Archive for September 2013

September Meeting - You Can't Curry Love

Wednesday, 25 September 2013 § 0

September's meeting proved extremely popular with the Roses as it was very much food related!

After the normal introductions from the committee and updates as to what is going on with the WI at a National and Federation level we moved onto the Curry Cookery Demonstration part of the evening!


We were joined by the lovely Prett Tejura from Curry Cuisine who took the plunge in the middle of a recession and followed her passion for food and founded a cooking school.  Prett was accompanied by her friend Alison who also helped with the demonstration and her daughter Nayesha who sold some of the amazing chutneys and spice mixes.   


Prett's entrepreneurial flair enabled the school to flourish and in 2009 saw it diversify into manufacturing for retail. The family recipes were so well received by customers for their truly authentic taste and flavour, that demand was created to develop a retail range which included chutneys, spice mixes and dessert sauces - of course our Roses all took advantage of the free tasting samples and used it as a great opportunity to stock up on some tasty condiments that were well promoted and marketed by Nayesha!




Prett with the help of her assistant showed us how to cook perfect Pilau rice, a tasty chicken curry and what was perhaps most exciting for some of our Roses (mentioning no names here!) how to make the most charming chappatis.  

Prett very kindly has given a special 10% discount to all our Buns & Roses members if you want to book onto a cooking course - definitely worth taking advantage!

September Book Club - Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Monday, 16 September 2013 § 0

5 of us met on Sunday to discuss Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. As the wind picked up outside we sat cosily inside the Tiled Hall discussing how much we had enjoyed reading it - the scores ranged from 7 to 9 out of 10. Scores like that are high praise indeed.

We each agreed how vivid the voice of each character was, the delight of the excerpts from The Weems Weekly, Whistle Stop Alabama's Weekly Bulletin by Dot Weems, the delightful love story of Ruth and Idgie, the differences between the book and the film adapatation, our favourite bits - we all loved the trial scene and the part in which Evelyn takes her revenge upon parking spot stealers and which of the recipes at the end of the book we would try. We all wanted to be able to go the the Whistle Stop Cafe and to try their  Fried Green Tomatoes.

The Washington Post describes it as a 'funny and macabre novel' and we all agreed it was exactly that but it isn't just that - it is also a heartwarming tale of love, loss, friendship, cooking, understandable murder, outwitting of the Ku Klux Klan and the judicial system. It's an easy friendly read that doesn't insult your intelligence and it has made us want to read her other books.

We also talked about how to develop book club in the future - one thing we might do is instead of picking individual books is pick a genre, each read a book from that genre and then discuss the genre as a whole but for the meantime we decided we would again write names of books on pieces of paper and then pick one out of the bag. The book chosen this time was Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and honestly I did not fix the choice - even though this is the second time on the trot it's been my suggestion that was picked.

We'll be meeting to discuss it at 2.30pm (a slight later start as that should give us time to recover from the Buns and Roses Party the night before) on Sunday November 10th at the Tiled Hall Cafe. They do lovely cake. It's the most  comic of Jane Austen's novels and is a parody of gothic fiction. Come along and tell us what you think about it - even if you haven't read it and just seen the film or the Wikipedia entry about it. 


   

September Workshop - Sew Macho - English Patchwork Workshop

Monday, 9 September 2013 § 0

Founder member and former Buns & Roses Treasurer Hayley Mills-Styles taught us English Patchwork for our September workshop - Sew Macho. Hayley showed us how to create a decorative panel to applique onto a cushion cover, which will be perfect for adorning sofa or giving as a fantastic homemade gifts.

English Patchwork skills are quite straightforward to learn (well when you have a good tutor it helps!) and once mastered can then be used to make and / or decorate bags, more cushions and even a quilt.

 The first stage is to make a cardboard template - it needs to be any shape that will tessellate - our members made hexagons and diamonds and can be seen here cutting out their cardboard templates. 

The next stage is to draw around the template and cut out lots of small paper pieces exactly the same size.  Once this has been done you use a slightly larger template or just by free hand draw and cut out your fabric pieces - Hayley recommends using a cotton or poly-cotton fabric.  Then the fabric is pinned to the paper piece and tacked using cotton around the paper - you actually sew through the paper and the fabric.



You will then end up with shapes looking a bit like this which you can iron to make them easier to work with.

When you have your shapes ready, they are then sewn together with tiny stitches along the edges and again ironed to make the shape more definite.  The paper can then be removed or left in depending on how you feel and whether you plan on washing the item!

 Here are some of the results from the Workshop - they'll look even more lovely when they're finished!  Please upload your pictures to Facebook or Twitter we want to see your creations!


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