Zera Café – Food with a Purpose

When I shifted gears into full retirement mode last spring, after four years of part-time consulting work, Tuesdays became my favorite day of the week. Oh I still love celebrating Shabbat dinners with my family and spending quality time with my two young grandsons, and I still enjoy working on my Sunday morning radio show when I share my collection of music from the 1950’s and 60’s with listeners from around the globe. But Tuesday mornings from 9:00 to 12:30 have become very special for me. That is the time that I volunteer at the Zera Café.

Zera Café is a not-for-profit social enterprise that prepares and delivers healthy homemade meals and caters events in Montreal. Meals can be ordered from the organization’s website (https://zeracafe.ca) and can be picked up at various locations or shipped direct to one’s home or business. The well equipped kitchens are located in the Cumming Centre, a community centre managed by Federation CJA and supported by various charitable organizations and local foundations.

What makes a difference at Zera Café is their mission to employ neurodivergent young adults. The term “neurodivergent” describes people whose brains work differently than most. That means they have different strengths and challenges from people whose brains don’t have those differences. The dissimilarities may include medical disorders, learning disabilities and other conditions. The possible strengths include better memory, being able to mentally picture three-dimensional objects easily, the ability to solve complex mathematical calculations in their head, and many others.

Many of the employees at Zera Café struggle in public situations and they are often out of step with social cues. Some of the employees are on the Autism Spectrum or have Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The managers at Zera Café understand these challenges and have created a safe and productive working environment where employees are trained to prepare complex recipes including hearty soups, healthy salads, entrées and delicious desserts.

Zera Café is the brainchild of Ms. Eve Rochman, a graduate of McGill University’s Health and Social Services Management program. Ms. Rochman had no previous experience in catering or running a business, let alone managing people with intellectual or developmental issues but after 27 years in information technology, Rochman knew she wanted a career change, and earned a diploma in health and social services management.

Ms. Rochman learned about a growing need in the community. When neurodivergent young adults reach 21, they become too old for many of the currently available programs; they have no structure, few options and they often become despondent.

A federation survey confirmed a lack of opportunities for this population, so Rochman set about to create meaningful employment in a supportive environment. Many such young people, she knew, were capable of work that was more fulfilling than packaging or stocking shelves which they are often relegated to.

In 2019, Zera started with a couple of employees and volunteers in a synagogue’s kitchen, preparing food for the Sabbath kiddush. It was just starting to obtain some jobs catering small events outside the synagogue when COVID-19 commenced. The team was able to survive the crisis and was able to grow and move to its current location in 2021.

Besides providing ready-made meals to order through the web site, Zera also caters events in the Cumming Centre and provides specialty items to some Montréal restaurants like Beauty’s and Pigeon Café. All the meals produced at Zera are kosher and the site has full-time kashruth supervision. Many meals are vegan and gluten free.

Last spring, a friend, Lisa Steinberg, was talking to me about Zera Café and extolling the virtues of working there. She had started as a volunteer a year earlier, and was now employed at the Café on a full-time basis, helping with the scheduling, purchasing and inventory control. She asked me to try volunteering for one morning each week. I wasn’t much of a cook, but she assured me that there would be enough people in charge so that I would not mess up too often. The full-time employees are mostly in control and the volunteers are just there to help keep them focused and to keep the production flow on target.

The first day on the job, I worked with a lovely young lady named Jennifer. Together we made sixteen servings of lasagna with béchamel sauce. Although I sometimes had trouble understanding Jennifer, she knew exactly what to do and I did not. Jennifer tried to be patient with me and it was truly a learning experience for both of us.

I try to arrive a little before the official start of my shift, as it gives me a chance to socialize with the employees and my fellow volunteers. There is Jonathan, a young man who knows everyone’s birthday and every state and provincial capital. Darren likes to take a short nap before his shift begins. Dagmas is from India and loves the Beatles. Laura and Ricky are two of the loveliest ladies that I have ever met. Daniel, one of the younger employees, always has a smile. Mark, the dishwasher, has a collection of records and CDs from the fifties and sixties that rivals my own. There is an incomparable level of camaraderie between the employees.

When our shift begins, we don our hairnets, tie our aprons, thoroughly wash our hands and put on latex gloves. Every precaution is taken to insure food safety. We all meet with the chef, Ayelet and sous-chef Karen who assign the teams and give us our tasks. A task may consist of preparing and cooking an entire meal from start to finish or simply a “mis-en-place” where we are given a recipe and asked to collect, prepare and measure all the required ingredients.

During the past several months of volunteering at Zera Café, I have prepared hundreds of gallons of soup, peeled countless numbers of potatoes and carrots, sliced scores of onions, mixed kilograms of flour, eggs, and sugar, formed hundreds of potato latkes and prepared the filling for dozens of hamentashen.

When our shift is over, chef Ayelet always personally thanks each and every volunteer, but it is us that should be thanking her instead. As volunteers, we are being given an exceptional opportunity to participate in a project that allows us to work hand-in-hand with very special people and provides a meaningful and positive contribution to the community.

Paul J. Starr is a recently retired systems analyst who has lived his entire life in Montréal, Canada. On Sunday mornings he is “living the dream,” hosting a two-hour Internet radio show featuring music from the 50s and 60s called “Judy’s Diner.”