After years of wanting to join in the fun but being too afraid of the huge pans of molten fruit involved, which I imagined would throw great blobs of sugary lava all over my face causing permanent jam splatter scars, I have, under the expert guidance of a friend, finally gone for it and cooked up an enormous pan of lovely plum and apple jam.

Big bubbling pan of jam

As an added bonus all of the fruit collected was free, collected from various sites around Chorlton Ees. Anyone who’s familiar with the Ees will no doubt have noticed the area around Hardy Farm has dozens of apple trees all laden with hundreds of apples which are  ripe for the picking right now. So long as you’re not expecting to find supermarket style perfectly symmetrical shiny unblemished apples there’s probably more than enough for anyone who fancies to go fill as many carrier bags as they can carry.

The plums were from another less well known site on the Ees, the Community Orchard. The Orchard is perhaps an acre of land packed full of plum trees, apple trees, damsons, raspberries and lots of other fruits free for anyone to come along and pick. You just have to find it… and I’m not going to spoil the fun by telling you where it is! I remember the excitement when I first stumbled across it, an adventurous off road sneaky peak through a gap in the hedge revealed something of a secret fruity garden tucked away. Magic.

So with our bags full of lovely fruit all we had to do was work out what to do with it. Here’s where Steph came in. With a growing reputation as Chorlton’s resident jam expert we arranged an early 9am start jam session scheduled to last just over an hour. We were having so much fun though that one thing led to another and 6 hours later we’d not only made 9 jars of jam(!),  but we’d also done a bread making lesson, made two loaves of bread, a lovely celery soup, soda bread, jam tarts, repotted several plants and done an experimental basil cutting.  Rock and Roll!

What a lovely way to spend a Thursday morning.

Steph and Andy

The jam making process it seems it quite straight forward really involving simply boiling up your fruit and adding more sugar than you could possibly imagine necessary then pouring it into sterilised jars to be sealed and labelled up. There’s plenty of books and websites about for you to find out how to do this (or you could just pop round to Steph’s ), so no need for me to go over it here, all I want to say is it’s great fun, very rewarding and reasonably easy. Do it!

Here’s a couple of Jam making websites

The basic method from Self-sufficient.co.uk
Lots of recipes from The Foody
Lots more recipes from Jam Recipes

And here’s a link to a book I’ve been enjoying reading at the moment, the River Cottage Preserves Handbook. This series of books (including Bread, Mushrooms, and Veg Patch) really does seem to be spot on, each one put together by one of the River Cottage’s relevant experts they go through everything you need to know right from the basics. Can’t wait to give the Hedgerow Jelly a go. It’s made with a mix of any foraged Hedgerow berries and crab apples. Or maybe the Bramley Lemon Curd, which sounds like a lovely wintery treat for toast. Mmm.

All I need now is a kitchen to do all this in, oh and a house to have a kitchen in, oh and a garden to grow all the fruit. Ahhh, one day. For now it’s foraged fruit and friends kitchens all the way. Not that that’s a bad thing, in fact it’s great fun. See nothing should stop you. You don’t even need your own fruit or a kitchen to make your own jam, just a nice friend and a sense of adventure.

Perfect!

It was a pretty amazing day really. In the space of an afternoon we managed to make a plain white loaf, a dozen rolls, bread sticks, a focaccia, tortilla wraps and some nachos! All turned out great. Rachel certainly was a natural – she has great baking hands. Watching Rachel and Andy’s synchronised dough kneading it was difficult to tell who was teaching who.

Synchronised bread making

Even the kids got stuck in. Beth helped cut dough into strips to make bread sticks, which Ellie then did a marvellous job of shaping and adding grated cheese to make them extra tasty.

Beth makes bread sticks sticks

Beth and Ellie make the breadstick shapes and sprinkle cheese

Even little Lily helped, she made the important decision that lemons were indeed too yakky to be added to the mix.

