Grow It Yourself UK Gathering 2013

June 17, 2013 No comments »

For all the gardeners, allotment holders and readers of our mini food growing veg blog – we’ve spied a great food growing event going on in Birmingham on 20 July that deserves a plug. Here’s what they say about themselves:

Grow It Yourself UK Gathering 2013

The inaugural GIY UK Gathering takes place on the 20th July 2013 in Birmingham University.  The event is brought to you in association with Carbon Gold. The GIY Gathering event will bring 300 people together to for a fun-packed day of hands-on practical and philosophical talks on growing your own food access to local food.

Speakers include BBC presenter and author Alys Fowler; River Cottager and author Mark Diacono; food writer and author Lia Leendertz, Paul Clarke (Pop Up Farm), Michael Kelly (GIY), Dr David Shaw (Savari Trust) and Maddy Harland (Permaculture Magazine).

  • The GIY Gathering will be an opportunity to
  • to quiz expert growers;
  • discuss and debate local food and the community food growing movement;
  • network with a friendly community of food growers.

Venue: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, West Midlands B15 2TT, United Kingdom

Date: 20th July 2013

Time: 9:30am – 5pm

Ticket Price: £25

For more info and the list of speaker profiles, visit their Grow It Yourself website .

Lasagne Gardening

Tom Lasagne Gardening on the allotment in Stirchley.

Photo taken from our mini food growing veg blog .

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Loaf, Building Community Through Food

June 13, 2013 No comments »

As a social enterprise Loaf was set up with the purpose “ to promote good food and healthy living in communities and build community through food ”. This means putting our profits towards social projects, primarily in our local community.

This month we welcomed year 6 children and parents from our local Stirchley Community School on Pershore Road to Loaf Cookery School for their very own bread making workshop. The afternoon was a huge success and as teacher Karen Sweeney said “They had an amazing time! The children they were raving about it!”. With three year 6 workshops in total, and comments shared that it was one of the best workshops we’ve ever been to, we’ll take that as a thumbs up! In June we also hosted an enjoyable bread workshop with adults who are deaf and hard of hearing through the work of national charity deafPLUS.

For more Stirchley Community School workshop photos visit their school website – you may even spot a few familiar local faces.

Stirchley Community School Bread Workshop at Loaf

Year 6 pupils, parents & teachers from Stirchley Community School enjoy making bread at Loaf

Parents & children from Stirchley Community School at Loaf

Parents and children from Stirchley Community School at Loaf

We also offer occasional work placements to individuals with a passion to develop a professional career in baking, which this month included Megan Jones who is studying for a Diploma in Artisan Baking at the prestigious School of Artisan Food.

Megan Jones on student placement at Loaf from The School of Artisan Food

Megan Jones on student placement at Loaf from the prestigious School of Artisan Food

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Communities Buying Land Event – 25th June

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This looks like a really good event happening at Birmingham Midlands Institute on the 25th June for anyone interested in buying land for a community farm, CSA, or community wood etc: http://www.farmgarden.org.uk/events/fcfcg-events-in-england/communities-buying-land?view=Events

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Loaf Goes Wild

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Since our high street opening in September 2012 Loaf has been involved in some inspiring and innovative food collaborations, from baking Art Bread with Eastside Projects, to Beer Bread with Stirchley Wines and Spirits and Brewdog Birmingham using a range of their selected bottled beers. Our most recent collaboration has taken Tom even further afield, to combine wild food with Real Bread.

Forest Baking

Over the years Tom has met many inspiring real food evangelists including Chris Bax, the founder of Taste The Wild. It is here in their 18 acre woodland in Yorkshire that Tom recently lead a hugely successful open air bread making course. Going back to nature, this course with a difference included cooking in a wood-fired oven without any electricity or running water, and with endless wild forest ingredients to choose from. Transforming Loaf’s usual bread making course to this rural location, the results were equally impressive. A unique and enjoyable collaboration to be remembered, and hopefully repeated.

