A Slice of Bread and Butter
The voice of The Bread and Butter Thing - with stories from the frontline of the cost of living crisis from one of the UK's leading food charities.
A Slice of Bread and Butter
Nzara's journey to joy via Manchester, music and food
From Florida to Manchester, homelessness to harmony, join Alex and Mark as they chat to Nzara about how music and food have become her therapy. She arrived in the UK with only enough money to see her through two weeks and has since built up a community from scratch through cooking. Despite daily battles with her mental health, Nzara refuses to let it get her down and continues on her search to balance wellness with a busy life.
Welcome back to A Slice of Bread and Butter with Alex and Mark from the Bread and Butter Thing. We're a charity that delivers affordable food to the heart of struggling neighbourhoods, to help nourish communities and act as a catalyst for change.
Speaker 2:We provide access to a nutritious, affordable range of food, which means our members can save money on their shopping, feed their families healthily, as well as access other support too, right in the heart of their communities, and this is where we share a slice of life of somebody involved in bread and butter and hear about how they connect with us. So slices of life is quite funny, isn't it? Because this one right now is a slice of your life, isn't it? You're outing me, aren't you? I am outing you, yes.
Speaker 1:So yes, full confession. This is a re-record because you tell them, mark.
Speaker 2:Well, your mic was back to front, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:We recorded three of these and I sounded like I was underwater on all of them and couldn't for the life of me work out why. How long did it take you to figure it?
Speaker 2:Well, you sat me down, didn't you?
Speaker 1:And the microphone just said back Ten out of ten for observation, for me Not. Anyway, that will be the last time that I do that.
Speaker 2:I'm sure Anzara wouldn't have made that mistake.
Speaker 1:She definitely wouldn't. And she was actually my very, very first podcast and it was a lovely one because I was a little bit nervous and Zara actually came here to record the podcast and she arrived with beautiful butterflies in her hair with big smiles.
Speaker 1:She's a student here in Manchester and she's five years here after landing from Florida, although she is born and bred in Britain. But yeah, she's come back because she missed the weather, I'm sure, as she says, looking out of the window at the dreary Manchester skies, she's got big dreams. She wants to be an artist, she's studying music production and, yeah, she struggles a bit with her mental health. So every day can be a bit of a challenge, but she tries her best to be as positive as possible. It's a friend who got her involved in bread and butter as she was getting over an illness, so she was rebuilding a relationship with food and things were a bit tight so it ticked a lot of boxes. Shall we have a listen?
Speaker 3:yeah, let's the thing about my hub is it's literally around the corner from where I live and I kept saying to myself I should sign up. I should sign up, you know, because times are difficult and it would really help me a lot. Then in April, I just remember signing up one day and I have not regretted it.
Speaker 1:It has made such a profound impact on my life and my health I can't even begin to tell you that's brilliant to hear and can you share a little bit about your health issues?
Speaker 3:Yes, so the last two years I had been ill with a hernia I had surgery for it in December and because of that health issue my relationship with food had become very strained because I couldn't really eat anything. After the surgery I started getting better and I started to redevelop my relationship with food, but the problem was was financially I was struggling. So the fresh fruits and vegetables that I really needed to help me heal after surgery I didn't really have access to, and when I signed up to bread and butter thing and I realised how much fruit and vegetables you actually got out of your haul, it actually motivated me to start cooking for myself again, which improved my mental health as well as my physical health greatly.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's wicked. And have you got any top dishes that you do? Have you got any anzara specials?
Speaker 3:I love leek and potato soup. I also love risotto, uh, pasta. Just I love making anything. Really, sometimes it's more of whatever I get that week. I'll just throw it into a pot. Are you a batch cooker? I am, I am, I have to be, because my schedule is very full at the moment between studying, working and taking care of my health. So I have one day a week where I batch cook, stick half of it in the freezer, half of it in the fridge, and then I don't have to think about it all week easy life, easy life.
Speaker 1:How's your mental health doing now um?
Speaker 3:every day is a struggle. I'll be completely honest I I can't tell you whether each day will continue to be a good day. If it starts out as a good day, I can't tell you whether or not it will start out really fantastically and end really badly. For me, the only thing that I am very grateful for is that I have learned not to manage it, but how to live with it. I'm kinder to myself on the difficult days, which takes a lot of practice. I think we as a society honour and empower people who can keep it all together and we don't give enough space to people who can't.
