21 June 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 have news of a bake sale, a real bread conference, a garden party and more!
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.
Our opening hours are:
Wednesday: 12-4
Thursday: 12-6
Friday: 12-6
Saturday: 8-1
The Breadlines
🥖 The Gorilla coffee from Bwindi is back in stock! Read all about it here. If you’re interested in their work, they sent us some booklets to give away — ask at the counter.
🥖 Our multigrain loaves now have grains from Hodmedod’s, who source them from sustainable UK farms. See if you can tell the difference.
🥖 The Just Film Festival from the Birmingham Co-operative Film Society starts this week.
🥖 The Choir With No Name is an excellent charity working with homeless and marginalised people to empower them through song. Their Festival With No Name returns on 3rd July.
Action for Refugees bake sale
There’s a bake sale for Kings Heath Action for Refugees this Saturday at The Old Post Office in Stirchley, organised with Women in Hospitality. We’re contributing some of our sweet buns, so go check it out and support this excellent charity doing important work in the area.
The bake sale is part of a day of craft workshops for all ages by KHAR at The Old Post Office from 10am-3pm with an opportunity to buy their merch. These drop-in workshops are part of Birds of One Sky, a community installation at Highbury Park as part of KHARnival.
(And apologies for getting the date of the KHARnival wrong last week. It’s next month on 17th July.)
Real Bread for All
A couple of us are going down to London for Real Bread for All, a panel discussion at the excellent E5 Bakehouse in Hackney.
How do we work to fix the problem that access to delicious, nutritious Real Bread tends to be an ‘us’ and ‘them’ situation, divided along socio-economic lines, including income, class, culture, colour and ethnicity?
How do we convince public sector caterers (and other people) of the nutritional, community and other benefits of Real Bread made by a small, independent, neighbourhood bakery, while exposing the often forgotten/hidden, displaced costs of industrial alternatives?
Who will pay for the shortfall between what it costs a small bakery to make and sell Real Bread, and what people in that community on lower incomes are able to afford?
How do we address other practical and conceptual barriers to access?
These are all issues we’ve been concerned with at Loaf over the last decade, and which are becoming more acute as the cost of living crisis spirals. We will report back.
Martineau Gardens summer party
As part of their 25th anniversary, our good friends at Martineau Gardens have their summer party on Saturday 25th June from 3 to 7pm.
A fantastic summer afternoon into evening of live music with two bands and wine included in your ticket price. Help raise vital funds for Martineau Gardnes in our 25th year of bringing people, plants and wildlife together. The charity auction and raffle are the main event, on stage with Biddle and Webb — it makes for an exciting evening. There will also be fabulous food for you to purchase and tuck in to. All takes place in the grounds of our gorgeous therapeutic community garden.
What’s going on at Cotteridge Park
We’re fundraising for the Friends of Cotteridge Park and in the run up to CoCoMad in July we’re highlighting some of the regular events and activities your donations help support throughout the year.
An understandably large part of running a park is gardening. While the council will do the basic stuff, there are a lot of extra features added over the years that need care and attention.
Volunteer gardening sessions take place every Tuesday 10-11am and Sunday 10:15-11:15am. On Sundays there’s a good chance you’ll be rewarded with some Loaf buns!
All ages and abilities welcome. Meet at The Shed and bring gardening gloves.
Lunches this week
This week’s sourdough pizza is potato, walnut, onion, mozzarella, taleggio, spinach & tomato sauce (V) on sale Wed to Fri.
The soup pot will be serving the following:
Wed: Tarka daal curry (Ve) + sourdough bread.
Fri: New potatoes, sweet potatoes, French beans, chickpeas, spinach and coconut curry (Ve) + sourdough bread.
Thursday’s focaccia sandwich is tomato olive salsa, roasted bell peppers and zucchini, caramelised onions and spinach (Ve) optional with feta (V)
Salt beef on challah is on sale on Friday.
Savoury snacks include our famous sausage rolls and vegetable rolls, available Wednesday through Saturday, plus ham & cheese and pesto & cheese croissants Wednesday through Friday.
Lunches are made fresh every day for 12 noon.
Our menu for the week — with ingredients and allergens — is on the website.
Upcoming classes
All our classes are fully booked through the summer. Thanks for all your interest!
Dates for classes in the autumn will be released in July. You can sign up to alert lists for specific classes here.
Thanks for all your continued support. See you next week!
Team Loaf: Rach, Ian, Sarah, Pete, Martha, Dorit, Neil, Molly & Nancy