Category archive for: Food Supply + Food Security
Back homeElderflower Kefir recipeFizzy Bubblig Kinder Champagne
My packaging shows a slightly more explosive recipe than the one listed below. Last year at this time I got into a bit of a kerfuffle with the local Pole Circle Police regarding the legality of foraging elderflower in the park. Turns out these ill-informed armed guards were under the impressio... Read more
Posted on June 13, 2012 15:37
Elder flower syrup recipe … basic stuff
Elder Flower Syrup Recipe / Basic Stuff (makes 3,5 - 4 liters of syrup) You will need: 5 liter jar 3 kilos sugar plus 1 kilo for later 3 liters water Elderflowers a'plenty, plucked, unwashed, bugs and all The flowers: Fill a 5 liter jar ½ - 2/3 -full with elder flowers. Flowe... Read more
Posted on June 6, 2012 18:36
Spontaneous salads neither sown nor stolen
The lettuces in the DemoGarden haven't even come up, yet this is the sort of salad that we've been eating for the past 3 weeks. All 18 of these vegetables grow spontaneously in our permaculture garden, most of them sown more than 3 years ago. This bouquet-eating abundance is a testament to why w... Read more
Posted on May 6, 2012 21:42
Dear Annet,
Weak, Polar Circle light illuminating a dried pear Thanks for bringing those most tasty and juicy pears to the food co-op last pickup day. We bought 4 kilos and the next day had already eaten an entire kilo! The last 3k we dried because they were threatening to go soft. Just look what they turn... Read more
Posted on November 8, 2011 14:34
The Spore Report
A spore print, probably of an agaricus arvensis. What an exuberant spore print, probably of an agaricus arvensis, or maybe an agaricus campestris, possibly an agaricus bitorquis, or if I'm lucky, an agaricus silvicola. They're all edible. Still, most likely it's a horse mushroom, agaricus arven... Read more
Posted on November 7, 2011 10:16
This weekend:
Massive Dutch protests against the obliteration of cultural funding!
Dutch text below is not a direct translation. Imagine this: you're an internationally recognised Dutch cultural institution of art/design/media culture. You have a substantial collection; media art, landscape art, but also paintings/ sculptures/ installations/ photography/ film/ design object... Read more
Posted on June 25, 2011 14:01
Do AND talk
Some folks are all talk and no do, but this last year, I've been all do and no talk. Apologies for my extended absence and may this post mark a movement towards striking a balance between the two. Foodscape Schilderswijk: kids initiating the planting of the Wellington Hof Plum Orchard In th... Read more
Posted on May 6, 2011 21:32
DIY Mmmmuseum of
Oven Typologies
Our first tamped earth oven lacks some structural-integrity Hey there lovers... of food-system infrastructure, this weekend (June 26 & 27) from 13.00h we will pilot the DIY-Mmmmuseum of Oven Typologies (Dutch acronym is DHZMOT) at Art at the Pool during the Sloterplas Festival in Amsterdam. (Li... Read more
Posted on June 25, 2010 15:35
Late blooming
Pots made with paper from junk mail. Now that all the folks are gone I can start using my window sills again to get the kitchen garden started. Filled with potting compost and seeds. That crazy climate delivered us a bitter and lengthy winter, such that seasonally, we're 6 weeks behind ... Read more
Posted on March 28, 2010 17:49
Slim Pickins winter salad
Heq yeah, we’re hardy!
