
‘‘We have an amazing community in Wellington hospitality. We banded together so quickly to do this thing because we all felt that we’re in this together. And the best part is, we’ve already seen people making things from it.’’
The recipes are bonded by geography rather than origin or food type, so they include vegan and gluten-free dishes alongside baking, coffee and fried chicken. They are all dishes that can be made in your kitchen to the same taste and quality as they would be in a restaurant.
‘‘The difficult thing for all of us is that we’re all professionals. The way that we do things is not the way that a home cook is going to do it.
‘‘A lot of the time in restaurant kitchens, you’re using ingredients that the home cook doesn’t have access to.’’
All of those obstacles were considered in the recipe selection process. Even the Taste of Home pork buns, which Lee Morrison anticipated people struggling with, have proved a hit.
‘‘We’ve already had people make them with amazing results. I feel everyone stands behind their recipes as working for the home cook, and we’re so grateful the community has pulled behind us like this.’’