Hiller has cooked meals for needy for more than 25 years

Posted 6/4/20

Hannah Harberg, of Chestnut Hill, cooks nearly 90 meals a week for local shut-ins and families who don’t have enough food. by April Lisante She’s got it down to a science. She knows Giant opens …

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Hiller has cooked meals for needy for more than 25 years

Posted
Hannah Harberg, of Chestnut Hill, cooks nearly 90 meals a week for local shut-ins and families who don’t have enough food.

by April Lisante

She’s got it down to a science.

She knows Giant opens at 6 a.m. for senior hour and the Acme at 7. She knows she can only get the 20-pound bag of rice she needs at Costco. And she knows how to be careful every time she goes out, with her gloves, mask and sanitizer.

While I’m sitting here complaining about having to come up with a simple dinner for five every night, septuagenarian Hannah Harberg, of Chestnut Hill, is assembly line cooking nearly 90 meals a week for local shut-ins and families who don’t have enough food.

I first heard about Harberg a few weeks ago, when I was doing a story about local churches and their food pantries struggling to collect food during the pandemic. The head of the Caring for Friends group at Our Mother of Consolation mentioned Harberg, a parishioner, who grocery shops on her own, spending her own money to buy all she needs to make the meals. I knew I had to talk to her.

What I didn’t know was that the 75-year-old widow has been part of the organization since 1992, when it was called Aid for Friends. For more than 25 years, she has been making trays of food, freezing them, and donating them to feed the hungry. This recent virus has only stepped up her production.

“I started small in 1992. I took some containers home and started doing a few a week. At the time I would cook a little bit extra and make a couple of dinners. It’s an easy thing to do,” said Harberg. “To buy extra food and cook it and put it in your freezer. I’ve always enjoyed doing it.”

But typically, parishioners grab a tray or two and return a couple of frozen dinners. Not Harberg, and not during this crisis which has skyrocketed unemployment and left local families cash-strapped and without basic needs.

Somehow, though Harberg is nervous about grocery shopping, she is undeterred from her mission, heading out up to three times a week to different stores to buy proteins, starches and fresh produce to fill dozens of the three-sectioned trays the church provides.

As the oldest of six children in her family, she said she is the one who does a lot of the family parties and loves to cook.

“I shop in very big quantities,” she said. “Right now, that’s the biggest difficulty, getting to the food because I have to be very careful when I shop.”

After her outings, she comes home, cooks chicken, pork or chopped meat, then makes fresh veggies and a starch, whether it’s potatoes, pasta or rice.

“I do a lot of chicken and pork,” she said. “And a lot of pasta dishes.”

 She doesn’t stop there, however. After she fills the trays, she makes a special “treat” to add to the meal.

“I try to add a little treat to the dinner, whether its Italian bread with butter or I bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies,” she said. “Just something to look forward to after the meal.”

When the meals are cooled, she wraps them with aluminum foil, freezes them, then delivers them to the church freezer in plastic bags filled with five dinners each. The dinners will go to a distribution headquarters for Caring for Friends in Northeast Philadelphia, where they will find their way to those in need.

I still can’t picture making that many dinners in my kitchen, and I have quarantine trauma every time I have to make more chicken because I’m fresh out of dinner ideas. But Harberg said it becomes an organized assembly line after a while, and an easy one at that.

“Just pretend you are cooking for your family,” she said. “And go for as fresh as you can. Fresh vegetables, things like that.”

I asked her for one of her favorite recipes and she gave me a terrific summer staple.

I plan to make the recipe for my family this week -  and I’m pretty inspired to start making it for others.

Hannah Harberg’s BBQ Baked Beans

6 slices bacon

1 large can kidney beans, drained

3 medium onions, chopped

2 green bell peppers, chopped

1 cup brown sugar

1 small can chopped tomatoes, partly drained

One 14-ounce bottle ketchup

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a fry pan, cook bacon. Drain fat and chop. Line casserole with chopped bacon. In a large bowl, mix all other ingredients together. Pour into casserole. Bake for one hour covered, then one hour uncovered.

“This can be doubled or tripled easily,” said Harberg. “It’s tasty and can be paired with roasted meat or poultry. Then add a vegetable and you’ve got a great meal for the Caring for Friends.”

food-for-thought