The Granville Revisited

Illustration by Ben McDonald

A look back at the 2017 episode recorded at Granville Community Kitchen with Leslie Barson and Dee Woods. While Leslie and Dee prepared a community meal of Peruvian inspired pork stew, beans, rice and salad they shared how their work addresses fundamental and system issues of oppression, poverty, land use, farmers' rights and the environment. And there's an update from Leslie on the Granville's plans for 2022 and beyond.

Read more about The Granville and get involved at granvillecommunitykitchen.org.uk

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Transcript below.

When this episode was first recorded, the illustrator Ben McDonald did several original drawings to accompany it.

Lucy  00:00

Before I start this episode, I just want to say a huge thank you to the Lecker Patreon supporters. Your support is crucial for the future of Lecker. And I'm so grateful. If you're interested in becoming a patron of the podcast, you can head to patreon.com/leckerpodcast. 

This is Lecker. I'm Lucy Dearlove. I'm so glad to be back in your podcast feed for the first episode of 2022. And I hope it's a good year for you. I'm so delighted that some new listeners discovered Lecker last year as a result of me making the series about kitchens. Welcome, I'm so glad to have you with us...with me. This year, I'm going to be releasing monthly episodes. And some of the episodes I'm going to be making this year are going to be profiles of particular people or particular dishes, sometimes...some of them are going to be a bit more like the Kitchens episodes where they're kind of built around a specific theme, almost like an audio essay. I've got lots of ideas and plans, and I'm so excited to be sharing them with you. I wanted to start the year doing something that I've actually never done before, which is kind of re-releasing a previous episode. And I say kind of because being the eternal perfectionist that I am. And yes, I do say that is my weak point in job interviews. I couldn't leave it alone. So I have actually gone back into the original episode that I made back in 2017, and re-edited it. And there's some bits in there that I didn't put in the original edit. So it's kind of a director's cut, even though I made the first one as well. The reason that I've done this is because looking back over the past few years of making Lecker, I really think that actually this episode, in particular making it and kind of editing it and meeting the people involved in it has had a huge impact on shaping the way that I now think and feel about food and the world. It was a real kind of amazing experience meeting Dee and Leslie, who you are about to meet too. I wanted to share this with the new listeners that the podcast has met since 2017. And if you have heard this episode before, as I mentioned, this is a new version. But also I have something else for you. If you stick around till the end. There is actually an update from Leslie about what has happened since then. So what's happened over the past five years really, and it's kind of amazing. I'm really excited for the future.  So first of all, I want to take you back. The air is 2017 I'm a little baby podcaster. I've got my mic in hand, and I've got the tube to North London and we find ourselves in a kitchen in a community centre on the south Kilburn estate.

Leslie  03:13

peppers red pepper, onion garlic,

Dee  03:16

coconut milk

Leslie  03:20

that's for the stew and then we have rice, salad. Tonight, we're having a special treat for those who eat meat. Dee's making a marinated pork stew.

Lucy  03:34

Oh, wow.

Leslie  03:34

Yeah.

Dee  03:35

Yes. We're making sort of Peruvian-inspired beans. Inspired.

Lucy  03:41

So can you tell me a bit about yourself? Maybe you can introduce yourself.

