Pressing On…

September is the perfect month to get pressing!

Be that olives for oil, grapes for wine, apples for cider or experimenting with our new cheese press. A little bit of pressure can result in creating something really good…

Our summer holiday in Tuscany seems ages ago, but as I watch our London olives start to ripen, I remember Mauro, one of our hosts, proudly showing us his olive oil – pressed literally just down the road from their villa, it was delicious!

This was the view from the pool, below, rows upon rows of grape vines – Mauro and Luciano bring a team in to carefully cut the fruit and send it to a local winery that presses the grapes in bulk and pays back their weight in finished wine.

We took a small table top apple press to Gardeners World Autumn Fair for our daily demonstration ‘Pressing Apples for juice & cider, pulp for jelly & wine’. We met some great people both team and guests, and encouraged everyone to have a go themselves.

I’d been thinking about buying a cheese press for a while, especially after several failed attempted to weigh down cheese moulds with piles of books that fall on the floor!

So far I’ve used it for a Gouda, Caerphilly, Halloumi and a new Blue cheese…

Finally, from Pressing to Pulling, have you seen our brand new Making Linen Christmas Crackers course on Tuesday 12th December? We’ll start the morning by making chocolates as gifts followed by choosing fabrics and jokes for the crackers that we’ll assemble after lunch – complete with homemade paper hats!

 

Coming up at Hen Corner:

Online Courses:

• Monday 6th November Making Bagels & Rye (Virtual) 6-8pm

Other news:

• Chiswick Book Festival was a blast! The Local Authors’ Showcase, Alan Titchmarsh at Chiswick House and An Evening at Hen Corner – Such fun 🙂
• We trained five fabulous bakers on Become A Bread Angel – Start Your Own Micro Bakery and are running this again next term – get in touch if this is something that you are thinking about
• Our fig tree is heavy laden and the fruit is just starting to ripen

Jobs for the week:

• Label up some honey for Chiswick Flower Market – well there would be no honey without the flowers would there?
• Prep beds at the allotment for autumn planting of broad beans and garlic
• Practise a soft garlic cheese for a new Cheese course (Blue,  Halloumi, Garlic Roule)

We are really enjoying our events promoting Living the Good Life in the City here are the dates coming up, come and say hello if you can…

October, 1st Chiswick Flower Market

October, 7th Charlotte’s Chickens (11am-1pm) – new event

October, 15th Chiswick Cheese Market (1-3pm) – new event

November, 8th-11th Country Living Christmas Fair – London

November, 16th-19th Country Living Christmas Fair – Glasgow

November, 30th-December 3rd Country Living Christmas Fair – Harrogate

As the evenings draw in, huddle up with a good book and start dreaming

Sara