Lily discovers lemons are not as tasty as bread

Most of the recipes used came from The River Cottage’s Bread Making Handbook – a fantastic book, packed with great recipes, beautiful photographs all put together with style and enthusiasm that really makes you want to bake. Also all the recipes seem to work well. Who would believe that this was our first venture into Italian bread making?

Focaccia... Mmmm

Or that a 4 year old could really play a major part in producing some of the bestest ever bread sticks?

Breadsticks, millions of em!

Those expensive, tasteless, o-so-straight and boring tubes of tat will never again be spotted in the Cordingley shopping trolley (or there’ll be trouble Rach – I’ve got my eye on you!).

So the first Bread Making Workshop was a great success, we all learnt a lot, but I think the best thing we discovered is that you don’t need to be an expert to do this. It doesn’t take years of practice to make something infinitely better than what’s on offer at the supermarket.

Of course the more you bake the better your bread will get, but this was all of ours first attempts at making over half of the things we made and all turned out well. I believe the key skill in bread making is the determination to outwit the marketers who create your addiction to shop bought bread.

It is not necessary to have the most amazing kneading techniques, special equipment, years of practice and oodles of spare time, but rather you need to be able to resist the lure of colourful packaging, health claims and subtle hints towards your own incompetence – ‘you couldn’t possible make a loaf so light, crusty and tasty as this’. Well here is the proof that you can.

Once again, here it is, a thing of beauty – the first loaf from Rachel, Master Baker Extraordinaire (family baker for over 3 hours):

Perfect!

Reclaim the power! Bake your own bread!

Anyone who is interested in taking part in a bread making workshop, or having us come to your house to run one for your family and friends please contact me.

And so it began…

Just over a month ago now, on the Summer Solstice of 2009, a group enthusiastic picnicers gathered on Hoxton Square, London, under the red and white flag that was the symbol of the first event, “A Taste of Things to Come”. An anarchy symbol morphed into a picnic bench to spell out the intention – no longer were we fools to the robbery of overpriced bars and restaurants serving up expensive drinks and salads of limp lettuce and unripe tomatoes. No longer will we be slaves to the supermarkets. We won’t eat your pre-packed out of season processed food and snacks. We will reclaim the power of good, simple, local, seasonal food and show it off in fantastical picnic extravaganza!

At least that was the idea. As the man at the local offi pointed out after questioning the significance of our lovely little red badges, our choice of lubrication for the event was arguably off theme, “Ah a picnic to promote local food! Excellent idea… I see you have chosen 8 cans of Jamaican Red Stripe to compliment your food”. Hmm.. seems we still have some way to go. “But it goes with the colour scheme” is not a valid excuse.

The choice of the longest day for our first picnic was obviously a good move. A beautiful sunny day was spent lazing in the park and the long hours of sunlight encouraged us to stay out well past the intended 4 pm finish time until long after the sun had gone down.

So what was on the menu? Aside from the small oversight on the booze, the local food theme went pretty well. An impressive spread was enjoyed by all including some fantastic spicy green-bean salad, fine cheeses, homemade chutney, standard picnic-issue (but top quality!) egg and watercress sandwiches, and fresh, still-in-the-pod peas. Lovely jubbly. The bakers had been hard at it too – homemade too pretty to eat strawberry cakes and cherry topped buns with tea (not coffee!) icing both went down a treat.

Entertainment for the day was unexpectedly provided from travelling performance artist Nicola who joined us for a few hours and treated us with an outing of her “Dream Coat”. The coat has many individually decorated fancy pockets, each containing a dream. You choose a pocket, take out the dream and swap it for one of your own which then gets passed along. Fantastic. My plane crash dream was eagerly swapped for a story of a horse running and bizarrely I haven’t suffered any more terrifying plane crash dreams since. Magic. Should I feel guilty for the poor soul who will soon be treated to recurring dreams of planes exploding mid-air? Perhaps, but you’ve got to take your chances in the dream world. You never know what might happen.

There was also face painting and an impressive BMX (with basket) stunt display!