Leslie  03:44

Oh, okay. My name is Leslie Barson. I've worked in this building for nearly 25 years. And we started this project, we've got a community centre project with working with young people. And we started this project about nearly three years ago, because Dee is a wonderful cook. But it's more than food. It's about community through food. So it's all kinds of activities. So we have tonight we've got film night, and so we have a meal together and then we watch film and discuss it. And then we also have a Friday night meal. That...which is a community meal, it's...that's cooked by someone else. And that's become very, very popular, where we also have surplus food that people can take, which are collected...we get it delivered from a wonderful charity called City Harvest. And we also collect from two Marks and Spencers who've been very good to us. And we've also been lucky enough to get a grant...I'm not sure we're allowed to mention yeah, oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, okay, evening dispossess...Evening Standard dispossessed award for a big project, a year long project, so it's for a garden trainer and a cooking trainer. So the idea is that people who are food insecure - and we're working with North Paddington food bank will be able to come here and either bring some food that they, they're bit bored with, or they don't know what how to cook it. Because when you're given stuff, you don't always know what to do with it. So it's a drop in. So it's very much about what the people who come need. And if they all say, look, we'd really like to know how to make bread or make our own pizzas or whatever, our cooking trainer, ie Dee, will be able to help them and, you know, teach them and she'll be she's got at her fingertips, you know, knowledge that, that she can give so that, you know, people can just ask questions immediately and get the...get an answer for it. And also, because we think gardening is very important, and that understanding the whole...where food comes from is very important. So it's not just about what turns up on your plate or what's on the shelves at the supermarket. But how it's grown, how difficult it is or how easy it is, how enjoyable it is, how...what hard work, it is why you need a community. So and it's also very therapeutic. And there's a lot of people looking at gardening as...it lessens isolation, and it's physically demanding in a way that, you know, being at home isn't. So there's a bit of exercise, it's not tremendous exercise. And so it's, it has a lot of benefits to it. So we feel that that's part of the project of empowering community through food.

Lucy  06:16

Great. And what's your what's your background? And what, how did you come into this? Have you always been interested in food?

Leslie  06:21

Well, I'm interested in food because I eat it! And I like it. Yeah. I've never been a great cook. But my friend, obviously is a great cook. And it's a great honour really to work with her work alongside her and I'm learning loads about cooking and about, you know how to make things really taste good with very little money. I mean, it's more about spices and understanding what goes with what, but also Deee - which I always say what I love about Dee, I'm a great history buff, and she's got a knowledge of food, where it comes from and how it's travelled across the world with various, you know trades that have gone all over the world. And understanding that and sometimes, you know, you have crazy things happening like apparently, the oldest rice from West Africa is now grown in East America because it was brought over by the slaves and it's it's been lost in Africa. But it's, it's growing in what is it? Georgia or, the Carolinas or something. So the most authentic, you know, this, these kind of crazy things that we have in the modern world, and how many types of rice there are and how many varieties we're losing and so on. And Dee is absolutely amazing and has educated me about those sorts of things. So that's it's a pleasure to work with her.

Lucy  07:40

Can you introduce yourself, please?

Dee  07:42

Alright, so my name is Dee Woods. I'm the cook at Granville Community Kitchen. I'm also the London Slow Food Ambassador 2016 and BBC Cook of the Year 2016.

Lucy  08:00

Hey! How did that come about, the awards?

Dee  08:04

Um, basically from the work we've been doing here at the Granville Community Kitchen. And I think a bit of my political engagement as well, because I'm involved in the slow food movement, and food sovereignty movement. And with the sort of community food growers network. And we've been so lobbying, yeah, the GLA with an organization called JustSpace who are a network of grassroots community groups. So been sort of really involved in policy and the other direction of things, but from the ground up, so cooking up a bit of revolution, as it were!

Lucy  08:53

I like it! Can you tell me, sort of explain exactly what the slow food movement is, and what the food sovereignty movement as well please?

Dee  09:00

Okay, um, there are similarities. They do sort of crossover. But slow food is more about the enjoyment of food, the preservation of food, diverse food cultures, good food fall. You know, and, you know, protecting the interests of producers and biodiversity. Food sovereignty, which began in the global south is sort of producer led, sort of movements about workers rights, sorta agro-ecology, which is about sort of sustainable ways of farming, and sort of catching fish and all that sort of stuff. And there's something in there about sort of consumers - I don't like word consumers, we need to change that we're all eaters. But ya know, the emphasis is more on farmers and producers. And likewise, all the stuff around food policy from sort of international level right on to local level. But they marry. It's all interconnected.....(Leslie inaudible in the background) And yeah, that's okay.

Lucy  10:24

Just checking the size of the pepper, very important.

