Bring me Sunshine

The Kings of Sunshine bring you...

Sunshine on a Plate

 

 

 

fresh mackerel, on my plate within 3 hours of being
caught ~ simply coated in some pinhead oatmeal. Totally tasty!
 

 

followed by a sunny Saturday day out to Lerwick

 

 

 

 

Although, we weren't alone ...

 

 

a few hundred Norwegians arrived

on the "Fram" for a couple of days visit to the Islands!

 

Making the most of our sunny Shetland days

 

 

Linked to the Past by Tradition

Just like most other towns in Great Britain , Lerwick has a cracking museum. Not dusty with glass cases, and really quite a modern looking building at first sight; the lines echo those of some of the older nearby merchants warehouses

One of the interesting services it offers is the chance to view the Shetland Photo Archive Library ~ an extensive collection reflecting the social, natural , textile, boating , fishing , crofting , trade and commercial history of the islands .. amongst other things !

By the way ....  have you heard of the Shetland Black potato variety? We alway hope for a love heart when we cut !

                                                                    

So , the title of this blog entry - linked to the past by tradition. Artisan bakers & confectioners today continue to create food as we know and love it. Of course, they can still be innovative, having their own take on a recipe or maybe by creating something completely different.

We eat with our hearts as well as our eyes ~ memories often come flooding back don't they of past times with some tastes and flavours. My own childhood was lucky enough to include visits to our favourite shop in the town, Soothills Bakery in Fareham, Hampshire. It was certainly a treat when a Saturday included a trip there !

A busy bakery with queues out of the door in the 60's & 70's and every decade up to now. I'm glad to say they STILL bake the best Lardy Cake IN THE WORLD and business is still booming . Of course, our visit to Hampshire this coming February to Tracy & Nigels wedding will have to include a visit to Soothills up the road from Portsmouth. Can't wait ... for the wedding of course!

    

I thought I would show you a little bit of Shetlands bakery history . By the look of some of these folk, the work was even harder then than now ...

Baker Lowrie Brown  working at T.M. Adie & Sons' bakery in Voe. LAte 1950's but no sign of electric scales anywhere. This Adie family is related to the well know BBC journalist Kate Adie  

The famous 'Blacks Queue' outside Black & Sons bakery, Commercial Road,Lerwick during rationing which lasted well into the 1950's

 

 

 

 

Charlies Bakery Van  ~ Austin, 1968. Whilst there were town bakeries aplenty, some outlying rural areas were served by  maybe only one bakery that sent a van around the area to deliver. This van isn't from Yell that I know of, but many older folk I've spoken to here clearly remember the Yell Bread Van, a lifeline at a time when  fewer had access to quick easy transport to the shop. Peggy Hughson (who was acutally born in our crofthouse 80+ years ago) also remembers the little racks of sweeties just inside the back door!

 

 

 

Now this is a really old picture, we reckon Victorian period and is another Lerwick bakery. The young lad on the right has a bread basket in his hand ~ clearly the days before plastic "white-boards" arrived. I'm hoping that the baker 3rd from left has his thick tweed jacket and waistcoat on for the camera as I can't imagine how hot it would have been working in them! 

 

 

 

 

This , for me, is one of the most touching photographs I found. It's a picture from the 1890's of Andrew Mouat who lived in Walls, he was a well known local character. One of his jobs was to transport bread from the Walls Bakery to the Bridge of Walls shop ... a very short journey. The bread was carried on his back in a big tea chest, secured with a rope - he was paid 6d for his job. 

 

So renowned was Andrew, that he featured on a postcard with the title  "Captain o' the peerie trips"  ~ (Captain of the short trips)

 

 

 

So , Our Steve is just another in the long line of bakers in Shetland, although sadly you can now count the remaining bakeries on 1 hand.

 

 

Hope you enjoyed the old pics. We're all part of history in our own ways aren't we?

 

S, S & D xxxx

 

ps .... missing the sheep? hows this for a pair of handlebar horns?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feeling hungry? look away now ...

I had a threatening email from a Manchester mate recently 

She told me she would stop looking at the blog unless I started getting some shots up of Steve's food. Fair point  well made; she  isn't the first to ask.

She visited Stacky more than once & enjoyed his steak pies so knows what she's missing; pictures - I guess - are the next best thing!

Here's how a morning goes: once Steve's finished baking , everything has to be left to cool before packing; as all we sell has to be packed when sold to the shops , this can take a little while.

 

The pic above was taken from outside the back door of Burravoe Hall looking into the storerooms. Our freezers on the right are stacked with pies & pasties cooling in the breeze!

 

 

Shetland Lamb Pasty's - he simply can't make enough of them !

 

 

 

Both beef and pork sausage rolls are going very well, they're liking his melt in the mouth pastry

 

 

 

 

Once cool - Da Kitchen Bakery production line continues on the next stage - packing.

 

 

We use a machine called an "L" Sealer

very similar to the one here.

The roll of cellophane on the right

is folded into an envelope already,

so you just slip your product into

the "envelope", lower the

heated frame down onto the

plastic, which then melts it &

seals it into an airtight package .

 

 

 

The machine we bought ( yes, you guessed it, from eBay!) was made in Burnley about 7 miles from where we lived in Stacksteads; you can see it in the background behind Steve, it's about the same age as the baker too & working perfectly ! Talking of a perfectly working baker ....here he is

 

 

 

I do love the cheeky chappie look  - his bakers cap set at a jaunty angle :-). These photos show just what a brilliant facility we have to use.  

 

 

 

He's also loving not having a shop (how dare those rude customers rudely interrupt him to buy things !!!) .... but the odd visitor is great for a good chinwag

 

 

The perfect little packages are then labelled, priced and a "use by" date added  

 

Traditional Victoria Sponge cakes are always popular.He also makes a lemon version plus a Triple Choc sandwich, all selling extremely well.

 

 

 

 

Whether the WI would approve of a "triple decker" sandwich is highly unlikely, however he does use traditional raspberry jam so I'm sure the ladies won't mind too much. Although of course ...being the WI ,  this Calendar Girl may need considerably bigger buns!

 

 

~

 

He was hoping to get a clear morning in the bakery yesterday to do some preparation for Monday. But after a couple of (welcome) phone calls later he'd half filled the van with good for the shops  ~ as you can see below!

 

 

Some of the goods he made yesterday was for the Mid Yell public hall where they were holding its own version of Family Fortunes. Steve was lucky enough to be asked to supply 100 sausage rolls for the event.

 

 

A great opportunity to get people tasting his goods ~ they seem to be enjoying having a baker on the island again after 50 years !

 

 

So , that was the morning ....

 

Yesterday was the Yell Annual Sheep Auctions

 

 

Crofters bring their sheep down from the hills and "parks" (fields or pastures) to one of 6 places around Yell where the auctions take place. I took the 2 pictures below at the Cullivoe mart, this the northern-most auction on Yell. 

 

 

 

 The group of people in the pens are the auctioneer and the buyers, and hands there to mark the sheep when sold . Buyers include those from mainland Scotland who come over each year to buy Shetland lamb to take back to Scotland & UK.

 

 

 

Each pen is sorted into size of sheep and whether they're this years lambs or older , all this affects the price per head. They're usually sold in lots of roughly 8 or 10. Mostly cross-breeds but there were some lovely lots of coloured Shetlands. Today wasn't the right time for us to buy, we're going to the Lerwick auctions in a month instead.

 

 One of the things we like about Yell is there's always someone to see or something to do & tonight its the Monthly Quiz ! yay !

 

 

S , S & D xxx

 

 

 



Saturday 8th September

02:00 An early start for Steve in the bakery. Another 2 good orders from Aywick Shop & now from Ulsta Shop including 24 of the current favourite Vanilla Slice (or Custard Slice as some call it)

 

 

 

 

07:00   No lie-in for Sarah today - first job , let the hens out of their house and feed & water them 

- quick jump in the car off down to Burravoe to help Steve by packing the goodies ready for delivery


08:45   First delivery to Ulsta Shop. Located by the Yell ferry, this is a busy shop that gets a huge amount of passing trade, as well as locals. We've just started delivering here  - they're telling us the goods are flying off the shelf ... a great start for Steve !

The appearance of this shop has hardly changed in over 100 years ! See below the "flit boat" (with Robertson's shop in the background) which was the forerunner of what Yell now has, a roll-on roll-off ferry

09:00 Quick drive of 6 miles back to Burravoe  to the bakery, to collect the enormous order for Aywick Shop. Steve starts the cleaning down and I set off, arriving at Aywick 10 mins later where to my surprise , someone was WAITING (!!!!!!) for our Shetland lamb pasty's to arrive. Can't tell you how proud it makes me to see the chiller cabinet heaving with all Steve's fresh produce (little did I know the 100 or so pies and pastys and cakes would be sold out by the end of the day with another huge order needed for the next day!)

11:25 After much cleaning an scrubbing, the door to the now sparkling bakery is closed arriving home 15 mons later; time for a quick shower and change before catching the ferry 15 mins later to get to Bixter to get Digger to the vet.

12:50 There's only one vet in Shetland and is an hours drive . After her ligament op 4 months ago, she's hobbling a bit so needs to be checked out ... thankfully , things aren't serious. She's as cute as ever.

13:40 Arrive in Lerwick (AKA Big Smoke) for our monthly shopping visit and our "day out" .  JK Mainland Butchers has 25lb of Shetland lamb ready for us to collect (for Steves pasties) , followed shortly after by a trip to Harry's - the Harrods of Shetland (and some lovely stuff he has too!) . Most important items we bought were 12 of these individual little beauties ...

Steve's won a contract to do a buffet for 100 at the end of September. He's recently been experimenting with a lemon tart recipe using our free range eggs and Shetland butter and cream. Pretty much perfected it (although I won't tell him that .... "you need to keep practising!" ) and wants to make some individual tarts for the buffet.  Yum Mee !

16:15 Feeling peckish  after all the walking we decide to hit the Peerie Shop Cafe. A very nice little establishment, hidden up an alley with freshly made 100% homemade food.

2 tasty panini's later we have a little surprise ...

I should add at this point, that for the last 7 days Shetland's annual Film Festival has been running and ~ as in previous years ~ there's always a well known face that appears on the island from the Big Screen. Imagine  my delight then,  when a very normal looking lady walks into the cafe and sits at the next table ...

 or

We didn't stare, just let the lovely Miranda Richardson enjoy her food and reading in peace.

19:30 Finally arrive home, another ferry ride  ... both knackered ... but what an interesting day . Time for bed ?

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


s s d xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

500+ pies and a set of wheels later.....

 

 

 

 

WOW

 

What an incredible first 11 days of trade for Da Kitchen Bakery

 

Almost every day, the Aywick Shop nearly doubled their order

 

Now we have another 2 shops and factories queuing up for his goods

 

Yell folk are really giving Steve's pies and Shetland Lamb Pastys a good try out

 

Our turnover expections have been blown out of the water  - currently 400%

 

They like his pies. Well, they're giving them a try anyway... hope they come back for more!!

 

Now they've tasted the cakes  - in particular the Vanilla Slices - they just can't get enough.

 

 

 

 

 

As for the  new set of wheels ,  we're loving them !

Da Kitchen Bakery .....

 

 

Is open for business !

 

 

 

 

After a number of weeks and months of

• contemplating whether to even do it
• travelling to England  & Scotland to collect bakery machines
• getting equipment revamped and repainted (all old cast iron)
• sourcing ingredients from mainland Scotland and England 
• finding the right packaging (everything has to be packed & sealed when supplying shops)
• practicing making Scotch Pies (something even Steve has never done before!)
• getting quietly excited with all the preparations ...

Steve is finally ready to open a bakery on Yell  - 50 years after the last one closed ( they've missed the bakery ever since it closed by all accounts) 

5 country stores and 2 factories are ready and waiting for his goods - first deliveries tomorrow.  Next Friday - 350 individual cakes for a big local wedding. Phew.


Once a baker ... always a baker !

Make Hay Whilst the Sun Shines !

After a number of warm summer days here in Shetland, this week has seen another red letter day on the croft.  With the combined showers and warmth of recent weeks, everything's been growing madly from the grass to this years lambs.

I'm sure you've all seen the huge black sileage bales sat in farmers fields, well this is fodder for animals during the winter period when grass doesn't grow.  For those actually cutting the silage (we've employed someone to do it) they have a real job to pick the right time to do it. With some grass being over 2ft , last week was chosen for it to be cut. These bales are another "red letter day" in our little journey towards being a working croft.

We've had just 5 acres cut with the remaining being left for them to eat for the next 2-3 months. The cut grass was left overnight with Ryan coming back the next day to bale it. The grass should have about 50% moisture and when cut and wrapped into the black bales, and will start fermenting within a couple of days.  When you finally start feeding this to the sheep in a few months time, it provides a moist and highly nutritious fodder at a time they really need it. The main reason for doing this is that sheep need feeding during winter, and as most of our ewes will be pregnant they will need decent nutrition overwinter .

Not  a great picture above, but meet Errol The Peril.  Houdini more like, bit of an escape artist - note the husband stood a good distance off. He's a great looking ram with a .... fine .. pair .... he'll get a chance to go to the ewes this year. Errol that is.

Here's a pic of the long awaited hen house ... made almost entirely of recycled wood from the old house.

We added the metal roof last weekend - we still have waterproof felt to add to the walls on the outside, but its huge !!!


We've put stones around the edges, as theres a gap with it being elevated. Didn't want them getting underneath to lay their eggs!

24 nesting boxes and perches either side for them to roost on. Very homely ! The roof structure is made from the old roof trusses. Very proud of ourselves !!!

Gorgeous orchid like Monkey flowers to end with =)

s,s,d xxxx