Autumn Workshops
We’ve got an exciting range of breadmaking workshops on offer this Autumn. Whether it’s learning the basics of bread in our Everyday Bread workshop, discovering how to make bagels or festive breads, or tackling sourdough, we’ve got it covered. Visit our workshops page for more information.
No Farmers’ Market, But Baking on Friday
Unfortunately, due to the predicted weather on Saturday, the Farmers’ Market in Stoneham Park has been cancelled. We don’t want to leave you with nowhere to get bread this weekend, so we’ll be doing a special Friday bake on the 19th August. Get your orders in before lunchtime tomorrow (Thursday), then collect from The Hive between 2-3pm.
July Update
Stoneham Bakehouse has continued to grow over the last few months, with more places to buy our bread, and a series of successful workshops for those who want to learn how to bake their own loaves. We have also been lucky over the last few months to receive funding for a number of projects, and some of these will be starting in the autumn. Read more about how you can get involved in this update.
As you know Stoneham Bakehouse has the wellbeing of the community as a central ethos, and that includes the bakers who produce our great community baked bread. With this in mind we will be taking our summer break at the start of August (1-14 August). The break will give the team time to recharge the batteries, and prepare for the hard work ahead of us.
Plot 22 is a fabulous community allotment on the Weald Allotment site north of Old Shoreham Road. We’ve recently run a couple of workshops there (funded by a Good Food Grant from the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership), baking in their wood fired oven. In September we will be running a couple more workshops focussing on the way baking and gardening can be beneficial to wellbeing. If you’re interested, please check out Plot 22’s website for details.
We’re in the process of drawing up a menu of workshops for the autumn months, and this will be published as soon as the last details are confirmed.Β Do let us know if there are workshops you’d be interested in seeing us offer.
Finally, as Stoneham Bakehouse gets bigger, with more of the community wanting to be involved (whether as bakers or bread buyers), and as our work in the community using breadmaking to support wellbeing is increasingly becoming recongnised by others, we’re looking to expand. Our current ‘itinerant bakers’ status, baking in my home, Pizzaface, and The Hive, has been a great way to get started, but as we look to the future we need our own space. Somewhere where we can bring a bread oven to the heart of our community.
We’ve been keeping our eyes open and ears to the ground, but so far we haven’t found the right thing. So, we’re looking for a helping hand from our community. Do you know of a space you can see us pop up in? Have you a link to someone who works in commercial property? We’d love to hear from you with your ideas.
On The Plot at Plot 22
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been baking at Plot 22, the local community allotment. It’s great to combine two things which have been very important to me in the last couple of years. The allotment and breadmaking have been very influential in my managing of depression and anxiety. Both offer the chance to be mindful and appreciative of the smaller things. Both allow me to be creative. Both have enabled me to get outside and talk to people and feel part of a community.
The sessions this, and last week, were for volunteers at Plot 22. People who work so hard to keep this allotment looking brilliant; and like me enjoy the peace and tranquility of sowing, digging and weeding. Using their brick wood-fired oven, we baked some great olive oil based breads; enjoying them with delicious salads made from produce from Plot 22. Funded by a Brighton & Hove Food Partnership Good Food Grant, we will be working with Plot 22 again in September, offering more baking for wellbeing sessions for different community groups.
Raising Awareness: #MHAW16 & #RealBreadWeek
The internet and social media particularly is awash with special days and weeks with hashtags promoting them. Not a week goes by that there isn’t some kind of ‘week’ popping into my, and everyone else’s, newsstream. There are so many of these awareness days that they even have their own website to collate them all. Usually their existence washes over me, but this week is different. This week is both Real Bread Week and Mental Health Awareness Week. I don’t know who schedules these things, but for me it’s no coincidence the two awareness weeks that Stoneham Bakehouse is most aligned with are the same week.
It is through my own struggles with depression and anxiety that I found real bread, and it’s baking real bread that helps me to manage my mental health. From the dark moments when, quite frankly, I was not sure how I could carry on, to today when the black dog of depression is sighted less frequently, working with dough is therapy for me. Not to say it’s the only thing; I’d still be a wreck without the amazing support of my family and friends. The thing is, baking has led to meeting amazing people who really care. Really care about me, but also really care about the community, and about giving people the chance to enjoy real honest bread. Yes, the act of baking is a mindful one. You can be in the moment and take notice of the way the dough changes as you knead, take time as it rises and becomes a silken pillow ready for shaping. But here’s the difference with Stoneham Bakehouse, whilst that happens we are connecting with others, forming bonds, making something to collectively be proud of. It really does make a difference. It makes me happy.
Domino, one of our bakers, puts it like this:
Everything about Stoneham Bakehouse makes me feel better. The actual breadmaking – creating something delicious from a few ingredients, the process of mixing and kneading, the waiting. But also the companionship of other volunteers, Β meeting the public when we sell bread, doing something with the community. And I love feeding my kids something I have baked – both of them pounce on a Stoneham Bakehouse loaf the minute they see it.
So, coincidence or not, I want to celebrate the fact that these two weeks are raising awareness of two such fundamental things in my, and others’, lives.
