Lady seeks mushroom
October 18, 2006
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Dang if foraging for food doesn’t make us giddy! The days don’t get too much better than this…
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Not particularly edible, but there was coral growing out of the forest floor that looked like cartoon flames.
Marlein is sharing big treasures, secret spots in the woods where the tasty mushrooms grow. It’s late in the season, but the Polar Circle is enjoying oddly glorious weather. We don our amazing mushroom hunting outfits (pourquoi non?) which of course include big bags with floral motifs and large skirts for holding booty of some sort or another. We’re hoping for boletes but practically trip over the chestnuts the moment we set out. They’re falling all around us, as soon as you pick one up, a big pod rains down and spills out another two.
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Dazzling phosphorescent blue mould along the edges!
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An elfin lounge.
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The least conventionally edible mushroom of the day…
When we spotted this perfect amanita muscaria, I got so excited that I actually let out an uninhibited squeal of joy. Considering our trespassing and entirely unsanctioned foraging, this was kind of hilarious in and of itself, like a burglar getting the giggles. Promise to keep it down next time.
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In the most designed country in the world… the moss was like padding on yak felt, 30 cm thick.
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Heads up. Or down.
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A perfect baby boléetje.
Find yer own dang food.
It’s growing all around you.
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South Central Farmers
urban agriculture
North American style
October 17, 2006
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Image courtesy of South Central Farmers
Urban agriculture in North America is still only an occasional cultural novelty or, in the case of the recently bull-dozed South Central Farms, an inconvenience whose value goes unrecognized. Los Angeles once housed the largest concentration of vineyards in the country and was the capital of US citrus production until the population boom and subsequent Water Wars of the 1920s. When the population of Los Angeles County rose by nearly 50 percent in the 1950s, it commenced rezoning 3,000 acres of farmland a day. In 1969 agricultural land use in the LA basin had dropped to 20%. Los Angeles, once a fertile flood plain dappled with low chaparral, is now a smog-producing pizza oven, covered by 90% with buildings and pavement.
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Image courtesy of South Central Farmers
In the middle of South Central Los Angeles, amidst a grid of streets, train tracks and warehouses there was until very recently a 14 acre community farm that provided food for 350 low-income families. These urban farmers grew their own food, held Farmer’s Markets, festivals and cultural events that were well attended and enjoyed by the general public. In 1992 the City of Los Angeles designated the 14-acre site for use as a community garden and later collaborated on the operations with the LA Regional Foodbank.
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Image courtesy of South Central Farmers
Due to a series of dastardly real estate deals between 1995 and 2003, the narrative of which would seem more at home in a comic strip resplendent with cape-wearing evil villains slash land developers, the City was hounded and eventually honoured a bid to sell the property to a local investment company for more than $ 5 million. Although South Central Farms was functioning in an exemplary fashion, feeding families, providing much needed urban green and as a centre of local culture, the City Council agreed in closed session to sell the farm in August 2003. 3 years of protest and court battles ensued and in the summer of 2006 the farmers were forcibly evicted and the farm was bull-dozed flat.
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Image courtesy of South Central Farmers
South Central’s farmers are still fighting the validity of the sale of their farm in court and in the media with support from high-profile media-folk like Joan Baez, Darryl Hannah, Ralph Nader, Danny Glover, ‘Flea’ from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Willie Nelson. La puebla unida, jamás será vencida / The people united, will never be defeated!
South Central Farms is believed to have been one of the largest urban farms in the US.
Presently the City of Los Angeles has allocated only half of the original 14 acres at an alternate site. Although some of South Central’s farmers have relocated and begun cultivation, only 3 acres, located under high voltage power lines, have been made available to them. It’s not over yet…
South Central Farm, South Central Farmers
1992 – 2006 Los Angeles, California
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Eat at a brothel during
Dutch Design Week
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Photo: Gero Asmuth, hot guy: Erasmus. Image courtesy of la Bolleur designer-initiators Jannink, vdHijden and vVugt and used entirely with permission.
Design Academy Eindhoven students Timon van der Hijden, Zowie Jannink and Steie van Vugt have transformed the former brothel, La Bolleur into a restaurant for Dutch Design Week. Instead of reserving a table, guests will be given a room in the FORMER BROTHEL, which I must say is really interesting from a purely cultural relativist point of view.
One year ago when the lads had just squatted I mean gained access to the building, I was fortunate to get an extensive tour of the premises. Gossip will have it that the top floor used to be called the Philips Board Room! I have to admit to being rather impressed with the brothel’s focus on functional design. Where as I wouldn’t describe the interior as wheel-chair friendly, there did seem to be quite a lot of handles and rails to hang onto, rendering losing one’s balance nearly impossible. Good thinking!
Doing up a brothel into a fully-functioning restaurant is a snap when you can apply ad-hocist principles to the building’s infrastructure. ‘Eating’ in a blackened backroom may be nothing new, but what is a sauna if not a very large vegetable steamer? And what is a jacuzzi other than one huge possibility for making soup? The menu includes only the room names, and my curiousity is piqued inordinantly by the room titled ‘Golden Delicious’. Yay! Apple month at la Bolleur!
Expect everything the boys say. And in the name of Design, is there anything sexier than that?
- The restaurant is open during the Dutch Design Week 21 - 29 October, 2006, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
For reservations go to www.labolleur.com
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