Polly Baldwin Talking about the power of food - Pecha Kucha Manchester

Earlier this year, I was invited to talk at Pecha Kucha in Manchester. The topic for the evening was 'Food'. It was a nourishing evening that brought together a community of people to laugh, cry, and feel something collectively about the thing we all have in common.

I was a little afraid of how I would compress the power of my thirty-minute keynote into just six short minutes using the rhythm of 20 slides chatting for just 20 seconds each. I nearly pulled out a couple of times, but I am so glad I stuck with it.

My work at Jolly Allotment is all about food as nourishment, What I didn’t expect from this evening was the nourishment I would feel from those few precious hours in a room full of interesting folk listening and laughing with many incredible speakers just talking about food.

Here is a little video of my 6 minutes. Please note that the brilliant talk before mine by Milo Fletcher was all about Greggs the baker, how good it was, and which one is best to visit. If you know me, you will realise I wholeheartedly disagree with the value of Greggs to the world, but it was fun to follow, and I thank the Manchester audience for kindly listening and humouring me.

Thank you to the @PechaKucha Night Manchester team for having me and this incredible lineup of good people! I took something from every talk.

Some of the talks are still in my mind months later. It is always wonderful to listen to the ' With Love Studio ' boys, ( Rob Evans & Chris Roberts) it was lovely to meet them in person. In many ways, the people in their first book inspired my journey, creating The Jolly Trolly, our festival food truck.

Corin Bell, of the inspirational Open Kitchen Manchester, blew my mind with her powerful, knowledgeable, and refreshingly frank take on food banks, food waste, and why we need to change the system.

It was funny to follow on from the fabulous Milo Fletcher , whose hilarious talk was all about his lockdown pilgrimage to find the best Greggs baker. I wasn't sure how my talk on food would go down after such a good sell for baige bakes from Milo.

We don’t have to be eating food to feel its power. It can heal us in so many ways, not least by the gathering of community and conversations. A thought provoking evening full of belly laughs and kindness.

Thanks to Fiona Finchett for the incredible pictures of me chatting. It is always so valuable to get good photographs. For Natasha Howard for filming me even though its taken a while to bare watching it back!

The power of food to nourish the body, mind, and soul is at the forefront of everything we do at Jolly Allotment. Whether it be our corporate away days, school workshops, festival food truck or retreat days or supper clubs. Food and its many ways of nourishing humans are at our core. So it was so good to listen to so many others who make this their mission too!

Thanks to all theses lush humans
Kyle Soo, Louise Harman , Lovish Saini
for organising & inviting me!

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