Rocky's Road Brew, a Detroit food truck, delivered 50 of these Tuesday to Henry Ford Medical Center - Fairlane. (Photo: Instagram)
Elisa Gurulé, a doctor's spouse, has multiple reasons for organizing a steady flow of restaurant meals for his emergency department colleagues in Dearborn.
In addition to supporting the strained caregivers, she wanted a distraction from "the mind-numbing stagnation of being home, again" with couple's two youung sons as "anxiety and boredom ratchet each other to new levels daily," she writes at Tostada Magazine.
Her article is the first in a new series labeled "Food in the Time of Corona" -- "personal essays about how our relationship with the food world has dramatically changed," editor Serena Maria Daniels writes in an introduction.
Elisa Gurulé: "My mind is blown."
(Photo: Facebook)
Gurulé, whose husband is Dr. Chris Paul, began with two simple resources -- "my social media and desire to feed people" -- and wound up surprising herself.
"Holy moly," she posts Thursday evening on Facebook. "We've been able to provide about 7,500 meals to the staff of Henry Ford Fairlane over the last month. My mind is blown." [Three more delivery examples are below.]
An earlier post shares this poetic reflection: "All we can do is what we can do. Which, it turns out, is quite a bit."
Some of the Dearborn emergency department recipients.
(Photo: Facebook)
In her Tostada piece, the self-starting benefactor looks back at how an idea sprouted and blossomed.
We live a comfortable life, but I certainly didn't have the money to buy more than maybe one lunch for 50 people. Maaaybe two, if I stretched.
Approximately 100 people work there — this includes day and night shift, and all support staff, not just doctors and nurses. I've tried to alternate lunch and dinner deliveries in order to make sure that no one gets left out.
I started raising funds by asking on Facebook if people might send me some money on Venmo or Cash App so I could buy lunch. On the first day, I was able to get chicken shawarma, rice and hummus delivered for lunch from local spot Al-Ameer. They threw in an order of roasted potatoes for free. It was served family-style, which is not ideal, but we hadn’t figured that out yet. The staff was thrilled. ...
The next day, I had enough to order pizza. But it was Buddy's, the best Detroit-style pizza, and they're paying their employees an extra $2 an hour right now, so it felt like a good choice and I bought about 10 pizzas.
By now, I started trying to think, how long could I keep this going if I didn’t know how much money I would have from day-to-day? I figured I would just call, talk to whoever I could reach — donors and chefs — and take it from there.
Lamb and root vegetables from Coriander Kitchen & Farm, a Detroit caterer.
(Photo: Instagram)
Gurulé describes how her impulse swelled into an operation that includes Rose's Fine Foods, ima, Baobab Fare, Saffron De Twah, Rocky’s Road Brew, Coriander Kitchen & Farm caterers, Flowers of Vietnam and See You Next Tuesday, a pop-up.
Each of these businesses has been able to raise a little bit of money on their own, which stretches my budget and allows me to reach out to more kitchens, and as we do more, we can do more. . . .
Chris looked at my calendar the other morning and pointed out that the little Ford Fairlane ER has been fed nearly every day for the month of April.
How to donate
♦ Venmo: @Elisa-Gurule
♦ Cash App: $ElisaGuru
♦ Food businesses: Email Elisa at ehgurule@gmail.com
2 more servings
Spring Gnocchi by chef Molly Mitchell of Rose's Fine Foods on East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit. (Photos: Instagram)
Chicken pot pie also came from Rose's.
