Transition Town Tooting

Author: Transition Town Tooting

  • Tooting Foodival Food: the Four Wonderful Chefs, and the brilliant local donors of prizes for the Top Tooting Cook competition

    All about Tooting Foodival Food:

    • Four Wonderful Chefs for the feast on Saturday 15th!
    • Brilliant donors of prizes for the Top Tooting Cook competition!
    The Four Wonderful Chefs

     
    Volker Nissen (top left) is co-ordinating the cooking on Saturday, plus Manisha from Pooja Sweets (top right), Rick Gibbs of Rick’s Tooting (bottom right) & Elisabetta Costantini from Minestra Supper (bottom left).
    Thank you all for sharing your time, experience & passion! 

    The Top Tooting Cook competition (for details on taking part click here – and please do enter, just for fun of it) has some brilliant prizes for the different entry classes as well as the main TTC award itself.
    In the generous style that we so admire in the Tooting community, the competition prizes have been donated by the local enterprises listed below. Thank you so much!

    • Abel & Cole (who are celebrating their 30th anniversary)
    • Al- Mirage 215 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7TG
    • Deelicious Nazish’s Kitchen 12 Tooting Bec Road, SW17 8BD
    • Meat & Shake – Tooting 47 Upper Tooting Rd, SW17 7TR
    • Nando’s 224-226 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW
    • Unwined Tooting Market
    • Walker Wyatt Cafe 3 Upper Tooting Road SW17 7TS
    • Bring Your Own Zero Waste Shop Tooting Market
    So much to look forward to: all welcome to the Tooting Foodival 2018, 11:00 – 5:00 on Sat 15th
    at 220 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW!

  • Join us to celebrate & learn about four of TTT’s valued community partners at the Tooting Foodival

    We’re all looking forward to the FREE 11th Tooting Foodival on Saturday 15th September – for all the details of the Saturday community feast and more, scroll through our recent posts including our invitation to you to donate locally-grown vegetables and fruit, and about entering the Top Tooting Cook competition. 

    The Foodival will be at Hereward Road and next door at 220 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW from 11:00 to 5:00 on Saturday 15th.

    We want to celebrate four community partners who are helping make the Foodival creative, relevant and anchored in our local community:

    • Mushkil Aasaan

    • London Sustainability Exchange

    • Share Nurseries

    • Think Outside

    Mushkil Aasaan is a community-based care provider. The Foodival will be in their Hall on Upper Tooting Road and in Hereward Road right outside. Ever since TTT was established ten years ago, Mushkil Aasaan and the Project Director Naseem Aboobaker have been rock-solid friends and partners.
    We’ve lost count of the number of times we have been able to meet or run sessions in their Hall! 
    Mushkil Asaan gifts us the yearly use of the land where we run the ‘all welcome’ Tooting Community Garden, our weekly outdoor learning provision with Gatton School, and our Gardens of Sanctuary family days with refugees & asylum seekers from CARAS.


    London Sustainability Exchange has been our partners in past activities on Air Quality and more. Throughout 2017 we worked together as LSx co-ordinated the Pollinator Paths Wandsworth Project which engaged 50+ home growing spaces via 4 local community gardens.LSx will be bringing Pollinator Paths 2018 – come along and learn to love insects!
    You can do the pollinator recognition survey and sign up for further exciting involvement whatever your age or growing experience.
    Share Nurseries is the social enterprise recently launched as part of Share Community.
    Share Nurseries have supplied plants to us in many projects – all grown in Tooting with a tiny carbon footprint and a large amount of love, care and skill by Share’s beneficiaries. 
    Their plants will form 2 pop-up raised beds in Hereward Road, and the plants will be for sale later in the day on the 15th.

    Think Outside is a local enterprise which runs and advises on outdoor learning workshops in schools, assists schools in raising funds for the re-development of outdoor spaces and leads gardening classes and related activities for the wider community.
    Come and meet the Think Outside team: they are bringing some great activities from 11:00 until 2:00.
     

     
    All welcome to come and learn about these enterprises and enjoy their activities at the Foodival on Saturday.
    In another post we’ll also celebrate the local people who are taking stands to sell their produce – there’s lots to enjoy at the 2018 Foodival!

  • We invite you to share and celebrate your locally-grown vegetables and fruit at the Tooting Foodival on Saturday September 15th!

    We’re very excited to be hosting our eleventh annual Tooting Foodival community celebration of locally grown, cooked and enjoyed food on Saturday Sept 15th.

    Traditionally we invite our friends and neighbours – and also complete strangers – to generously donate locally-grown fruit and vegetables they can spare. Please join in!

    All grown locally and generously donated!

    In 2017 500+ people feasted with us via the creativity of many volunteers and 4 chefs, cooking entirely local fruit and vegetables. It was a fantastic experience (more to share to celebrate the chefs).

    2018 has been a much harder growing year than 2017, and despite that we hope that everyone’s green fingers and generosity can be expressed in some donations – everything is appreciated however diverse or apparently humble. It’s about the love of sharing rather than volume (though we do need some bulk as well!).

