Maddy Goldberg is a private chef who has extensive experience in the fine dining industry. But these days, you’ll catch her on social media sharing some newly-perfected recipes or sharing a vlog from an afternoon at the food bank.
“POV: cooking lunch for 100 people using the random food I find at the food bank,” many of her videos are titled.
Once a week, Goldberg posts up in the kitchen of the York Fort Food Bank in Toronto, Canada, where she makes gourmet meals with whatever she can find.
“I don’t care who I’m cooking for, it’s the same,” Goldberg told CBC News. “I’m going to be producing the same food. Obviously I’m just using different ingredients, and the inspiration is maybe a little different at a food bank, but technique-wise, [it’s] the exact same.”
Goldberg cooks for clients of the food bank, as well as staff and other volunteers. She often has about two hours to make 100 meals.
While Goldberg began by using up whatever free and accessible ingredients were already available at the food pantry — often things like potatoes and eggs — friends in the culinary community realized they had things to contribute, too.
“I’ve gotten a lot of responses from … chefs around the city who are either doing a pop-up or find themselves with an excess of food,” she told CBC News, “good quality ingredients that they just can’t fathom throwing out.”
So, she’s been collecting ingredients that would otherwise go to waste, and creating hot gourmet meals that people often don’t see in the distribution line at the food bank.
Her creations include a fall-inspired fattoush salad with acorn squash, crispy pita, marinated soy eggs, and roast chicken with ingredients donated by a friend after a pop-up. She’s made homemade hummus, curry cauliflower, poached eggs, and toast for one meal, and a potato frittata with confit garlic paired with spinach fried rice and cucumber salad for another.
Another standout is a colorful vegetable and pasta salad with produce donated from a nearby community garden.
“Every single cucumber I’m chopping right now is imperfect, but I’m going to turn it into something delicious and visually appealing,” she told CBC. “I think that’s hopefully going to be the new realm of fine dining; food’s not perfect but see how amazing I can make it taste.”
And according to her diners, she makes it taste amazing.
“Oh my god, it’s great,” the food bank’s operations manager, Umut Yenmis, told CBC News. “A couple of weeks back, she made some hummus; it was better than my father’s.”
“It’s incredible to be able to give something to our clients that’s so high-end,” Julie Legion, the food bank’s executive director, added. “We want to provide an overall healthy, culturally-appropriate diet.”
And for Goldberg, it’s all in good fun.
“[I] love getting donations from other chefs in the city and giving their food new life,” she wrote in a recent social media caption.
“This brings me so much joy,” she added in another, “and it’s so fun to share it with you all.”
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Header image by Trường Trung Cấp Kinh Tế Du Lịch Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh CET on Unsplash
