Sheffield Food Festival this weekend

Last year's volunteers on our stall

It's Sheffield Food Festival this weekend (Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th May) and once again, Seven Hills WI will be peddling our wares! We have a stall in the Peace Gardens (close to Browns Restaurant) selling homemade cakes and baked goods from 10am - 5pm on Saturday and 11am - 5pm Sunday. All the money raised goes to our charity of the year, SAYit.

The Sheena Amos Youth Trust (SAYiT) is an independent charity which has been running in Sheffield since 1999. A sexual health charity, they work with young people up to the age of 25, particularly those who are most vulnerable or marginalised including LGBT people or those affected by HIV.

Please come down and help support our charity of the year!

SHWI is So Bad Ass - Talk by Sam Cleasby

On 16th April, once again a huge group of wonderful women came together at Electric Works. There was of course a selection of delicious homemade cakes from members and a welcoming atmosphere which always makes me feel like we are all women with the same needs and ideas.

Our guests speaker was Sam Cleasby, and although I had heard a lot about her (particularly in the preceding weeks) I wasn't sure what I would get out of her talk. I knew she would be talking about her struggle with Irritable Bowel Disorder and Ulcerative Colitis, and definitely about her experiences of other people's responses to her. Following her open letter to a lady who tutted at her for using a disabled toilet, I was interested to hear how she dealt with such attitudes on a day to day basis.

However, I was mistaken if I thought this would simply be a revealing talk about one woman's struggles. The evening helped me (and I'm sure many others) to look at myself in a different way, and unburied feelings I had kept locked up for several years previously. (Whoa deep!)

After an update from the ever hilarious and entertaining duo of President and Secretary; Kirsty and Laura, and a break to refuel with some delicious homemade treats, Sam introduced herself to the waiting audience of ladies. She seemed to be so flattered and excited to speak to the group, but from my view, we were excited to hear her strong voice which had so recently received national exposure.
Sam began by explaining her illnesses to us, and I found it fascinating and heart breaking to hear what she had been through. Regardless of this, she came across as a strong and confident individual, who could even makes light of her experiences - already she came across as a true female role model. Her ability to explain her condition and what this meant, provided the group with a true insight into what this sort of condition could mean for people all over the world. It also made me realise that even when somebody may not 'look' ill, or as if they are struggling physically, appearance can certainly be deceptive. It made me want to be much more caring of others around me.

However, it was Sam's focus on the general state of women's self image that I found most thought provoking. Her ability to encourage a positive approach to body image was astounding, and her belief in her own body following her struggles was wonderful. As she questioned the social expectations of women and their bodies, I looked around me and realised that all I saw was a room full of awesome women. I had no feelings that some of us were better than others as a result of the way we all looked. I just loved being in a room full of people who were all listening and relating to what Sam was preaching (and she was preaching! Preaching the positives of being a woman, and actually how brilliant our bodies are for getting us through every day!).

Sam's talk and overall attitude to the way we should see our bodies (and not listen to the media/society) has inspired me to go and fight the cause on my own grounds. I have been in touch with Sam as I am now going to put together some lessons to teach our Y6s at my school to love their bodies, before they themselves head into the battle grounds of adulthood and societal pressure.
We all need to remember how much our bodies do for us, and actually, why can't we start thanking them, instead of punishing them?

To read more about Sam's amazing story, visit her website www.sobadass.me

SHWI Eats - The Bhaji Shop, Thali Cafe

SHWI member and blogger, Ros Arksey has written about the recent SHWI Eats trip to The Bhaji Shop for her food blog, Nibbly Pig. SHWI Eats is one of our spin-offs that organises trips to local eateries around Sheffield. She's kindly allowed us to post it below....

The Bhaji Shop, thali cafe, was our chosen venue for the March outing of the SHWI Eats group. This was my first visit to the cafe and first outing with the group, as I’m a ‘newbie’ Seven Hills WI member. Yes, it was inevitable that I was going to be drawn to the group which involved food…

Positioned on Chesterfield road, the Bhaji Shop is relatively new, having opened last year. It is run by brother and sister Matthew and Melissa, who between them and the wider Holdsworth family have plenty of culinary experience. (Many of you may be familiar with the famed bhajis from their dad's business ‘Masterchef’ based in Attercliffe).