But not completely; like gardener, like garden. January demonstration of rocket hardiness. While I was back in Northern California complaining that no one heats their homes, here in the Polar Circle the canals had frozen thick. We'd had night frost since the end of November, and until last... Read more
Posted on January 21, 2010 21:28
Myco-blitz, fruiting bodies
Upended and neglected by one animal forager, arranged and shot for identification by another. In order to secure from landslide the steep incline that cups our house, my father planted it full of trees whose main job in life is to become really large. Something like 30 years ago, he introduced ... Read more
Posted on January 19, 2010 0:44
A time to meet,
a time to compost
your jack o’ lantern
Time to Meet jack o' lantern gifted to the UM dinner by Alowieke of Transition Town Utrecht. When Guus Beumer, artistic director of the Utrecht Manifest: Biennial for Social Design, asked me what I would like to contribute to the 2009 edition, I responded with a programme called Ultimate Meetin... Read more
Posted on October 14, 2009 16:31
Not piss poor,
fertilized with pee
Didn't go to the farmers' market this Saturday One of the reasons I gave my Amsterdam kitchen garden the name Slim Pickins was to show that even a postage stamp-sized garden with a relatively little crop could serve up a surprising amount of food. But the real reason was that it had piss poor s... Read more
Posted on September 13, 2009 21:16
Foodscape Schilderswijk,
Den Haag’s CPUF
A scenario for planting espallier-style fruit trees in the Schilderswijk. Illustration by Jacques Abelman. As part of STROOM Den Haag’s (Centre for Art and Architecture) multi-year programme FOODPRINT, I have been commissioned to design a foodscape. Actually I am designing a Continuous Producti... Read more
Posted on September 8, 2009 20:21
Amsterdam Osdorp,
land of milk and honey
Farmer and city slickers assemble in Osdorp On the very westernmost edge of Amsterdam is a living example of rural fantasy, a stone's throw from densely built, urban Osdorp and Geuzenveld/Slotermeer. In preparation for a series of events and future projects in the area, Young Designers & Indust... Read more
Posted on August 20, 2009 21:42
Luxuriating in August’s shaggy garden
I have become that lady who rides around town with bouquets of flowers in her panniers. There's nothing as fine as a soft landing, leaving one garden and falling into the bounty of the other one. Thanks to the generous watering skills of Gabrielle and the plucking skills of Han, the Slim Picki... Read more
Posted on August 13, 2009 16:29
Harvesting lavender
It's been made clear to me that I'm doing this lavender harvesting-thing entirely too late in the season, and that if I had harvested it 2-3 weeks ago it would have been much, much more potent. But it is only now that I have the time and inclination to collect the stuff. Upon my return to the ... Read more
Posted on July 19, 2009 18:32
Speaking of the Future…
how ’bout that market?
Market of the Future poster-child Juli Mata You're probably wondering how the future turned out. Last weekend's was a culmination of the test-phase with FREEHOUSE's de Markt van Morgen / the Market of the Future, in Rotterdam Zuid's Afrikaanderwijk. Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking has been experimenti... Read more
Posted on June 15, 2009 17:45
Rethinking the
Market of the Future
Market folk, people from Rotterdam's Afrikaanderbuurt and artists renew one of the Netherlands' largest open-air markets, the Afrikaandermarkt. My involvement in this mega project is one of the reasons I've written so little in this blog the past year. So much to write about, but no time to writ... Read more
Posted on June 5, 2009 23:35
Slim Pickins
restaurant review
Ground-elder ravioli & goutweed pesto with locally foraged kale flower, spinach and mint Within hours of the posting Slim Pickins was already fully booked. Plagued at its very inception with limited seating, the urban kitchen garden restaurant located on the edge of a raised bed was forced to d... Read more
Posted on May 5, 2009 14:03
Slim Pickins,
the occasional garden restaurant
Slim Pickins garden staff help with the weeding Studio Culiblog is proud to announce the opening this Sunday of it's new minimalist concept restaurant in Amsterdam Noord. Slim Pickins is an outdoor micro-eatery situated on the edge of a raised bed, in an urban kitchen garden, serving up the occ... Read more
Posted on April 21, 2009 23:49
And what will fuel the landscape of the future?
The answers are: the Edible City & Permaculture This week I attended a dinner at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi), smack dab in the exhibition called MAAK ONS LAND, which literally translated means, MAKE OUR LAND but which was translated by the NAi as the hopeful, SHAPE OUR COUNT... Read more
Posted on March 6, 2009 19:42
In Memoriam Sidi El Gouche
Champagne no, socialism Yes. Last week I received the very sad news that my dear friend, Sidi El Gouche, my Occitanian kitchen garden neighbour, has died. It has taken me a long time to get to the point that I could even write this memorial to him because I am just devastated that he is gone. H... Read more
Posted on February 27, 2009 12:49
A happy new year
for the fruit trees
Woodcut for the Jewish arbor day Tu b'Shvat, from the Minhogimbukh Amsterdam 1722, recently adapted by Scott-Martin Kosofsky, image used entirely without permission. There's nothing like a religious calendar sporting multiple 'new years' to remind us that we were once deeply connected to our fo... Read more
Posted on February 10, 2009 15:58
Cheerfully sipping from the
petri dish of life
A symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast (aka SCOBY) fermenting a jar of sweetened tea into a healthy drink called kombucha. Recently my possee and I attended a party at the opening of an Amsterdam design event. Free drinks were flowing because the party was heavily sponsored by a distilled bev... Read more
Posted on February 4, 2009 19:10
Seed optimism
Harvesting purple mustard seeds at midwinter, more than I could ever grow or eat or pickle. Harvesting butternut seeds in the city, if I grew these here, they'd cover the southern façade. Harvesting bee balm seeds at midsummer, for more flowers than the bees need. Flow begets flow. Read more
Posted on January 29, 2009 9:47
Water kefir is like
Fresca for hippies
Water kefir brewing in the weak, mid-winter sun. Maybe it started because all this New Austerity had me peaked to produce bubbles outta thin air. Maybe it's because I just kick on growing stuff, even if that stuff is only a colony of yeast and bacteria. As a whole foods enthusiast and professio... Read more
Posted on January 27, 2009 15:58
Utopia is near
Back in the saddle after a fun and hugely productive work period at the Saint-Étienne Internationale Biënale du Design where I was invited to show the Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking project in the City Eco Lab. John Thackara brought together a burgeoning toolshed of projects that demonstrate how commu... Read more
Posted on December 9, 2008 17:52
Lacto-fermentation, and you?
