12 July 2022
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 introduce our savoury buns, take a look at Birmingham’s food strategy, and go back to Baskerville School.
We are again running slightly reduced opening hours this week due to staff off with Covid.
Wed - Fri: 12-4pm
Saturday: 8am-1pm
We hope to be back to normal next week.
We’ll have plenty of bread and pastries on the shelves all day, with lunches served from noon on weekdays. Scroll to the bottom for this week’s lunch menu.
Savoury buns are a thing now
A few weeks ago we experimented with some savoury buns. Using the same process as our sweet cinnamon buns, these have a cheese sauce filling with a variety of toppings. They’re proving popular so it’s time to start shouting about them!
This week we have sundried tomato, green olive and provolone on Wednesday and Thursday, while on Saturday they’re spring onion, chive and provolone.
A food system strategy for Birmingham?
The draft Birmingham Food System Strategy document came to our attention today. While we haven’t had a chance to digest it (pun not intended) a cursory read shows it covers a lot of the issues Loaf is passionate about. It also features a number of organisations we’ve worked with over the years, which is reassuring.
It’s good to see something like this coming from Birmingham City Council, although that scale means it covers a lot and has some lofty ambitions. The document itself is very clearly presented, so please download it, have a read and if you have views and ideas, put them in the consultation.
We will be watching this with interest and cautious optimism!
Back to Baskerville
We managed to fit in another visit to Baskerville School last week for an afternoon of baking with the students. They had great fun and it was a rewarding experience for all involved, including us.
More pics and a video of the end results!
When we wrote up our previous visit to Baskerville, and mentioned our plans to work more in the area of education, we were inundated with offers of advice and requests. We haven’t had a chance to anything with them due to extreme busyness of this year but it’s still on our development plan. We will be in touch, don’t worry!
The Breadcrumbs
Things we’ve seen or been recommended that we’d like to pass on.
🥖 BBC Food Programme on the debate around ‘good bread’ — casting an eye over the real bread movement, including a visit to last month’s Grain Lab, and looking at the evidence that slow-food bread is better for us.
🥖 Hedge Trimmings is the newsletter of our neighbour, Hedge, who are soon to be expanding their premises to run workshops. Scroll to the end for a bouquet of interesting links.
🥖 KHARnival is this Sunday! Kings Heath Action for Refugees have asked us to provide snacks so enjoy those as you raise money for this excellent organisation.
🥖 Save Our Soil is a campaign from Birmingham Friends of the Earth calling on the council to adopt an organic management policy.
🥖 The Old Post Office is running a drop-in Saturday with no need to book. If you fancy giving Stirchley’s co-working space a try, this is the perfect opportunity.
🥖 Healing Gardens of Bab is a Fierce Festival event that came strongly recommended by a regular customer, and we certainly like the look of it!
Lunches this week
Wednesday
- Curry: Tarka daal with sourdough (Ve)
Thursday
- Cold soup: gazpacho with green olive focaccia (Ve)
Friday
- Stew: butternut squash, cauliflower and potato coconut curry with sourdough (Ve)
- Salt beef on challah
Wed — Fri
- Sourdough pizza: bell peppers, olives, red onion, oregano, spinach and mozzarella with tomato sauce (V)
- 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
All our classes are fully booked through the summer. Thanks for all your interest!
Dates for classes in the autumn will be released soon. You can sign up to alert lists for specific classes here.
Thanks for all your continued support. See you next week!
Team Loaf: Molly, Pete, Ian, Martha, Neil, Dorit, Nancy, Rach & Sarah