As the name suggests, the food at ‘Bhaji’ focuses on spice, offering Indian-influenced wraps, curries,  bhajis and samosas - to mention a selection.  As we were taking over en masse (about 30 of us) we were lucky to have the opportunity to try a bit of everything from the menu with a buffet.

We arrived at 6.30 and were greeted by the colourful turquoise exterior and swathes of twinkling fairylights. The style made me think of the film Amélie with it’s warm kooky design and quirkiness. We even had our own special welcome written up on the blackboard.

Once everyone arrived and was seated, there was a real buzz and cosy atmosphere. Every table had a dish of poppodoms, chutney and raita, so we got stuck into those whilst watching the activity in the kitchen. It wasn’t long before Matthew let us know that the food was ready and served, then the queue formed quicker than you could say ‘bhaji’.

Everything was served together, so you could do starters first  and come back up for your main course of curries. Alternatively, depending on your strategy, you could use your time efficiently and pile your plate high with a bit of everything!

There was a real mix of tempting homemade delights to choose from and the aromatic smells were tormenting to those of us near the back of the queue!! There were big bowls of golden crisp bhajis, sweet potato fritters and samosas, plus coriander and plain flatbreads, coleslaw and green salad. Then there were large dishes of more ‘mains-style' meals with prawn Keralan curry, chickpea and sweet potato tagine, chargrilled harissa lamb steak, earthy daal, chunks of crisp paneer and tender marinated chicken skewers and rice. There was a selection of condiments too, I enjoyed the sweet and sour pineapple chutney.

There was plenty of food so there was no danger of anyone leaving hungry. We were well looked after by staff, with water constantly topped up as well as a seamless flow of dishes being brought through from the kitchen. I managed a few trips up to the buffet table so I could try as many of the different dishes as possible, (but I only had a small plate!). I think I managed a bit of everything, I enjoyed it all but my favourites were the king prawn Keralan and the spicy chickpea tagine (which reminded me of chana masala).

It was an enjoyable evening with lovely food, as well as an ideal chance to get to know other foodie-minded WI members too. I definitely plan on returning to the Bhaji Shop - but next time it will be a more sensible portion, as I was still full the next morning!

Having checked out their Facebook page, the menu changes regularly (with daily specials) and you can grab a lunchtime wrap or salad, go for something more substantial with a thali selection with curry or just indulge in a cup of tea and dessert.

The Bhaji Shop

53 Chesterfield Road,

Sheffield S8 0RL

Facebook

Tasseled bracelets with Bobbins & Buttons

March's meeting kicked off in the 'usual' way with an introduction and welcome from President Kirsty and then it was onto the normal monthly WI business of announcements, spin off group details and information for planned events and news from WI federation. I should perhaps point out to new members and guests that whilst the news announcements and highlights are always interjected with a little SHWI humour - March was slightly 'unusual' and we had the awesome treat of a Birthday Bainbridge! This led to a lengthy and somewhat hilarious take on our normal SHWI announcements, I only wish we'd got it on video! If you missed anything, don't forget to check out Facebook for details of spin offs, events and to chat to other members.

There was then a quick break for cups of tea, coffee, mingling and some sampling of the amazing cakes and bakes brought by our lovely members - did you know that when you bake, you get free entry to our monthly raffle? I always say I'm trying to watch my weight, and was sorely tempted by the white chocolate blondies but when I saw the beautifully presented chocolate cake with the hidden star inside I weakened, and yes it was as good as it looks. 

Our guest craft activity leader for March was another of our members (you really are a talented bunch!) - Lauren Misiukanis, from Bobbins & Buttons skilfully demonstrated tassel making and bracelet construction to an enthralled crowd.

Then it was time to grab our cups, fill them full of beads (42 small or 32 large - unless you have somewhat chunkier wrists, such as myself in which case you may need a couple extra).

Lauren worked the room and was on hand to deal with tassel traumas as well as any extra hints and tips needed - the resulting bracelets all looked fantastic and all so different. 

After a long day at work there was something calming about sitting at a table with some new and old SHWI chums, just threading beads and chatting. We ended up with a room full of happy and glamorous SHWIers!

Big thanks to Sharrowvale based, Hudson & Wood for the raffle prize of a Citrus Massage & Facial! I'm now off to stick tassels onto anything and everything!