Fermentation is a correlative of life and of the production of globules, rather than of their death or putrefaction. Also sprach Pasteur... Instead of using ceramic sauerkraut pots, I used my Grams' old Bauerware, covering the shredded/salted cabbage with plates and whatever weighty ma... Read more
Posted on November 10, 2008 1:14
Bumper sticker
My dear friend Carolyn Strauss from Slowlab gifted me up a family heirloom! Now I don't actually own a bumper, nor do I remember how to drive one, but I sure am going to hop on my bike and find a frame for this artifactual finger wag from the Old Country, a quote from American agrarian Wendell B... Read more
Posted on November 7, 2008 1:57
Survival through dehydration
Looks like rat tails and bones. Guess I'm just getting visually prepared for the future! Well if the whole world goes to pot (and not in the good way) at least I will have dehydrated exactly 2 days worth of essential parsley root. And if I keep at it, soon I'll have saved enough celeriac chips ... Read more
Posted on November 4, 2008 20:39
Communauté Choucroute, Community Pickle,
a proposal
Jangdok are onggi or earthen jars storing jang (condiments) such as gochujang (chili pepper condiment), doenjang (soybean paste), ganjang (Korean soy sauce) or kimchi. Image from Save the Dinosaur's photostream and used entirely without permission. The following is a statement about food storag... Read more
Posted on October 30, 2008 16:48
A Kimchi Sunday
Turnip and turnip leaf kimchi in a pool of sauce shaped like the silhouette of a kimchi-lover Community/Communauté Choucroute is one of my proposals at the City Eco Lab in Saint-Étienne for the Design Biennial this November. Designing resilience into urban food systems is essential, and one way... Read more
Posted on October 27, 2008 11:49
The Negev water blog
Graphic description of water discrepancy Put your thumb and index finger together. That hole is the diameter of the incoming water line for an entire village of Bedouin families living in the Negev Desert in Israel. This water doesn't come from the Israeli water grid, because this village, in o... Read more
Posted on September 24, 2008 17:48
Ayn Hawd bread story
At the beginning of my first week in Ayn Hawd, if Noga and I opened our windows just right, we could create a lazy crosswind that would exhale her curtains, just as it inhaled mine. Exhale mine, inhale hers. Slow puffs of curtain with the power to close eyelids. Exhale hers, inhale mine. But ... Read more
Posted on September 2, 2008 23:02
Soft landing in Ayn Hawd
The tickly prickly pears of Ayn Hawd Two days ago I arrived in Ayn Hawd, to start producing my farmer's market installation for the One Land project and Platform Paradise exhibition. In 2004 the Palestinian village of Ayn Hawd received widespread recognition when architect Malkit Shoshan (NL/IL... Read more
Posted on August 23, 2008 14:36
SALSA SALSA!
