Halloween saw the U-Turn Health pop-up now known as the CentrEVILle Soup and Juice Kitchen raise £100 for local charity Little Lights Liverpool. Formerly known as Zoe’s Place, Little Lights hospice provides respite care for babies and young children with complex and life-limiting needs. As part of the Plattsville Streets Halloween street party, we served ‘Blood Shots’ (beetroot, apple and ginger juice - as last year, this was the hands down winner), ‘Frogspawn’ (chia seed pudding made with fresh almond milk, cinnamon, raisins and goji berries), ‘Witches chips’ (dehydrated kale with a tahini, agave and lemon juice dressing) and pumpkin and butternut soup. We also had a big bowl of apples and satsumas for the kids, and I got to wear my daughter’s cat onesie all night. What’s not to like?!
From a local Liverpool crowd out mainly to collect as many sweets as possible, I got a lot of appreciative comments about real food, and people thanking me for doing what I was doing and encouraging me to carry on. Against the backdrop of this annual refined-sugar-feeding-frenzy, there were actually lots of young people who actively wanted the fruit, which was really heartening to see, and there was even one woman who remembered the soup from last year and came back specifically for more! Next year I might add in my bright green ‘Witches broth’ (apple, avocado and spinach soup) with grape ‘eyeballs’ and seaweed ‘worms’…