Category archive for: Sustainability
Back homeSpontaneous 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
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
Phytoremediation at ARCAM
The shipwreck
contains the ship
The Shipwreck Contains the Ship, Urbaniahoeve installation at ARCAM in conjunction with Farming the City Saturday 7 May at 16.00h, is the closing event of the Farming the City exhibition at ARCAM. URBANIAHOEVE's phytoremediation installation on ARCAM island, titled 'The Shipwreck' will be dism... Read more
Posted on May 6, 2011 23:09
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 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
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
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
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
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
Permaculture *relaxtivist
A thicket of rocket growing in the irrigation canals and dried mulch rotting on the beds. Relaxed permaculture is what I've decided to call this gardening technique, tailor-tuned to my garden and me. One of the principles of permaculture is to keep the ground covered at all times with either pl... Read more
Posted on January 12, 2009 14:56
Permaculture in the Winter Kitchen Garden
'Felting' the leggy bergamot mint now lining the canals into a fragrant mat of living mulch A missed flight back up to the Polar Circle from St. Etienne presented me the opportunity of a few days down south. I took the time to enjoy some rejuvenating familialarity and to tidy up the garden for ... Read more
Posted on December 11, 2008 13:26
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
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
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
Biomass revisited
A travel arrangement for seedlings Some days ago I filled my tiny travel trolley 75% with winter veg seedlings leftover from the raised beds up in the Polar Circle, and left the Land of the Pitiful Sun to return to the Occitanian kitchen garden. While the unpractical but pretty summer dresses &... Read more
Posted on July 20, 2008 14:09
Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking
Local sk8r boi enjoys the coconut cassava bonbon with newly aromatic herring. In the past year I've been working with community food entrepreneurs; cooking studios, restaurants, small food stores, and local vegetable growers strengthening networks to innovate snacks that could be sold locally. ... Read more
Posted on June 19, 2008 22:33
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
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
Glutinous Maximus II,
Seitanic Lab Meat recipe
Loaves of Seitan during steaming process Like the soybean, like bread, like fish, like wine, like salt, seitan is part of the utopian food group, foods laden with morality, infused with ritual, oozing with culture, drowning in history. Seitan is desperately in need of appropriation from its ass... Read more
Posted on March 28, 2008 17:59
Cover up
This is an image of my neighbour's field after he managed to scrape off every smidgeon of organic material. The word 'Dust Bowl' comes to mind. Same windy day, one field over, my little allotment is the picture of extra-crunchy soil health. Even though it's looking pretty bare compared to ... Read more
Posted on March 18, 2008 1:43
Local warming
Potager au feu. The lower bit of the Occitanian kitchen garden is clearly a chic-free zone. Burn marks indicate the size of the original fire. Yesterday in the lower garden I made an enormous fire. It was the first time in my life I was able to get it going in one go, normally it can take me th... Read more
Posted on March 5, 2008 12:14
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
Chanukkah, the fesitval of
using oil responsibly
This Dutch snackbar certification sign says, 'Heq yes, we fry responsibly. We use liquid fryer fat and we follow the rules of responsible frying.' This year I decided to celebrate Chanukkah. Probably it's because the past 4 months during the renovation of my home I've been so homesick that the ... Read more
Posted on December 8, 2007 2:00
I wanna French my USB wine
Heq yeah, USB wine is real. Read more
Posted on December 6, 2007 2:38
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
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
The neglected autumnal
kitchen garden
Prolific biomass obscuring the cabane After 6 months of neglect, I returned to the Occitanian kitchen garden to find that in my absence it had produced 400 cubic metres of exuberant biomass. In the upper garden the cabane was completely obscured by a thicket of weeds and I'm not even emotionall... Read more
Posted on October 5, 2007 16:52
Whose bread I eat,
his song I sing
Euroforum's Foodservice Congress 2007 was held in conjunction with the FRESH food trade fair in Rotterdam. A lavish display of fruits. With increasing frequency I've been attending expert meetings, symposia and congresses relating to the food industry. More and more these points of contact with... Read more
Posted on September 19, 2007 14:19
Annual “oregano” harvest
The family that bags trim together, stays together Back from the cloistered life that is a yoga retreat I am welcomed with images of the fambly's summer harvest. Behold my completely blissed-out Mom multi-tasking. She insists that the homegrown herb she's trimming is "oregano" and that she's li... Read more
Posted on August 22, 2007 19:47
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
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
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
A yogic diet is not for me
My Aunties preparing an oddly sattvic picnic for our family in Paris' Jardin de Luxembourg It's slightly troubling to learn that my ancestral diet and a yogic or sattvic diet have little in common. I'm a lover of leafy greens, an initator of a sprout restaurant and I've been known to be inordin... Read more
Posted on May 18, 2007 19:17
