Welcome to Culture Club
Launched in February with the Quick Pickles workshop, Culture Club is a new social group for all things foodie.
Borne out of Helen and Felix’s love for food and experimentation, Culture Club aims to create a collaborative community, where people can share their knowledge and experiences around food.
Since Quick Pickles there have also been Learn to make Kimchi and Learn to make Sauerkraut sessions. All three workshops have been very well received. Participants said:
- “It was amazing and really helped improve my mental state for the day.”
- “…fun and helpful practical sessions and great atmosphere.”
Future session ideas include making vegan cheeses, sharing sourdough starters and foraging for elderflowers to make cordial; but most importantly, Culture Club will be shaped by its members, with everyone’s interests and contributions contributing to the programme of activity.
Co-Founder Helen Rodger explains what Culture Club is for her:
“I love good food, making it and eating it (though I’m not so hot on the growing it). Over the years I’ve undertaken various projects with varying success – from sourdough (yes if you have the time) to fermenting eggs (a hard no). These days I cure my own bacon and cold smoke anything that looks like it will be improved (pretty much everything edible – my husband has learned to be wary). What I have found, is that it’s much more fun when it’s a collaborative process – nobody has all the answers, but it’s fun trying things out, and if you can benefit from somebody else’s experience, so much the better.
We’re setting up Culture club to make this kind of collaboration easier, social and fun – for the sharing of ideas, techniques, processes and maybe even tools.”
What happens at a session?
At each monthly meeting we’ll focus on one project or idea that we think is worth exploring, and as we get going we’ll be asking what others are interested in exploring and take it from there to set a programme for the year, hopefully include access to specialist workshops and guest speakers too. At the first meeting in May, Felix and I will have tried our hands at making nut cheeses and bring along our results for people to try.
We’ll be setting up a spice co-op to make it easier to try high quality (and often unusual) spices in smaller quantities for your own projects, and there’s a host of other ideas bouncing round our heads – so to find out more please come along 🙂
Still not sure?
Here’s just some of the topics that have made it onto our long-list for exploration…
- Foraging
- Cordials
- Bitters and tinctures
- Preserving store-cupboard ingredients
- Kombucha
- Kefir
- Pie making (In the coming months Helen will be running workshops on raising pies – see her instagram @Pie.Priestess)
- Making clay ovens,
- Fun with soy beans – Tofu and Tempeh from scratch..
Culture Club will be running from 1 May, on the first Thursday of the month, from 6:30-8:30pm.
We encourage anyone who is thinking of attending to bring along any ideas, recipes or anything else they would like to share.
If you would like to be first to hear about Culture Club events, please email [email protected] to be added to the mailing list.
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