School was back in for primary parents, when BoT kicked off cooking classes at Pipworth Community School this week. (Can you tell I used to be a journo?)

Parents and others from around Manor cooked up curry and casserole for under £1 a portion, before sharing a free lunch.

We had no incidents of note; only a slight macing, when some spices got a little overheated in the pan. But nothing that opening the windows couldn’t fix!

And this lot were as good at the washing up bowl as at the cooker. Kept everything spic and span, no messing about!

Many thanks to the staff at Pipworth, who have provided us with an excellent venue to share the joy of cooking cuisines from around the world.

And huge thanks again to our red-apronned helpers. We couldn’t do what we do so well, without your tireless assistance. In fact, we’ll struggle at our last two Pipworth sessions (25/11 & 02/12), without another volunteer or two.

So, if you’d like to help an award-winning non-profit programme make real change to Sheffield lives, please email or see bagsoftaste.org for more info.

Member of the Red Pinny Brigade (pending a cooler name) gathered on Wednesday night for a curry and a pint, raising a glass to BoT volunteers past and future.

The Shakespeare – home of awesome dance classes, incredible music, hilarious comedy and brilliant ales – very kindly offered BoT their function room free of charge. (Thank you, Shakey! Best pub in Sheffield…)

Five volunteers enjoyed a bring-and-share dinner at the Shakespeare Pub on Gibraltar St, plus a few pints on BoT’s tab to say thank you for their hard work.

A few more sent last-minute apologies because of illness (hello, cold and flu season) or other commitments.

We’ll be holding more social events in future, so please keep in touch and watch out on our Facebook page for announcements.

We’d really relish the chance to get to know fellow Scarlet Supercooks (slightly cooler) a bit better.

Oh P.S. the food was a feast. Everyone brought curry and it was amazing…

Of you’re not yet involved in BoT, please see bagsoftaste.org or email us (or read this blog) for more info!

It’s been a busy week at BoT Sheffield HQ, with our second budget cookery course due to start on Monday.

We’re very grateful to Pipworth Community School in Manor, which will be hosting us for 4 weeks of free sessions.

We look forward to welcoming both parents from Pipworth and participants from outside the school, in its well-equipped and spacious community room!

Dave spent Tuesday morning playing his favourite game, Musical Hobs, switching our portable cookers between outlets to get them all working without tripping the fuses… (He won, eventually.)

Over 4 weeks, around 15-20 people will learn 8 delicious recipes from around the world, all of which can be cooked for under £1.

But it can’t happen without the help of our eager volunteer mentors, who support students on their first steps to cheap, healthy home cooking.

If you’d like to be part of this award-winning, prestigious project (BoT now advises the government on food policy), please visit our website or email us in Sheffield to find out more.

Did we mention that everyone gets a free lunch too…?

It was a bittersweet session at St Mary’s last Friday; great fun to cook up a storm with the students we had come to know, but a shame to wrap things up after 4 weeks.

We cooked some amazing food, learned a lot (Dave included) and had some good laughs too. Feedback was very good; it was clear that we had changed people’s attitudes towards food and cooking and food for the better.

Kate experiences social anxiety, but found BoT a big help. She said: “I’ve got a lot out of it. It’s a credit to the group that I kept coming back. The people who are running it all lovely; very welcoming and friendly, very helpful.”

See, BoT isn’t just a cookery school. We’re helping people to manage their budgets, get out of the house, make social connections, enjoy food and beat illness too.

But it is also about the cooking! Umar is partially sighted and has learning difficulties. He said: “I really enjoyed the fact that there were tutorials before we started cooking. I haven’t done much cooking before.
The experience was remarkable. It made me feel special. I would definitely like to cook again.”

And Ann, who gave the team a box if biscuits, said: “Thank you for teaching me how to cook. I have really enjoyed it and have started making my own
soups at home. Thank you everyone.”

BoT is going places; the next place were going is Manor! If you’d like to join us in changing lives around Sheffield, please email us to find out more.

I had a great time at the Sheffield Hallam University volunteering fair this morning, telling (mostly nutrition) students about what we do.

Attendants had the opportunity (if that’s the word) to play the Bags of Taste Sheffield Price is Right-like Game Show Quiz! (TM).

Hooked in by this high-stakes experience (the prize was a sticker), most were hungry to hear more. I really hope to see some more of them at a session soon.

Things are looking good for Friday, with the numbers of volunteers and participants signed up being just about optimal.

If you would like to know more about how BoT works and how you can help, please see bagsoftaste.org or email me.

What a great session we had on Friday! A good number of participants, a good ratio of volunteers and more than enough grub to go around!

