By Evelyn Cullen
Husband and wife Pat and Amanda Brady from The Kitchen on Main Street, Letterkenny were the team responsible for keeping election enthusiasts fed and watered during the long and tiring count.
“This is our seventh or eight time doing the food for the elections here at the Aura Leisure Centre so we have a good system now and the Aura staff know us well” said Pat.
They were up since 6:30am on Saturday preparing the fresh food such as sandwiches, sausages baps, sausage rolls, wraps and an assortment of traybakes “a mixture of everything” said Pat.
They cook everything at their cafe on the main street and bring it in.
“There’s no cooking facilities here at the Aura so we make everything at the cafe, then load up our own equipment and transport it all here” he said “microwaves, the bain marie to keep the food warm and two large cygnet kettles to boil water for the endless cups of tea and coffee” he added.
By Saturday evening they had sold hundreds of traybakes and gone through countless loaves of bread for sandwiches. “It tips away all day and once people start getting elected we start getting busier, so we’re expecting a busy day on Sunday” said Pat speaking on Saturday evening.
Amanda said that plain sandwiches are always popular including chicken and cheese, and the breakfast baps are not just for breakfast “We sell breakfast baps all day long” said Pat. They also have mince pies for a Christmas vibe.
And what are people drinking? “Tea is popular generally” said Amanda so you know people are getting tired when they start drinking the coffee” she added.
They have a delicious sweet treat called “Fifteen”, which is very popular. ‘It’s an original recipe and it’s called “Fifteen” because it includes fifteen digestives, fifteen cherries and fifteen marshmallows all blended up together” said Amanda.
They are conscious about not wasting food.
“When we’re doing our preparation there’s an element of suck it and see and play it by ear in order to judge what we need” explained Pat “we try to only make what we will sell so we reduce waste” he added.
There might be a lot of disagreement between candidates on their policies but there’s one thing they all agree on – Pat and Amanda’s delicious fresh fare gets everyone’s vote.
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