In Transition 2.0

The UK Green Film Festival is a welcome addition to the touring film festival circuit. Now in its second year, it tours to a dozen venues - including Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff (18-20 May 2012). This year’s films included ones about the appalling levels of food wastage from farm to fork (Taste the Waste), turning vegan (Vegucated), corruption in the oil industry (Greedy Lying Bastards) and light pollution (The City Dark).

I went to see In Transition 2.0 (UK, 2012), a film directed by Emma Goude that provides a useful update on Transition Town projects. The Transition movement seeks to help communities prepare for an economically-uncertain post-peak oil world by enhancing local self-sufficiency. It’s about visualizing how your community may look in 20-30 years time, and putting in place the necessary sustainable energy and food framework to maintain a high (or even enhanced) quality of life. The film is structured around an interview with Rob Hopkins, who has outlined practical steps “from oil dependency to local resilience” in a series of books and is co-founder of the pioneering Totnes Transition Town.

The film incorporates stories from around the world (no aircraft travel – all groups sent their own sections via the Internet), showing how community groups have variously implemented transition steps to achieve greater local sustainability. Food projects usually provide the initial success. These include community gardens in reclaimed urban spaces (e.g., gardens of abandoned houses, railway platforms) and co-operatives selling local food. Local currencies are increasingly being used to promote local trade (the Brixton Pounds has even gone electronic), while local energy production is shown to be a good way forward (e.g., Lewes’ community solar power station). Bringing communities together is time and again a key factor in successful Transition Town initiatives.

After the film, Sam and Helen from the Cardiff Transition group spoke about projects in the Cardiff area. Most Transition Towns have been small towns or villages, so being in a large city they see their main role initially as being to help connect existing activities and sustainable businesses throughout the city. Projects include mapping (using Google map technology) of urban orchards and gardens, along with energy efficiency surveys and the establishment of community gardens (there’s even one at Chapter Arts Centre). The Taff, a local trading currency has been established, and more initiatives are shortly to be announced. Cardiff Transition Town officially launches this week (Wednesday May 23) at an event in the Old Library (see Transition Cardiff Event on Facebook to book).

UK Green Film Festival:

www.ukgreenfilmfestival.org

Related Food Blog posts:

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/creating-community-garden-2.html

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/creating-community-garden.html 

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/steve-garrett-on-local-food-in-cardiff.html

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/edible-landscapes.html

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/community-gardens.html

Festive Food Fair, Chapter, Cardiff

Today’s Festive Food Fair at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff was a great success. There was a sizeable crowd and most of the stallholders were generally doing very good business.

I Want to Bake Free was selling, among other things, Victorian sponge cakes, gingerbread houses, loose tea and peppermint creams. The stall raised around £100 for the LATCH charity. The traditional tearoom will be opening, somewhere in Cardiff, next year. If David's stall at Chapter is anything to go by, it will be an interesting prospect.

Mark’s Bread had an eye-catching display. Although Bristol-based, Mark Newman sets up a stall every Wednesday afternoon at Chapter. Today we came home with Pan au Chocolate and a Malthouse loaf. Artisan slow-fermented sourdough bread was also available from Cardiff’s Hungry Planet and Bridgend-based Tortoise Bakery.

I always enjoy looking at The Parsnipship for their creative Vegetarian dishes, which today included a seasonal Roast Chestnut and Jerusalem Artichoke Dauphinoise. We went for the Lapsang-Souchong Smoked Butternut Lasagne, the Glamorgan Crumble, and a Stilton and Spinach Cake, which we heated up and had for dinner tonight.

Box vegetable schemes were being promoted by Riverside Market Garden (Cardiff) and Riverford Organic Veg (Devon). The other stallholders included Gwatkin Cider and Gwynt y Draig Cider, Llanfaes Dairy Ice Cream, The Nut Hut, Welsh Brew Tea, and Hipo Hyfryd.

There was also a range of workshops (gingerbread decoration, pottery, mosaics and more) and a raffle (I won a bottle of perry). Carols were performed under the Christmas tree by jazz singer Brigida Melly. The jazz arrangements fooled my daughter for a while, until she heard the words.

Outside the arts centre, there was a demonstration of a rocket jet-stove. This sealed unit can be used to cook potatoes (or chestnuts, as it did today). It is a very efficient way of burning wood, as it burns to a combustible gas that does the cooking. Biochar is producing as a by-product, which can be mixed with manure to make a great fertilizer.

A key part of proceedings was a meeting of Siop y Pobl (The People’s Supermarket), with the Core Group of this initiative updating us on progress, followed by a cooking competition. Siop y Pobl will be the subject of a longer blog post next week.