Dee  10:27

And the other sort of aspect that we bring in here at Granville community kitchen would be social justice, because a lot of the issues aren't necessarily food issues, they're issues, around class, opportunity, and poverty, gender, all the other sort of isms. So that's a very important issue that we work from. So I mean, yeah, food food, is that sort of, for people who are into the sort of jargon, ya know, represents that sort of intersectionality. Yeah? And if we look at our food system, ya know, it's like, our modern food system is based on the oppression of others, and the destruction of our  earth. So we need to change that.

Lucy  11:22

And so you're kind of on a really small level here trying to do that?

Dee  11:26

Um, yeah, because I think, you know, eating is the most political act that anyone can do. Right? Choices of where we buy our food, and what type of food and buy is a political act. So it is about engaging people breaking down all those jargon words, and making people realize that, you know, you can hold our politicians and ya know people in local government accountable. Yeah. And sort of demand that well, okay, we want access to better food, that we want better wages, so that we can afford to buy better food. Right. And now that I've been appointed to the London Food Board, I'm hoping that's one of the areas that we could work on, ya know, making sort of good food accessible at a more local level. Ensure that it's also culturally appropriate. Yeah, so it's not always about the anti fat thing or the anti sugar thing. Ya know, it's about creating opportunities, creating sort of community food hubs that include urban agriculture, small marketplaces, opportunities for small food producers. And, yeah, we need to celebrate our diverse food culture that we have here in the UK. Yeah, I think um, London, especially, London is unique in the world. I think you know, right here in Brent, we have, what, almost 400 languages spoken? Right. So that's 400 different food cultures right there. Alright? But then you see people, and nothing's wrong with chips. I love chips. Alright? But I prefer to see someone from that particular culture, celebrating their own food before it's lost.

Lucy  13:27

So what can we do to get it back?

Dee  13:30

Um...I think one of the things we need to do is find sustainable ways of sourcing foods. So like, we're cooking plantains...it's one of cheapest foods you can buy at supermarkets now, corner shops, alright, but it can't be sustainable if you getting three or four for about a pound. Right? How much is the farmer actually getting? Right? So yeah, it's things like that we need to do, but we also need to be growing a lot more things here. So we have this herb on the windowsill. Yeah, it goes by many different names. It comes from the Caribbean...supposedly originated in West Africa, but it grows wild throughout the Caribbean, parts of South America. And it grows perfectly well here. There are a lot of foods and herbs can be grown here and not imported. Yeah, which would sort of create jobs here and sort of reduce oppression on the other side of the world.

Lucy  14:43

What's it called, what names does it go by?

Dee  14:45

Cuban oregano...in the southern Caribbean is called Big Leaf thyme. It is in the Ark of Taste, which is a slow food project about rescuing and preserving sort of rare foods and plants and herbs. So we use it in most of our cooking.

Lucy  15:07

 Nice!

Dee  15:08

And you may take away a plants if you need to. That's what we do. We propagate them and we give it away.

Lucy  15:14

So take cuttings from it. Yeah. Great. So Dee can you tell me a bit about your background in food? How did you learn to cook?

Dee  15:23

Like Leslie, I love food, and I love to eat. But I grew up in a family of food producers, entrepreneurs, my dad is a farmer. So always grew up with, around food and making food and sort of big family, big family occasions, we were always cooking. And that sort of just grew and growing up in Trinidad and Tobago, which is a multicultural society, we had all these wonderful sort of food cultures. And I just took it from there and just kept cooking and learning more and I'm always learning and a lot of food that I cook here, I try to reflect the sort of cultures around here. So we've cooked from, from Tonga, we're planning a Fiji evening. Yeah. So, um, you know, it's like, when you cook these things, you realize how similar your cooking techniques are, and your ingredients and your flavours. And, you know, it's just like nuances. So for me, you know, food is that great uniter, ya know, brings people together,

