EasyBlog

…but there was last Tuesday at the Brighton Unemployed Centre Families Project ‘Rough Guide to Good Food’ event.

Whether it's a day at the beach, a local park or your own backyard, picnics are a great way to celebrate the summer sunshine.

It's getting warmer (slowly!) and you might be spending more time in the garden, or cooking up more lovely produce that inevitably adds to your scrap-heap. So it's time for the summer edition of Composter's Question Time (check out our autumn edition for more answers). 

Earlier in the year we wrote to the UK Environment Secretary Owen Paterson and our three MPS urging them to support the ban on neonicotinoid pesticides - we felt this was an issue our members cared about. 

First Time Cook is our termly introductory cookery course for people who have never cooked before or need a little more confidence preparing simple dishes.

Despite plummeting temperatures we braved the great outdoors on the 1st April for the second annual Fish Festival at Bartholomew Square. It was a fantastic day full of tasters, cookery demos and chances to learn about the weird and wonderful world of our oceans.

Unwrap the truth about chocolate. Is it really good for you?

People have fed food scraps and leftovers to animals for thousands of years (in fact, scientists believe that dogs evolved from wolves who were partial to waste dumps).  And our pets today are no exception.  People often feed scraps to animals to avoid creating waste, which is indeed a noble effort.  But while some scraps are fine as treats and even contribute to your pet's nutrition, other leftovers can be unhealthy, or even deadly to your furry and feathered friends.

Chocolate has long been a fixation of many cultures, some even using the beans as currency. Understandably so, the rich aromatic flavour mixed with sweet sugar and cocoa butter that is delectable and give a sensation of complete satisfaction is truly worth its weight in gold.

Inspired by the joy of growing, Colette Haynes started Ashurst Organics in 1994, but growing commercially is not without its pitfalls and challenges.  Here is an excerpt from a talk she gave to the Brighton & Hove Organic Gardening Group. It's an inspiring manifesto for organic living, so make yourself comfortable and read on...

Monday 11^th- Sunday 17^th March marks national salt awareness week. Did you know that eating too much salt can increase your risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke? The good news is cutting down on your salt intake doesn’t mean food has to taste bland and if you reduce your salt intake gradually your taste buds soon adjust.

If, like me you are keen to reduce your salt intake but are afraid your food will taste bland, look no further.

The big fish news in Brighton & Hove this month is the launch of
Catchbox, a really exciting new project that aims to reconnect people with their local fishermen. It allows you to buy a share of the catch providing you with fresh, local fish and the fishermen with a fair price for their stock.
Catchbox shares are likely to cost around £5 for a kilo of fish plus a £10 sign up fee. You can choose how many kilos you want and whether you want it weekly or fortnightly. You can have fillets or whole fish although fillets will cost slightly more because of the processing involved. They will soon be selling membership - to be the first in line, sign up here.

This week marks the start of Fairtrade Fortnight, and the headline for 2013 is Make Food Fair, highlighting the experiences of smallholder farmers worldwide, and calling on David Cameron to champion their cause at this year’s G8 Summit.  The Fairtrade label ensures that the people growing our food are getting paid adequately, and that their livelihoods and communities are supported. 

Over 200 people have completed the Cookability course since it started in 2004. It's our free cookery leaders training that runs each term.  

25th Feb-10th March 2013 marks Fairtrade Fortnight, encouraging people to take an extra step towards fairer trade for food growers globally.

You can’t escape the French influence on modern cookery today – many of the cooking terms are derived from classic French cuisine, and if you walk into any professional, well organised kitchen, the phrase you will hear the most is Mise en place ( Pronounced: Meez-ahn-plahs) which means ‘to put in place’.

Fact: at the Food Partnership, we love soup.  We serve soup to our volunteers on cold work days.  We promote soup recipes as great for garden gluts, healthy diets, saving tired veg from the bin, and for first-time cooks.  We even share our soupy creations in the office kitchen.  Think about it - you can't make a single portion of soup, so it's always good for sharing.  So when the annual Soup Swap Day rolled around, we had to host a swap of our own.