23 January 2023
This is the weekly newsletter from Loaf in Stirchley, keeping you abreast of our bakery and cookery school, and other news we think you might be interested in.
This week we hear from Haseen, one of our cookery school teachers, about growing up in south India and learning to make the Dosa and Thaali dishes he teaches at Loaf.
We also explore the inner workings of our worker coop with a fascinating, no really, look at how we run our meetings. Yes seriously.
Scroll down for this week’s lunch menu, cookery school spaces and community news.
🍞 Pre-order your bread and pastries 🥐
We’ll have plenty on the shelves all week, with lunches served from noon on weekdays.
Our opening hours this week are:
Wed - Fri: 12 - 6
Saturday: 8 - 1
Please note we are closed on Tuesday 24th January for our AGM. Apologies for the inconvenience. Back to normal next week.
Meet the dosa teacher: Haseen Muthalali
Following on from our interview with Loaf founder Tom Baker last week, we thought we’d get a bit more personal with all our cookery school teachers. Next up is Haseen Muthalali of Pop-up Dosa. Haseen has been running Dosa and Thaali classes with us pretty much since we opened on the high street a decade ago, bringing the cuisine of his native state of Kerala in southern India to the tables of Birmingham.
Can you tell us a bit about growing up in Kerala and learning these recipes?
Growing up in Kerala I was always fascinated with food and our various complex cooking methods. As a child, I always liked to hang around the kitchen and was just fascinated to watch the food be prepared. The different smells and fragrances of all the spices and how they fused together always attracted my interest.
Kerala literally means ‘land of coconuts’ and is on the southwestern coastal tip of India. So seafood, coconut, but also all the spices that make our cuisine really unique can be found here. Also, we have Muslim, Hindu and Christian communities each with their own special dishes. It’s such a unique part of the world, and the diversity and availability of spices and ingredients are reflected in the food.
What is Pop-up Dosa? How did that start?
I started Pop-up Dosa in Kings Heath, Birmingham as a supper club about 10 years ago. I made home-style dosa — a thin pancake made of rice and dahl — masala potatoes and chutneys. It’s a classic Kerala dish we eat at almost any time of day. It was a great success and we soon were doing streetfood events and kitchen takeovers at local cafes.
How did you first get involved with Loaf?
Tom Baker came to one of the early supper clubs and we discussed the idea of a class at Loaf. I would not be surprised if I am the only Kerala-born and raised person in the UK to teach Kerala cuisine in a cookery school.
What’s the most rewarding thing for you about teaching?
I love sharing Kerala cuisine with people, both those who have never had it before and those who want to make the foods they ate on a trip there. Also, the food is naturally healthy, with lots of veg and lentils. It gives me extreme satisfaction and joy to see participants enjoying nourishing food with no compromise on taste and authenticity. I make sure participants learn in a very hands-on way, ensuring they remember how to make the recipes at home easily.
Can you tell us a bit more about a particular dish?
I have a hard time choosing just one dish! But I decided to teach how to make Dosa because it’s so popular and well-known. I teach how to make it with the spiced potato and vegetable stuffing (called masala), and also with sambaar, which is a soup-like vegetable curry that you dip the dosa into. Then we make the different chutneys to accompany it.
Dosa classes were selling out and seeing the enthusiasm and interest I decided to add a Thaali course involving multiple Kerala vegetable dishes. And we are soon starting a course making a coconut milk crepe called Appom with Kerala vegetables and seafood. But more about that later!
Thanks Haseen! We run each Kerala cookery class once a month throughout the year. You can book the current dates on our website or sign up to be alerted when new dates are released.
Photos by Jack Spicer Adams
Loaf’s big meeting
Part of an occasional series on what it’s like to be a worker co-operative.
We’re closed this Tuesday because on Monday we had our all-day quarterly meeting, including our AGM. Everyone who works at Loaf is required to attend so no baking prep was possible. As a worker co-op we’re all directors of the company with an equal responsibility for how it’s run, and it’s worth sacrificing a trading day so we can take time to collectively ensure Loaf is working the best it can.