Leslie  16:37

We can't really get, as Dee was saying, good food without challenging the economic system that we're in. Because we're saying by don't eating, not eating sliced bread by making your own bread, which is actually incredibly easy, and very, very cheap. And you could make your own bread every day. Dee's got a fantastic recipe which you don't even need to let rise. You just put it in the fridge and you take out a loaf size and put it in the oven and 40 minutes later, you've got a fresh bread. Now, it's like, you know, people could learn to do that. I mean, it's a change of their routine. But it doesn't take time, as you think, it takes time to change. But once you've understood it, and once you've changed over to that, it's easy. And then you know your children see you doing that, your elders see you doing that it just becomes part of life. Oh, what are you doing? Oh this bread is delicious? Oh, my goodness, hot bread. You know, it's fantastic... It changes...not by itself, but through you changing your habits. You change other people. It's like, a kind of pebble in the water.

Lucy  17:37

The butterfly effect?

Leslie  17:38

Exactly.

Dee  17:40

Alright, so aduki beans, some garlic and onions, red peppers. Yeah. And I think that's another issue. Because a few weeks ago, we had this issue where we weren't getting lettuces, and peppers, courgettes, peppers as well. There's an issue now with avocados. I think we need to eat sorta seasonally, as local as possible. And, you know, have sorta fair trade or beyond fair trade agreements to purchase food from other countries. With Brexit happening, yeah, we don't know what's going to happen. So a lot of these foods are coming from Spain. So we're already getting peppers and strawberries and lots of summer foods. Yeah. We're gonna have to change our eating habits. Alright. So lots...a lot more kale and cabbage is what they call the hunger gap food.

Lucy  18:45

It's amazing how much that...like how people reacted to that food shortage. I mean, it wasn't a food shortage. It was a few things. Yeah, they were having trouble getting them. And you know, it was like, they had to put signs up in the supermarket because people were so, you know, kind of confused and, by it. People are so used to being able to get exactly what they want at any time.

Dee  19:05

Right, and we can't do that and most of the world eats, you know, seasonally. Yeah, you eat what is locally available and then occasionally you'll have some of the imported food. Alright, so we need we need to change, we really do need to change.

Leslie  19:26

I don't know when we changed away because when I was a child, I mean is a little bit ago, but not that long ago, there was no dinosaurs on the earth. We used to eat season- and we only had for example, satsumas or Clementine, we had them, you know October ish to December and that was it. What happened now? I I don't like eating them in the summer!

Dee  19:51

Look at the history of supermarkets, right. Yeah, that convenience of being, getting, being able to get everything under one roof. Any time of the year, yeah, happened with supermarkets.

Leslie  20:05

But it has happened quickly, rarely. I mean, it's 20, 30 years. It's not, we're not talking, you know, hundreds of years here. And I feel, I hope that it could change back again as quickly. And this idea that we can get...I mean, when you look at your grapes, and you see they've come from Chile, you know, which is the other side of the world and you've bought them for £1.25. I mean, the mind boggles, what are the people there getting paid.

Dee  20:36

And then sorta, our sorta food fads as well impact on other cultures and communities. So like quinoa, alright, local people cannot afford to make...to buy it anymore. And that was their staple food. So what happens, they buy foods that their systems aren't used to, and they end up with nutrition transition, and all these lifestyle diseases, because they start eating rubbish. Yeah, but we can grow quinoa here, there are farmers who are growing it and growing it organically. Sorta bigger agricultural ways or chemicals as well. But we can grow here, so we need to grow more, but we don't use all our land. And we need to be using our land more for farming or not for putting up sorta posh housing, or keeping up for, for its value. Yeah, as an investment, we need to use our land.

Leslie  21:35

[Outisde noises, a plane overhead] So this is our small food garden. So we had...and that's that's the main hall in there. These are fig trees, which might have some small figs on them. There's three of them here, here and here. And then this is an apple that we rescued. So we've got three raised beds. And then, what...because there's going to be building works we're using this these crate idea, which means that we can move it around, we can move the....so this is lemon balm, chives, everything needs watering! This is chard, and various...oh God, name escapes me. Kale! Chards and kale. So they're easy growing plants.

