Full of Beanies

Once upon a time, when I first lived in Sheffield, my housemates and I were fairly regular customers at Beanies Wholefoods. Officially described as a wholefoods cooperative, it sells a wide variety of vegetarian foods and greengrocery and is an Aladdin’s cave for lovers of good food.

Despite only living a short distance away, I had slipped out of the habit of shopping at Beanies. These days our groceries tend to come form a mixture of the supermarket and our local traders in Crookes. In fact, I had slipped out of the habit to the extent that I never even thought about Beanies when trying to track down various ingredients after my favourite deli closed a few years ago. However my memory was jogged when Beanies got mentioned in conversation during my Pastries in a Day course at The Showroom. I decided it was time to pay a return visit.

There is an amazing array of products on offer for such a small space, including lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, spices, grains and some beautiful looking bread. They also had an ingredient which has proved elusive in recent years – fresh yeast. It has to be ordered in, but they supplied me with a small bag with just a couple of ounces of yeast, plenty for some home baking. Lovely. Guess what I’m doing today?

I’m not sure why I neglected Beanies for so long, but I’m sure I’ll be making a return visit quite soon.