Our meetings start with a blank agenda, which everyone in the business is encouraged to add to. Some items are predictable — January is the time to record what worked and didn’t work at Christmas, and start planning Easter — while other things emerge from circumstances. But there are generally no surprises. Because we work together we tend to know what issues need to be discussed — we just need time to discuss it properly.
A big part of a quarterly meeting is looking at the health of Loaf. Are we earning more or less than we’re spending? What do we expect to make in the next few months? Not every member of the co-op has the financial literacy to understand a profit and loss report so it’s the responsibility of those that do to communicate it in a way they can use to make decisions. We’ve been working on this a lot over the last few years and it’s made a massive difference to how we collectively determine a healthy future for Loaf.
One of the characteristics of a co-operative organisation is the need to have meetings, which can seem a bad thing. Who wants lots of meetings? Meetings are awful things! The thing is, when you start working at a co-op you realise they don’t have to be. With everyone working towards a common goal, and your livelihood is on the line, coming together to hash through the issues in an open, democratic way never feels like a waste of time. While not everyone would profess to loving them, we don’t hate meetings at Loaf and come out of them enthused and ready to get to work. Not to mention the archive of minutes is the history of our business — if any member wants to know what we’re doing or why, it’s written down.
There’s a meme that you don’t hate Mondays, you hate capitalism. The same could be said of meetings!
The Breadcrumbs
🥖 Jacky’s Pantry, our main preserves supplier from the wilds of Redditch, had a crazy busy December and we very nearly sold out. Well done Jacky! We’re happy to say the jams and chutneys are back in stock with some new flavours reflecting the growing season. Check them out in our bakery shop.
🥖 We’ve been donating some bread to Fruit and Nut Village to help feed their volunteers who meet up to plant and tend food-producing trees in public spaces across Birmingham. The next one in Stirchley is this Saturday at the bottom of Hunts Road near the bridge to Hazelwell Park. Flyer here.
🥖 A couple of new boxes of beans from Quarterhorse Coffee are on the shelves this week: Magasi from Uganda and Selvin Nahúm Melara from Honduras.
🥖 If you’re after flowers this Valentine’s Day we can strongly recommend our neighbours at Hedge for a gorgeous luxury bouquet of ethically sourced, locally grown blooms.
🥖 Did we mention we’re closed Tuesday this week! But if you’re worried about missing your Tarka Daal, don’t fret! It’ll be on Wednesday, for one week only.
If you’ve got news or an event in Loaf’s wheelhouse (some variation on bread / community / cooperatives), let us know at newsletter@loaf.coop
Lunches this week
Wednesday
- Curry: Tarka daal with sourdough (Ve)
Thursday
- Stew: Moroccan vegetable and chickpea with red onion focaccia (Ve)
Friday
- Curry: Roast mushroom, potato and lentil with sourdough (Ve)
- Salt beef on challah
Wed — Fri
- Sourdough pizza: Roast corn, red pepper, black olive, goat cheese, basil and mozzarella (V)
Wed — Fri
- Ham and cheese croissant
- Pine nut pesto and cheese croissant (V)
Wed — Sat:
- Sausage rolls
- Vegetable rolls (V)
Lunches are made fresh weekdays for 12 noon.
Our menu for the week — with ingredients and allergens — is on the website.
Cookery school classes
The following classes have spaces as of this newsletter being posted.
Loaf’s all-day classes:
- Bread — Back to Basics: Tue 21 Mar
- Heritage Grains: Sat 25 Mar
- Sweet Breads and Viennoiserie: Sat 11 Feb
- Wholegrain Baking with Tom Baker: Sat 18 Feb
Haseen’s evening classes:
Lap’s all-day classes:
- Sausage & Charcuterie: Tue 31 Jan
- Seafood Masterclass: Sat 4 Feb
Lap’s evening classes:
- Knife Skills: Tue 14 Feb
We release new dates as soon as possible, based on tutor availability. You can sign up to alert lists for specific classes here.
Thanks for all your continued support. See you next week!
Team Loaf: Martha, Molly, Neil, Ian, Sarah, Dave, Nancy, Dorit, Rach & Pete
Website: loaf.coop
Socials: Instagram / Mastodon / Twitter / Facebook