The Festive Fair was one of those events that exceeded expectations. Well done Chapter, Green City and Hedfan Arts for making it happen.

http://iwanttobakefree.blogspot.com/

http://www.marksbread.co.uk/

http://www.theparsnipship.co.uk/

Two Loaves

I bought a couple of sourdough loaves recently deserving of comment: one made in Bristol and one made in Dinas Powys.

Mark’s Bread is Bristol’s smallest independent bakery. They deliver around south Bristol by bike, but every Wednesday Mark drives a van across the Severn Bridge, and along to Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff (4-6pm). They sell a selection of their wild yeast breads (sourdoughs), bakers’ yeast breads, and spelt and rye loaves. Last week's Special at Chapter was a Fig and Black Pepper loaf.

The first picture is a small South Bristol Sourdough, a sort of signature bread for them. They make their loaves using sourdough cultures, without commercial yeast, and prove them slowly in linen-lined wicker baskets. They mainly use organic flour from Shipton Mill, Gloucestershire, and don’t use improvers or additives (this is definitely Real Bread, as defined by the Real Bread campaign). The ambient yeast and bacteria in sourdough cultures naturally differ from one area to another, bringing subtle differences to the finished bread. So ‘South Bristol Sourdough’ is distinct from sourdoughs made elsewhere.

Geraint Roberts, another Real Bread advocate, bakes all his bread using sourdough cultures, at the Hungry Planet (Hupla) Workers' Co-op in Adamsdown, Cardiff, and at his home in Dinas Powys.

Geraint sees Bread Subscription Schemes as a way forward for micro-bakeries. He is planning to start a subscription scheme for Hungry Planet, with people paying a month in advance for their bread. From his home in Dinas Powys, he teaches bread courses and does a smaller weekly bake to order. Bread subscription schemes give more security of market and reduce waste, because you only bake exactly what is required. More money also goes directly to the baker than if the bread was being sold wholesale through shop outlets.

Last week’s home-made sourdough loaf (second picture) was a Multigrain Wholemeal, made with Bacheldre organic stoneground flour (87% wholemeal, 13% white), polenta, buckwheat groats, wheat flakes, millet flakes, oatmeal, organic natural salt and water. This was moist, tangy and flavoursome.



Mark’s Bread, North Street, south Bristol:
http://www.marksbread.co.uk/

Geraint Robert’s website:
http://geraintbakesbread.webs.com/

The Real Bread Campaign:
http://www.sustainweb.org/realbread/

A previous post on sourdough:
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.com/search/label/Geraint%20Roberts

Edible Landscapes

Each year, since we moved to Dinas Powys, the distinction between decorative and horticultural planting in our garden has become increasingly blurred. Rainbow chard, brassicas, beetroot, tomatoes, courgettes and herbs grow alongside flowers, and between shrubs and trees. It has become an edible landscape.

Combining food and non-food plants in landscaping is becoming more common in community and municipal gardens. The garden outside the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, for instance, has been redesigned as an edible landscape. In a previous post I said I would report back on progress. Here are some pictures I took there last week.

In the borders outside Chapter are tomatoes, courgettes, runner beans, broad beans, nasturtiums, kale, poppies, purple-sprouting broccoli and an avocado tree. They are both decorative and productive.

The idea is that the plants can be harvested by the local community. Last autumn when the purple-sprouting broccoli was ready, Chapter used Twitter to invite people to help themselves from the community garden.

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Previous Chapter garden post:

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.com/2011/05/community-gardens.html

Community Gardens

A Community Garden is a single piece of land collectively cultivated by a group of people. Such gardens bring benefits in terms of local food security, a sense of community, education and connection to the environment, artistic expression, and health.

In Cardiff, Chapter Arts Centre has established a Community Garden, run by Canton Community Gardens. Food plants have been arranged with regard to their decorative effect, amongst existing trees and newly-planted apple trees, in borders around the front of the arts complex. A colourful array of plants, including brassica species and nasturtiums was achieved last year.

Earlier this year, purple-sprouting broccoli, in a bed running up to the main entrance, became ready to pick. Word was sent out over social networking sites, inviting local people to come and take a share. This is a novel concept. Certainly, there was some broccoli that could have been picked that went to seed. Maybe Chapter should put up suggested portion sizes for the communal bounty, so people don’t feel anxious about taking more than their fair share, and to discourage a minority who may excessively crop the plants. I predict this garden will become increasingly popular as more people contribute and benefit from it.

In its first year (2010), Chapter’s edible Community Garden was a winner in the Peoples Millions Big Lottery competition. The garden is set to expand in 2011. Designs for a “perennial edible landscape” have been draw up by Michele Fitzsimmons (ediblelandscaping.co.uk). These plans were approved by Cardiff Council in February. Gardening is underway. I’ll be blogging on progress, as I visit Chapter during the rest of this year.