So as you can see “A Taste of Things to Come” was not just about the food. It was also about was getting together in a free space, to share good times and stories. It was great to see friends we’d missed so much while we’d been away. And while our main aim of promoting local, seasonal food may have slipped  into the background of catch up chats and Jamaican lager one thing shone through – that is that spending many hours loafing in parks with good food and good friends is simply a great thing to do. This kind of thing should be part of our day to day lives, not a once a year only if it’s boiling and you’re skint event. No more rushed dinner hours! Take your time over lunch every day. Sit in the park, chat to a stranger, offer them a sandwich. Don’t spend your weekends in shopping centres, go to the woods, sit by a river, pick wild blackberries and enjoy being outside. It doesn’t rain as often as you think it does.

Just one question remains. TLP? What’s that all about?… more soon.

“A Taste of Things to Come” is the first (hopefully) of a series of events I plan to organise with the aim not only of getting a group of friends together to have a picnic, but to bring people together in a space where they can share their ideas and hopefully inspire each other and the way they choose to live. This is an open invite event. All are welcome. Just turn up on the day, or there is a facebook event you can sign up to for more information.

Come loafe with us on the grass.

Join us for an afternoon of fun in the sun!

It’s a gathering of people bringing together good food and good conversation.

Bring food to share, drinks, your own plates cutlery etc, a nice rug and an open mind.

We have a lot to talk about.

If possible food should be home made, show off your marvelous cooking skills!

You lucky London people have lots of lovely markets to choose from so get some good local seasonal produce and cook up something special!

If you really can’t cook just bring some fresh raw fruit or veg to share. Everyone loves a few crunchy carrots!

Food markets:
http://www.urbanpath.com/london/food-markets/

What’s in season?
http://www.eattheseasons.co.uk/weekbyweek/26.htm

How to find us, Google “N1 6NU” for directions, when you get there, you’ll see us!

If it rains a lot,we have a Plan B,watch this space for more information.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

There’s also lots of information on there about what real bread is and why we should be eating it including what is wrong with industrially produced bread.

This campaign is not about making it easier for a few people to have the luxury of going out to buy fancy artisan bread. Bread is a fundamental part of our diet, three quarters of all people have it as part of their diet every day, and as such it is vitally important that the bread we eat is good for us. Industrial milling breaks the grains down in a way that destroys many of it’s nutritional qualities, so much so that vitamins have to be added back into the mix by law. These re-added vitamins are more difficult (or impossible?) for our bodies to take in than those that were originally naturally present but that the industrial process has removed. Other aspects of the way most bread is produced makes it all but impossible for some people to digest properly.

There’s also the issue of supporting local businesses. The Real Bread Campaign reports of a study that found that on average local businesses put more than three-quarters of their income back into their local community , thereby helping it prosper. Compare that to the big supermarket giants, where the money is sucked out of your community straight into the pockets of a few shareholders. I can understand why some people may find it hard to resist the pull of the supermarket, however I think it is important that if and when it is possible people should be moving towards supporting their local shops as much as they can.

Remember, every little helps. Or is that hurts?

It’s been going a few weeks now and more and more producers are being added all the time so you should be able to find somewhere near you. Or if you know a local producer that’s not on the map let them know about it so they can get themselves added!

For more on the problems with (amongst other things) industrially produced bread read Felicity Lawrence’s “Not on the Label”.

For more information why and how to bake your own bread read “Bread Matters” by Andrew Whitley.

Presented by Rebecca Hosking it goes through all the key points in a clear and concise way, opening with the lines,

“An approaching energy crisis will likely force a revolution in farming that will change the British countryside forever. It will effect what we eat, where it comes from and even the alarming question of whether there will be enough food to keep us fed.”

From an interview with a geologist comes the conclusion that what matters is not the exact timing of the peak, but that whether it is in 1, 5 or 10 years there will be a peak in the production of oil after which oil will become more difficult to extract, more expensive and that this will have huge implications for every aspect of our lives.