    We celebrate the donors on our ‘I Grew This’ poster and on social media. Donated veg and fruit also provides the ingredients for our Top Tooting Cook Competition.

    All the info in the series of posts here on this blog.

    To donate produce, bring it along to Mushkil Aasaan at 220 Upper Tooting Road SW17 7EW on Friday evening 14th Sept between 6 & 8 pm, or on Sat 15th between 10 & 11 am. 

    We do hope you can contribute – thanks so much.

    And we look forward to seeing you at the Foodival! 

  • A fun event at the Tooting Foodival in a fortnight. Could you be 2018’s Top Tooting Cook? Enter the competition today!

    Could you be 2018’s Top Tooting Cook?  

    Enter the Competition Today!


    Even more exciting than Bake Off: show us your vegetarian culinary skills using produce grown and sourced locally and you could win a prize at the Foodival on Saturday September 15th…
    and the coveted overall title of “Top Tooting Cook”!

    Cook something tasty and vegetarian to enter into the grand cooking fiesta at the 2018 Tooting Foodival!

    The competition is open to anyone living, producing, growing or cooking in Tooting and the surrounding area. We supply (or you can use your own) locally-grown fruit and veg for you to cook up at home and then serve to our panel of hungry judges on Saturday Sept 15th.

    There are four competition dish categories this year, and the winner in each will win a prize:

    1. A dish made with Apples or Pears
    2. A Savoury dish
    3. Pudding / Dessert / Cake 
    4. Pickles / Jam / Preserve / Jelly / Chutney

    All entries will be judged on look, taste and how locally-grown the ingredients are. You can use ‘pantry’ items such as flour, sugar, spices but the more you use that’s locally-grown, the higher your mark will be. We have had dishes that are 100% local ingredients…!

    There will also be an overall Top Tooting Cook prize, which could be a dish from any category. Last year’s overall TTC winner was a squash compote…what will happen in 2018?

    This is Imira, 2017’s Top Tooting Cook and her prizewinning dish.

     

    When and Where:

    • Collect free locally-grown fruit and veg at Mushkil Aasaan, 220 Upper Tooting Road SW17 7EY on Friday 14th Sept from 6:00 – 8:00 pm or on Saturday 15th Sept from 10:00 – 11:00 am

    • Deliver your delicious vegetarian dish between 1:30 and 2:30 pm to the same venue on Saturday 15th. Please hand in a full recipe sheet for judging and for inclusion in our local recipe bank.

    How to Enter:

    Belinda is the firm and fair TTC organiser. Contact her by emailing transitiontowntooting@gmail.com to enter or ask any questions.

    The TTC judging and audience tasting is always a great scene. Please enter for the fun or the challenge – and to just have a go.
    We look forward to seeing you and your dish on the 15th!.

    TTC entries in 2017



  • Invitation and generosity: locally-grown vegetables and fruit welcome for the Tooting Foodival!

    Just like ‘which came first, the hen or the egg?’ to create the fresh local Big Feast on Saturday 15th and for dishes created by Top Tooting Cook competitors we’ll need great fresh local ingredients.

    We invite everyone to donate what you have grown locally!
    In the Tooting Community Garden we’re growing for the Foodival, other local gardens are growing to donate their produce, and many individuals always bring in their proudly-grown crops to share with us all – maybe simply a tomato or two grown on a balcony by a brand-new city gardener. It’s about the gesture and the sharing more than about volume (though we did feed 500 people last year!)

    There’s such a diversity of fresh produce donated. So beautiful, so tasty, so surprising.

    It’s all about generosity and gifting so that everyone can enjoy celebrating local growing, cooking and eating on Saturday 15th Sept at the Foodival!

    Here are some of the local people who donated in 2017. Also surprising – and involved and having fun.

    All welcome to join in and donate anything you have grown locally! 
    You can donate at Mushkil Aasaan, 220-222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW on: 
    > Friday evening 14th Sept from 6:00 to 8:00pm
    > Saturday 15th between 10:00 and 11:00 am, when the Foodival kicks off!

  • Top Tooting Cook 2018 at the 11th annual Tooting Foodival – all welcome to enter!

     
    Top Tooting Cook, the Tooting Foodival‘s fun local cooking competition is ably co-ordinated by ‘firm but fair’ Belinda. Using locally-grown fruit and vegetables which you can collect from us on 14th September, you make your dish overnight and then bring it to the competition at the Foodival on Saturday 15th. See the details of how to enter by clicking here and checking the Top Tooting Cook info in the menu at the top. You can also follow us on Instagram: @TootingFoodival.


    In 2017 we had a record-breaking number of entries: do join in this year!
     
    This is Imira, who won the overall award of Top Tooting Cook 2017 with her squash compote! It’s a Brazilian recipe.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    All 2017 competition dishes are in this photo – crying out to be tasted (some people had to be held back…) 
     
     
     
    There was a wonderful variation of international cultures, ingredients, skills and why-not-have-a-go represented. So – how about entering the Top Tooting Cook competition this year? All welcome!
     

