Slim Pickins
restaurant review
May 5, 2009
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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 devise a waiting list to accommodate the throngs of curious eaters. Recalcitrant guests unable to obtain an invitation to the first seating announced outrageous plans by SMS to drop by a day early, creating extra pressure on the kitchen staff. And due to the mid-week test run, in-situ stocks of chamomile blossom were running too low to serve the requisite four cups of tea. Menu adjustments at the opening would have to be made.
To further up the stress levels, the weather, which during the preceding week could have been described as balmy, began Sunday with rain showers. Trying at all costs to avoid cancelling the opening, satellite photos of the weather conditions were repeatedly consulted and Slim Pickins opened nearly three hours later than originally scheduled.
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But like most projects blessed with the loving attention of perpetual worry, it all came together, some sunny weather, smiley faces, pink prosecco, and newly innovated techniques for preparing unwieldy ravioli in a rice cooker. Nectar sweet kale flowers foraged from the neighbour’s plot and a few plucks of Slim Pickin’s own bright lights chard complimented an opening amuse gueule of ground-elder ravioli with goutweed pesto. Another neighbour’s garden unwittingly supplied a handful of mint leaves for the tea when Slim Pickins’ own chamomile stocks proved insufficient.
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Children’s seating available upon request
At the kids’ table, guests enjoyed their ravioli and the experience of using a spork for the very first time. Later the youngsters got busy transforming a recently prepared bed into a mud pool, bringing in extra water to get the consistency just right. When the mud was deemed perfect, the young guests took turns standing up against a wall while the other one slung a sloppy hand full straight at his face.
Tea was served.
Slim Pickins garden restaurant receives a score of 8,75 watering cans (out of 10) for delicious food and ambience. The ravioli was perfect in all respects despite early predictions of disaster due to a bit of backpack-mushing during the bike and ferry ride over. Bonus points for the ad hoc addition of kale blossoms to the ravioli plate brings the score to a total of 9 watering cans (out of 10). Improvements can be made in the area of decreasing preparation hecticity and amplifying garden food production, but there is every reason to believe that these hiccoughs will disappear by next Sunday. Reserve now via this blog as seating and in-situ chamomile supplies remain limited.
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Concentrated ravioli enjoyment
Slim Pickins menu for Sunday, May 10th 2009
– a tabouleh of bishop’s weed and locally foraged mint served on a
– micro salad of bright lights chard, borage flowers and radish sprouts
– a cup of full blossom tea with chamomile and borage flowers and a hint of locally foraged mint and fennel leaves
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Culiblog author bowing her head, humbled by the unabating deliciousness of goutweed pesto
Slim Pickins serves cuisine végètal amuses gueules and is happy to accommodate vegans. Vegan (and other) guests may be requested to bring organic fertiliser or worm castings as a form of payment.
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debra at 14:03 | Comments (9) | post to del.icio.us
Slim Pickins,
the occasional garden restaurant
April 21, 2009
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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 occasional amuse gueule from whatever the tiny garden has to offer, even and especially when that’s not very much.
Sunday’s (April 26, 2009) menu fixe for max 4 ppl:
– chamomile tea
– nettle gazpacho
– leafy greens and bitter herbs ravioli in a puddle of extremely light ground elder pesto
And that’s it!
Reservations obligatory via this blog, maximum 4 guests, weather permitting.
All home grown vegetation is organic, but due to the current small harvest, Slim Pickins will also be serving foraged and rummaged vegetation from the surrounding area.
COMING SOON
RADISH CARPACCIO!
(in 18 days)
Slim Pickins
(Amsterdam Noord, next to the Buikslotermeer Ferry)
open: Saturdays or Sundays for amuse gueule, weather permitting
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Slim Pickins, an occasional garden restaurant
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Homegrown chamomile, steeping
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In situ chamomile tea in the kitchen garden
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Young nettles, Carpe effing Diem
 growing in situ at Studio Culiblog's Northern Kitchen Garden in Amsterdam Noord, Debra Solomon, culiblog.org'))
Ground elder, it’s what’s for dinner
debra at 23:49 | Comments (7) | post to del.icio.us
And what will fuel the landscape of the future?
March 6, 2009
 Maak Ons Land, networking dinner questionnaire beer pad, Debra Solomon, culiblog.org'))
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 COUNTRY,
but also implying the poetic, MAKE US SOME LAND
(because we don’t have enough for some crazy reason and we have a heritage of pulling it out of our thumbs) or
(HERE’S HOW WE COULD) DEVELOP OUR LAND, or beseechingly with melting eyebrows,
GIVE US SOME LAND, SOME ELBOW ROOM TO FULFILL OUR HEART’S DESIRE!
The title MAAK ONS LAND is ambiguous about whether it’s a call for action or an order from the masses directed at our planners. Non-Dutch people should note that We-Dutch have a high (urban) planner to regular person ratio, to the point that there’s barely a distinction between the two. Land use planning can have a timeline of up to 200 years (I joke not), with a shocking lack of chaos involved, or for that matter even tolerated.
This is an interpretation from the brain of an immigrant to merely explain the exhibition title. An exhibition which I didn’t see, because I (along with 50 other illustrious professionals) was invited to a dinner amidst MAAK ONS LAND and which was titled GREEN. Also ambiguous, but the alternative, FUTURE LAND USE PLANNING AND ITS REQUISITE INFRASTRUCTURE sounds about as sexy as an enema.
GREEN it is.
GIMME SOME LAND.
SLAP ME FIVE.
WHO WILL BE IN CHARGE OF THE LANDSCAPE OF THE FUTURE, AND HOW?
After changing the question from
IN CHARGE OF
to
RESPONSIBLE FOR
and saving the AND HOW part for later,
the discussion became rich and lively. Considering the wide-range of disciplines (architects, artists, designers, various sorts of planners, horticultralists, land managers, government ministers etc…) it was a miracle that we often got our noses pointing in the direction of land use and food.
Without reporting on the discussion, because you will certainly be able to read between the lines, here is my conclusion: We need a COMMON LANGUAGE to discuss future land use and planning that accesses current levels of knowledge from the diverse disciplines involved.
This conclusion keeps cropping up whilst keeping mixed company. Because the archi/planner/policy maker bro’s like their statistics and NEED their statistics to make/justify decisions, we need numbers that describe different forms of land use, agricultural output and food flow impact. Current statistics are INsufficient to address this subject (see below). (Jago vB., Jan H., Menno S., let’s talk about this.)
- 1. We need to understand in much greater detail what the presence of different kinds of food in our diets means for our landscape – in a geo-political sense, but also in terms of needed infrastructure and planning locally and regionally. A small shift in diet could mean a large change in land use. There is a lack of imagination about how a food-related infrastructure that would impact our cities to such a tremendous degree (already does) could be used, nay SHARED equitably.
2. We need to have a greater understanding about what the presence of food in our cities means and does in terms of FLOW and how food flow can be used more efficiently, also in terms of health and income generation for local populations. Again, small changes and benefits concerning i.e. the presence of WHOLE FOODS could have an enormous and beneficial impact. Experiments exist, let’s get some numbers together for the guys that loves them up some numbers!
3. There is a LACK of knowledge about the various forms of agriculture. This needs to change forthwith. Prevailing misconceptions amongst many architects and planners include an assumption of traditional (high-tech) rural agriculture, monoculture, export culture, business models based upon farm subsidies and current levels of oil-use, and the continued production of industrialised foods and food products/components (globally) requiring oil-rich distribution methods. We are not discussing all of our viable options or the conditions that we will likely encounter in the future.
4. There is a LACK of knowledge about permaculture, let alone reliable statistics concerning its level of productivity as an agricultural form on the (urban) landscape. We need to share knowledge and develop statistics about RESILIENT FORMS of agriculture in the relevant planning forums.
5. There is currently NO holisitic (planning) visioning for agriculture (primarily urban agriculture) which is integrated into Western European urban culture. (Actually there is… but I’ll tell you about that later.)
As someone who believes that it is in our interest in our roles as citizens to invest in our own communities and our own economies – that investment does NOT include filling urban spaces with TOWER BLOCK agriculture FOR EXPORT USE / OR HORTICULTURE. It is not that I oppoose the high-rise or the intensive programming (because I am actually positive about certain forms), but that many/most of these projects are intended to benefit global agro-business and horticulture, and not intended to feed us. Also, the architecture supporting these intensive forms of proposed vertical (urban) agriculture needs to be RESILIENT in terms of crop and fuel use.
 Maak Ons Land, networking dinner, Debra Solomon, culiblog.org'))
Men sharing water, not necessarily opinions
Even in the most progressive professional discussion about urban agriculture we need to make sure that we are on the same page before we can even speak of PLANNING. We need a common language.
So… how did I answer the question that the NAi asks its visitors? First of all I changed the question to … an even better question: WHAT WILL FUEL THE LANDSCAPE OF THE FUTURE?
And my answer is and remains: the EDIBLE CITY… a pre-cursor to MAAK ONS LAND.
debra at 19:42 | Comments (3) | post to del.icio.us
