The first day of the residency

St. Basils Church, Heath Mill Lane, phot. Ell Brown

Kate Pennington-Wilson and I collected our first artist Kamila Szejnoch from Digbeth Coach station yesterday evening, so the residency has officially started.  The first day went very well. The weather was good, we had an original fish & chips from the Rag Market and we discovered some new facts about Digbeth. We also had a proper look into a fascinating building, the St Basil's Church in Digbeth which is now the St Basil's Centre on  Heath Mill Lane. St Basil's Centre works with young people to prevent youth homelessness. In the 1960s building was the meeting place of the Double Zero motorcycle club. A lovely lady who works there let us in and shown arround, so we could see this great example of Arts and Crafts primitivism, constructed in 1910-11 to a design by A.S. Dixon, from the inside. Building was refurbished in the 1980s, so even though the original chapel is still there, the nave is filled in with the offices. Originally the building was built as a catholic church, but now the chapel can be used from time to time by all religions.

Birmingham Rag Market, phot.  mondoagogo

Post-Industrial Revolution is baking a cheesecake

We, as the Post-Industrial Revolution team, were recently invited to baking competition by new Birmingham based creative organisation, the Neighbourhood. They have invited all other creative organisations they could think of, to create interesting platform for getting to know each other better. Behind us the most difficult part - we had to bake a cake! We will  bring it along on the aforementioned chilly November Eve, and their panel of judges will pick a winner. Me and Kate met yesterday to conjure amazing Polish cheesecake with English Custard powder in it! We will let you know if we win soon. 

Custard's second face: Budyn

I have to admit something. When I was writing the post about custard, I knew custard only from descriptions. When I finally tasted it yesterday I was astonished that actually I know custard very well, as it is know in Poland as Budyn (pronounced boodinn )!  On this blog you can read about the discovery of Budyn by one Englishman. What is more, while Custard is always vanilla-flavoured, you can find Budyn in a whole range of flavours, such us: strawberry, chocolate, cherry, raspberry and many others.