CANTEEN - A Building Site Recipe Book will be launched at the Pierian Centre in Portland Square, Bristol on Monday 1st December and at Harvey Nichols in Cabot Circus on Tuesday 2nd December.
Published by InSite Arts ISBN 978-0-9547300-8-6 the book is available through Harvey Nichols, The Arnolfini Bookshop and Waterstones in the Mall, Bristol. Price £15.00

a meal for the Harvey Nichols staff

The day before the new Harvey Nichols store opened its doors to the public I documented the last meal for Canteen. Over a matter of days the building site underwent a huge transformation. Builders in hig-vis jackets suddenly vanished and a whole new team of staff arrived -part of the 4,000 people who are needed to run the shops and centre. As an acknowledgement to the new staff I wanted the last meal I had prepared to be for them.
Louise is the new head Chef for Harvey Nic's and as a practice before paying customers arrived she and her team cooked a meal for other shop employees which was served by the waiters who will staff the resturant. As well as contributing a final recipe for the publication, Louise will also write an afterword about the experience of opening a new resturant in the new Cabot Circus

medieval meal at Quakers Friars

Right in the middle of the development site is Quakers Friars, a 12th century friary which is a grade one listed historic monument. Unlike the rest of the development what is going on here is a very sophisticated restoration project with most of the staff being skilled stone masons, carpenters and craftsmen. Meriel, one of the architect's surveyors suggested that the most appropriate meal here would be a medieval feast which dated from the period of the buildings. Using Meriel's initial suggestions and with a great deal of research BY Leighton, the chef [the real food company] we came up with a meal which included suckling pig stuffed with eggs and Brie cheese, salmon cooked in beer and vinegar, leek pottage and elderflower cheesecake amongst other all served in 'trenchers' plates meal of stale bread.
The meal was served to about 40 staff under a tree in front of Quakers Friars on a rare sunny afternoon during the lunch break. Of all the meals this must be the most surreal, surrounded as we were with the sounds of diggers and cranes.

a braai for Andres and Jacques

Held in the car park site the Braai was planned to co-inside with the last concrete pour as a moment of celebration. We made the meal open to all and cooked for 120 people. When the ques began to assemble on the sixth floor of the car park I began to panic but it was a fantastic afternoon. The Braai includes two whole spit roast lambs, Boerewors, Mielle Tarts roast potatoes and Durban Bannana curry salad. Not only was the meal great but the preparations were spectacular too and it began by taking all the cooking equipment up to the sixth floor using a skip and the site crane.

Cooked and served at Mud Dock, this recipe was selected by Derrick and Katrina- Steak and Guinness Pie with Soda Bread and a Chocolate Guinness cake.

the House of Fraser fitout team

Erwin works as part of the fitout team for the House of Fraser store. He suggested a goat curry with deep fried plantain rice and 'festivals'. He also introduced me to a fantastic cook who is known just by the name Chef. Working from a kitchen in St Pauls which always has a que of customers, Chef cooked a wonderful meal which we served to twenty people inside the half built shop.

a meal with the security staff

Most of the security staff on site are Nepali, why I am not sure. As seurity on site is 24 hours we had to find a moment when the site was quite and the day/night shift was changing to hold the meal. We used the site canteen [a temporary structure in what will be a carpark] and held the meal at 8pm on a Sunday night. The afternoon was spent preparing the food which was cooked by Indra-Bahador Gurung at his flat.

scallops in garlic sauce followed by grilled swordfish

This was the second meal we made for PHM Scaffolders, but I just could not resist the recipe and the background Sam wrote. His recipe is charged with childhood memories of growing up in the Barbican in Plymouth and for that alone it was worth cooking. After a starter of fresh scallops fried in garlic butter, we had a main course of grilled swordfish steaks with asparagus and saute potatoes. Since it was comming up to Christmas and as the meal needed to be served as soon as it was cooked, this also seemed the perfect opportunity to have the meal at Mud Dock itself. Thanks Sam for a great suggestion!

Romanian meal

Stuffed vine leaves – Potato and ham salad

Constantin runs the site canteen with his wife and several other staff. From 7am to 4pm he is cooking breakfasts and lunch non-stop, before clearing up, ordering and preparing the food for the following day. Constantin is from Romania and I was keen to do a meal with the canteen which anyone on site could buy. His suggestion for vine leaves was great, but in order to prepare them, he and his wife spent Sunday with me in the site canteen in what is a very labour intensive meal. The result was wonderful and was quickly consumed on Monday lunchtime.

Lithuanian meal

Beetroot soup with sour cream, and chicken potato bake.

Mantas came up with this suggestion and again it was cooked by Antoin at Mud Dock. For lunch with Mantas were three other Lithuanians, Polish and Russian site workers. The beetroot soup was the most fantastic colour and tasted great too.