Here are some forest bread baking pics, by Jane Baker:

Bread Making course at Taste the Wild in Yorkshire

Loaf bread making course in the 18 acre Yorkshire woodland home of Taste the Wild

Shaping the dough before proving. Copyright Jane Baker

Tom demonstrates how to shape the dough before proving

Chris Bax (centre) of Taste the Wild. Copyright Jane Baker

Chris Bax (centre), expert wild food forager and founder of Taste the Wild

Loaf course participants. Copyright Jane Baker

Loaf course participants get stuck in to making real bread under canvas at Taste the Wild

Fresh pine needles, one of the added foraged ingredients for making wild bread

Fresh pine needles, one of the added foraged ingredients for making wild bread

fougasse before baking. Copyright Jane Baker

A fougasse before going into the wood-fired oven

Earth oven bread baking. Copyright Jane Baker

Earth oven bread baking in the forest.

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New Round of Kitchen Essentials Dates

June 6, 2013 No comments »

We’ve recently added a new round of dates for our series of Kitchen Essentials courses, between July and September 2013, so if you’ve been looking for a cookery course with Loaf, there might be one in there just for you.

Kitchen Essentials
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Kitchen Essentials is a series of short evening workshops, designed to quickly improve your cooking skills in particular areas and make you a better, faster, and more efficient home cook. The series is broken down into bite-size chunks that you can dip in and out of depending on what areas of cooking you’d like to learn or improve on.

July – September 2013 dates are as follows (spaces available – first come first served)

  • Knife Skills: Tuesday 23rd July
  • Stocks and Sauces: Tuesday 30th July
  • Cooking Vegetables: Tuesday 6th August
  • Herbs & Spices: Tuesday 13th August
  • Beans, Pulses & Grains: Tuesday 10th September
  • Cooking Meat: Tuesday 11th June, Tuesday 17th September

Like all our courses at Loaf Cookery School, Kitchen Essentials workshops are very hands-on, and we guarantee you won’t leave hungry, but you will leave with a host of new skills to get perfecting at home. All workshops are led by chef and baker Dom Clarke, run on a week day evening from 7-9pm, and are priced at £30 per person (except ‘Cooking Meat’ which is £40).

For more information about each course visit: www.loafonline.co.uk/shop/kitchen-essentials/

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ACE Leadership Programme Visit to Loaf

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Arts Council England, with the Black Country Living Museum, is funding a 9 month programme to transform the futures of twelve museums. As part of their leadership training programme twelve successful museum applicants will visit Loaf to learn about the real life development of food social enterprises as part of a continuing grassroots food renaissance.

Alongside Tom, the programme is also working with, amongst others, famous sculptor Anthony Gormley, Andrew Lovett, Chief Executive Black Country Living Museum and Michael Day, CEO Historic Royal Palaces, so it looks like applicants will be in for a real treat.

Their deadline for senior museum professionals to apply is 14 June. For more information visit: www.museumresilience.com/faculty-page/

Loaf Cookery School

A Bread: Back to Basics course at Loaf Cookery School

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Earth oven Building Course – 15 & 16 June

May 30, 2013 2 comments »

Sunny weather this weekend certainly brought the whiff of BBQs and outdoor cooked food in the air. For us this means firing up our wood fired oven in the garden and inviting friends and family round for a relaxing evening. Whilst we often make wood fired pizzas, and enjoy a glass of wine in the garden, we’ve been know to prepare a slow cooked roast too, plus sweet treats as the heat of the oven cools down, and even leave a meringue cooking overnight, ready for the next day.

If the idea of cooking in your own garden takes your fancy, our next weekend Earth Oven Building course is coming up on Saturday 15 and Sunday 16th June in Stirchley at the home of our baker Dom.

As well as choosing suitable materials, you’ll learn how to build the oven floor, and construct and shape  the thick oven walls using cob,  cut a door and decorate the outside. You’ll also learn how to cook in and maintain your oven. Top notch grub will be provided for lunch and snacks on both days as well as drinks throughout the day.

For more information visit the Loaf Cookery School pages on our website.

Earth Oven Course

 

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Mini Stirchley Brewhouse Friday 31st May.