Lucy  22:26

The colours of those are amazing.

Leslie  22:27

Hi love, you alright! And then we've got different types of onion. Oh, yeah. And this is this is some, this is some kind of sage or some kind of a herb here, right. Now what was I hoping to plant, so what we do normally is put cardboard down, then put compost on top rather than digging. You feed the soil from above.

Unnamed male voice  22:51

Oh is that what stops the weeds from coming through?

Leslie  22:52

Yeah, exactly. And to feed the soil because you don't want to dig because it's really hard work. We've got quite a few cherries that were planted long before so that's a big cherry there by the wall. [Police siren goes past] Stupidest place for it. And that's another baby cherry. Which, obviously, but I don't know....And this is a cherry here

Lucy  23:14

The big one?

Leslie  23:14

Well, the big one behind is a plane but this one here is a cherry. And that's our sort of compost area and stuff like that. Yeah, we still need watering. But we've got kids coming tomorrow. So we'll water it tomorrow.

Lucy  23:28

They'll love to do that!

Leslie  23:29

They love doing it, it's amazing. So I have to cut some leaves for Dee, she wants chard and kale. So like these two, we're gonna stick them all in the stew

Lucy  23:41

[Back in the kitchen] So are you just making a salad Leslie?

Leslie  23:51

Yes. We've got lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and spring onions. And usually we do...I'm not sure what we're doing tonight. But usually we just do a lemon dressing and  salt. And are we doing anything else in the salad?

Dee  24:05

Probably a lime dressing

Leslie  24:07

Lime, because we're Peruvian. So we're a bit...and then we have rice as well and...

Dee  24:17

Not quinoa because we can't afford locally grown quinoa.

Lucy  24:21

So everything you buy is ethically sourced?

Dee  24:24

Ethically sourced, we grow some. We're trying to encourage the development of sort of more food projects in West London. You get loads in South London, East London, North London, but they're few and far between in West London.

Lucy  24:43

Why is that?

Dee  24:44

Um, I don't know and we have a lot of land in West London especially on the outer boroughs. So that's something but we're hoping to be developing more.

Leslie  24:58

They were traditionally industrial, industry out in the west, right? And that's gradually disappearing or certainly partially disappearing. There is some.

Dee  25:09

Cos in Hillingdon, Harrow, that's traditionally farmland. Some of it is actually listed, and the buildings are listed, yeah because they're still carved out in this 18th century sorta farmland way so...but, you know, before we become history from starvation, I think we should be using some of that land.

Lucy  25:37

Yeah. But it's just too valuable to property developers, that's the trouble isn't it.

Leslie  25:41

And Heathrow Airport, of course, a big issue. Yes. Yes. So there used to be lots of market gardens all around where Heathrow is, and we were just out there on the weekend. And there was an older man telling me that when he was a boy, they were strawberry fields as far as the eye could see. And they, you know, people would work as as labourers on the farm and would be picking strawberries. So he remembers the year...so you know, sort of May June July ish, picking strawberries and then you go into salads. And then so there was a, you know, rotation of the year's crops feeding London or some of London, not the whole of London, because I think there were pockets like this all over London. Kent, obviously was the breadbasket, er the food basket as well.

Dee  25:41

Yeah.  [Muffled] Here was farmland.

Leslie  26:32

Yes, yeah. Here was farmland up until the 1880s, which isn't that long ago, you know, 120 years or so. And you can see on the map, we've got maps outside, of the growth of the development of housing, and Queen's Park was actually an agricultural show. That's what saved it. So all the, you know, the cattle were brought up there and horses and things and so yeah, and you can see that marked on the map. And I'm sure that's, that's why it's stayed a park. But out by Heathrow is much more recently, was food growing. And there are still, there's still farms out there. Yeah, I've taken a walk out there...