Caryl Carson

SHWI Committee member

We choose SAYiT as our charity of the year

At our February meeting, Seven Hills WI members voted SAYiT as our charity for 2015. A local independent organisation, SAYiT (Sheena Amos Youth Trust) supports young people who are LGBT or who are affected by HIV.

Fundraising events planned include Seven Hills WI’s annual baking stall at Sheffield Food Festival. Last year, we raised £1170 over two days by selling cakes and organising a best in show competition.

Sally Carr, Strategic Manager of SAYiT said “In the on-going quest to address homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in our society we know that we still have a long way to go, and the support of the WI will help to address this outdated and hurtful prejudice. We will use the money raised to continue our educational and awareness raising work which aims to make society a better place for everybody.”

Kirsty Bowen, President of Seven Hills WI said “I am very pleased that we have chosen SAYiT to be our charity in 2015, the WI’s centenary year. The WI has never shied away from important issues and we hope that we can make a real difference to young people affected in our local area.”

For more information on Seven Hills WI and our fundraising, email us at sevenhillswi@live.co.uk

Charity and Cake

February 2015 brought a visit by one of our own - Claire Kemp and voting for our 2015 charity. As always we started the night with this month's WI business. We really are busy ladies with more activities than ever - we have nearly every base covered: You can gorge on tasty food with SHWI Eats, then burn off the calories with SHWI Runners and the SHWI Slimming group, whilst keeping busy with SHWI Mad Skills, SHWI Crafts, SHWI Cine-Club, SHWI at Night and SHWI Mummies! And now, with a SHWI night out in the diary, we can even get our groove on. Anyway, back to business … 

Our wonderful Fundraising and Campaigns Officer, Sarah Willoughby, introduced the charity voting process. We had 5 truly deserving charities to choose from this year put forward by  our members. But the winner was The Sheena Amos Youth Trust (SAYiT), an independent young people’s charity based in Sheffield that provide support, information and opportunities for young people aged up to 25 who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) or who are affected by HIV. Now onto the cake… 

Claire kicked off the evening by explaining how she became a cake queen. Originally from an architecture and design background, Claire created her cake empire to combine her passion for baking with her professional design skills and artistic flair. 

She launched Claire Kemp Cake Studio, in 2011, with a 1:100 scale cake of The University of Sheffield's Arts Tower building that was almost 80cm high. Her bakes are extraordinary, not only are they very pretty but they are mini feats of engineering. 
 

Claire gave us a demo of her exquisitely smooth icing skills – divulging a few secrets along the way. So what did we learn? Claires’ top tips included:
· Use icing sugar to roll out icing, but only on the underside. DO NOT flip over the icing (like one would with dough).
· Avoid wooden rolling pins.
· Always roll forward (rolling backwards creates air bubbles).
· Grey icing is surprising gorgeous!

I was really impressed with Claire’s cakes and will definitely be trying out her tips - I hope everyone else found it just as informative as I did! Next month we have jewellery-making with another one of our wonderful members – Lauren from Bobbins & Buttons (extra materials charge of £2 per member, and the start of our fundraising for SAYiT … see you there!


Alice Bullas 
Commitee member 

P.S A big thank you to The Broadfield for donating voucher for a pie & a pint for our raffle. 

SHWI Mad Skillz makes pizza at Craft & Dough

SHWI Mad Skillz is one of our spin-off groups organised by Di and Anna T. They organise bespoke sessions where SHWI members can learn a new skill in a smaller-sized group. This time, a group went to Kelham's Islands latest culinary hotspot, Craft & Dough for a spot of pizza-making. 

Craft & Dough, The latest member of the Milestone group opened in November 2014 after a successful series of ventures, including their takeover of both the Wig and Pen and Fancie, which came on the back of winning the best British Restaurant category in Gordon Ramsey's Best Restaurants. The idea for Craft & Dough came when the Milestone group's founder decided to capitalise on the well-known fact that beer and pizza are a marriage made in heaven. Building on some of the pizza dishes served up at the Milestone and using bakery produce made across the city at Ecclesall Road's Fancie, Craft & Dough source many of their ingredients directly from Italy, even the flour, and grow their vegetables super-locally at an allotment at Kelham Island. Their array of beers, which take up a whole wall of the restaurant, come from all over the world with fruit beers, IPAs and more, including a Canadian import stocked nowhere else in the UK and a sell-out Nigerian, wine-like Guinness.