Speaker 3:And it's all well and fair saying you know it's, it's not forever, you'll get through it. When you're in it, you don't really want to hear that. You just want someone to understand that you have your own ways of getting through it. What are the triggers for you? For me, it's through it. What are the triggers for you? For me, it's forever dealing with grief, of trying to let things go and move forward. It can come out of nowhere. You learn not to overcome it, but to live beside it and move with it, and sometimes my triggers are just the injustices of the world, seeing so many people struggle and not being able to help everybody, not being able to help myself, thinking I should be stronger, my own mind escape, which can be my own worst enemy. Out of all of it, I have tried to be consistent in the fact that, as a person, I understand I am flawed, I am not perfect, and sometimes that really pulls me through.
Speaker 1:You're a real empath, then aren't you?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, you're a real empath, yes, and that's not a bad thing no, but it has its challenges. I struggle because I get too overwhelmed feeling everybody else's struggle.
Speaker 1:When we've spoken before, you mentioned you have issues around budget management. Is that something that you still experience?
Speaker 3:Yes, when I'm severely depressed, I impulse buy. I impulse buy things either off of eBay or Timo, but the thing is is I'm rather strategic in the fact that I make sure that I have paid all my bills first, but it is money that I probably should have saved and that's where I end up beating myself up about it. I'm now in the stages of trying to figure out how to navigate that, yeah.
Speaker 1:And are you in any debt at all? No, no.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's good Touch wood. That is my worst fear, that and being homeless again.
Speaker 1:You mentioned you'd experienced homelessness before. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:So today is my five-year anniversary of being in Manchester, of being in Manchester when I arrived from first left Florida, landed in Frankfurt, Germany, and then flew to Manchester. When I landed, I only had enough funds for two weeks of accommodation. After that two weeks, I had to go to town hall and declare myself homeless. So I'm a British citizen. I was in America for 18 plus years and moved to Manchester by myself.
Speaker 1:Does Manchester feel like home now? Yes, yes, the city of music.
Speaker 3:Yes, you belong here as soon as the tyres touched the tarmac, I felt like it was home.
Speaker 1:Oh I love that, I love that. And how are you feeling about Christmas? Is Christmas a time of joy for you?
Speaker 3:So it'll be just me and my cast, which I am more than happy about. I've never been a very big Christmas person. I'm actually looking forward to working in Christmas, to be around other people and to be able to share a lot of joy and love during a season which I know is very, very difficult for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:You mentioned. I know that you volunteer at a hostel for homeless people. Is that what'll be doing on on the 25th?
Speaker 3:yes, so it can be chaos, but I love the fact that every time I go into work, all these children give me hugs. The teenagers talk to me when they're not talking to anybody else, you know which I think is the ultimate compliment. And I have parents that cook and share their food with me and look out for me, and I'm so grateful and fortunate to be in that position where I can give people hope.
Speaker 1:Speaking of hope, what are your hopes for 2025? Your personal hopes.
Speaker 3:My personal hopes are emotional stability. I'll be honest, I feel like this year has been the most tumultuous emotionally, romantically, physically. With that growth I'll be better able to not feel so emotionally overwhelmed and physically speaking, I would love to go to more music shows and concerts.
Speaker 1:Well, you're in the right city.
Speaker 3:You're in the right city. Yes, I've been to three in the last month and it's been absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. One last question, because I know that you love the surprise element of what's in the bread and butter bags. What's been the biggest surprise this week, actually?
Speaker 3:I got a full chicken. I'm only one person. This chicken feeds six, so I'm going to be making that and sharing that with the neighbours and things. But oysters as well, do you like?
Speaker 1:oysters.
Speaker 3:I tried them. They're not to my taste, but the thing I love about the bread and butter thing is that it gives me the opportunity to try foods that I would A never be able to afford and B never actually try willingly on my own, oysters being one of them.
Speaker 1:I think I couldn't agree with you more with that one. Do you find cooking is a real community thing where you live?
Speaker 3:Very much so, especially at work. So everybody has their own air fryer or slow cooker so they cook. Using that, they're able to make food that is just as filling and wholesome and nutritious. But when it comes to my personal cooking, I love showing my food for me. That's how I show people that I care and I think that's something that I learned. Through lockdown, because of the homelessness system, you get placed in temporary accommodation to temporary accommodation until a place is suitable for you, and during my nine months through the system during Covid, I ended up in a shared house with 10 other women and it was such a difficult time for all of us. But every three days I would go and clean the kitchen, go and cook and I would cook for everybody.
Speaker 3:You sound like a lovely person to be neighbors with thank you, I I am very oh, I don't know how my neighbors feel at three o'clock in the morning when I'm zooming around cleaning my house, but but uh, yes okay, so weekly bags, weekly bags.
