STIRRING restlessly while holding big pans of boiling soup, not minding the hot steam that flush on their faces, cooks, chefs, and those who came to help have been taking turns overnight in cooking food for those who lost everything.
Instead of pasta and pastry served on a fancy plate, the small kitchen of Pan e Dolci in Nazareth village has opened to cook not for their visitors or patrons, but for temporary shelters of flood evacuees.
Since Monday’s devastating floods hit Cagayan de Oro, owners Ruben Castor and Mark Lacuesta have transformed the small cooking space of their restaurant into a soup kitchen to help feed thousands of displaced and hungry flood victims in evacuation centers and affected areas.
Their initiative started when Castor saw the numerous posts of trapped and hungry people inside the University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines (USTSP) in social media on Monday evening. In an instant, he assessed the ingredients that was left in their pantry and started cooking what he could for the stranded faculty and students who were calling out for food and water.
The chicken carbonara and adobo that Castor was able to cook were picked up from their restaurant and delivered by the City Disaster and Risk Reduction Management Office (CDRRMO) to the university. And yet, because of his small resources at the time, he was only able to feed a few of the thousands trapped inside.
However, Castor continued on his mission to feed the flood victims. Now, with the help of his co-owner Lacuesta and his friend Kai Villalba, the Pane e Dolci restaurant has, for days, been filled with the strong smell of spices like onions, garlic, gingers, and lemon grass, coming out from their kitchen.
"I think it is the instinct of us, chefs, who were given the ability to cook food to feed those who badly need food," Castor said.
While at first, the team only planned to put up their soup kitchen for two days, orders from various flooded communities and evacuation centers continued coming which made them decide to extend their service until such time when the victims were able to go back home. Villalba, who monitors the line-up of their orders, said that concerned people mostly tap them from social media so that they will know what areas still need their food.
"Most of our friends would inform us through Facebook that parts of their communities still need food. Then, we would contact the barangay-units if they need food and then if they do, we would arrange for them to pick up the Arroz Caldo here," Villalba said.
Since Tuesday, the team was able to feed evacuees not only in the evacuation centers but in flooded communities in Camaman-an, Bulua, Iponan, Gusa, and Agusan.
Villalba narrated that on the communities where they bring food, most people are still too busy cleaning up and recovering their houses and properties and most families are still unable to cook food or get clean water to drink.
"Aside from those who are in the evacuation centers, some people decided to come back to their houses to clean. However, the surroundings are still so muddy and dirty that most families are focused more on the recovery of their properties, most of them still do not have the capability to cook clean food as of now," Villalba said.
During the wreckage caused by Sendong in 2011 Castro, Lacuesta, and Villalba were still students of the Culinary Institute of Cagayan (CIC).
At that time, the group also set up a soup kitchen for the Typhoon victims, however, it was smaller than what they are doing today. While Pane e Dolci specializes in pastry, Castro and Lacuesta are actually registered dietitians and nutritionists before they entered culinary school.
"That is why the Arroz Caldo actually has vegetable in it such as squash and others because we still mind the nutrition that the flood victims especially need," Villalba said.
Food, ingredients, and money donations have also been given by their friends and connections which greatly helped the soup kitchen to continue their operation. Once, Villalba said that a group of Korean missionaries came to dine at Pane e Dolci. The group complained of the strong smell of the onions and spices coming from the kitchen. Then Villalba explained to them that they were cooking soup for the flood victims, the missionaries immediately donated money for their restaurant's cause.
"It is good that people understand what we are trying to do here. Some of our fellow chefs who own cafes in the city actually even gave us bread to give to the victims. Some of them went here to take part in the chopping and cooking. I think this initiative is rooted in our knowledge of how it is to go hungry, and so we try to help those who desperately need food," Villalba said.