LOCAL SAUCE BLOG

Are there any two greater joys in life than food and friendship? If you find that the answer to this is ‘yes’ then I might suggest that you take a closer look at your friendship group or perhaps your diet. The good news is that you need look no further if it’s the food in your life that needs a revamp.

The common ingredient in both food and friendship that brings so much pleasure, I believe, is love, and the thing that makes working for Local Sauce so satisfying is that our little kitchen is absolutely brimming with it. The kitchen team runs on a weekly basis as a modest little trio. Sheba, the owner and brains behind the company, Macy, our newest but arguably most enthusiastic recruit, and myself, Lauren. Trained by Sheba I’ve been at the core of the team for five years now and I can say with confidence and sincerity that we are special.

So what makes us so special? That magic ingredient; love. You may have become familiar with the notion that kitchens are toxic environments where stress levels often reach boiling point and aggression and insults are the driving force behind results. Where extreme pressure and adrenaline become an exhausting daily routine somehow more addictive than a packet full of E numbers. But at Local Sauce it’s the dollop of daily fun that drives us, and as our love for one another doesn’t come without a hefty serving of respect we keep not just a willingness but a desire to show up every day ready to learn new skills and impart old ones in return.

Sounds as sickly as shop bought fondant but I’d be lying if I told you that every day in the LS kitchen is anything less than an adult play date that somehow results in 200 people getting fed by the end of it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hard work. Genuinely, it requires us to be physically fit and despite our gallant stamina we do find we have to take the occasional 5,4,3,2,1 (LS lingo for a quick sit down) and at times when we’re flat out serving multiple events for days on end it’s not unusual for one of us to voice how we’re spent on energy and ‘going out on a low’. Though even on those days I’d still consider our energy to be considerably higher than even the jolliest of days at some of my previous employers.

 So what does love taste like? Well, when there’s never lid on our laughter, be it from Macy’s interesting take on a Geordie accent (if you’re an old Millennial like me and you’re familiar with the expression ROFL but you’ve never experienced anybody actually rofl-ing, if you ever get to experience Macy’s astonishing interpretation of the UK’s regional accents, one of our favourite forms of entertainment, then you will no doubt be on that floor yourself), Sheba's one liners or general calm chaos, or Leila's wild but incoherent storytelling (Sheba’s adorable two year old daughter who I admit is my favourite but by far our most useless team member) it’s hard not to let that seep in and flavour our food. For an accurate description you’ll have to taste it for yourself because our food isn’t just the usual; sensational, sumptuous, delectable, delicious, flavourful, mouth-watering, etc. etc. you get the jist. No, our food is a whole lot more than that. It’s a feeling. Our food is love.

Written by Lauren Hollingworth-Swan