Speaker 1:I love it that she calls it a haul, yeah it's so funny because so many people do.
Speaker 2:I like it when the kids actually start to talk about it because they call them their lucky bags because you just never know what's gonna be.
Speaker 2:Just never know. You just never know. And then batch cooking again and cooking for our neighbours. How many times do we hear these things about people that get too much food and then they don't think, oh, I'll throw it away or waste it. They just think, what can I do? I'll cook it for my neighbours and my friends and it's just like. This is just amazing community. Yeah, I just respect. I have to confess I don't think that way. I go, batch it, freeze it. I have to confess I don't think that way I go batch it, freeze it yes.
Speaker 2:I'm quite selfish. There's a little bit of prepper in me that thinks I'll save it for me.
Speaker 1:I don't waste it For the zombie apocalypse? Yeah Well, this is how she's built her community, isn't it? Through her cooking. So she landed in Manchester with money for two weeks of living and then has had to build a life from scratch and has built herself a little community through the skills of her cooking and food, and the power of food, the power of music they're the two joys of life, aren't they?
Speaker 2:but what a bold move. Two weeks money and you move from florida to here and then end up having to declare yourself homeless, sort of thing, at the town hall. What a journey. Yeah, so yes, impulse buying. What a risky business that is, and it's something that so many people have as a bit of retail therapy to help you feel better. But it can lead to all sorts of problems if you don't have that money in the first place. That's a really dangerous area, isn't it?
Speaker 1:and I think one of her strategies to avoid that is by not going out. But then, of course, there's the online shopping and she's been sucked into the world of timu what's timu? Oh, mark, you don't want to know okay you don't want to know. You can go and feel like a millionaire, because it's all cheap imports yeah okay that have yet to be imported. So you place an order and then it takes four weeks to arrive and you go on the site and, because everything's so cheap, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And before you know it, you've spent a fortune.
Speaker 1:Absolutely on stuff you didn't need.
Speaker 2:Ah, so it's like wishcom.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly like that.
Speaker 2:Both sites we shouldn't necessarily be mentioning or promoting, really. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:Not at all, not at all Okay.
Speaker 2:And gigs. Going to gigs, again worryingly expensive if you're not careful. If you go to local bands and things, that's fine, isn't it? But gigs can be a fortune nowadays.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'm hoping that as a music production student she has got VIP access and a little underground network that she can go and make the most of her of guest lists.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm too old, too long in the tooth nowadays. Or just, am I just socially awkward? Actually I don't. I'm not a fan of gigs anymore.
Speaker 1:Anymore though.
Speaker 2:Anymore, though that means you were yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Can you name your favourite gig? I can?
Speaker 2:yeah, manchester Apollo, the Cramps, I think it was 1986.
Speaker 1:Great venue.
Speaker 2:And I don't think I paid more than 20 quid for a ticket.
Speaker 1:But a lifetime of memories.
Speaker 2:Lifetime of memories, Even to the kind of kids that were sat on my car saying look after your car, mate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love a gig and she's in the right city. You can go to a gig a night if you want to, big or small.
Speaker 2:Very true.
Speaker 1:But yeah, they're quite astronomical now Big money makers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Christmas is coming right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So Nzara's clearly very happy to have Christmas with herself and a cat, but in a positive way, because sometimes you think people on their own at Christmas that's a really bad thing, but actually Nzara was saying it was a really positive thing and it's nice because I like my own space as well as I'm oversharing on this podcast, that I'm socially awkward and I can see that I'm the one in the house that likes to sit there with nothing switched on. I like to hear the ambient noises around me and I'm really chilled with that and I'm sure that says more about me than this podcast ought to know. But this, but Anzaro with a cat and she was just like just a bit of peace, just a bit of centering, and she'll go out and do a bit for charity and feed the homeless, which is a lovely thing, but there's a lot of people that'll be out there on their own not by choice, not by choice yes, and that's the tricky bit.
Speaker 2:If you'd like to know more about the bread and butter thing and what we get up to, you can find us at Team TBBT on Instagram and Twitter, on LinkedIn or online at breadandbutterthingorg.
Speaker 1:And if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast or would like to come and have a chat, drop us an email at podcast at breadandbutterthingorg.
Speaker 2:And lastly, we're always open to new members at all of our hubs. So if you or someone you know would benefit from our affordable food scheme, you can find your nearest hub on the Become a Member page on the website.
Speaker 1:And please do all those things that podcasts ask you to do Like us, subscribe, leave us a review and share us with your friends, and chat about us on social, too. Please, until next time. See you again, bye.