For the pizza prep and tossing, we had our own personal area reserved (#shwivips) and a table full of fresh ingredients including dough balls, basil plants, home-made tomato and herb passata and mini blocks of mozzarella from which to create our own Margarita pizza. Chef demonstrated how to handle the dough (pressing, stretching and gentle manipulation) while we tried the techniques for ourselves. At no time during this process did anyone eat copious amounts of cheese directly from the bag. Oh no. Ahem.

Hannah and her dough

Unfortunately for some of us (i.e. me, Anna P) it was more a case of craft and D'OH, as it seems that even manipulating a piece of pre-made dough into a flat circle is beyond my meagre skillset. I have no idea how I turned it into a phallic shape, I bet I couldn't do it again if I tried! Some people may have THOUGHT they witnessed a tantrum, but what they were ACTUALLY witnessing was a cunning ploy in action. My ineptitude resulted in chef having to step in and leave me with a professionally-handled base, winner! 

Luckily, everyone else was able to demonstrate more than adequate prowess and we took it in turns to decorate our bases, before they were whipped away by chef to be cooked in the pizza oven. Our SHWI chefs were in their elements, with stuffed crust creations, ad hoc additional ingredients such as chilli oil and, er, cheese mountains, demonstrating their invention. Gregg Wallace and Monica Galetti would be proud.

Shaping the dough

Of course, the proof of the pudding (well, pizza) is in the eating and I can safely say that nobody was disappointed (as you can see from the pictures, we quite frankly nailed it). I unfortunately missed out on the recent SHWI Eats visit to Craft and Dough, and all I can say is if my own amateur creation was that tasty, how good must the 'real' pizzas be? (Pretty damn awesome, I am reliably informed by other SHWI-ers).

The Mad Skillz crew

Once again, I massive thank you to Di Coupe for organising for us a pizza-the-action (boom boom) and of course, to Craft and Dough for hosting us.

Mad Skillz - we salute you (with a double chest thump, of course).

By Hannah and Anna

SHWI Members

Making new friends

It can be hard walking into a room of 80+ people for the first time. Three years ago, we wanted to make meetings seem a little less daunting by having a New Members Evening - an opportunity for ladies who have just joined the group to meet others in a smaller, less intimidating room. Our meetings are anything but formal, but there does seem something a little bit more relaxing about meeting in a nice pub with a glass of wine.

Our third New Members Evening took place in the University Arms and we had a good turnout of approximately thirty ladies ready to chat. We'd prepared an ice-breaker to get people started that was totally non-compulsory. The idea was to find a person who had the characteristics on the bingo grid.

SHWI Bingo photo from our Instagram profile @sevenhillswi

Some of our committee members were present to answer any questions and a few organisers of our popular spin-offs to encourage new members to join our craft, book and running groups. We hope the women who came had a good time and will hopefully find someone to sit with and catch-up with at the next main meeting.

If you're a new member, we'd love to hear your feedback from the event or if you're from another WI, tell us how you make newbies feel welcome.

Finally, a big thank you for committee members Anna P and Jen for organising the event. 

Kirsty
SHWI President

SHWI does science!

Sadly, our planned speaker for January’s meeting was too ill to come and speak to us. However, the hard-working SHWI committee worked their magic and found all the lovely SHWI ladies someone equally interesting and entertaining! And, whilst I was looking forward to hearing Paul Cocker speak I have to say that as a geeky scientist by background, I was very excited when I heard that Dr Nate Adams was coming to talk to us about the science of colour and that’s why I begged Jen to let me do the blog instead of her!

We kicked off the meeting with the usual WI business; introductions for our new members, dates for the diaries, all the details on the spin off groups and asking ladies to think of a charity to support for the year ahead so that we can vote on this at the next meeting. So, don’t forget to send nominations and a short blub to our email by Wednesday 11th February! We had a quick break to make sure that cakes were eaten, tea was drunk and chatting was had but then it was time to start the main event.

Mary, Vicky and Chella meet Dr Nate

I must confess that I was busy doing lots of paperwork during the break and so when I sat down and was handed a party popper I was a little confused but at the same time glad that I had a front row seat for the science! It was almost like being at the Royal Society Christmas lectures…. A teeny teeny bit anyway!