She uses a simple example of a ham sandwich. The oil needed to power the tractors to plough the wheat fields, plant the seeds and harvest the grain and the petrol based fertilisers that helps it grow. Then on to the meat, with a single pig consuming nearly half a ton of grain it is even more energy hungry. Even the small pieces of salad are currently highly dependent on oil, whether because they are shipped from abroad or grown here in heated green houses before being transported around the country in lorries. She sums it all up perfectly with a great quote that says exactly what it is hard for people to see, “this sandwich, like so much of the food we eat today, is absolutely dripping in oil”

But what’s great about the film is that it’s not all doom and gloom. There are lots of people who have recognised this problem and are working in inspirational ways that offer an alternative for the future.

She visits the Dixons in Snowdonia, who run a small holding based on permaculture principles, and an experimental forest garden in Devon ran by Martin Crawford that just looks incredible.

There’s also Fordhall Farm an organic beef, pork and sheep farm that relies on the quality of it’s soil and grass rather than chemicals to feed the animals. This includes one of the saddest parts of the film. A clip of a film from the 80s of a tractor plouging a field followed by flocks of birds draw to the unearthed worms and wildlife is compared to a shot of a tractor on the same land now – nothing ,no birds, no worms, the soil is dead, surviving to grow now only with the aid of chemical fertilisers. Makes you realise what we’ve done.

All in all it’s a brilliant film. It’s powerful introduction for people who might not know about the issues of peak oil and food security, but also an inspirational piece for anyone already aware of the issues that shows what can be done. Highly recommended. Watch it here.

For more on peak oil watch the film ‘The End of Suburbia’ and for more information on the transition from an oil based society see Transition Culture.

After nearly a month in Hoi An sadly the amazing contract on our flat stating that we should resolve any conflicts with the “spirit of comradeship” had come to an end and it was time to move on. We packed up our bags, said our goodbyes, hopped on a train and waved farewell to this friendly place that had been our home for the last few weeks.

Spending a little more time there allowed us to get to know people just that bit better. The lady down the road who did our laundry, the smiley lady and her daughter on the market who made our breakfast fruit shakes and all the other people from places we frequently cycled past who always had a smile and a wave for us, we’ll miss them all.

But most of all we will miss the people from Karma Waters who were so good to us while we were there. It really was a treat to meet them and to spend so much time chatting, sharing stories and ideas.

Karma Waters

We did so much during our time there. Kayaking, cooking lessons, speed boat trips and an exciting, though unsuccessful trip out on a life boat across the sea to an island. Six foot waves and a tilting boat. Andy and I were soaked head to foot. I was enjoying the ride, popped on a life jacket, clung on to the rails. Woohooo! I only became worried when the people driving the boat said it was too rough, we had to head back. I can’t really describe how amazing it all was.

But amongst the many things we did while we were there the highlights for me must have been Uma’s birthday and the boat race.

Leanne and Uma

Uma is Paul and Duyan’s beautiful daughter and it was her 1st birthday. The 1st birthday is a big deal in Vietnam. Families place a real importance on this day and throw a party to celebrate. Andy and I were really honoured to be invited to this special day.

The head of the district came over to say some prayers and perform a special ceremony. He was a very friendly chap with an Ian Brown haircut and a flat cap, you could tell he was a bit of a dude. Although our lack of Vietnamese meant we couldn’t really speak to him we just got a really good vibe from him. The night we left he came chasing after us to shake our hands and say goodbye.

1st birthday ceremony

With our limited knowledge of Buddhist traditions a lot of what went on went completely over our heads, but it was all very interesting to watch.

The table offerings

Later Uma was sat on the floor with a tray of objects including a model tree, a pen, sweets, paper, a doll, a comb and other various bit and bobs. The belief is that whatever she chooses from the tray will say something about her future. People laughed and shook their heads as she went straight for an enormous lump of sugar, a jelly cup sweet and another wrapped sweet.

