A week in the life of an Edinburgh Community Food Food and Health Development Officer 👋🏻

Theodora is one of our busy Food & Health Development Officers, check out what goes into her week!

Edinburgh Community Food is all about good food but there's a lot to be done to make it all work. Each day is excitingly different here. 

Monday 💻

Hello! Theodora here. Monday is our day in the office. It's a day to plan for the week ahead and check in with each other about our various projects. It's always a busy day full of meetings! We have a development team meeting to discuss any updates, team news and achievements, and to chat through any challenges we need to work around. We always start with a highlight from the previous week! My highlight from last week was my health talk at Gilmerton Community Centre, 8 people came along and we spoke about diet and Type 2 Diabetes.

Tuesday 📚

On Tuesday, I was off to the Goodtrees Neighbourhood Centre. I ran an all-day training session on REHIS Elementary Food Hygiene.

This is part of my Out & About project based in South Edinburgh in partnership with Edinburgh & Lothians Greenspace Trust. The training course was an opportunity to allow local people access to the skills they need to volunteer or work with food. On Tuesday's course, we had 10 participants, including people from community cafes and professionals running their own food businesses! I love meeting new people and I’m delighted to say that they all passed with flying colours! 👏🏻 It’s a long day though, but the staff at Goodtrees are great in helping me get set up and tidied up at the end of the day.

At Edinburgh Community Food, we regularly run REHIS accredited training courses. Send me an email if you'd like to arrange a chat: [email protected].

Wednesday 🧒🏻

Wednesday was a busy one! I started the day at Gate 55 community centre running a Discover! school holiday programme hub for families referred to the Discover! project. Each week of every school holiday throughout the year, families on the programme receive a food box delivery to their home as well as the option to attend a hub on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The hubs are full of activities like bike riding, circus skills and dancing. We go along and make different recipes with the families. This week, we made a delicious cous cous rainbow salad with a chive and yoghurt dressing. Working with food can help children develop many important skills such as peeling, chopping, and learning about seeds and our where food comes from - it's not all just about eating the food! After the hub ended, I headed back to the ECF office to catch up with a few emails, print out some recipes and resources for an upcoming group, and help the team pack the cooking equipment needed for next week's hubs.

Thursday 👩🏻‍🍳

On Thursday I was at the Willow Project cooking healthy and delicious food for the women that use this service. I managed to get a huge pot of mild aubergine & potato curry on the go. Fresh vegetables are a source of many nutrients including vitamins A, C and K and fibre. It's so important that everyone has access to nourishing meals like this. It's always great if you can add a bean or pulse to a curry as well, I used a couple of cans of chickpeas in the curry. Beans and pulses like chickpeas, butterbeans and lentils are a great, affordable way of bulking out meals, and a source of protein and more fibre, too!  Any portions of food not eaten that day at Willow are frozen so that there is always food on offer for those who would like it. The Willow office is not far away from ours so it’s a nice wee walk back to the office through Leith. Good for getting your steps up and a breath of fresh air. 

Friday 😃

It’s always nice to end the week with a cook club. Especially, when it’s with a group like the Gracemount Primary Schools Men’s group. Always friendly and welcoming; a cup of tea gets us started before we make the food. The gents enjoy a good blether as they work in the kitchen creating the meal of the day…. And this week? Veggie fajitas. Yum!

It’s nice to get back and sit down on a Friday afternoon, though. Checking emails, planning future sessions and seeing what needs to be organised for the following week. 

Have a watch of this video to find out what the Gracemount Men's Group is like:

Every week is different but it’s great to speak to people, and interact in the community but also know that what we do matters and is enjoyed by everyone. I hope you liked reading about what we get up to in a week! Each team member works on different projects, so we all differ a little. If you're interested in hearing about the other team members, let us know!