Dr Nate introduced himself and explained how a post-doctoral research scientist came to be speaking to a room full of women on a Thursday evening. I don’t want to spoil any future talks he might do but since it’s also on his webpage I don’t feel too guilty saying that he failed to get into theatre school, his degree in Chinese didn’t work out so he chose to do Chemistry instead. It’s at this point I should confess that I have a PhD in molecular microbiology but sadly my career path was not at all as interesting and did not lead me to doing CBBC with Dick and Dom!

Dr Nate showed us a little bit of his research in the form of a very complicated equation and a graph that showed the increasing population on Earth, along with UN projections of what could happen in the future. It’s a bit scary to think that by 2050 there could be 9 billion people on the planet! There was a bit of audience participation as we were asked to think about energy sources and how we could possibly provide for that many people in the future and he expertly dealt with our suggestions and came to solar power last, so that he could show us another, much simpler, equation about photosynthesis. Basically, how plants and other organisms use energy form the sun to produce oxygen and sugars. This is what Dr Nate does his day job research on. 

Dr Nate makes fire bubbles

After a short explanation about light, Dr Nate gave us what we’d all been waiting for – demonstrations! It started off quite simple with just lighting a candle but quickly progressed to some really fun stuff with fire – wahoo!! We were strongly warned not to try it at home and Dr Nate was wearing safety goggles when he set fire to his hands using the foam produced after he bubbled gas through washing up liquid. It sounded a bit like Bonfire Night from the gasps and whoops in the audience. He also showed us some lovely red coloured flickering flames from heating a lithium salt; it was a very pretty colour and explained the science behind the colour. But it didn’t just end with the visible spectrum; oh no, we had a bit of UV light in the form of a torch, glow sticks and fluorescent bubbles. And, my particular favourite, he shook a little bit of 100% ethanol up in an empty water cooler bottle and (using a wick), lit it and there was a very quick and loud whoosh and bang!

But how does that have anything to do with his research you say? Good question. Well, Dr Nate works on enzymes, or as he liked to call them ‘nanobots’. And with a little bit of help from a room full of us eating Jacobs crackers without swallowing them (and yes there were several rude comments made at this point!), Dr Nate showed us how the enzyme amylase broke down the stuff in the crackers to make small sugars such as sucrose and how if you chewed for long enough it would taste sweeeeeeet.

Things got a little dicey after this though as Dr Nate walloped our very own Grace over the hand with a big mallet! Grace was quick as a flash and saved our beautiful hands from damage the first time but was sensibly somewhat reluctant to let Dr Nate try again but this time with her hand encased in d3o armour. It’s a non-newtonian fluid, like when you mix water and cornflour and it’s pretty awesome. How this relates to his research I can’t quite recall but it was fun! To be fair to Dr Nate he did also wallop himself too! 

Grace nearly gets hit with a mallet

He didn’t stop there though as it was Laura Bainbridge’s turn to volunteer to be a nanobot in one of Dr Nate’s experiments. There are some pretty funky and sexy science acronyms out there; AFMPFQNM (pronounced: a-fum-puh-fuc-num) isn’t one of them though! So, to demonstrate this to us Laura was a nanobot, waving her glowsticks around and doing her thing, and Dr Nate was firing x-rays at her in the form of light red balls. Sadly, Laura didn’t quite have the mindset of a nanobot initially and didn’t move away from the x-rays (balls being thrown at her!) but she soon cottoned on and we all had a lot of fun watching Laura running around with glow sticks trying not to be hit by balls! 

A bit of audience participation!

But, Dr Nate doesn’t just look at one nanobot (enzyme) at a time; he looks at how they interact with each other so Laura needed a friend and Dr Nate another volunteer. Feeling like this could be the closest I got to science for a while I volunteered to be Laura’s friend and got to hold hands with Laura whilst we both got pelted with red balls. The point being that we were much slower to move out of the way when joined together than on our own.That’s what Dr.Nate’s research is all about really; seeing how all the nanobots (enzymes) work together! Phew, sorry that was a bit long. Dr Nate explained it all a lot better than me and with a lot more fun (and fire!). And, not only is it all fun and interesting but hopefully one day it could be used to make biochips which could make lots of energy for us all in the future.

I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did. I just want to say thanks to all the committee ladies once again for working so hard to find a speaker at such short notice and also send Paul Cocker a big ‘get well soon’ from SHWI. See you all for cake decorating in February!!

(Dr) Leanne Sunter
Assistant Treasurer