25 October 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 look forward to an exhibition of cooperatives in Stirchley (including us!) and are chuffed at the bikes you enabled Migrant Help to buy.

🍞 Pre-order your bread 🥐

We’ll have plenty of bread and pastries on the shelves all day, with lunches served from noon on weekdays.

Scroll down for this week’s lunch menu, cookery school spaces and community news.

Our opening hours are:
Wednesday: 12-4
Thursday: 12-6
Friday: 12-6
Saturday: 8-1

Left Feet Forward is an exhibition at Artefact about cooperatives. It brings together archival printed material of the cooperative history of South Birmingham, particularly the Ten Acres and Stirchley Cooperative Society, and places it among Chris Neophytou’s photographs of recent grass-roots cooperatives that have developed in the area, Gugan Gill’s film exploring this history and legacy, and a play by Susan Finlay taking a wry look at cooperative organisation and politics.

There will also be a number of events discussing the role of cooperatives and a chance for local residents to explore their local history.

We had our group photo taken for this last week (in the rain!) and are very excited to see how it comes together. The launch is this Friday at 7:30pm — see you there!

Migrant Help got their bikes

Last year you raised over £1,000 for Migrant Help who support newly arrived refugees and migrants who’ve been placed in temporary accommodation. “We holistically support the individuals and families, either as they await permanent accommodation or as they settle into their new communities. We help them access the necessary healthcare, language lessons, education, employment opportunities and community support.”

This week we received an update of where some of the money has gone: bikes!

“With your support we were able to get the clients bikes, helmets and locks. Clients were gifted the bikes for their personal use and was also given riding lessons — bike ability level 1, 2 and level 3. As you can see the clients went on a lovely ride and are really happy they were given such a valuable resource.”

Valuable resource is right! These bikes will give them the freedom and autonomy to properly settle into our city.

The Breadcrumbs

🥖 Just one cookery school class has spaces this week: Sushi on Thursday evening.

🥖 Quarter Horse Coffee made a delivery: Palomino Filter Blend, Media Luna (Colombia), Volcán (Colombia) and La Pastora (Costa Rica) beans are on the shelves.

🥖 UK’s biggest food bank network to spend millions on parcels this winter. A timely reminder that, if you can afford it, we’re taking donations for the B30 Food Bank at the counter and online.

🥖 Leeds Bread Coop raised enough money for their mixer! (We’ve recently been talking to them about sharing knowledge and experience, so watch this space.)

🥖 Space Therapies, our neighbours a few doors to the right, got in touch about their range of events for healthy mind, body and energy.

🥖 Speaking of mind-healthy activities, these Wellbeing Walks that are starting from the Old Post Office this Friday look really good.

Lunches this week

Wednesday

• Curry: Tarka daal with sourdough (Ve)

Thursday

• Ciabatta sandwich: avocado, olive tapenade, tomato and rocket (Ve) with optional feta (V)

Friday

• Curry: Sweet potato, chickpea and spinach with sourdough (Ve)
• Salt beef on challah

Wed — Fri

• Sourdough pizza: roasted butternut squash, red onion, sage, chilli flakes and mozzarella (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

The following classes have spaces as of this newsletter being posted.

Loaf’s all-day classes:

• Bread — Back to Basics: Tue 8 Nov
• Simply Sourdough: Sat 12 Nov, Sat 26 Nov
• Sweet Breads and Viennoiserie: Tue 1 Nov, Tue 22 Nov

Haseen’s evening classes:

• Dosa: Thu 3 Nov
• Thaali: Wed 30 Nov

Lap’s all-day classes:

• Sausage & Charcuterie: Tue 29 Nov

Lap’s evening classes:

• Thai Cooking: Wed 9 Nov
• Sushi: Thu 27 Oct
• Knife Skills & Maintenance: Wed 2 Nov

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: Neil, Sarah, Ian, Molly, Nancy, Martha, Rach, Dorit & Pete

Website: loaf.coop
Socials: Instagram / Twitter / Facebook