Jo’s hearty meals prove a hit

The Pumping Marvellous Foundation, the UK's leading heart failure charity, partnered up with Jo Iles from Amber's Woodfired Kitchen based in Oswestry, to share his pizza making knowledge with their online community during lockdown.

The charity helps people living with heart failure and prides itself on having a large social media following, leading the conversations around heart failure.

Nick Hartshorne-Evans, CEO of The Pumping Marvellous Foundation, said he feels indebted to Jo for his help in their series of Tasty Tuesdays webinars, which were a massive hit with the foundation's community, reaching more than 10,000 views in total.

"The challenge within the pandemic was keeping people occupied who are already very fragile and living with heart failure, we were at risk of Covid-19 anyway," Nick explained. "A lot of people found themselves in a situation where they were isolating and they had made that decision themselves.

"My brother, Jonathan Evans, who is a trustee, lives in Oswestry. He knows Jo and contacted him about doing something to help get people through isolation.

"One of the ways people deal with hearty failure is watching what they eat, and eating well. So we did seven webinars across the week inspired by eating well and home-made cooking.

"On Tasty Tuesdays we got Jo's help – we thought it would be a really great idea and our community would love it. We did a series of six episodes with him, making pizza to Vietnamese dumplings.

"Jo with his talent and passion for pizza has shown and educated many thousands of people across the UK with his pizza-making talent."

From his pizza van in Oswestry, Jo reached audiences across the UK and helped distract people in self-isolation or shielding for a few precious hours, helping them learn a new skill.

Nick added: "The feedback has been great, people loved it and really got involved. Jo started with a classic pizza lesson, then did one on making white pizza with Béchamel sauce, and then even went on to things like steak and chicken, Vietnamese dumplings as well as calzones and sweet pizzas.

"We feel as though we are indebted to him. Jo still made sure he had time for us even when his business started picking up again and he got busier, he still provided a content of really good shows."

Jo said he and his wife Amber wanted to get involved in something while they were in lockdown and their business couldn't operate as normal.

He said: "We just wanted to give something back to people, especially during the lockdown and considering there was nothing else on. So we felt it would be good to give back. The lessons were very fun and eventful, using technology can sometimes be a struggle but we got through, even with the occasional fire alarms."

Visit www.amberswoodfiredkitchen.co.uk and www.pumpingmarvellous.org for more information.