Taste Tibet made its first food drop today at the Churchill Hospital, delivering its famous Himalayan momo dumplings and curries to help revive the NHS frontline staff there.
Coordinated with the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Taste Tibet hopes to be able to feed as many staff as possible for free, for as long as it takes.
“Food should be more than fuel: it should provide joy and nutrition, now more than ever”
And you can support this initiative by donating towards the cost of food, food packaging, the chefs’ time, transportation and hygiene supplies in this entirely non-profit initiative by buying a voucher at https://www.tastetibet.com/feeding-the-frontline
So how did this come about? “It was my husband Yeshi’s first thought when all this broke and it became clear that our regular markets, pop ups and festivals were not going to be able to go ahead,’ Julie Kleeman says.
Yeshi is originally from Tibet at the the pair set up Taste Tibet in Oxford six years ago.
“We have large stocks of rice, dal, dried chickpeas etc. as we were just gearing up for a big festival season (the Hay Literary Festival, Glastonbury, Latitude, many of the Oxford and Cambridge college balls + loads of other great events), and now that everything has been cancelled we couldn’t think of a more perfect way to put this to use.
“We have an amazing commercial kitchen in Cowley set up to cater for large numbers. It seemed mad to let it stand still (something that Yeshi is not very good at anyway),” she adds.
The idea is to offer food that is fresh, healthy and restorative to the frontline NHS staff battling Coronavirus on a daily basis at Oxford’s hospitals.
“Everything we receive will go directly towards producing fresh, nourishing, restorative meals for Oxford’s NHS frontline,” Julie confirms.
“Because food should be more than fuel: it should provide joy and nutrition, now more than ever, positive moments in the day and we hope that we can help to make these happen.”
“So the more food we can get out to key workers the better – we are also looking at reaching out to schools in our local area, for example.
In the meantime, Taste Tibet will continue to serve its own loyal following here in Oxford through home deliveries on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Pre-orders will be taken up to 24 hours before with items left on your doorstep between 4 and 7pm.
All food will be cooked and blast-chilled for you to reheat at home or keep in your fridge or freezer. You will find comprehensive reheating and storage instructions for each food item on our website, including video! Go to http://www.tastetibet.com/shop for more details.
To donate go to https://www.tastetibet.com/feeding-the-frontline