Predicting Uma's future

We enjoyed a lovely meal with family and friends and that evening yet more food including a never ending bowl of soup. There must be some invisible marker on the bowl below which if you continue eating you get refilled. Now I was brought up to finish what I had in front of me. You can imagine the cycle of soup this conflict of cultures created. Me politely trying to finish what I was given and he trying to be the good host and make sure I was well fed. Despite repeated attempts to say I really was full the soup kept coming. Andy and I both got caught in the same trap and must have had 10 serving each.

Uma Soup

They followed a similar rule with the beer.The neighbours had come round including an elderly Vietnamese man who seemed set to drink us under the table if we hadn’t have been saved by the lady from next door who insisted we stopped. Each time he took a drink we all cheered and had to do the same. But not only that, if I didn’t drink enough he’d shout at me to drink more. At one point I had to down nearly half my drink!

The next day with beery heads we all set out to watch a boat race to commemorate 50 years since Ho Chi Minh went to Cham Island. This was an incredible thing to see! Despite the fact that it was raining quite heavily and the boat race was taking place at 9am on a normal working day the entire town seemed to have decided not to bother going to work and had turned out to watch. Thousands of people lined the banks of the river, some sitting on the edge, some clinging from coconut trees, others, like us, lined up along the water edge in boats of all shapes and sizes.

Big boat with Uncle Ho

People went crazy shouting and screaming for their own local team. It all seemed very competitive. It was like the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race gone mad. A chaotic crowd of red flag flying locals edged out into the river throwing water at rival village’s boats. It all got a bit hairy at one point and a few empty bottles and melon rinds were also spotted flying through the air. Brilliant.

Hoi An boat race

After all this it was really sad to leave. I really hope one day to visit again. Many thanks to Paul, Duyen and all the staff for all the amazing times we had and everything you taught us.

Good to see my old local veg shop Unicorn getting an award. They were joint winners of Best Local Retail Outlet. As mentioned in the programme they have just bought a 21 acres site to enable them to grow their own veg, adding to the already brilliant range of local organic veg they have on offer. I’ve said it before, but I really miss having them around. You guys in Manchester don’t realise how lucky you are, if you’re not already a commited Unicorn fan I advise you to get down there ASAP. It really is a great shop. You can read more about their ethics and current projects on their website.

Bury Market won the award for Best Food Market. I’d not heard of this market until listening to this programme, but now I’m desperate to go! Have any of you been? It sounds great, over 300 stalls, lots of speciality food, delicatessens, grocers, cheese, meat, fish (if you’re into that kind of thing), home made cakes and confectionery. Can’t wait to go! Any tips about which are the good stalls would be great.

Anyway that’s enough from me, listen to the programme here, you might find something you didn’t know about happening near you!

An estimated 6.7 million tonnes of household food waste is thrown away each year to rot in landfill. This creates a toxic sludge and gives off greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change. As well as looking at how to avoid wasting food by your shopping behaviour and meal planning the harm caused by any unavoidable food waste (eg peelings, cores etc) could be reduced or even eliminated by composting.

If you have a compost bin, or wormery your food scraps are converted into a valuable resource. The food breaks down and the nutrients they contained are put back into the soil as part of a natural cycle renewing the earth. It is a potent natural fertiliser that in large scale non-organic farming is replaced by polluting oil based chemical fertilisers.

Some councils run waste food collection schemes, some with more success than others. The pilot in the area I’m living now was unfortunately abandoned and for the first few weeks we were here we ended up throwing our peelings away as I imagine most other people in the area do. It was driving me crazy! I hated the waste and felt guilty every time I opened the bin.

At some point I found out the man living next door had an allotment and it occurred to me that he would no doubt be a composter and after thinking about it for a few days ( I can be quite shy) I eventually went round, knocked on the door and asked if I could bring our scraps round there. He said yes. Hurrah! And he didn’t think I was mad or try and lock me in his attic or any of the things I was worried about. It was all good. What was I worried about?! I didn’t really think you would lock me in your attic if you read this Peter, you may think I’m a little mad though now. Hmm. Maybe I am.

