16 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’re launching a brand new baking class led by Loaf’s founder Tom Baker who is returning to the fold. We’ve got a short interview with him on why this class and why now.
Scroll down for this week’s lunch menu, cookery school spaces and community news.
🍞 Pre-order your bread and pastries 🥐
(Apologies for the delay in switching on the online shop this weekend — Pete forgot to do it…)
We’ll have plenty on the shelves all week, with lunches served from noon on weekdays.
Our opening hours are:
Tue - Fri: 12 - 6
Saturday: 8 - 1
Please note we will be closed on Tuesday 24th January for our AGM.
Tom Baker returns to Loaf with Wholegrain Baking
As you may know, Loaf was founded in 2009 in Tom and Jane Baker’s kitchen, just up the road from our current home. A number of our customers (and at least two of our staff) were taught to bake there and the current Loaf teaching method — our pedagogy, if you like — can be traced to those early classes.
So it’s with great pleasure that we can announce Wholegrain Baking with Tom Baker, a new masterclass running approximately three times a year, and starting on Saturday 18th February.
We thought it would be nice to ask Tom what’s brought him back to Stirchley and to say a bit more about what the class will cover, besides making great bread.
Tom on the farm
What’s brought you back to Loaf?
Teaching was a big part of my role at Loaf, and the cookery school was the first thing I started. I never intended to start a bakery too, that just kind of happened! Anyway, since launching Rye and Roses Bakery, teaching hasn’t been part of my life, and over the last couple of years I have started to miss it.
I really enjoyed coming back to Stirchley for the Loaf 10-years-on-the-high-street anniversary in September. It was a great opportunity to formulate some plans to come back — to get back to teaching, to share some of my experiences of starting a bakery with a strong focus on wholemeal baking, and on a selfish level, to reconnect with my Stirchley family and visit some of the great places that have sprung up since we left.
Can you tell us more about bringing wheat growing back to the Dyfi valley?
Within a few weeks of moving to Machynlleth, we went to a Welsh-language folk gig in a local café (a very typical experience here!), and were introduced to a few other people who had an interest in doing some small-scale grain growing. We formed a loose collective and started a trial quarter-acre patch of wheat on one of the member’s land, doing everything by vintage tractor (ploughing), by horse (harrowing), or by hand (sowing).
Over the first couple of seasons we got a local vintage machinery club involved and invited some local farmers to the ploughing, harvesting, or threshing days. In 2020 one of them was inspired enough to go back to his farm and plough three acres for wheat. Over the last two seasons he’s provided almost all the wholemeal flour we use at Rye and Roses. The collective still runs some experiments at a small scale but wheat for the bakery is grown on two local farms.
Tom teaching one of the first bread classes at Loaf’s cookery school.
Your new class will touch on some of the broader economic and political issues around bread. What are some of these?
Why is local grain often much more expensive than commodity grain? When white flour is produced, what happens to all the discarded other parts of the grain? With white flour being so cheap, who can possibly benefit? What is the impact on the environment of producing cheap commodity grain?
Food politics is something that has always fascinated me and something that we all subconsciously choose to either address or ignore at least three times a day. Bread is symbolic for much of the politics that surrounds food and by taking a closer look at a relatively short supply chain of seed — to farm, to mill, to baker — we can get to the heart of some of the bigger political issues that effect the food industry.
How does this fit into the ‘Tom Baker story’?
Before I started Loaf I was a nutritionist for the NHS, promoting healthy eating and good nutrition throughout Birmingham. Starting Loaf was in many ways a continuation of this mission for me, and this new course is yet another chapter in that story. I’m excited to be coming back to Stirchley a few times a year, and sharing some of my passions and experiences again.
Thanks Tom! - Book a place on 18th February. - Sign up for alerts for future dates.
Harvest in Machynlleth.
The Breadcrumbs
🥖 Our good friends at Verbena are having a tight month, so if you’ve been thinking about trying their excellent fare, this would be a great time to book a table.
🥖 The Friends of Stirchley Library are celebrating five years on Saturday 21st January, 4-6pm in Stirchley library. 4pm will be an opportunity to meet with some of the volunteers and committee members and chat about what they do. 5pm is the AGM, reflecting on achievements and making plans for the next 12 months. Refreshments will be provided and all are welcome.
🥖 Fruit and Nut Village, who have been planting and tending to fruit trees across Stirchley, are having a Tree Planting Session on Saturday 21st January, 10am to 2pm at the Kingdom Forest at the bottom of Hazelwell Road by the cycle path. All are welcome and food will be provided (including some Loaf bread!)
🥖 We have a Mastodon account! If you’re a recent adopter of decentralised federated social media, come join us on the social.coop platform. And if you don’t know what any of that means, don’t worry. It’s probably not important.
🥖 The Real Bread Campaign have a report on the terminating of government financial assistance for energy bills which will be ending in March. As a bakery with a big oven, our energy use is pretty stable all year round so while the winter support was welcome, our industry is looking at yet another shock to the cashflow in the spring. Yay…
🥖 The Old Post Office co-working space, which sends a lot of hungry people to us at lunchtime, is now open five days a week and has started a virtual office service for freelancers and home workers.
🥖 Artefact, the artist-run gallery/cafe/bar, is starting an email newsletter. As a fellow Stirchley co-op we’ll be helping them get it off the ground, so if you like this email, subscribe here! (Did we mention this last week? Yes we did!)
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
Tuesday
- Curry: Tarka daal with sourdough (Ve)
Wednesday
- Soup: Roasted cauliflower and coconut with sourdough (Ve)
Thursday
- Soup: Celeriac and apple with thyme and sea salt focaccia (Ve)
Friday
- Curry: Potato, spinach and chickpea with sourdough (Ve)
- Salt beef on challah
Tue — Fri
- Sourdough pizza: Sun-dried tomato, olive, capers, basil, ricotta and mozzarella
Wed — Fri
- Ham and cheese croissant
- Pine nut pesto and cheese croissant (V)
Tue — 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 24 Jan, Tue 21 Mar
- Heritage Grains: Sat 25 Mar
- Sweet Breads and Viennoiserie: Sat 21 Jan, 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:
- Ramen: Wed 15 Feb
- Macarons: Tue 17 Jan
- 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: Dave, Molly, Rach, Pete, Nancy, Neil, Martha, Sarah, Ian & Dorit
Website: loaf.coop
Socials: Instagram / Mastodon / Twitter / Facebook