The Frack Free Bake Off

“Two years ago, a group of grandmothers occupied Cuadrilla’s fracking site in Lancashire. They gave out cake and talked to people passing by about the dangers of shale gas drilling. Inspired by what they did, we’re back at the same site. Follow our live blog and don’t forget to sign the petition!”  Emma and Sophie Thompson

Thompson sisters, go, go, go!  Thank you for putting yourselves out there, responding to the climate emergency!

(I love how the practice and popularity of baking has created great moments for activism and self-expression, hence the hashtag #politicakes (credit goes to my daughter).  Please if you see cakes like this, let me know so we can add it to Pinterest here.)

And on the theme of fracking… this is my all time favourite creative response:

Charlie’s Blog about Food Justice and Injustice in the USA

My friend Charlie Spring is writing a brilliant and hilarious blog-travel-log about her time on a study fellowship in the US. “I’m going to spend the next two months in North America,” she writes, “meeting people who I hope can teach me lessons to bring home [to the UK]: about the entrenchment of food aid under austerity welfare conditions, about going beyond the food bank model, about participatory democracy and citizen involvement in food system decision-making and doing. About food justice, and food injustice.” Eagerly awaiting each new post, I heartily recommend you follow her writings. Here’s just one snippet that will lead you to more.

seekingsitopia

I was in a bad, cynical-feeling place when I got to Rainbow Grocery in the swelter of the day, having seen new dimensions of the homelessness of San Francisco. I felt guilty for entering this cool place of herbs, tonics, plinky music and funky coop members stacking kale chips in polka-dot party dresses, knowing I could afford this food, navigate the wealth of choice on offer. Sort of. Self-service (lots of it) flummoxed me- how much would a handful of decoriated cardamom cost when a pound would cost $50? Gah. You could self serve honey, roasted hazelnut-chocolate butter, tofu, kimchi, vegan chocolate-coated pretzels, pasta, tea, herbs, a million types of granola, dried persimmon, olives. You hold your little compost able bag and open the chute with a knob and gravity sends a landslide of mung beans out over the sides and you try to pull up the sides and once…

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How do making dumplings help people learn English?

“How do making dumplings help people learn English?” Here’s a link to a great project in Manchester, Heart and Parcel. I wanted to RE-BLOG this practical piece about the methodology of teaching ESOL through cooking, and to share the website in general with its fantastic dumpling recipes as well as interesting articles, particularly this one I felt, on Policy, Pierogi and the Perceptions of Women.

“The dumplings and wrapped foods that we make during our sessions are a vehicle. We are not making dumplings as a means to an end, nor do we expect that all women can make, or immensely enjoy, making dumplings. We are making dumplings as a distraction; to create the process by which our participants can explore their minds, their talent, their potential, either through the task at hand (maybe we will get fantastic dumpling makers!) or through conversations had between those women, through information and knowledge being shared and transferred from one woman to another, from one community to another.”

“You will bring together hot Rocket with chilly Lettuces”: Enticements of a Medieval Herbal

A medieval garden – from British Library MS Royal 6 E IX f. 15v

The Healing Power of a Garden – A Medieval View.  Came across this article this morning and felt a surge of springtime joy, reading about Henry of Huntingdon’s Anglicanus Ortus, a Verse Herbal of the Twelfth Century.

“This is no ordinary herbal: the work is staged first as a discussion between a master and a student walking around a garden, inspecting the plants in their separate beds, and then as an awkward performance by the same master before Apollo and a critical audience, seated in a theatre at the garden’s centre. Beyond its didactic and performative aspects, the entire work is framed as a prayer to God’s generative capacity and the rational order of nature.” –http://pims.ca/pdf/st180.pdf 

Check out this link for enticing excerpts pertaining to oregano, strawberry, dill, horseradish, and more.  Am a bit sad it’s a $175 book — doesn’t it feel like historical cultural production like this should somehow exist in the commons, for all of us to learn from and enjoy? Maybe this is a book Google might buy and put up on the web…

Soil Association Campaigns

I’m pleased to be on the shortlist for a BOOM Award in the category of Best Food Blog.

Here’s the list!

[POSTDATE: Guess what, I made top 3!!!!!]

We’ll find out the results on 11th May.  I’m more committed to writing about a wider social-cultural-political vision of food than what we think of as standard food blogging, though of course I am honoured to be recognised by the Soil Association because I admire so much of the work it does.

Organic as “lifestyle” might seem a choice of privilege or taste, but if you take a look at the range of issues encompassed in Soil Association campaigns, it’s clear that the dominance of chemical agriculture has critical, wide-ranging implications.

Some of their current campaigns:

If We Can Drop Bombs, We Can Drop Bread

AIRDROP AID TO SYRIA NOW.

IF WE CAN DROP BOMBS, WE CAN DROP BREAD.

Please sign and share this petition from the Syria Campaign.  It cannot hurt to sign; maybe it can help.

 

Crepes in Gaza, Breakfast in Wales

Photo courtesy of Salsabeel Zeineddin

“Mummy, I have a wish,” said my son with a contrived sweetness.

“Yes, Darling, tell me.”

“That you make crepes for breakfast tomorrow.” It was a school night, and mornings for us are stressfully chaotic.  Crepes are labour intensive.

“Ummmmm…. What would you want with them?” I asked conflicted in desiring to give him what he wanted but feeling selfish and irritated.

“Nutella.”

This seemed an odd coincidence as I’d just been reading a piece about Nutella Crepes in Gaza, called “Dreaming of Chocolate,” written by a young Palestinian food writer Salsabeel Zeineddin,

Welsh Fermentation Festival 27th August, 2016

Welsh Fermentation Festival

We are excited to anounce our first ever Welsh Fermentation Festival, a day to explore all things fermented.  Come along for a fun day of tasting, drinking, workshops, music and more.   Stallholders and workshops to be anounced soon!

Festival will be held at Welsh Mountain Cider, Prospect Orchard, Llanidloes SY186JY

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