Foodbank

This week two "To Let" signs have appeared in Nailsworth's shops, this means that Nailsworth will have gone from three fantastic toy shops to NONE. Nailsworth being my ultimate favourite local town is by no means alone in this and I'm sure lots of towns have suffered much more. These are hard times for independent retailers and a bad start to the summer has not helped. More then ever they need our support, and they're not the only ones. Last week I had a tour of food bank in Stroud. A charity in need of our support. This year they have provided food for a 1000 meals. These go to people struggling to meet the most basic needs of feeding themselves and their families, right here in Stroud and in hundreds of Food Bank Hubs across the country. I've been invited by The Food Bank to assist them in developing recipes using food donated to them. By sharing the recipes in my weekly column, I hope to be able to find cheap, healthy, and tasty ways of keeping this charity in our minds whilst perfecting at home, recipes I hope will be useful for the people that need them. It's been a while, what with my E.D. adventure since I used tinned tomatoes and didn't make my own baked beans, but us Herbert's relish our next challenge, and I may even have to finally (in an emergency) after 18 months, revisit the supermarket to get my selection of tins. I will use the Horsley community shop firstly, then the Coop next. It would be great if any of you can let me know of any great independents stocking a wide range of tinned goods. So from next week we'll be cooking differently, see you then.