Help the Hungry: Chef Melissa Hemsley backs campaign to help families through ‘hard, cold winter’

‘It is going to be a hard, cold winter and more people need this help more than ever before’, chef and author tells Abbianca Makoni

Chef and author Melissa Hemsley helps prepare and distribute food in conjunction with charities, the Felix Project and With Compassion (Lucy Young)

Celebrity chef Melissa Hemsley has praised our Help the Hungry appeal – saying it will help families get through a “hard, cold winter” as she cooked and delivered 300 hot meals for those in need.

The best-selling food writer began her day preparing roasted aubergine, chickpea curry and Bombay potatoes alongside 50 volunteers from our charity partner, With Compassion, at the London Scottish House.

She told the Independent: “Everyone here works so hard to give back to those in need – it has been a real team spirit and it’s just amazing to see everyone play a part.

“No matter how big or small – whether it’s the dishes, preparing the food or packing away the boxes – it’s a team effort.”

The Leytonstone-based chef visited the Victoria kitchen after the facility was lent to us for our campaign to help feed vulnerable people in and around the capital.

The “dark kitchen” gives a boost to our month-long Christmas appeal that will see the Independent, along with our partner, the Felix Project, deploy two state-of-the-art food trucks to distribute hot nutritious meals to those in need.

Hemsley, who has previously said that growing up her mother’s mantra was “every grain of rice”, also joined our volunteers at the Muslim Welfare House in Finsbury Park.

Wearing a high-vis vest, Hisham Bettayeb, an outreach officer for the organisation, said: “Every day at 2pm we serve food here to families from different circumstances – those who cannot afford food, those who may be homeless or who’ve been heavily impacted by the pandemic and lost their jobs.

“We’ve seen a lot more people coming in for food especially during this lockdown –  there are lots of families unable to feed their children – so together with Felix and Compassion we’re trying to help everyone that we can.”

The 24-year-old said that during lockdown close to 700 people a day depended on their centre for hot meals.

He added: “We’ve been able to get help from the charity in terms of capacity for good nutritious food and this allows us to continue feeding those who need it most.”

Recipients included a mother of six who lost her job at the start of the pandemic and was “really struggling” as a result of the second lockdown – with Mr Bettayeb saying she was “so grateful for the food that she was in tears”.

The black trucks, supplied by Food Truck Masters who run the Together19 Street Vendor initiative, have so far delivered hundreds of meals to charities in north and west London.

Hemsley who has volunteered with Felix in her spare time for two years, said: “I found it almost impossible not to get involved in this amazing campaign which is going to help so many people.

“I mean we’re all so busy, but if you can make the time then you should because I know from previous experience how extra hands just make such a difference,“ adding: “It is going to be a hard, cold winter and more people need this help more than ever before. I feel I’m doing a very minor role in what is going to be a big operation and that is going to make so much impact.”