    Here are some local pickles at a secret location – maybe you’ll see them again on Saturday September 15th at the Foodival!

    tootingfoodival's profile picture

  • Restart-Sewstart Party back for the summer on August 4th

    Join our fixing and mending workshop with August’s Restart and Sewstart! Whether it’s electrical or electronic items that you don’t want to throw away or a sewing machine that is broken or you’re not sure how to use, we can help!

    Have a favourite piece of clothing that needs mending or altering and you’d like to learn how? Or simply good at fixing and mending stuff and want to volunteer?

    Or maybe you fancy a cup of tea, a piece of cake and a chance to find out more about Transition Tooting and what we get up to?

    Come along on Sat 4th August – 12.00 – 3.00pm Mushkil Aasaan, 220 – 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW (next to Nando’s)

    (Restart Parties are a community self-repair space where you take responsibility for your own gadgets and data, so please don’t forget to take any back-ups beforehand, if relevant – and if possible arrive during the first two hours to allow time for fixing!
    Future dates are 13th October and 8th December.

    More info about Restart          More about Transition Town Tooting,
    email TTT here     TTT on twitter

  • Join us at the London National Park City Fair on 21st July to co-create a Greener, Healthier and Wilder London!

    We’re thrilled to be invited to contribute to the London National Park City Fair on Saturday July 21st 11:00 – 5:00 – all the details here.

    The purpose of the Fair is to celebrate’s London’s potential to be Greener, Healthier and Wilder.
    Two dozen stands & an A-Z of short talks will show how that potential can be an imagined & achieved right now.

    Our stand focuses on our partnership projects and facilitation since 2015 with CARAS the Tooting charity who work with refugees and asylum-seekers: all about social sustainability in the community.

    We’ll be sharing our thoughtful, creative and fun Signs of Welcome making workshop – come and join in: any ages, any languages welcome and you can take your signs home to brighten up your neighbourhood.

    We’ll share 5 short case studies that explore our work in partnership with CARAS beneficiaries, and explore options with stand visitors who are interested to get involved as volunteers.
    You can read the case studies here.

    There’s also a more formal description of the history and impact of the partnership since 2015 – read it here.

    Finally on sharing learning, there’s an article on our Stay With Love pallet-benches on the London National Park City website in the Making a Difference section here.

    We’ll have a prize draw to attract a lucky winner plus family or friends to Tooting for a Taste of Tooting experience! You’ll enjoy our diverse food culture, try recipes from CARAS participants and cook on an open fire on the Tooting Community Garden. Here’s a copy of the prize draw details: you have to come along to the Fair to enter!

    Please join in the fun of the Fair and meet us at the stand – we look forward to seeing you and we’re proud to be contributing alongside so many fascinating London groups.

  • Foodival Poster 2018

    TTT is running its 11th sustainable food festival – the Tooting Foodival – this September!  This year’s Foodival poster celebrates the core elements of growing, cooking and eating!  If you are a connoisseur of any of these activities we urge you to get involved in this year’s festival either as a grower donating some home grown produce, a cook helping to produce tasty locally sourced meals for the masses, entering the Top Tooting Cook Competition, or as a taster of these wonderful dishes on the day.  Perhaps you could be all three?!!

     
    If you interested in finding out more about Tooting Foodival 2018 EMAIL US or check out the links below:

    Download poster here
    Latest Press Release here
    Stalls Application Form here
    Foodival Website here

  • The fabulous OaKomotion! Carnival promenading in Furzedown: re-imagining, movement & change

    Ten days ago the fabulous OaKomotion! travelling Carnival promenaded all round Furzedown.

    The whole amazing sunny event was based on the sucess of the Furzedown Oak Community Project. 
    In the Project community artists and host groups adopted sections of the large American Oak felled locally. Then they created sculptures to give the oak a rich and longer life. Read all about the Project here!


    Oakomotion! started at 10:30 on Sunday 24th June outside Sprout Community Arts. As Fio Adamson says: 
    “As soon as Vince and the Never Wilbies started playing outside Sprout at 10.30 on Sunday morning I realised that music in the streets is all we need to complete the Furzedown dream.”
    Read about the whole carnival day in Fio’s report – read or download here.

    Tooting Community Garden hosted the last part of the day. Fio writes:
    “A secluded dream-place with bees buzzing, veggies growing and flowers greeting the sunshine.  The Bean Dragon made by myself and 80 others still lives and should live there for many years to come. Remember the Big Day Out 2016, Dahomey Road street party and the Foodival the same year? – yes,  you too probably chipped away then at the big piece of Oak and helped it on its way.”

    Here’s the oak Bean Dragon – part bench, all magic:

    Below there’s the new Community Garden table made with young refugees and asylum-seekers from the Tooting charity CARAS.
    It’s inscribed in many languages with messages of welcome, and all were invited to add more. When there was no more room on top it was the turn of the table legs to be decorated. Come and see the Dragon and the table any Sunday from 11-1 when the Garden is open to all.

    Really the whole day was about re-imagining, movement and change,
    from a felled tree to some beautiful living sculptures; 
    from all corners of Furzedown to our hidden but accessible oasis. 
    Thanks to Fio and all the OaKomotion! team.
    Here’s the dancing finale in the garden: