Drewes Bros

Drewes is my local butchers. A shop that's been there for over 100 years serving its local community. I was in there today buying some beef for a casserole and some applewood bacon. They sell ethically raised meat, wonderful sausages, wine, fish and so on.

Anyway I found myself in a conversation with the owner after asking him if he was on his own today. Yes, he told me. The recession? No. Whole Foods. Since Whole Foods on 24th St opened his business has declined by over 30%. Now you can say a shop like Drewes has to work harder with that competition. And they are. But there are some things they can't compete on - like the car park out front, or the closure of other nearby businesses that drew custom or the fact that Whole Foods stocks everything and not just meat, fish, wine. I personally think they do compete with WF on price and I also think in terms of service, knowledge, quality and sausages they win hands down.

Now Whole Foods is very nice, for a supermarket. But it isn't a locally run business. It hasn't got the history, the connection. And I know that the locals in this part of San Francisco would hate to see Drewes go. Are they at risk of that? I don't know but I do know that they are having a hard time while watching many of their former customers head off in their cars to the WF forecourt.

If you're reading this and you live near Drewes on Church at 29th then you might like to know that they do discounts on Wednesdays - pick your own discount. If not, well find your own Drewes and support it because businesses like this aren't just for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

A lovely day out in Newport

If you had to choose somewhere to spend a day I'm guessing Newport probably wouldn't be that high on your list. (Unless you're a trainspotter judging by the station which is always packed with as many trainspotters as passengers.) Newport is an old industrial town, thoroughly working class and without many frills. It does have its charms but it's not a tourist attraction.

Today, I headed that way to spend a day pottering about waiting for my youngest's passport to be prepared. First I had to find the passport office (where is my Android when I need it?) so I asked a group of bus drivers where it was. After they denied knowing how to get around Newport, they told me where it was. Next stop Monsoon to try on numerous frocks and select two for the girls, in anticipation of the wedding we're going to at the end of next month. Then Waterstones to browse but not buy. I discovered that the tip-off I gave to Cool Camping last year paid off and the campsite made it into the book. Very gratifying. Then lunch at Starbucks (the options weren't great - coffee shops or greasy spoons) and then Marks and Spencers for the annual knickers purchase and some teflon coated school skirts for the girls.

By this time I was starting to wonder what to do with myself. Shopping in Newport is a bit limited with lots of pound shops - one of which is called a pound shop but everything is 50p... It started to pour so I ran for the market hall which is one of those wonderful covered markets with a first floor (that's 2nd to any Americans) walkway you can look down on all the fruit and veg stalls from. They had a display all about the Newport Transporter Bridge including a model made of matchsticks which was impressive in that peculiarly eccentric British way, probably made by a man in a shed. Anyway the Bridge which I didn't see, looks amazing and I spent a worried half an hour reading about it and how "threatened" it was before finding that you can still go on it. It looks fab but I think I'll have to leave until we return from our American sojourn.

I picked up the passport, the only minor drama being that I took a lift that broke down with people in it, just after I got out. I don't know why, but today seemed to be one of those lucky days - I wasn't late, I found the office, Lottie's photo worked despite having a coating which the passport office doesn't like, there were nice dresses in my size to try on, the lift didn't break down with me in it (sorry to all the people who were!) and the girls liked the dresses I bought which also fitted.

Scrap: a cheap date with the kids

I've been meaning to go to this place for ages. It's a warehouse full of scrap - paper bits, oddments of cloth, bags of wool, buttons, art materials, glass, tiles, wood, cds, dolls heads, dried flowers, and on and on. And it's called Scrap. It's a not-for-profit organisation which takes donations, runs classes, gives workshops, supports teachers and sells scrap. Heaven for the children.

We bought all this stuff - a bag full.

Emilia's estimate of cost $100. Actual cost $7 and two of those were for the bag.

The best worsted shop in town

Wool. Yarn. Hanks. Skeins. I have found a beautiful wool shop not far from my home. I love yarn. In fact I think I love hanks of yarn unwound and unknitted more than any garment you can make. I still remember a display of hand-dyed yarn hanging outside a shop in Roussillon in Provence which I walked past as a teenager on holiday. Purples and reds and blues against the red red stone of the walls.

In Imagiknit you see this.

I could spend all day there just looking. Somehow buying a tiny fraction to take home and make into something is always a little disappointing afterwards. Rather like visiting a stationery shop - that gorgeous blank notebook won't turn you into Charlotte Bronte or Ted Hughes. And that hank of yarn looks so much lovelier hanging there amongst the others than it will as a pair of socks.

Adding a bit of quirk

I am not a quirky person. You know what I mean. I don't do hats unless to keep my head warm. I don't do cute shoes with bows, or jewelry, or buttons and bibbons, or accessories of any kind, or knick-knacks. It's partly because I like functional stuff. Beautiful but functional please. And partly because it makes me uncomfortable. I don't even wear a wedding ring because I am rubbish at jewelry. Well, that and the whole ownership, public declaration stuff. But mostly because I'm rubbish at jewelry. I'm not saying I'm a minimalist. I'm too untidy for that, and I have children. But I am generally not drawn to the purely decorative.

However. I am now in the capital of quirky. The houses are deeply deeply quirky and people seem to take great pride and joy in making them more so. This is from a house in Bernal Heights. And below from one further down the street.

And it's catching. Plus I find that as I brought nothing personal with me, I feel as if I'm living in an Ikea show home. I need to personalise my space with more than just cooking pans. So this week I have bought stuff. I know. After all that decluttering and ridding my life of stuff, I have added some. I have taken to haunting the Salvation Army thrift store round the corner where so far I have found a couple of pretty plates, a big green glass jug, a basket, a vase. I have also bought some Mexican paper decorations to cover the glass doors to our bedroom - privacy on the cheap.

And most unlike me, some huge paper flowers for the sitting room. All from a very lovely shop called Casa Bonampak.

CSA veg box: what's in it

Today I collected my first fruit and veg box. I wandered to a few blocks from where I live, found the right garage and entered the secret code into the padlock. And inside was a list and a pile of boxes and a cooler with eggs inside.

So what did I get? Take a look at this.

This is all fresh from California and there isn't a swede (US transl.: rutabaga) in sight. There are baby turnips, and fresh green onions. There's a butternut squash, some rocket, dill and salad/stir fry greens. Also lemons, satsumas and oranges. Which all just goes to show that the Californian climate is a bit different to the Welsh one.

I also bought the eggs which are as close as I can get to having my own chickens. They're even slightly different sizes and look beautiful.

I don't think there's enough to keep this family going for a week but I love that it's all so fresh and grown locally. And I like the challenge of cooking to a seasonal diet based on the contents of the box. So I'm pleased with this first box and already working out what to do with the turnips.

Milk

When you buy milk, what decisions are you making? And what do you take for granted? In the UK, I had a local milkman who delivered to my door. I knew the milk was local but it wasn't organic. I'd made my decision in favour of convenience, supporting local businesses and the lack of waste (reused bottles) against the organic argument. It's a lot more complicated here.

It may be that I am ignorant of animal welfare standards in the UK, but I think I'm right that British cows spend a lot of time out of doors grazing on grass, and that a lot of the silage fed to them during the winter is also based on grass. I also know that growth hormones are banned in the UK which is why you won't find American beef for sale there. And generally we don't enrich or fortify our milk with vitamins.

Faced with a cold cabinet of milk here, the decisions are a bit more complicated. What do I care about? Well, I don't want to drink milk from cows that have been given growth hormones. The US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has decided that these are harmless to people but they are banned in the UK. Call it patriotism, or scepticism but I'm not keen on artificial means of increasing production which then cause increased levels of infertility and other problems in the cattle, as well as increased levels of an insulin like growth factor in the milk.

I would also prefer to drink milk from cows fed on grass out of doors. Now that one is tricky. I'm currently reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and have just got to the part on "big organic". Most cows in the US live in barns and not in fields. That's all the time, which to me just seems wrong. Does going organic guarantee that the cows are grass-fed? Not in the USA where more cows are corn-fed than grass-fed. Apparently when the US was designing its organic standards, to ensure that the industrial scale organic dairy farms could meet those new standards, they were made vague and weak. Currently cows must have "access to pasture" but there's nothing to say how often or whether they actually get to eat it. See what I mean about vague. I'm trying to find milk from grass-fed cows. Currently I'm buying Organic Clover Stornetta milk which is apparently from small farms in California and is I think from partially grass-fed cows. I just wish someone would tell me if I got this particular shopping test right.

I need a degree in food shopping

We all have a level at which we settle in making our decisions about what we buy. Starting from making decisions based purely on price, you can have as many additional factors as you like: country of origin for the political (I grew up in a house that boycotted South Africa and Chile during the 70s), organic or non-organic, local or imported, quality and taste.

It is damned complicated and having moved to a new country with different standards, different methods and different tastes, I am finding shopping a minefield. Do I head over to Whole Foods where I know a lot of the food is high quality, organic, sustainable (whatever those terms actually mean) but also expensive, and I'm supporting a big business with arguably questionable employment practices? Or do I head to the Mission where the food is cheaper and the stores are independent but the origins are not so obvious and it is generally not organic, and the farmers could be using very dubious pesticides? Or do I go to the Farmers Markets which means sacrificing chunks of my weekend to do the food shopping but lets me meet and support farmers directly?

I've decided to sign up with a CSA - community supported agriculture - in my case Eatwell Farms, who are based around 60 miles from San Francisco and deliver weekly boxes of their fruit, veg and free-range eggs to addresses all over the city for collection. First pick-up is Wednesday. I am hoping this will mean fewer days of lugging veg up the hill and then our steps and fewer days of thinking what are we going to eat for dinner. Also I will know where the food is coming from and how it is grown.

That's just the green stuff. Milk and meat will have to wait for another post.

Who knew there were so many different chickens?

I mean dead ones. I know there are lots of different types of live ones. But in the UK in a butchers you will generally only get organic, free-range and standard chickens and they're all about the same in size and age if not flavour and price.

Yesterday we bought a chicken to roast from our current favourite butchers in the Mission Food Hall on Mission at 22nd Street. The man who served me who I suspect is the manager very kindly took me through all the chickens on offer. They had frying chicken (that is a whole chicken not pieces) which apparently is young, tender but with not much meat so you can fry/barbecue the chicken. Then there's broiling which is a bit bigger I think. Then there were stewing hens which were huge, ex-layers, and older so suitable for casseroles. And finally there were roasters which were male, younger than the stewers and tender. I think that was it. I may have got a bit confused. There were also all the free-range/organic/basic options too within this. I think they also still sell capons here which I seem to remember are banned in the UK, but which I remember from my childhood. Thank God the staff in shops are so helpful because my bewilderment continues, and this all makes ethical shopping more confusing than ever.

Invaluable guides

It would be nice to think that I'm just expert at finding good food stores or that my incredibly developed sense of smell was leading me to cakes, bread, butchers and ice cream. But apart from Anthony's Cookies, that isn't true. I have two invaluable books to help me.



The first (Patricia Unterman's San Francisco Food Lover's Pocket Guide) is a personally selected guide to restaurants, cafes, bars, groceries, bookstores, equipment stores. It's short but detailed and so far hasn't missed once. I wouldn't have found Kamei, the kitchen equipment shop in Richmond, without it, or Dianda's Italian American Bakery, and for that matter we wouldn't have eaten at the Turkish restaurant, Troya. Unlike most guides this book isn't written for the visitor, though they would also find it useful. I think if you like food and live in San Francisco you really should own a copy of this, certainly if you've just moved it is a big help. Thanks to Celia Sacks at Omnivore for recommending it.

The second book is the Green Zebra book of vouchers for local, green and eco-friendly businesses. I'll admit I greeted this with scepticism at first. It is sold at our school to raise money and I wondered how useful I would find it. Actually, it has already paid for itself in savings - it cost $25. But it has also sent me off to less known shops and away from chains, which is all to the good. The book itself has some front matter about green issues, including handy things like a guide to which fish you should eat and which you shouldn't, which since I'm near a different ocean is all different from the guidance back in the UK. Then there are over 300 different organisations offering discounts from a few dollars off, or a free coffee to 20% off in some cases. The businesses range from restaurants, through food markets, to DIY specialists, Pilates studios, museums and so on. It's an idea that could be transferred I think - a very good way to get people to look for and try new small ethical businesses.

Dangerously close to home: Anthony's Cookies

I found a cookie shop the other day. My nose found it first as I wandered down Valencia Street between 26th and 25th. On a not particularly busy part of the street there is a rather discreet shop front and an elegant sign hanging outside, and a wonderful warm and sweet smell of baking. It wasn't open at the time - obviously getting ready for the day ahead. Yesterday it was open and as I had two small girls who were getting peckish, I took them there on the way home from the library. The inside is almost austere in design but they sell cookies in smart boxes and lovely flavours - we had semi-sweet chocolate chip and toffee chip. The shop is staffed by lots of charming young men in black t-shirts, one of whom became the first American to exclaim about my lovely accent. Anthony's Cookies is going down on my map of places to take the girls when they need rewarding or perhaps bribing.

First best day in San Francisco

Today was brilliant. We did what we should have done last weekend when I was languishing in bed on my birthday. It started the way a lot of weekends start round here. Sound of small feet padding our way. Pause. "Daddy, do you know where my pencil case is?" You are expected to be on the ball round here, even if you have only just woken up. We had a lazyish breakfast and then sprang (not) into action, and headed off for our first proper encounter with the Pacific Ocean.



We parked on Great Highway at the end of Golden Gate Park. The sky was clear, the waves were big. It's a huge beach and it's on the edge of a city but you don't feel as if you are anywhere near a city. We wandered along the water's edge and at one point all had to make a run for it, after a particularly enthusiastic wave chased us, much to the amusement of some locals. The girls built and decorated a castle. And we met a very charming and handsome park ranger who gave us a map of the State National Park.





Then we headed over to Clement Street in Inner Richmond to visit a bookstore we had heard good things about, find lunch and potter about. The bookstore was Green Apple Books and was wonderful. A mixture of used and new books, it had a lovely children's section, a huge and interesting cooking section and lots of other things to interest us. Also we had a 20 per cent discount thanks to Green Zebra so we bought several books for the girls, a couple of walking books and a history of finance book for Tom. (I'll do a separate post some time about Green Zebra - a great idea.)

Then lunch at Troya which rather against the trend in this part of town (and perhaps for SF in general, I don't know) is Turkish. Very very classy and refined Turkish. We love our Turkish food coming as we do from Stoke Newington in London which if it were the States would have been renamed Little Istanbul. Troya served everything we recognised but rather more elegantly and somehow fresher and with a twist. Tiny warm black olives came first, with a few large lime green olives that Lottie said tasted like broccoli. They didn't, but they were gorgeous. We also had a red pepper dip, yoghurt with carrots, hummus, zucchini cakes (crisp outside, soft and yielding inside and fresh), borek, lovely tender chicken and lamb shish kebab. I think that's it. It all disappeared and when you're out with the girls that doesn't always happen. This time they ate everything.

After that we headed to Kamei Restaurant Supplies which is a large Chinese kitchenware shop. It was heaven. I got over-excited.



Luckily I'd written a list in the restaurant when I discovered we were nearby, or I'd have got undisciplined and bought stuff I don't need. They sell lovely china in gorgeous colours. Things we did buy: a large saute pan with lid, a tea pot (finally!), some lovely bowls with glassy coloured glaze inside, an ice-cream scoop, a slotted spoon, tall glasses, storage jars. Prices are low and there is a huge range. I am glad I didn't head downtown to posh shops before I found this place. I will be back, in particular for a rice cooker, bamboo steamers and some more pretty china.

After that we briefly walked into Golden Gate Park and found a playground for the girls to play on. And then home.

I feel like I've been blown about a bit, fed well and shopped well. It's all good.

Omnivore Books - heaven for the cook

Tom and the girls bought me a gift voucher for this lovely bookshop this year for my birthday. Took me a few days to get my act together, work out what I probably wanted and head the block and a half down there. I'm going to have to be very very disciplined not to spend an awful lot of money in this shop.


On Cesar Chavez at the Noe Valley end on a quiet residential section of the road, is this one roomed bookshop that looks a bit like a library. White shelves wall to wall, filled with an incredible mix of new and vintage books. Cookery books generally don't turn up second-hand so the vintage books section is a joy. There's a copy of Elizabeth David's Mediterranean Food behind the desk - first edition, gorgeous. I covet it.

But that's not what I bought today. I've made a promise to myself that while I am in the US I will buy books I couldn't easily get at home. Omnivore doesn't make this easy as the imported stock is excellent, well-chosen and very tempting. Leaving aside the fact that almost all of the books I left behind and miss, are here.


Anyway, I am not buying British. So today, as I left I was clutching Judy Rodgers' The Zuni Cafe Cookbook and Thomas Keller (of The French Laundry)'s Ad Hoc at Home. How did I know what to get? Well I owe that to the owner of the bookstore, Celia Sacks, by way of a piece she did on this year's best books, and in the case of the Zuni book, on personal recommendation in the shop. Two gorgeous books from Californian chefs to have fun with, to add to Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook which I bought last time I went. Really must get on with some cooking.

My first weekend in California

Halloween was clearly a good date to pick to arrive. The children were thrilled by the pumpkins everywhere and had an opportunity to dress up - Welsh National costume which was mistaken for a leprechaun (?) by one householder. Emilia went trick or treating - just her and two dads - on what I'm reliably informed is the best trick or treating street in the whole of Berkeley. This street is so well known for its bounteous generosity, amazing decorations and general all round enthusiasm for Halloween that if you sell your house there you have to declare that people will expect the new owners to be equally bounteous, decorative and enthusiastic. She came back laden with candy. Lottie meanwhile had passed out and missed everything. She did wake up in time however to eat dessert before passing out again.

Other activities undertaken by the extremely tired adults included visiting a phone store to find out about mobile phones and landlines, eating brunch in a cafe with very large chairs with mouldings for very large bottoms on the seat, desperately seeking a "rest room" for my youngest and ending up in McDonalds (oh the shame!) but only to use the loo, eating vast quantities of sushi, hiring a car and shopping at a supermarket.

Hiring the car was funny. We wanted something small but all they had was an SUV and pick-up trucks. So we took a truck, which meant we could transport all our luggage to SF later this afternoon. Yes, within two days of arriving in the US of A, Tom is driving a truck.

We took the truck shopping to Safeways and had our first taste of an American supermarket. Do not attempt this when suffering from jetlag. You may think you know what everything is, but you don't and we were both extremely confused by the end of it. I suspect shopping for groceries is going to feature regularly in this blog for the next few months. I had a "revelatory moment" at the mayonnaise section when I realised they didn't sell Hellmans and I had no idea which the best tasting brand was - did this mean I would have to buy each one in turn until I found the right one? And how could "Miracle Whip" possibly be that one? How did buying mayonnaise suddenly become complicated. Every section was like this. The orange juice options have doubled if not trebled so you can have no pulp, low pulp, medium pulp and high pulp, with and without calcium and various other vitamins. I think I ended up with one with added calcium because I couldn't remember if orange juice had calcium in it normally or not, and if it did then I ought to get the one with rather than without. Or something. I told you I was tired. And of course the quantities beggar belief. It is hard to buy less than a gallon of milk. For the metric amongst you, that's nearly 4 litres in one go, or in fact enough to keep a small European car on the road for tens of miles. But not the truck, obviously.

We left the store with not very much having exhausted ourselves with the simple decisions of what bread to get and which tuna to buy. Tom went for a brand called "Chicken of the Sea"?? He's not sure why, but I'm glad he did, as it's such a superbly odd name.

Bliss in a shop

Unfortunately or may be fortunately or then again may be unfortunately, the shop is in Amsterdam. It's called Copenhagen Kralen and it looks like this:



Actually I should have taken more pictures, but I get shy and in this case sidetracked. There is row upon row of jar upon jar of beads in every possible shape, size, colour and price. I like beads and recently rediscovered the childhood hobby of beadweaving, so bought a bit. Not that much. And some for the girls.

Sometimes I think I like the raw materials of these crafts better than the made-up objects. It could be because things somehow never come out how I expected. Or just that they seem so entirely full of potential when still raw. Hanks of wool and unused stationery has the same effect on me.

On being a tourist in Amsterdam

I'm one of those annoying people who pretends not to be a tourist though that is clearly what I am. I don't always do the touristy things, and I definitely try to avoid the tourist traps. In Amsterdam that would include pretty much any street near the Central Station which are really horrible. Lovely buildings from the first floor up, but on the ground floor it's endless plastic, tourist menus, smoking coffee shops which is all very well but never really my scene and now I have kids. The Leidseplein is similar - lots of shops, expensive places and large grubby looking bars.

But today we chose to do that uber-tourist activity and take a boat tour of the canals. The weather was glorious and it was a lovely way to spend an hour. Like Venice, you don't really get a sense of the structure of the city until you spend at least a little time on the water. This is a port, made its money through trade and is ringed and riddled by canals which are in use. It's still the easiest way to transport large bulky items like construction materials to the centre of town.





The afternoon was spent ineffectually shopping as I'd chosen to shop on the day the shops are shut. How was I to know that on Mondays Amsterdam is shut - well not entirely but the shops I particularly wanted to visit were. I seem to remember the same finding in Germany on Saturdays. Downright confusing - of course they're entitled to their own national choices about opening hours, but I always seem to find myself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like aiming to visit specific museums in Italy on a Tuesday. It does save money so Tom who didn't come shopping and was no doubt worrying about it back at the houseboat was relieved when we came home almost entirely empty-handed. I have however managed to persuade him to forgo Anne Frank's House this time around (huge queues, little time, explain the Nazis to a 4 year old), and I'll let him work while I take the girls properly shopping. I get called manipulative sometimes and have no idea why...

