LOCAL MATTERS Join Northampton Town's Food Waste Project By Damon Fox from Northampton Town Community Trust We are very excited to be launching a new project at the Community Trust with Schools, Businesses and families called Cobblers Tackle Food Waste. This is part of a funded project running until the end of 2024 looking at how we can
FARMING Land Share or Land Spare? Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have land use strategies. There is no land use strategy for England1. This makes it difficult to take consistent decisions on how much land should be devoted to crop production, forestry, bio-diversity/ nature, recreation, transport, housing, industry, water and so on. The decision is doubly
LOCAL MATTERS The 10th Northampton Seedy Saturday by Shena Cooper Fruitful Abundance is organising the 10th Northampton Seed Swap on 10 February 2024. Their mission is to alert people to the reasons why FOOD is so important in helping slow Climate Change and to help them make alterations in their lives which will improve life for them
PODCASTSHELF Fed with Chris van Tulleken This is a podcast series from BBC Sounds which explores the story of chicken, its progression from scrawny jungle fowl to the most widely consumed animal protein on the planet, and what that says about us. It is almost an urban myth that modern humans think food comes from supermarkets,
FARMING Are Supermarkets Paying Fair Prices to Growers? This morning (13/11/23) on BBC Farming Today1, a grower of cauliflowers pointed out that in 1976 when he left school the price was 75p each; today he is selling caulis at £1.20. In ’76 his first new tractor was £9,500; today a new tractor is £150,
FOOD The Food We Eat: West Northamptonshire Sustainable Food Network As residents of West Northamptonshire we at CA-WN have two key missions: o to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions because they are contributing to global overheating o to prepare ourselves for living with the weather extremes that are the consequence of a critically altered climate - winter days of sub-zero
FOOD Eat More Veg Month World Vegan Day on 1 November spotlights the vegan movement with World Vegan Month** continuing the worldwide celebration throughout November. At our October monthly meeting award-winning vegan chef Natasha Caton spoke enthusiastically about ‘we are what we eat’. While many of us would find it impractical for our daily menu
CA-WN ADMIN CA-WN AGM and Monthly Meeting notes - October 2023 Our October meeting started with the AGM including Election of Officers, followed by a presentation from Natasha Caton of Sol Haven on Sustainable Food, and finally a short update on CA-WN activities and events. The meeting was recorded with the consent of those present. Separate recordings of the AGM and
CA-WN ADMIN CA-WN Monthly Meeting Notes 21 September 2023 Our guest speaker this month was Simon Derrick, Global Head of Sustainability for Blue Skies and founder of the Sustainable Business Alliance. Simon gave a presentation on the subject of 'Trade, development and climate justice: the case of Blue Skies in Africa'. Present: Dave Anderson, Ella Sage, Eugenia
FARMING Fertility and The Three Sisters At the time of writing, late July 2023, the local grain harvest is just starting. The combines will be out in the Winter Barley. But there is a long way to go and typically the weather has changed to a pattern of Atlantic lows giving us sunshine and showers from
BUSINESS Eat Curious - growing more than plants... an insight into sustainable food production I recently had the good fortune to eat three delicious meals in a row; two lunches with a breakfast in between; cooked by someone else. What a joy it was – an exquisite symphony of flavoursome curries, rice, side dishes and snacks courtesy of Northampton-based food development company, Eat Curious. Don’
BOOKSHELF Ravenous by Henry Dimbleby with Jemima Lewis In 2021, Henry Dimbleby published the much acclaimed ‘National Food Strategy’. This was one of the most carefully thought through and readable government documents that I have read and yet most people, including members of the government, have not read or acted upon it. In reply, in 2022 the Government
FARMING Mellow Yellow Rupert Knowles – CA-WN Farming Correspondent Some of you may be old enough like me to remember dancing to Donovan’s 1966 hippy hit song by this name. But today, it is Farrington’s oils that invoke the magic of flower power. Farrington’s cold-pressed rapeseed oil is produced at Bottom
RECIPES Vegetarian Roast Cheese, Cashew and Walnut Loaf Patsy Hollingum writes: I’ve been making this for our Christmas dinner for around ten years now. It sounds more complex than it is, the end result is well worth the effort, and it takes far less time to roast than a turkey. It is just as tasty served cold,
RECIPES Beans Means … Texture and Flavour Following on from the earlier post about lentils Patsy Hollingum turns her attention to beans. I am a fan of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme and earlier in 2022 the topic was beans, a subject to which the team devoted two episodes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/
RECIPES Patsy Hollingum is taking the pulse ... In my store cupboard at the moment I have no fewer than 10 different types of pulse, plus one on my current shopping list. Some of you will be familiar with the word, without knowing exactly what it covers, so here’s a little rule of thumb: a pulse is
FARMING Amazing Maize Maze In early September 2022, I visited the Pick Your Own farm at Harpole for a chat with the owner, Teresa Drage. I wanted to find out how her enterprise had been affected by the hot, dry summer. Manor Farm has been in the family for many years. It is a
FOOD Apples and Orchards, wild and domesticated By Clare Robertson-Marriott To understand current human dependency on globalisation it might be useful to consider the provenance or origin of the things we buy: food items, textiles, cars and so on, and to accelerate the development of endeavours with a local or circular economic focus. We could begin with
RECIPES Hard Times Bread Pudding By Patsy Hollingum This is a recipe for old fashioned bread pudding using stale white bread. It’s a good way to use up really stale bread, including the crusts. As it is a recipe for using up “left-overs” I have not given exact quantities, however, don’t go over
FARMING Farmers and bees are buzzing!!! Show time. The barley is turning gold and the combines will shortly be busy in the fields. The magical months of May and June are over. July is a relatively slack time of year when farmers visit the shows. In 2022 I visited two: Cereals 2022 near Duxford in Cambridgeshire
RECIPES Vitality Soup & Family Frittata VITALITY SOUP Cooking time: 20mins Vegan, dairy free, gluten free A combination of early vegetables and wild seasonal gems that can easily be foraged in Spring. Soften an onion, add 600g asparagus, handful of young nettle tops, 2 handfuls of wild garlic and chopped garlic clove, cover with 1-1.5
FARMING Climate-Friendly Farming Rupert Knowles - CA-WN Farming Correspondent New-born lambs are scampering after their mothers all over West Northamptonshire. I was driving up a farm track north of Braunston last week and they went skipping ahead without the sense to veer to left or right. The pastures to the side undulate with
