A family meal is what happens when you work hard tiresome jobs with a close-knit group of people that are underpaid and undervalued (everyone?).
It is a way of simply saying thank you to your colleagues and showing them you appreciate them by putting in the time to feed them every day.
Every restaurant and cafe should be doing this as a team because it is the right way to treat those you are closest with. Not to mention access to wholesale food prices, no excuses.
This also should be the practice of everyone’s workplace week, showing gratitude this way is so fun. People you work with are never guaranteed perfect and sometimes relationships strain when you spend eight hours a day with somebody. Discussing food made with love and not labour or work can mend so many fences.
If you can take the time to cook, you must. The feeling of giving is so wonderful, especially when it is food, it shows you know somebody so intimately. Even if you do not cook and you order out or in, it presents an opportunity to acknowledge you have listened to your peer that hates fish, gluten, cilantro or goats cheese, the person that was keto last week and dukan today (some people eh). The gift of food is surely the oldest gift ever given and is a tradition that will never end.
Make lunch al desco a moment to remember every now and again and see staff last longer in your employ and remember happy workers are harder workers. Side note, they also steal less.
If you need a final reason please remember that if you keep your receipts this can also be a tax deduction for your business.
I shall not give a recipe for this topic but a set of guidelines to make your gift food so much more appropriate.
1) Get the best ingredients, don’t be cheap. (Don’t go crazy though, these are only colleagues after all.)
2) Think seesaw, If your main item is salty add a sweet. Soft add a crunch. Fatty add acidity.
3) Adornments, darling. Add colour, texture or fun in any way you can conceive, no wrong answers for this. Or let us cater for you. I will reward the person collecting the food as gifts beget gifts.
Josh White is head chef at Dose using the best techniques from ancient history to today, bringing you something new on a very familiar plate.