If you're in or near Los Angeles this Sunday, may I suggest that you spend your entire allotted carbon footprint for the weekend on visiting the Fallen Fruit art collective's summer harvest event SALSA SALSA. There you can make and taste tomato salsas while listening and dancing to salsa music. ... Read more
Posted on August 13, 2008 11:07
An urban vegetarian in the land of meat
Mauve and merveilleuse, the house terrine "In the city she's a vegetarian, but here in the country, she puts entire pigs in her body!" And sheep. And geese. And this is how my dear friends describe me, as an urban vegetarian. Each day on my way down to the kitchen garden, I ride past a... Read more
Posted on August 10, 2008 11:26
Desertification
But before there was desertification, there was humidification. A path sketched through the bergamot. This is a painful entry for me to write because I'm suffering from a garden identity crisis. I started out this morning wanting to say something about the humidifying effect of planting green m... Read more
Posted on July 29, 2008 12:56
Butternut Brutalism
Upon returning to the new kitchen garden the next day, I felt that the parcel along the fence just wasn't speaking to me and I traded her in for the plot next door. Giddy with the even newer digs, I noticed what I had failed to see the day before, namely, useful in-situ building materials, in th... Read more
Posted on July 1, 2008 13:19
New digs in the polder circle
As of yesterday I became a multinational allotment holder. These are my new digs at Amsterdam Noord, a 7 minute bike ride from my flat, a 3 minute ferry ride from the mainland, and 4 steps off the ferry. Although the parcel seems to have some extreme shade, soil compaction and charm issues, th... Read more
Posted on June 26, 2008 14:44
A F.A.S.T. food market
Gifted organic olive oil and za'atar from Ein Hud, an unrecognised village in Israel Sustainability issues aren't only about green, sometimes they're even more fundamental than that. Food and food systems are an integral part of that story because food and agricultural policy is commonly used f... Read more
Posted on May 27, 2008 0:23
Rampsterdamned
Culiblog author caught plucking and nibbling in an abundant field of ramps in Amsterdam I'm a bad to the bone, flower plucking, fruit stealing, mushroom picking, herb snatcher that simply cannot walk by food growing in the public space without tucking in and filling my basket. And I wish that m... Read more
Posted on May 12, 2008 13:42
Turnip green & pumpkin
ohitashi style sushi
Rescued from the bin: forgotten vegetables transformed into a memorable vegan sushi 40% of all produce is wasted on the route from field to fork. The number is actually more like 60% and it's easy to understand how the waste becomes heavier if we buy industrially produced food from far away pla... Read more
Posted on April 17, 2008 11:35
In situ
Seitan innovation
Dutch Seitan Designers at workshop Last Sunday was the final day of Platform 21's Cooking and Constructing exhibition, and amidst the fiery debate and seitan design workshop, no one expected that any true innovation would take place. But due to the emphasis on show and do, I had to rush through... Read more
Posted on April 3, 2008 20:53
Permaculture active
Leafy greens foraged from under the brush This year the Occitanian kitchen garden is very different than it was last year at the same time. The winter's thorough frost followed by a long wet spell has killed all 5 of my chokes and most of what I had been treating as perennial loose-leaf brassic... Read more
Posted on March 4, 2008 13:38
Homegrown
Sprouted sunflower seeds in the dead of winter Read more
Posted on February 15, 2008 20:43
Bone marrow
Roasted cow bone right out of the oven. Maybe it's because I was sick with flu for the past 2 months and had no appetite. Maybe because bone marrow used to be considered a restorative food for ill people. Maybe because yesterday, going to and from yoga practice, I just wore 2 pairs of sweats un... Read more
Posted on January 30, 2008 4:14
Subjective Atlas of Palestine
and also of food
Just another beautiful picture of Palestine by Majdi Hadid, used entirely without permission Say 'Palestine' and the first thing that pops into your head probably isn't an image of undulating hills speckled with date palm oases and creased with a babbling brook, or an image of lush olive orchar... Read more
Posted on January 13, 2008 20:37
Harvesting rhubarb by candlelight
Of the BBC's 100 unexpected facts that we didn't know last year I've edited the list to include only the 13 food-related facts. Apparently harvesting rhubarb by candlelight is a way to preserve even more rhubarb flavour. Because 2008 is a year for pumping up the volume, I have decided to make... Read more
Posted on January 4, 2008 12:05
Photographs of consumerism
Chicago, IL 2003, photograph by Brian Ulrich, used entirely without permission (winner of the Photolucida, Critical Mass Top 50, in 2005) Granger, IN 2003, photograph by Brian Ulrich, used entirely without permission (winner of the Photolucida, Critical Mass Top 50, in 2005) Brian Ulrich... Read more
Posted on December 1, 2007 20:39
Food-related film at the IDFA 2007
My IDFA
This is my viewing schedule for this year's IDFA (Int'l Documentary Festival Amsterdam). If you're here in Amsterdam, let's meet up and chew the fat about all the good stuff we've been watching. Friday, Nov 23 14.15 Tuschinski 2 Dutch Cocaine Factory Dutch Cocaine Factory sweeps us into... Read more
Posted on November 23, 2007 14:17
Consumer trends 2008
Taped to the door of Rotterdam’s most charming North African bakery Fes, there is an update of the global commodities price for cereals and sugar. Bakery Fes situated in the Afrikaanderbuurt, a neighbourhood on the lift and the owners of Fes find it important to offer their clientele an explan... Read more
Posted on November 12, 2007 15:33
How stuff is made, even the food kind of stuff
Techno artist and design engineer Natalie Jeremijenko, in Amsterdam last Friday presenting at the STIFO/Sandberg workshop showed us a wiki site where her NYU students were sharing information about how common products are made. Among the foodstuffs, shrimp, fortune cookies and eau de vie. For e... Read more
Posted on November 5, 2007 1:52
Water, pure thyself
Trickle-down theory, solar disinfection water purifier by Herman Lijmbach, image used with permission Gawd knows I'm a sucker for water purification, so even though there was a goodly handful of other wonderful work and pretty thingy-thingies at the Design Academy Eindhoven's graduation show la... Read more
Posted on October 23, 2007 16:55
Foraging with Fred
He'd warned me already we were five days too early, and the mushrooms we kept smelling were underground and still spores. So we changed our tack and switched focus to chestnuts, foraging two half-loaded baskets between us, out of the mouths of boars. (Who are real pigs by the way.) Read more
Posted on October 9, 2007 1:17
Birthday Cake ultra-lite
When you've inhaled enough buttercream for one life... So would your life be any less fab if you never ate birthday cake again? What is worth more, satisfying 1000 desires or learning to control just one? Birthday boy John B. & buddy Betty D. & basking cake In lieu of the same 'ol same... Read more
Posted on August 9, 2007 15:15
Made in Transit,
growing food
in a waste of time
Mushrooms of the future are grown in situ in transit When it comes to the food supply, there's a lot of waste to go around. Agata Jaworska, a recent masters graduate from the Design Academy Eindhoven, has designed a way to use the time and space associated with transportation to grow fresh prod... Read more
Posted on July 10, 2007 16:43
Controversial snacks and mild-mannered symposium
Wandering Banquet's wheat meat piéce montée was not just another secret ingredient. You hear me talkin'? Dutch fire marshalls the world over will be unhappy to read that last Friday's Food, Art and Science symposium at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht was filled way beyond capacity. Lab meat is a... Read more
Posted on July 7, 2007 12:58
Superused food,
2012 Architects host
a freegan dinner
Freegan designers trapped in a 2012 iPod ad. Normally when architects invite you to dinner they don't advertise that they're planning on serving you trash. Completely unbound by convention, 2012 Architects held a freegan dinner last night and were rather loose-lipped about the fact that they di... Read more
Posted on July 4, 2007 14:20
Lab meating Friday
food, art & science
snacks & symposium
Listen up, why am I pink? Tissue Culture and Art's Extra Ear 1/4 Scale, used entirely without permission As part of the exhibition Genesis, The Art & Genomics Centre at the University of Leiden, in sweet collaboration with the Centraal Museum in Utrecht have organised a symposium on the subject... Read more
Posted on June 28, 2007 12:03
Exhibition the Edible City
at the NAi-M closes
The Edible City exhibition at the NAi-M (the Netherlands Architecture Institute) has finally come to a close. Showing more than 40 architectural, design and urban planning projects, the exhibition was about food systems and the urban environment. There was a time when city-dwellers could more or... Read more
Posted on June 27, 2007 15:09
Butternut Update
week 24
What, you don't like my hand job? Some might call it karmic justice, but I think that I have homosexual butternut squash growing in my living room. Not that there's anything wrong with that and maybe we can chalk it up to to the fact that I can't tell the difference between the male and female ... Read more
Posted on June 18, 2007 13:04
Butternut Update
week 23
The first butternut squash flower in full bloom This week the butternut squash settled into their new mid-living room location and I started to wonder about their lack of contact with actual sunshine. I always thought of my house as light-filled, especially during the 8 month-long Dutch winter,... Read more
Posted on June 11, 2007 12:19
Capture the yeast within
That's a chopstick for stirring, not a straw for slurping. My girlbud and twisted lifecoach K'tje has been baking bread for hoards of guests and is in desperate need of yeast. Fresh yeast. Down in Occitania it seems that many a masterbaker is in fact a boulanger truqué. Dang faker bakers don'... Read more
Posted on June 5, 2007 21:21
Glutinous Maximus,
Grow yer own dang protein!