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
Spring salad bouquet
After 6 months of neglect and a rather substantial flood, I really didn't expect to find much in the Occitanian kitchen garden. But in fact, we will have trouble eating our way through the sheer amount of over the top, beautifully bolted brassicas, flowering mizuna and rucola, brussels sprouts a... Read more
Posted on March 22, 2007 12:18
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
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
Compost heaps of the rich and famous
The Seyferth house sports a compost heap! Well, at least of the famous. This is a shot of a compost heap in the back of the in-process home being built by designer/architect Christoph Seyferth. Although the house isn't even finished, I was pleased to see that the happening kitchen infrastructur... Read more
Posted on December 14, 2006 14:45
Cooking with supermodels
Kitchen Princess Erga always wears herbs, Seattle Public Library carpet by Petra Blaisse Maybe it's the phermones, maybe it's the new varieites of sprouts, (fennel, coreander, sunflower and pea shoots to name a few) but it seems that everything just keeps getting more beautiful at the Grow Yer ... Read more
Posted on December 1, 2006 10:33
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
One of the perks of permaculture
Purple basil seed heads bowing down to the ground, they may re-seed at any moment. Inondation! K'tje tells me that tout le monde has been suffering terribly with the flooding of the allotments down in Gawd's Own Country. My feeling is, since my garden is situated in a flood plain, it's reasonab... Read more
Posted on October 24, 2006 23:58
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
Shana tova
Get a gander at the cool card I got from my friends Liora and Carlos. 'My First Rosh Hashana Art' was made by Carlos Jadraque who channeled himself into the body of an 8 yr. old Jewish girl with impossible hair, in order to create this work. That's the spirit, Carlos! Dear Friends, Friends of F... Read more
Posted on September 21, 2006 1:21
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
Food causes gas, and by gas, I mean greenhouse gas
Greenhouse gas emissions linked to the production of a kg (roughly 2 pounds) of food. Meat refers to the "carcass equivalent", with bones but without processing, packaging, or transportation. Source IFEN 2004 for France Jean-Marc Jancovici, whose website on climate change with readable, chartfu... Read more
Posted on September 7, 2006 6:53
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
Actually, this IS my harvest
Back to square one, but with better soil composition At the kitchen gardens, the question on everyone's lips is, 'Don't you feel utterly demoralised by the fact that since January, you've only been able to produce a shitload of weeds?" But because I can't admit defeat in front of my neighbours,... Read more
Posted on July 28, 2006 19:14
In Memoriam
Anna de Casparis
ANNA DE CASPARIS 15th August 1947 - 18th July 2006 Anna died on Tuesday evening. Her extraordinary, indomitable spirit was evident to the end. We will miss her as a comrade, mother, sister and friend, as someone who lived life with relish and brought great beauty and delicious tarte oignon... Read more
Posted on July 20, 2006 18:40
Grow yer own dang biomass inadvertently
Occitanian kitchen garden in May, as neat as you please 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 two months of gainful employment, I a... Read more
Posted on July 16, 2006 15:54
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
Wasteware, it’s everything but the squeal in food recycling
Rhubarb and carrot waste formed into little bowls for cherries and berries. Man and Humanity masters graduate Matthijs Vogels has developed a beautiful but extreme way to eliminate food waste by turning it into plates and bowls. At last week's Design Academy Eindhoven MFA show, Vogels exhibited... Read more
Posted on July 4, 2006 12:30
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
The vertical
kitchen garden
Spring planting is finished but before returning to the Polar Circle, I took this image of the bamboo framework for my vertical gardening concept. The plan is to train the wandering plants (melons, gourds, squash) to grow up the wide end of the frame, allowing them optimum sunlight, saving roami... Read more
Posted on May 12, 2006 10:14
Street food waste = street food packaging
Fish and chips: image of street food packaging concept 'IHO', © Païvi Kovanen, Eva Arts and Caroline van Teeffelen 2006, used courtesy of the designers. Please respect student work, contact culiblog for updates. (This is the second in a series of entries about the Street Food Workshop develop... Read more
Posted on April 29, 2006 11:06
Love difference,as in we love difference
Of course the artistic movement for an intermediterranean politic is into food. And it sports a big fat Citta del Arte logo right on it's homepage. Which led me to click on the Ministry of Nourishment link because I always wonder what folks mean by the word nourishment. I'm none the wiser, but th... Read more
Posted on April 24, 2006 8:00
Will swap saliva for a home, the problem with bird nest soup
image from Hoko Studio design collaborative, cropped and used entirely without permission If you were a bird living in a cave in Thailand, would you rather 1. live in a house of your own making constructed from spit and twigs? or 2. live in a gifted house made out of recycled cardboard? Bad que... Read more
Posted on April 4, 2006 20:58
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
Note to self: alfalfa, mustard, buckwheat, red night kidney, adzuki, soy, soy, soy
This is the planting order when facing the lower allotment. The acronym is AMBRASSS, which could stand for the the English embarass, if the cover crops once again fail to thrive. If the cover crops survive my handling and the weather, I can pronounce the acronym in French as in je t'embrace, which... Read more