Dee  27:17

Yes, small market gardens. But yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Lucy  27:25

So what's this area like now?

Leslie  27:29

Um. The immediate area is called South Kilburn estate. And it's been regenerated, practically constantly since 1959. After the war, and even before the war, it was what's... Victorian slums. So, you know, people came in...this building was built to do good for the poor of Kilburn, for example, by the St. John's Presbyterian Church in St. John's Wood. So there, this was a poor area, and the pictures that you see, are awful, you know, that there was real slums. So in the 50s, what they decided to do, bless their hearts, was tear it all down, for which I can never forgive them! Rather than doing it up and making it into nice flats. But nevermind, it's all you know, a lot of a lot of the buildings you'll see from that time, the late 50s, early 60s. And then it's constantly because it's, it's had lots and lots of social problems, which were not dealt with. Since then, it's been, you know, there's a lot of low, high unemployment, low educational attainment levels, lot of youth problems, you know, just everything that you would expect in an inner city. And now we're going through a period of intense regeneration, which means that the people who live here are being moved around...the older residents, long term residents, and their houses are being torn down and twice as many houses are being put back. And the, the twice as many again are all luxury flats. So you've got this crazy situation where you've got the old Council tenants in blocks, and next to them are people who've paid 100... 500,000 for a one bedroom flat and yeah, so it's, it's crazy. So you have the very needy and the very wealthy and they don't talk to each other much. And this building is one of the oldest...well, it's a community centre in the area and next door as well, the Carlton Centre are somewhat under threat as well. I think the council realizes they need some community space, but they'd like to build some housing on this site. And were arguing that if you're putting twice as many people into a very dense small area of London, you need twice as much community space, I think, because you need this to work somehow and people...the people need to meet each other somewhere. So houses are now built, they used to be built...most of the blocks here have have some kind of tenant hall or community space. They're now built without those. So there's nowhere to meet anybody. There's nowhere to discuss problems. There's nowhere to have a lunch or supper or a film night to get to know your neighbour. So that you...when they make a lot of noise, you think, Oh, it's okay. Because it's only Joan and she's needs to shout at certain times or whatever, or that's the lovely little girl, you know. So you know, you need those spaces to understand each other and to develop relationships. Otherwise, you're just...grrrr, those people over there. You know that I don't like them. I don't know them. They funny...they eat funny food, they wear funny clothes, whatever, you know? So we are in a constant, continual struggle here...We're still here! That's the good news. But we we can't let the guard down. We're not...we're not safe. Yeah. So we're but Dee and I are determined. We've got very sharp elbows! To keep as much community, as much community space as possible, and to keep these centres for the for the community of South Kilburn. There used to be a market in South Kilburn. And we would love to see that come back. And we have a farmers market in Queens Park, which is very, very wealthy, and wonderful produce, but just inaccessible.

Dee  31:35

So we need to bring farmers markets back to the people. Yes. So what Slow Food call Earth markets. So that's perhaps what we need here, an Earth Market. Yes. And if we get our goats, yeah? Because there's a brilliant project in Bristol called Street Goat. And Bristol is highly urbanized, just like London. And what they do...they keep goats for milk to make cheese. And with the young male goats, they use that to manage public land. And then...and then when they're a couple years old, then they sort of slaughter them and sell them for meat. Yeah, so, you know, that's what every community should have, some sort of small community farm where they have sort of animals, bees, you know, chickens for eggs. Yeah, that'd be great. But that's how it used to be be, we need to look back and take some lessons, I think some people got carried away with sort of population size, and thinking that we don't produce enough food to feed everyone, but we produce enough food right now to feed everyone.

Leslie  33:01

70% of the world's food is produced by subsistence farmers. It's not produced by massive mono cropping. And this is such a dicey road to go down because one little disease and Whoops, that's it, the whole you know, whereas...