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Yes, Stirchley Brewhouse is back again, this Friday. And we’re pleased to have Sarah Frost with us baking up some amazing sweet things for tomorrow. The list is looking amazing, and the smells coming from the cookery school are gorgeous. Here’s what shes got on offer:

Pear & Nutella Frangipan
Blueberry Frangipan Tart (hot off the press below…)
Plum & Ricotta Upsidedown Cake
Spiced Pumpkin & Cream Cheese Layer Cake
Berry Cheesecake Tarts
Malteser & Marshmellow Tiffin
Rhubarb & Honey Puff Pastry w/ Mascarpone

Blueberry Frangipan Tart

Above: Blueberry Frangipan Tart

Plus we’ve got meat and vegetarian Focaccia sandwiches:

The ‘Rocco – Ras el Hanout Lamb with tahini yoghurt sauce and mint and cucumber salsa, on focaccia – £4.50 and It’s Just Not Cricket – Egg and paprika mayo with wild cress salad, on focaccia (v) – £3.50

Here’s the full menu. With free wifi…

Stirchley Brewhouse 31 May

For dates visit our events page.

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Bournville Farmers’ Market is 1 Year Old on the 18th May

May 16, 2013 No comments »

Guest Blog…

Bournville Farmers’ Market is 1 Year Old on the 18th May

Bournville Farmer's Market

Bournville Farmer’s Market

On Saturday 18th May,  the Bournville Farmers’ Market  celebrates its 1st Birthday! Located at Rowheath Pavilion on Heath Road, the market is open from 9am-2pm selling fresh produce right on your doorstep.

From market favourites such as bread, cheese, pies, vegetables and cakes to some special treats ranging from home-made chocolates, South East Asian cuisine and spicy Caribbean sauces the market represents a diverse range of produce.

Phil and Lynn from Hibiscus Grove supply their delicious samosas, pakoras and other South East Asian delights on a monthly basis. They said, “Rowheath Farmers Market is a joy to attend, with its good footfall of enthusiastic and supportive customers and wonderful diversity of stalls. The organisers are efficient, helpful and welcoming. They work hard at publicising the event and often have more than one function on at the same time which is great for awareness of the market. Congratulations on your First Anniversary, we are very proud to have been a part of the market from the beginning and have seen it grow from strength to strength. Long may this continue!!!!”.

Each month the market grows with new and exciting stalls joining the mix. Last month, new producers Lucky 13 Bakehouse, an artisan bakery supplying mouthwatering speciality breads came on board. Amy and Neil from Lucky 13 said, “Bournville Farmers’ Market was incredible exposure for our bakery, it was the first market we had attended in over 12 months and our speciality bread went down a storm with Rowheath ‘s  friendly visitors. Among some other amazing local producers in the beautiful setting of the Pavilion, we were delighted to quickly sell out. We will definitely be coming back!”.

With a children’s playground and beautiful lake and park, Bournville Farmers’ Market offers much more than just a shopping trip. There is a lovely friendly café serving hot drinks and sandwiches  allowing you to sit and enjoy the delicious market food in this gorgeous setting. Andy from Beans and Leaves says. “The market is a good meeting point for the local community with friendly and interesting stallholders selling an excellent range of locally produced products”.

Next market is Saturday 18th May, then every 3rd Saturday of the month. The market is open from 9am-2pm and there is free parking.

Date for the dairy; Monday 27th May is our Bank Holiday Family Fun Day with a farmers’ market, vintage and craft fayre, patio jumble sale, giant inflatable’s, children’s activities and more!

For more information email: info@rowheathpavilion.co.uk

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Mini Stirchley Brewhouse Friday 17th May.

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Friday 17th May, 12 -6pm, Loaf Cookery School 

We’re opening the cookery school doors again tomorrow for another Stirchley Brewhouse pop-up cafe. So bring a book/laptop/newspaper and relax for the afternoon.

Deli rye (The New Yorker) and Focaccia (The Sicilian) sandwiches thanks to Dom Clarke, and sweet things courtesy of our new cake baker extraordinaire, Sarah Frost. Here’s the menu… and a sneak peek of one of Sarah’s Pear Almond Slices (clever lady).

Event updates can also be found here

Stirchley Brewhouse 17 May

Pear and Almond slice

Pear and Almond Slice

 

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