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
Pear and Almond Slice
Described as a ‘destination for creativity, comedy and exciting cuisine’, it included us at Loaf and celebrated other local community food and arts initiatives such as Stirchley Community Market. Stirchley seems to be making a name for itself – not only in the UK, but now internationally!
To read more visit the be the b there website or download the full magazine as a pdf. We’re on page 74.
Brussels Airlines bthere Magazine – May 2013
Veg: Part 4 – vegetable growing diary
Read previous veg blog
It’s not every day you hear someone say that they’re pleased to have a surplus of cardboard boxes. Well we are. For now anyway.
This week Tom and I tried Lasagne gardening at our new allotment in Hazelwell Park. It’s an increasingly well-known method of no-dig gardening that originated in the USA, and is apparently great for reducing weeds. As the name suggests you lay down sheets of cardboard (the pasta) with layers of mulch in between (we’ve got dry grass, homemade compost and leaf mould) and water well. The idea is that instead of digging up all our couch grass and breaking our backs in the process we’ll suppress them and – fingers crossed – kill them, and at the same time add compost and nutrients as the layers rot down.
Loaf’s cardboard box surplus in it’s new home on our allotment
This way we can also avoid further compacting our clay heavy Stirchley soil, and breaking up the natural soil structure by digging into the subsoil. This could inhibit movement of water, air, minerals and biological activity, and we need all the help we can get to grow our veggies. According to Alys Fowler at Urban Veg more water is lost through evaporation than drainage so our mulching will definitely help with conserving water when we plant too.
Genius. Less work, and happier soil. And hopefully happier veggies too.
We’ve also discovered a patch of comfrey – great for making natural fertilizer, so we’re looking for a water drum to make a liquid solution in (1 part comfrey to 10 parts water). I’ve got my eye on nettles too and am hoping to learn to build a wormery. This is one area in which we have let our veggies down in previous years. Watering but rarely feeding. I’m told that new compost contains only has 6 – 8 weeks worth of food, so that’s why our vegetables have rarely grown big and strong in the past. They were hungry. Seems obvious now.
This weeks’s soup is watercress
At the weekend we exchanged garden labour for great home-cooked food and veggie growing tips at Tom’s uncle and aunty’s house in Hampshire. They have a gorgeous old saddler’s cottage which they have rented for over 50 years. It comes with an amazing riverside garden with watercress bed, wooded area and huge veggie garden to die for. However, in even the most cared for garden, diseased soil (honey fungus) has started to kill a treasured old tree. That’s where we came in – to battle with and fell the old tree. We also came home with armfuls of watercress (today’s soup) after clearing their bed of encroaching reeds. A joy to weed on a sunny afternoon. Heaven.
…thanks to our weed clearing skills
Whilst we’ve done nothing in our back garden this week, we’ve had a lot of fresh air in exchange for food growing knowledge and trial and error no-dig gardening. Last week at Urban Veg to come.
Read previous veg blog
CANeat vegetarian has been rescheduled from March, starting 7.30pm. For more info and bookings visit our events page. Same menu, time and venue – at Loaf.
CANeat rescheduled
Also on the Thursday 11 April, the Just film Co-op have a rescheduled screening of Edible City: Grow the Revolution, a feature length documentary about transforming local communities through food. Worth checking out, we think (if you don’t make it to CANeat!).
6.30pm doors at The Birmingham & Midland Institute, 9 Margaret St, Birmingham, B3 3BS (city centre).
Edible City screening – Thursday 11 April at Birmingham & Midland’s Institute
The Loaf Loyalty Card is our way of saying thank you to all our regular bread customers and local supporters, without which we would not exist. So, thank you!
At Loaf we love folk music and Stirchley almost as much as we love food. That’s why I’m pleased to promote our favourite Stirchley-based folk band, Friends of the Stars, who are about to release their brand new al…, brand new albu….errr… brand new fried chicken seasoning. Yep that’s right, they are releasing a packet of fried chicken seasoning. Should you choose to purchase their seasoning for only £5, you will get a FREE, yep FREE digital download of their latest album, Faith’s Meat Kiosk. It is a total bargain, great music and tasty food, what more could you want?? I played a teeny tiny role in helping this come about (I sent one email) so I feel it is my duty to tell you to get down the butchers and buy a chicken (free range of course), and get on their bandcamp and order the album. That is all, over and out.
Loaf, Stirchley Happenings, South Birmingham Food Co-op and Birmingham Town Centre Partnerships are proud to bring you Stirchley’s first ever community market in the summer of 2010.
Stirchley Community Market, which launches on Tuesday the 27th July with it’s first market outside Stirchley United Working Mens Club on the Pershore Road from 4-8pm, will feature stalls selling wholefoods, bread, hot curry, wood-fired pizza, artisan preserves, cupcakes, local fruit and vegetables, and local arts and crafts. The market will give the local community, as well as commuters on their way home from work, an opportunity to find out what Stirchley has to offer, meet some excellent food producers and craft makers from within Birmingham, and pick up some tasty groceries for their weekly shop.
Loaf will be there selling wood-fired pizza’s straight out of our mobile pizza oven, and artisan bread.
The market has a dedicated wordpress blog, which will be updated with stall holder info and other details as the first market approaches – check it out at stirchleycommunitymarket.wordpress.com
A few weeks ago I met up with 3 enthusiastic local foodies, and clearly good mates, at their ‘office’, the corner table in the Hare and Hounds Kings Heath. They told me of the plan they were hatching to launch an exciting new food venture in Kings Heath, bringing more great local food to this burgeoning foodie suburb of South Birmingham. Although I sadly haven’t got the capacity to supply them with bread for their new venture, and haven’t yet eaten there, I wanted to share with you this excerpt from their Facebook Page:
Soul Food Project has arrived to spice up and inject some fun into the Birmingham food scene. The kitchen is based in one of Birmingham’s busiest and most important independent pubs…the Hare and Hounds.
The Project is the brainchild of 3 Birmingham friends, Carl Finn, Matt Beck and Alex Morrall, who have between them over 10 years experience in the catering, service and promotion industry. The idea was formed over several bottles of Brooklyn Lager and a consensus that the standard of food served in pubs was in need of an overhaul of soul.
What makes Soul Food Project different to other pub food?
Well SFP takes influence from the diverse food landscape of America so…..
- Think smoked paprika and chilli infused Southern Fried Chicken,
- Think Sunburst salads,
- Think crayfish, chicken and chorizo Jambalaya from New Orleans,
- Think the best burgers in Brum
- Think Waffles and Rocky Road for the weekend.
and so much more..Food is sourced locally where possible and each ingredient is treated with care and passion. The kitchen is open to ideas, suggestions and feedback and also plans to host live music, gastro evenings and much more….Watch this space.
It’s time to put some soul in your bowl!!!
Sould Food Project is serving at the Hare Hounds from 12-8 on Tuesdays-Saturdays, and 12-5 on Sundays. I’ve just noticed on their facebook page too that they now do waffle Wednesdays – 2 waffles for a fiver – bargain!
See you down there soon, T.