It may be beige, but it sure is some good eatin'... There are days when in one go, we can be inspired enough to shrug off one hella lotta ballast of preconceived notion. Last night was one of those days, when in an ad hoc workshop at the cooking studio of Marlein and Inez, Tomoko taught us to e... Read more
Posted on June 2, 2007 13:12
Edible Estates breaking ground in London
Butternut squash and nasturtiums about to go vertical Looking to get your hands dirty in London this weekend? Edible estate agent Fritz Haeg will be breaking ground on his 4th edible estate, this time in collaboration with the Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) and commissioned by the Tate Moder... Read more
Posted on May 26, 2007 12:43
The Future of Food
A molecular gastronomic cocktail served at yet another 'future of food' event last week in Amsterdam The next two days I'll be venturing even farther into the Polar Circle to speak at the Poker Club and visit the Six Cities Design Festival. I'll be speaking with Dr. Peter Barham (who will hopef... Read more
Posted on May 21, 2007 9:16
Dike break at sunset
Each time I leave my Occitanian kitchen garden to go back to the Polar Circle, my neighbour Sidi ElGouche agrees to water for me a few times a week. Although he just has to divert the pipe between our allotments, let 'er rip and redivert once my garden has had a good soaking, it's a generous ges... Read more
Posted on May 16, 2007 14:28
Monument of Sugar
Secretly snapped photo of the installation Monument, now on exhibit at the Palais de Tokyo Monument en Sucre is an installation by artists van Brummelen & de Haan documenting an artist attempt to avoid European sugar tariffs by re-importing European sugar dumped in Nigeria back into Europe as a... Read more
Posted on May 9, 2007 13:24
Inadvertent
seed collecting
Nothing going on here... In December a flood swept my vertical gardening experiment clean. The entire wall of calabash was washed away. A tragedy, although that was the extent of the damage and thankfully I'm not a vertical calabash farmer. A close inspection of the dirt revealed that I still h... Read more
Posted on March 27, 2007 9:15
Left leaves
Author with 36-point fresh kill Yesterday it occured to me that it's only because the garden was neglected for such a long time that we're able to enjoy these spring flower salads and everything-but-the-squeal brassica eating experiences. The romanesca shown above was at one time a compact lig... Read more
Posted on March 25, 2007 11:08
Doors 9 JUICE reports:
Delhi’s Sabzi Mandi
That's vegetable market to me and you. At the crack of dawn, dodging raindrops the size of wild peaches, a small delegation from the Doors9:JUICE urban agriculture workshop heads out for a reconnoitre of Delhi's Sabzi Mandi, the wholesale vegetable market off Mehrauli-Gurgaon Rd. Through a haz... Read more
Posted on March 15, 2007 12:15
Food supplements
In Ayanagar Village on the outskirts of sprawling Delhi, the urban agriculture workshoppers accidentally stumble upon a food supplement store. A result of the Green Revolution? Read more
Posted on March 12, 2007 15:07
The Edible City
For the past few months, together with colleagues Hans Ibelings and Anneke Moors, I have been curating an exhibtion for the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Maastricht titled the Edible City. The exhibition is about the urban environment and its food systems. There was a time when city-dwel... Read more
Posted on February 26, 2007 2:26
Wild Fermentation
My friend Anita Lozinska made these pickles last summer in Poland, where they know a thing or two about pickle making. These are perfect pickles. A few weeks ago, a friend asked me if I believed in the theory that we should eat foods according to our blood and body types, according to our ethni... Read more
Posted on February 12, 2007 20:28
Foodmiles design competition winners win some JUICE
Image of judging panel used with non-tacit permission Tuesday, one week ago today was devoted to a most ironic activity. I swam back and forth to London to jury the shortlisted entries of an international competition to find design solutions to the problem of foodmiles. And by swam, I mean fle... Read more
Posted on February 6, 2007 13:18
DOTT07
(Designs of the time)
Urban Farming
Urban regeneration, edible grow zones, kitchen playgrounds and town meals In many communities fresh fruit and vegetables are hard to source and expensive. There's little awareness of local food production, the possibility of growing your own and next to no supply chain for existing producers ... Read more
Posted on January 27, 2007 9:25
Industrial yet green
Sunflower roots make a stab at world take-over There's something about the Montessori School poster-child in me that loves a good self-diagnosed field trip. I can never be too busy or have too many double-booked days to find time for some on-topic hookie, leaving the warm and productive nest th... Read more
Posted on January 17, 2007 15:31
The amazing
Sprout (loves) Ikebana
contest
Choreographer Martin Butler's winning entry for the category, 'Fleugalité (bamboo leaf, sango sprouts, rock chives, pea shoots) The amazing Sprout (loves) Ikebana contest was carried out in honour of chef de cuisine Tal Amitai, who was not able to be with us this last week due to the loss of hi... Read more
