Sending a taste of home to the UK

Hundreds of pastizzi will be flown to the UK to give “a taste of home” to cancer patients and their families, who will be spending Christmas there for treatment. “Most probably what these people really need is money, since being there is expensive. But I’m giving what I can – a taste of home during Christmas time,” said Marilù Vella, the owner of a small business called Pastizzi Gourmet. Over the past few weeks she has been busy making dough and 16 different fillings for the 100 dozen pastizzi that were due to leave Malta for Sutton, UK, at 8.30am today. Ms Vella, 26, was brought up in a family where cooking and baking was part of everyday life. “We never bought pastry – pastry is something you make,” she said. About a year ago, when she was between jobs, she started making low-fat pastizzi for friends trying different fillings from the conventional pea and ricotta. Soon her hobby grew into a business and she set up Pastizzi Gourmet last December. This year, as Christmas approached, she decided to send some of her culinary creations to friends having cancer treatment in the UK and their families. “I knew they would love receiving my pastizzi while there. But then I thought: why...