So that was the wasted food issue sorted. Hurrah! Then a couple of days later I arrived home and found a bag of apples sitting on the doorstep. “Wow!” I thought, “What an amazingly quick conversion! Scraps to compost to apples in 3 days!” We’ve since had other things arrive including a huge marrow! Brilliant!

You may be thinking we seem to be getting the better end of this deal, which is exactly what I thought, so I made and took them round an apple pie to say thanks. It kind of grew enormous and exploded in the oven so it wasn’t the best looking apple pie ever, but I imagine it tasted the same. I think they must have liked it, they brought the plate back with a bag of potatoes! Now I’ll have to make them something else. The cycle continues. A bit like compost really.

This whole thing is brilliant, I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned somewhere. If you don’t currently compost you should. If you don’t have a compost bin you can get one really cheap from your council, more information here. If you don’t grow anything you should compost anyway, it’s a great way of reducing waste. It would take months or even years to fill the bin, unless you have a large family, and there are always lots of people who will happily come round and collect your compost if it does get full. If you don’t have a garden to put a composter in speak to people. There will probably be someone who lives near you that will take your food scraps. I promise they won’t think you’re weird for asking.

So, the moral of the story is talk to your neighbours, they’re probably nice and composting rules!

I’ve included a couple of recipes for the yummy things I’ve made with the vegetables from my super fast compost: Leek and Potato Soup and Stuffed Marrow. The stuffed marrow was incredibly tasty. The stuffing is quite rich, so the subtle fresh taste of the marrow is a great contrast and make it a great dish which stands up on it’s own as a main course. It would also be good as part of a spread if you had guests and were making a few things.

The Leek and Potato Soup was possibly the nicest I’ve ever made. The potatoes were really creamy, not sure what type they were but they were brilliant for this soup. Usually I’d mash the veg up a bit at the end of this soup recipe, but these didn’t need it. Enough had naturally worked their way into the soup to thicken it while still keeping some whole to make it a good chunky winter soup. Mmmm. Thanks again to Peter and Cathy for your generous gifts of veg!

Stuffed Marrow

• 1 Marrow
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 150g mushrooms finely chopped
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 100g black olives, chopped
• 100g cheddar, grated
• 150g brown rice (cooked)

1. Cut the marrow into slices about 1 inch thick and then scoop out the fluffy seedy middle bit so you have a marrow ring. Arrange the marrow rings on baking trays.
2. Heat the oil in a frying pan and gently cook the onions and garlic until soft, then add cumin and coriander powder and cook for a further 2 minutes.
3. Add the mushrooms and parsley and cook for a further 5 minutes then stir in the cooked rice and chopped olives.
4. Pack the mixture into the marrow rings, top with grated cheese and put in the oven at 180c for around half an hour, or until the marrow is tender and the cheese is golden brown.

Leek and Potato Soup

• 1 oz butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 250g potatoes peeled and cut into 1.5cm cubes
• 1 large leeks, or 2 smaller ones, sliced
• 1 1/2 pints of stock
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tbsp fresh parsley chopped

1. Melt the butter in a large pan and gently fry the onion until soft, approx 10-15 minutes.
2. Add the flour, stir round and leave to cook through for a minute.
3. Add the potates and leeks, cover and leave to sweat, stir occasionally to check it is not sticking. If it starts to stick just pour in a small amount of water and stir to unstick anything from the bottom.
4. After around 5 minutes add the stock. It should be just upto the top of the vegetables, you might need more or less depending on the size of leeks, potatoes etc.
5. Bring to the boil then simmer for around 20 minutes or until all the veg are tender. Add most of the parsley and stir.
6. If prefered you can mash the soup a bit at this stage, or even blend it up if you want a smooth soup. I prefer it a bit chunky.
7. Serve garnished with a bit of chopped parsley and maybe a little swirl of cream. Yum.