Saturday morning in Amsterdam

We're staying on the edge of the Jordaan area which is residential, arty and quiet with nice shops and bars and a fantastic Saturday morning market near the Noorderkerk. There was a traditional market with all sorts of clothes, fruit and veg and the odd stall of goats cheese or salami or bread. And then round the corner, an organic market with flea market thrown in. Lots to look at. I really liked this stall of mushrooms, and bought some dried fruit for the girls from another.


The fruit and veg was pretty standard, the bread stalls interesting because they had not just the usual but also lots of rye breads and pretzels. I find cheese is mixed in the Netherlands. Every time I saw a good cheese stall I found that most of the cheese they were selling was either French or British. Dutch Gouda is good, Edam is frankly dull and it's all a bit monotonous. But the goats cheeses were lovely. Other things I bought were some very moreish olives and delicious mushroom tapenade with a kick of chili in it.

Reuse - an old-fashioned way with milk containers

Both Rubbish Diet and the Cottage Smallholder have been discussing recycling and minimising waste, and Cottage Smallholder in particular has been looking at milk. When we moved here one of the first things I did was set up a milk delivery. There are lots of different ways to buy milk - in plastic recyclable bottles, in cardboard cartons, in plastic sachets to pour into jugs but to my mind, it doesn't matter how green or minimal your packaging is from the supermarket, nothing beats a simple milk bottle which gets used 20-30 times before it is recycled. And my milk bottles also come with orange juice inside so no more tetrapaks. Yes it is marginally more expensive but there is less waste of the milk as well as the container, and there are far fewer emergency trips in the car.

Christmas Pudding: a tale of food snobbery

I live near Abergavenny which manages to have a lovely and well known food festival every year while failing to have a fishmonger, decent baker, good greengrocer and until recently it didn't have a deli. So when just around the time of the festival a new deli opened, local foodies (and my family makes up a large proportion of that group) rejoiced. It looks nice but I'll admit I rarely go in. It's just a bit too clinical looking with lots of expensive packaged pastas and salad dressings. However, just before Christmas, I thought I'd take myself there to check out their Christmas pudding selection.

No Christmas puddings on display. And when I asked I was told that the owner who was a connoisseur of Christmas puddings had tasted those on offer and decided that none were good enough to sell in his shop. So I spent a considerable sum at Waitrose on what I and my guests thought was a lovely pudding (from Carved Angel btw). This is not the way to beat the recession, Mr Deli Owner. All you get is a warm feeling that somehow you haven't let your shop down. Waitrose got my dosh.

Saving time, money and packaging: buying in bulk

I can't stand shopping for boring stuff and by boring I mean washing powder or dried pasta or bread flour. So I'm always looking for ways to avoid doing this and my latest is to buy in bulk. I realise this doesn't help if you have no storage space. But if you do, then why fill your trolley and lug bags of stuff home each week when you can have good stuff delivered, not need more for weeks, and it often saves money.

My bread flour currently comes in 16-25kg sacks from Shipton Mill in Gloucestershire, ordered online. It is lovely quality stoneground flour and costs the same as Waitrose own brand organic - so not cheap but not the price you'd usually pay for flour of this standard in a supermarket. I've also bought from Bacheldre (but they send individual bags not sacks) and from FWP Matthews, who are aimed more at the commercial baker but have a great range for home baking too. And some fabulous French flours from Moul Bie.

Coffee I buy every couple of months or so from Hasbean. It isn't cheaper than the shops but I am a terrible coffee snob and like freshly ground coffee in the morning from good quality beans, and you can't really get that from a supermarket. Hasbean sell a huge variety of delicious coffees as well as tea and all the paraphenalia to do with tea and coffee drinking.

My latest discovery is Wiggly Wigglers who are selling bulk Ecover products. You can get a 10kg box of washing powder or 5 litres of washing up liquid. Both are cheaper than Tesco, and if you like their shower gel, a 5 litre bottle is half the price.

Now I want a bulk pasta supplier. You can get multiple packets from ethicalsuperstore but it's the more expensive, worthy kind (which can mean inedible) so there's no real saving, and you still end up with the same amount of rubbish. Anyone know where I can get a 5kg bag of basic penne or farfalle?