Posted on March 2, 2006 22:22
Irrigate, ice skate
Took the new irrigation system out for a spin and it looks like I have a hunquering for the Netherlands. The idea is that all manner of plant life will grow along the borders, if it would just stop freezing for one day. Vernacular architecture. Surely I have the ugliest shed in the gardens and ... Read more
Posted on February 28, 2006 23:56
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
Weedy plot, commuting, cover crops and humble pie
People who know me well would never say that I'm a practical woman. Now, all the more so. I've left my winter quarters in Occitania to return to the Polar Circle, where paid work is calling. Screaming, really. In gardening there's a time and a place for everything, and ever since I've had this gar... Read more
Posted on January 11, 2006 0:34
Brussels pearls neither bitter nor farty
Look what Maman brought home for dinner tonight! While everyone else in the valley is shooting at wild boar, I managed to wrestle to the ground and uproot this domestic brussels sprouts tree. Admittedly, that sounds like I'm getting the short end of the stick, but the pearly buttons and sweet leav... Read more
Posted on January 6, 2006 18:38
Green manure cover crops and another garden parcel
Yesterday I aquired another parcel of land when I went to pay my yearly subscription at Monsieur L. Thirty-five euros per parcel (roughly 100m2) and all the river water you can use. Still, with the chateau of the Comtesse de R. in plain view, we the serfs of the C'-ac allotments know that all of thi... Read more
Posted on January 5, 2006 10:17
Another gushy garden story
Why is this eighty-seven year old man smiling? One possible reason is that he has a garden... and neighbours. If I am any sort of judge of things that make one happy, I can report that the addition of a garden and all the things it brings with it, fresh veg and fruit, new friends, a sense of commu... Read more
Posted on January 4, 2006 9:05
Second to last walk of the year
*Without a prayer of an internet connection in sight, I have been enjoying my friends, the garden and the splendid but freezing environs. Today's hike up the mountain led us past miner's lettuce growing in the maze of thick stone walls. And while talking of lettuces and of mines, there was gunshot... Read more
Posted on December 29, 2005 13:28
Birthday picnic au plein air
With a small group of friends we celebrated my birthday with a fresh and freezing garden picnic in the painfully crisp air. Champagne, oysters and a sorrel quiche, in the case of the sorrel, eaten one meter away from the very plant that grew it. New neighbours, new but wonderful friends, all kicki... Read more
Posted on December 24, 2005 13:13
Winter BBQ practice down at the kitchen gardens
Can kitchen garden soil ever really have enough potash? A quick look around the environs and the answer is a resounding 'no'. It's fire lighting time, again! All the guys are doing it. Really. Every single last one of them. Because lighting fires is like youth serum. technorati tags: garde... Read more
Posted on December 23, 2005 15:25
My kitchen garden at midwinter
Granted, mine is the ugliest of all the kitchen gardens here, which is why it's unbelieveable that upon my return to Occitania, I was able to pluck leafy greens at midwinter! I fully expected to find nothing, bugs and more nothing, but to my great surprise there are sun dried tomatoes, sorrel, swe... Read more
Posted on December 21, 2005 12:54
Sort of public gardens
The urban garden is thriving in Istanbul. Walking around the Biennale's parallel programme locations in Karaköy, I spied some ad hoc agriculture in 'public' planters. These images show vegetables being grown amidst 'ornamental' city landscaping. Chapeau to the hacker-farmers growing squ... Read more
Posted on October 21, 2005 16:04
So except for the vodka…
We thought that homegrown bloody marys would be an appropriate drink to celebrate his 44th birthday and to give the yurt a proper yurt-warming. All of the ingredients except the ever-important electrolytic enhancors were homegrown or grown within 2 kilometres of the yurt. Thankfully more homeg... Read more
Posted on August 6, 2005 12:48
So except for the coffee…
You may have noticed that culiblog has entered holiday mode. Hopefully this will all end soon. Profound apologia for the die-hards, but it's summer and all I want is homegrown. Please just go outside. Here in Occitania, most of our food doesn't even make it the fridge before we've brushed the d... Read more
Posted on July 26, 2005 16:34
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
Love those short supply chains
Here in Europe we can't stop talking about 'food miles', that is to say, how many kilometres our food travels before we actually get to touch it. There's that quite famous study of the strawberry yoghurt, It's the same for all products, including cow dung fuel. The images shown were all taken wi... Read more
Posted on April 26, 2005 8:24
Brain Food
This terribly sad but well written book by Mark Kurlansky is a gripping history from the perspective of the cod. Kurlansky tells how fishing for this gadiform has deeply affected the wealth and development of many nations and technologies. I'm thinking the Flounder by Gunther Grass that I read bac... Read more
Posted on January 20, 2005 20:54
Chestnut Hunting on a Freeway of Sheep
Just start imagining what that might be like. We didn't get in eachother's way. We wore red to alert the hunters. Saturday is hunting day. technorati tags: Languedoc, hunting, chestnuts, food gathering, culiblog, sheep Read more
Posted on December 18, 2004 23:49
Recipes for Geese and People
and Jeremijenko’s OOZ
2nd course of the dinner for geese and people was called Vegetable Matter Underfoot, (salad carpaccio) visually references the trampled vegetation at the sides of ponds and lakes where waterfowl like to hang out. Natalie Jeremijenko is developing a zoo without cages, and she's calling it 00Z. T... Read more
Posted on March 2, 2004 17:50
