Last year Community Windpower and BeGreen sponsored Dunbar Grammar School’s “Dragon’s Den” competition. Competing teams came up with projects to promote sustainability with the winning team all geared up for a Chicken Coop to be located at the Grammar School.
Their dream is becoming a reality as plans are underway to form a Community Chicken Coop. Families with pupils at Dunbar Grammar School will be invited to sign up this week. This group will receive training on how to care for the hens alongside a group pupils from the school. Building of the coop to follow!
The poster below will go out to parents this week.
Today we welcomed the lovely ladies from the Culture Kitchen Relay to Dunbar.
The team consist of Kat Vandenberg who is a community gardener and coordinator of SAGE (SAGE), Clem Sandison the creative producer of Culture Kitchen (The Hidden Gardens) and Najma Anwar who is a volunteer with the Women and Cultural Cookery project at the Hidden Gardens. Together they are travelling around Scotland to 14 different locations sharing local produce and recipes as they go along.
They brought with them their recipes from Peebles and the ingredients to make them and share with us. This included some fish from the aquaponics project in Moffat (here).
We started at Dunbar Grammar School where some of the pupils taking the Rural Skills course learned about the project before heading to the polytunnel to dig up some fresh potatoes. Isobel Knox was on hand with her expert advice and to get ready for the next stage!
DGS pupils dig up some potatoes a the polytunnel.Fresh Potatoes
After a trip to Lochend Woods for some fresh nettles it was off to the Community Kitchen at the Bleachingfield Centre to cook up a storm.
Najma and Clem got stuck into preparing the cottage pie and fish recipes they brought with them from the last leg of the relay in Peebles.
Clem and Najma.
Isobel gathered all the local ingredients to make nettle soup from an old Scottish recipe.
Isobel prepares the nettles.
Her recipe is adapted from “The Scots Kitchen its Lore and Recipes” cookbook. She used cold pressed rapeseed oil, fresh nettle leaves, Yester Farm cream, oats and locally sourced wild garlic. Isobel was really planning ahead here with a supply of Lochend Woods wild garlic from last spring waiting in the freezer!
A wonderful meal was prepared and shared.
We wish the Culture Kitchen Relay the best of luck as they take Isobel’s recipe to the next leg of their trip to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh tomorrow.
