Christians at Work

Once again Stephen and Anne Gale produced excellent food and drink for the CaW winter social event, this time with assistance from an expert band of “pudding” makers. An added element this year was that there is now a Gloucester Diocese initiative to promote fairly traded goods and make Gloucester a “Fairtrade” diocese in 2006. So the keynote for the evening was LOAF (Local, Organic, Animal-friendly and Fairly-traded).

28 of us came to the Church cottages for an evening which started with a reference to Micah 6 v 8, “No, the Lord has told us what is good. What he requires of us is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our God.” This was followed by a meditation (from Gloucester Diocese), read by Anne about the cost of “cheap” food borne by poor people and a prayer.

Click here for more photos of the Fairtrade evening

The main courses in the buffet were accompanied by rolls from North’s Bath Road bakery shop and salads and included: another Stephen Gale Christians at Work cold pie, organic chicken and smoked trout, Elgar mature and Little Urn hard cheeses and Lightwood Chaser cream cheese from Lightwood Farm Worcestershire, together with Stinking Bishop. Little Urn is a reference to The Ashes. For drink we were provided with organic soft drinks, Three Choirs white wine, Fair Trade Cabernet Sauvignon from the West Cape and (my favourite) a Fair Trade Chilean Carmenere.

Associates of Christians at Work – please note we don’t have membership as such, everyone is welcome – provided puddings to die for fruit slad, meringue, apple tart and a chocolate truffle torte which was definitely comfort food for the dark cold days of January.

A table by the cottage door held literature: A Fairtrade Directory for Cheltenham, Fairtrade Production Conditions and Terms of Trading, details of local farmers’ markets, and an Oxfam cookery book among other items.

Christians at Work - January 2006