Dee  33:16

That's happening with coffee right now, that's happening with this variety of bananas right now. Yeah, because of that, monocropping so we do need to go back to those traditional ways of doing coffee and bananas within a sort of forest system and small scale. And that might mean, okay, we don't have as much coffee here in the West, yeah, but we have better coffee and we're supporting farmers and the sorts of countries

Leslie  33:50

We need to pay the prices that it costs...that is good for us. Actually, you know,

Dee  33:57

We over eat. There's a brilliant book by Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved. Yeah, so us in the West, we're stuffed and we're malnutritioned. Yeah, because we're not eating right types of food whereas in global south, you know, people are eating a lot less and people are starving. But I think it's what, seven out of the 10 best diets in the world are in Africa. Right? Because, ya know, it's a lot less food. It isn't all this rubbish. They eat seasonally? Yeah, a lot less meat. So, yeah.

Leslie  34:41

We're not islands, we can't be self sufficient. And I think this is another myth that....to be ecological you need to be able to grow and produce everything yourself. No, we need community we need, you know, you're good at projects. I'm really good at cabbage or whatever. And we swap you know, or the ground that I'm working on is you know...whatever. Exactly. So we needed a different relationship to our products  [Music starts, a different clip starts, voicenote type audio] Hello everyone in Lecker podcast land. Thank you Lucy for asking us for an update. A lot of things have changed since we did our first podcast with you. In March 20, when the virus first hit, the people who were cooking our community meal left and said they couldn't do it safely anymore. So for a couple of weeks, we cooked and handed the food out through the doors. And then we were also getting some surplus food from City Harvest, we werere handing that out. And gradually over the nearly 18 months to 20 months, this has grown into an enormous Food Aid project which we've been getting bigger and bigger and more and more important in Brent and Westminster and Camden. So we're right on the corner of the three boroughs. So we started off serving about 50 to 70 households. And we're now serving about 300. At this point, we're trying to make the deliveries less because they're very difficult, it's very difficult to find drivers and driving is a pain in the neck. And this is not what we do. We, we see food aid as a small bandage on top of a gaping wound. And as we've always said, There's no such thing as food poverty, there's just poverty, many of the people who collect from us are working, they have such high bills, they have such bad working conditions in the sense of zero hours contracts or no contracts at all, a lot of people are drivers or care workers who have no contracts. And what we need to tackle is conditions of work and the price of food and the availability of localized food. So we're hoping to gradually begin to stop the food aid work by the summer of 22. But we have to be...do that very carefully and managed in order that people aren't badly affected by it.  So feeding over 1200 people a week is really a huge sort of military operation. And something that's quite, we're quite proud that we've been able to do it, we're still doing it. But as I say it's not where our heart lies, except as emergency provision. Of course, to stop people going hungry. At the same time in March 20, maybe a little bit later, we were also looking into what's called the Good Food Box. And this was started in October 20. It's a veg box scheme aimed at low income families. So there's three different prices that you choose where what you pay. So there's Go, Start and Solidarity price and solidarity prices a little bit higher in order that we can give a lower price for low income families. And we buy food direct from farmers, or some of it we've actually grown in South Kilburn - I'll tell you about another project that we're starting soon in order that we can feed the good food box, I mean, put food into the good food box. Because of the good food box and, and because of the growth of the, of the organization in terms of how well known it is. We've grown enormously, we now have six part time staff. We've just started the community meals again, for that we've partnered with a group called Sufra who are also another food project in Brent. And on Friday nights, we now have people starting to come back again to have food with us, which is really, really nice. And we're hoping to have open mic sessions then or we had a game session, quizzes, some kind of activity that draws us together. We've also been helping with their regeneration problems. So people being moved from place to place or not wanting their building to come down and try, how can they get, convince the council not to do this. We've helped write a community plan with two of the buildings and at the moment we're helping write a community plan for the Granville itself, and about its management and how that will happen hopefully with the community management board after it's had its regeneration.  We also had a wonderful heritage art project where we, we...four unsung heroes of South Kilburn. They were...their portraits were drawn, and they're put up on the hoarding, so that there's many many hoardings, wooden fences behind, blocking out all the building sides of, of all the work the regeneration work that's going on in the area. So these four women are, are put up on those boards as a beautiful reminder of some of the unsung heroes of South Kilburn. They're all community activists, they've spent their lives helping others and doing things and nobody knows about them really, except people that have met them and are affected by it. We've also been helping in the area with...helping Brent and working on political campaigns, notably the Right to Food, that food should be a right, not just left to the market. And we're hoping that Brent will become a right to food borough, and that gradually, all the boroughs in London will take this on, and then we can convince regional government, the mayor's office and then central government that food is a right. And we've also been working with Brent on the climate emergency and growing food and having more spaces to grow food. And last, but not at all least, and very, very most exciting, is we've hopefully, I think I don't want to jinx it! So we're starting a farm, a small market garden in Rickmansworth. Should be starting in February ish. So that growing there, we'll have two part time growers working on the farm. And we hope that the food there will then feed the good food box, and the good food box, part of the attributes of the good food boxes that it thinks about culturally appropriate food. And we have a lot of people in the south Kilburn area who are either from Southern Mediterranean or North African states, and they are looking for food from those cultures, and we will be able to supply food that's you know, in polytunnels, we'll be able to grow more food that's from those cultures, we hope. At the moment, we have a North European box and an African Caribbean box. So it's really, really exciting. The other aspect of the farm is going to be education so that young people we hope from South Kilburn or from the inner urban settings, will be able to go out in various ways on different schemes to the farm and work on the farm and see, to try and change the nature of people's thought around growing work, which often is seen as a peasantry, it's seen as backbreaking, repetitive, boring, or, in many cases, it's, it's connected to slavery and connected to the worst, most harsh and...injustices that the world has seen. So we need to change that narrative and show that it's a way out of the climate crisis, and that it's exciting work and that it's good for your health, and that it's creative work, which it is, and work with agro ecological farming practices, and teachers and so on who will pass on those skills and train up a younger generation in good food jobs. So we're very, very busy. And it's really great that you're releasing our podcast from a couple of years ago. I haven't listened to it recently. But I should do. And thank you very much for your continued interest in us. And we hope to speak together soon. Thanks very much. Bye.

