Making a meal of it

Currently, two schemes in the UK offer home-cooked food, made by neighbours for neighbours. Tina Fox discusses Meal Makers, a scheme that is local to her in Scotland.

For those older people living alone in the Glasgow or Dumfries and Galloway area there is a scheme called Meal Makers mentioned previously in VfL’s magazine, eBites. After going through the necessary assessments for legal protection, I have been paired up with an older lady, CB, aged 92 in Moffat. She lives alone in a flat – the complex appears to be sheltered but there is no warden. Although she has a nice kitchen she has no cooker – and is not able to stand long enough to cook a meal anyway. The idea of Meal Makers is that you just cook extra when making a meal for yourself and take it around at a convenient time – either fresh or frozen. The lack of a cooker will impose limitations on my cooking because any pastry etc cannot be cooked in her microwave, nor can I freeze anything in metallic containers as I usually do. However, as I was cooking a country vegetable pie yesterday I made an extra one to freeze. I will take it around hot, by prior arrangement, one day next week. I also discovered that she was not getting ‘meals on wheels’. There is a Royal Voluntary Service scheme that provides hot meals 3 days a week in Moffat, and frozen meals the rest of the time, so I have referred her to them. In addition she has difficulty with shopping, so I have asked the Food Train to get in touch with her. I can certainly see that the scheme will have a lot of benefits for someone living alone, when even after the first visit I have been able to put improvements in train. It will be interesting to see how it progresses – and if she likes her pie!

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For information on other ways of getting vegetarian or vegan meals delivered to your door, please see VfL's guide, Dinners to your Door.