Posted on January 10, 2007 13:02
Sprouts love ikebana
My neighbours won the 2007 Sprouts Love Ikebana competition for the categories: 6 and under, 5 and under From more than 300 images of the sprouts love ikebana competition this weekend at the Grow Yer Own Dang Food sprout restaurant, these are the first, last and middle ones. We had winners in m... Read more
Posted on January 9, 2007 1:55
Dang Freegans, eatin’ our trash, stealin’ our women
See what I mean? Used entirely with permission Actually, Freegans don't so much steal our women as eat our trash. And, not so much our trash, but perfectly edible food and produce that shops and restaurants end up throwing away because the products have passed their sell-by dates. As of tod... Read more
Posted on January 1, 2007 2:39
Terroir of the ‘burbs
Encountering a stand of claytonia perfoliata during the morning constitutional So it's not like my folks ever said, 'Find yer own dang food!' it's just that I've always really enjoyed foraging. In fact it's their own dang fault since identifying plants, particularly the native and poisonous was... Read more
Posted on December 19, 2006 7:22
Sprout Salon Tonight promises to be parfumistic
Culiblog covergirl Iva Supic loves her up some sprouts While in another part of the world a loved one mourns the loss of a loved one, pouring over every verse of the Quran en famille, here in the Polar Circle it rains, blows and pours and we narrowly avert a Sprout War. Now that the dust has... Read more
Posted on December 15, 2006 10:38
Vermin, varmints and my neighbour who votes incorrectly
Paros major morbidus, deader than a doornail. For friends and fambly who received a frantic email, text or who coached me on the phone this morning, here's an update: - All dead and feathered animals have been removed from the premises. - Chernobylicals have been applied to discourage ... Read more
Posted on November 24, 2006 21:01
Food-related film at the IDFA
You would be wise to print this simultaneously with the programme of the Shadow Festival if you want to plan your days and nights between the 21st of November and the 3rd of December 2006. 22 films in this year's the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) are food-related. 3 of th... Read more
Posted on November 20, 2006 7:40
A sprouting lesson:
you’ve already got
what it takes
Counter-top sprouting installation chez culiblog When I remind my guests at the Grow Yer Own Dang Food micro-green cuisine concept restaurant that eating seasonal, local food is one of the most revolutionary actions that you can take against petrol consumption, right fists usually fly straight ... Read more
Posted on November 18, 2006 23:47
Micro-green restaurant officially open
Jeanette likes sprouts because they're seed-related Roqn-ass opening btw. Merveilleuse! The dear friends showed up, the food was devoured, folks asked for seconds (and got them without a wince) we danced our tocheses off until 4ish and the whole thing ended sloppily with bottles of bubbles (cav... Read more
Posted on November 4, 2006 18:56
Grow yer own dang food
Radish and leek sprouts in the low-angled polar sun FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 3, Restaurant prototype to open Grow Yer Own Dang Food, micro-green cuisine A restaurant devoted to sprouted seeds and micro-greens could only be called a Sproutstaurant. And at a Sproutstaurant one eats,... Read more
Posted on October 29, 2006 15:47
More mushroom foraging and gloating
In the woods near Amsterdam, culiblog covergirl Marlein O. takes a break from mushroom hunting to relax into a moss covered chaise and carve at a piece of clove-studded cheese. Just one hour into the hunt, and the basket is half-full. Back home we marvel at the abundant harvest. Let the ... Read more
Posted on October 21, 2006 20:17
South Central Farmers
urban agriculture
North American style
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 ... Read more
Posted on October 17, 2006 16:22
Get the vault out:
Vote for la Voute!
Image courtesy of La Voute Nubienne. What does nubian vaulted architecture have to do with food culture? It's a stretch, but suffice it to say that good cookin' and eatin' requires stable communities and a stable kitchens requires a stable roof. My buddies at La Voute Nubienne are among the 13 ... Read more
Posted on October 6, 2006 8:13
Meat meeting tonight
Image of First Nations Sioux ladies drying meat used entirely without permission. That should read meat fight tonight! If you're interested in the meat industry and are currently in Amsterdam, you're not going to want to miss tonight's Cross-thinking about Sustainability - Rethinking the Global... Read more
Posted on October 5, 2006 13:37
Got confusion about the nature of natural food?
This block print from Masanobu Fukuoka's 'One Straw Revolution' is used entirely without permission. This is what I'm re-reading right now and I'd like to share it. Here is a short quote from Masanobu Fukuoka's One Straw Revolution. It should definitely be on the reading list for anyone interes... Read more
Posted on October 1, 2006 3:33
Got a cutting-edge food-related project?