Lucy  43:24

You can find out more about the Granville and the work that Dee and Leslie are doing with everyone involved there at Granvillecommunitykitchen.org.uk. I'm so excited about the farm and the good food box project that they do just Yeah, it's brilliant. And also if you want to read more about the project, Ruby Tandoh wrote a piece for Vittles last year about the Granville and the community and the area, which is 100% worth reading, so you can find that online. Thanks for joining me for the first episode of Lecker of 2022. I will be back next month with a brand new episode. Not a re-edit this time, I promise. But I hope you enjoyed this little step back in time and also look to the future. If you're a fan of Lecker, here's three ways that you can support: you can tell your friends, you can tweet about us, you can post us on Instagram stories, you can do a tiktok about how much you love the podcast...@ us in, @leckerpodcast. Number two, you can leave a rating or a review for the podcast wherever you listen, Apple podcasts lets you leave a written review or just do a star rating. Spotify also now lets you do a star rating. I'd be hugely grateful if you could rate us five stars if you've enjoyed listening, it really helps kind of bump the podcast up in their algorithms. So more people discover it via recommendations and playlists and all that sort of thing. It does really help. There's a reason why every podcast asks you to do it. It really helps. Number three as I mentioned at the top of the show, if you're in a position to offer financial support to Lecker, I would be unbelievably grateful you can do that monthly at patreon.com/LeckerPodcast. I'm just asking for three pounds a month that will help me cover production costs and kind of plan for the future of what is coming next for Lecker. And you can also make a one off donation via Ko-F. Best way to do that is go to the Lecker podcast homepage: leckerpodcast.com and scroll down and you'll find a button to donate there if you'd rather do a one off. No pressure to do any of those, but I would be really grateful. All right, I'll be back next month. Thanks for listening.