Everyone cracked both French onion soup and Singapore noodles. It was great to see members of disability support service Enable Sheffield cooking independently – and loving it too!

I was very grateful for the help of Yorkshire Bank, who sent super sous-chefs Jarrad and Ian along to help us out. They joined Kay and John, who did brilliant work with the Enable clients and their support workers.

Can’t wait for this Friday! Would you like to be involved? Then drop me a line for more info.

(We’re also half way to setting up course 2, which will take place in Manor. Stay tuned for updates!)

Bags of Taste went off with a bang yesterday! (Almost literally. I should have been a firefighter.) We had about 35 people attend our first session at St Mary’s; an unprecedented number for a BoT course.

In fact, we were so busy that I only had time to take this one photo. (If you were there and you happened to take any, please email me or join the volunteer group and share them there.)

It was a bit chaotic, I have to admit. Almost everything could have been done better; lots of lessons were learned and next time will go much more smoothly.

I have to say a huge thank you to everyone; the students who stuck with it, the volunteers who winged it while I was (literally) fighting fires and Lay Eng from HQ, who was a calming influence on the whole affair!

It felt like a bit of a disaster, at the time, but I’m assured that we achieved everything we wanted to. Everyone cooked, everyone was fed and all of the practice grocery bags were sold.

We’ll be back next week, cooking French onion soup and Singapore noodles! You’re still welcome to get involved; just drop me a line!

Bags of Taste wouldn’t be able to do the amazing work it does across London without a small army of willing volunteers.

The same is true in Sheffield; fortunately, there are plenty of eager beavers signing up to deliver free cookery courses to South Yorkshire residents.

I was at the Sheffield University jobs and volunteering fair on Thursday, where there was loads of interest in the organisation.

This might have had something to do with me leaping about with a big glowing arrow, inviting students to take the Bags of Taste Take-Away Quiz! (TM)

This asked how much it might cost to feed a family of four with home cooking for a year (£2,600 by my reckoning), versus adding one take-away each day (£6,250).

I signed up about 40 interested students and look forward to welcoming them on a BoT course soon.

After that, it was time to bag up ingredients for Friday’s class. Huge thank you to Mimi and John, who did much of the shopping and bagging while I ran around like a loon, trying to print paperwork and sending reminder messages!

And it would have taken twice as long without Lay Eng, who came up from HQ in London to make sure we were following all the rules!

Bagging up is an essential job; BoT only works when participants can access ready-made grocery bags so they can practice cooking at home.

John and Mimi did sterling work, but it would be very helpful if anyone else would like to learn this important role. You can’t have two many back-up plans…

It’s been a long road to launching BoT in Sheffield (well over 200 hours of labour) but the groundwork is now laid for our first session.

We’ve got a good team, but we will always welcome extra help. Join us I’m changing hundreds of lives around the city; see our website or send me an email to find out more.

It’s been a while since I blogged about BoT, as I’ve been too busy making it happen (with the help of a small volunteer dream team)!

Tuesday was a long old day — at the Jobcentre for 9am, wrapping up at Sheffield Futures at 7pm, with about 100,000 meetings in between! (Slight exaggeration.)

To my relief, when I finally arrived home 12 hours after setting out, there was a beautiful Thai green curry waiting for me. (Thanks to my amazing wife.)

This is the kind of joyful food experience we will be gifting to the participants on our courses — food is home, food is love.

We have about 30 people signed up for course one, which begins this Friday at St Mary’s on Bramall Lane.

If you’re signed up as a volunteer, please make sure of two things before you attend:

• You’ve let me have a phone number, so I can call/text any last minute info.
• You’ve watched the onion video and the safeguarding video, and let me know.

We need you from 10.30am, but please join us from 10am for a tea/coffee if you can. It would be nice to know names, before we start cooking!

I can’t wait to begin sharing the magic of homemade food on a budget with a whole range of Sheffield folks — from students to pensioners.

So let’s get cooking…!

Want to be part of a prestigious, national award-winning scheme? Well, you’re in the right place!

Bags of Taste founder Alicia Weston BEM was handed the community partner of the year prize at the Food and Drink Federation Awards this week.

It recognises all the innovation and hard work that has gone into establishing and running a non-profit company which changes hundreds of lives each year.

So if you want to take part in an award-winning, NHS evaluated, certified effective program to combat food poverty in Sheffield, you know where to come…

The first Bags of Taste Sheffield course will take place at Saint Mary’s, Bramall Lane, every Friday morning from 4 October to 25 October.

Please email us, find us on Facebook or see the official website for more info.

And congratulations to everyone at BoT who contributed to this success!