A Delhi street kitchen doing booming business The deadline for the DOORS OF PERCEPTION 9 conference on “JUICE†(FOOD, FUEL, DESIGN) has been extended until September 30, 2006. If you think your project should be included in this event, please put your nose to the grindstone forthwith. Any q... Read more
Posted on September 18, 2006 15:23
The issue of financial gain with regard to an allotment
My neighbour Sidi ElGouche is smokin' again. Yesterday my dear colleague (from the Dott07 CityFarming project) posed the very good question of how much one could earn from one's kitchen garden. Apparently he had read two disparate studies and the numbers varied ten-fold as to what a garden allo... Read more
Posted on September 5, 2006 15:41
Inside the secret gardens of our culinary elite
Photograph of photographs of Terrance Conran and his cabbages by Peter Dench at Telegraph Magazine Last Saturday's Telegraph Magazine reported on the kitchen gardens of twenty-three of England's most 'reknowned' 'cooks'. From several versions of elaborate kitchen gardens, to modest collectio... Read more
Posted on August 19, 2006 12:22
Soy story: food subculture club visits an exhibiton of Romanian otaku culture
An array of Romanian textured soy products What could be more obvious than the fact that the noble soybean, or rather, the humble hunk of textured soy and contemporary Romanian otaku culture are inextricably linked. You already knew that, right? About one month ago, Mediamatic hosted a most ... Read more
Posted on July 9, 2006 18:13
CPULs when bad acronyms happen to good people
It's pronounced 'SEE, PULSE' and stands for Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes. Architects Viljoen, Bohn and Howe's positively radical notion of combining productive urban landscapes with continuous landscapes, proposes a new urban design strategy that would change the appearance of contempo... Read more
Posted on June 9, 2006 13:51
Grow yer own dang biomass inadvertently
Way back in January, and then again in March, and again in April and May, I had big plans for my kitchen garden. Big and neat. Knowing that I would have to return from Occitania to the Polar Circle for gainful employment, I alphabetized my seed beds and planted sticks for beans and gourds to cli... Read more
Posted on June 7, 2006 15:06
Joe’s Fish Net in Newcastle
The ladies of Joe's Fish Net This last week I was in Newcastle to meet up with the old and new folks from Dott 07 (Designs of the Time). As part of our getting aquainted with the area we were asked to do some directed wandering and meet some people outside of Newcastle's shiny centre. I wandered i... Read more
Posted on May 21, 2006 23:18
Kitchen garden before Ice Saints
My kitchen garden on the 27th of April Some people grow up with socialist folk songs, others grow up with Catholic weather knowledge. Until now, I'd never even heard about Ice Saints, but that was before I had a kitchen garden. Ice Saints refers to the 11th, 12th, and 13th May, the feast days o... Read more
Posted on May 2, 2006 13:49
Urban gardening lessons for Dutch children
On an island in Amsterdam's Westerpark, a horizontal grid of 1m2 garden plots are being prepared for the children. The sign says that around 500 children will receive weekly education about nature and the environment on these plots. Although this garden grid offers an extreme image of mini-allotme... Read more
Posted on April 21, 2006 7:13
Episode 1, emergency food distribution and the role of the cameras
This entry refers to food distribution as discussed in yesterday's entry about the World Food Programme's computer game, Food Force. video still from Episode 1, © Renzo Martens In January 2004, Dutch artist Renzo Martens produced his forty-four minute art film, Episode 1, a documentation of... Read more
Posted on March 19, 2006 11:17
Food Force computer game: force-feeding inaccurate notions of the causes of hunger
images courtesy of Food Force, © United Nations World Food Programme - all rights reserved Two weeks ago I sat dumbfounded watching a French TV report in which journalism students practiced reporting a fictional national emergency. I couldn't help but think that what's cool about practice ... Read more
Posted on March 17, 2006 18:26
Yesterday’s news: anti-advertgames
"Making money in a corporation like McDonald's is not simple at all. Behind every sandwich there is a complex process you must learn to manage: from the creation of pastures to the slaughter, from the restaurant management to the branding. You'll discover all the dirty secrets that made us one of ... Read more
Posted on February 3, 2006 9:21
Grow yer own dang food
(part 1)
Image of sprouting bread courtesy of Cygalle Shapiro Back in the eighties, as a student at the University California at Santa Cruz, I lived in a vegetarian commune with a bunch of hippies. As hippies, we produced our own sprouts, yoghurt and salsa fresca for the entire commune, approximately th... Read more
Posted on January 30, 2006 11:52
Rural design conference scheduled for September 2006
(above: Wheatfield, a large public work by Agnes Denes, image copyright Agnes Denes) Chapeau to John Thackara at the Doors of Perception blog who reports today about a rural design conference scheduled to take place September 4-7 2006 (somewhere) in the UK. Just have a look at what's being develop... Read more
Posted on January 21, 2006 11:47
Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estates
homesteading on the suburban lawn
Start with one suburban home in Middle America (images of Salina Kansas Edible Estate © Fritz Haeg, used entirely with permission) Situated on what was once a massive sugar beet plantation, the iconic housing development of Lakewood is an embodiment of an American Dream in which each single-fa... Read more
Posted on September 26, 2005 12:34
French disaster relief local food challenge
I should have cancelled heading up north last Wednesday morning when by 6 a.m. I had already made my way across two rivers, almost ruining the treasured Martin Margiëla heels! The bus ride down to Montpellier was spectacular, spectacular meaning that there's something in the scene that can kill y... Read more
Posted on September 10, 2005 11:43
Fallen Fruit
Red apples on the left, yellow apples on the right. All of the apples were going to waste. As a fan of food foraging and fruit stealing, and as a woman who had never bought fruit except for bananas, mangos and the occasional avocado until she moved up North to the Polar Circle, I applaud the Fa... Read more
Posted on May 7, 2005 1:58
