Butternut Brutalism
July 1, 2008
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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 the form of cement curbing at the entrance to the drive. Imagining them to be perfect for fashioning raised beds, I started moving the blocks to the newer, sunnier allotment with the intention of quickly lego-ing some brutalism for my utopian permaculture kitchen garden.
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Turns out these blocks of béton brut were filled with a gooey, dark-matter centre and weighed in just a few grams shy of 75 kilos a piece. I was able to teeter-walk 18 of the gravity absorption buzz-killers over to the parcel, trying to experience the exercise as a meditation. I failed miserably in this endeavour. The entire raison d’être of raised beds is that they’re supposedly physically easier to deal with, but at this stage of the design and realisation, the pain-in-the-ass factor was dipping deeply into the negative. It was time to suck up and summon up some friendly muscle for the positioning of the blocks.
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It took Oumar and me all of the next day to raise the beds, but the job was so absorbing and transformative that we neglected to go to two art & design exam shows and two separate adult birthday parties! Landscaping and gardening are easily as addictive as crack, watching television and urban planning. Just let’s do another block.
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- Strangely associated links to this entry:
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New digs in the polder circle
June 26, 2008
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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, the upside is that it’s close enough that I can garden in my pyjamas, which is known to decrease stress. Now that I have 2 allotments 1.400 kilometers apart, I can neglect them both equally.
In real life this allotment is part of Toine Klaasen’s Reserve / Reservaat at Young Designers and Industry HQ. Klaasen divided the 500m2 of virtually unused garden into 24 allotments and doled them out to us artsy-fartsy types as personal space. What this ultimately means is that I can potter in my pyjamas and that I will unlikely create kafuffles with my Permaculture Plus gardening style.
Upon arriving yesterday I dispensed with the observation phase required in permaculture and dove directly into the occupation phase, planting butternut squash and purple basil seedlings. Today I’ll get started sowing my beloved green manures and investigate what it will take to install some raised beds in September. The only abundant in-situ building material for the beds seems to be 20×20 cement tiles and I think that 20 cm high beds can’t in all honesty be referred to as ‘raised’.
- Toine Klaasen’s Reservaat at Young Designers and Industry – in Dutch unfortch!
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Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking
June 19, 2008
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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. Not big-business food, just extremely yummy and secretly healthy street food snacks made from what’s already going on; a snack-platform, by the folks, for the folks.
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Super-use is everything but the squeal… watermelon juice and pickled watermelon rind; refreshing and we assume rejuvenating.
Together with my partners Imagine IC in Amsterdam Z.O., Kosmopolis Rotterdam, and Vakmanstad/Skill City (Rotterdam), I initiated Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking, a mobile snack platform to research and focus on food culture and identity in the diverse Dutch neighbourhoods. An underlying notion of Fortune Cooking is super-use; super use of the food flows, available expertise, facilities and networks, in order to nurture informal and micro-economies. In just two weeks we’ll launch this dimsumptuously experimental snack brand at the Amsterdam Zuidoost Summer Festival. The images in this entry are from our try-out last weekend at the Rolling Kitchens event in Amsterdam’s Westerpark, but starting July 5th, we’ll have an actual snack wagon – designed by bona fide architects. (More on that in a later entry.)
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Groentoe Akansa is a leafy green masala polenta wrapped in a leaf and served as an offering.
Lucky Mi snacks for this summer are being innovated in collaboration with Mavis Hofwijk from Surinaams Buffet, a catering and cooking studio in Zuidoost. Mavis is something of a gastronomic superstar and is without a doubt the go-to-gal when folks like the Dutch Queen or Amsterdam’s mayor Job Cohen (yes, he’s a bro) get a hunkering for Surinamese cuisine. I am honoured to be able to work with her and her team, which includes her culi-knowledgeable daughter Candice.
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An unrolled groentoe akansa, pronounced grewn too ah kahn sah.
Of course the carbon footprint part of your brain is wondering where all this tropical food is coming from, and I am happy to report that the leafy greens that Mavis uses in the Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking snacks come straight from the farms of Mario Balhari, just a bike ride away in nearby Amstelveen. Tropilocal! Although Mario is one of those cosmopolitan farmers who works with collectives in Cuba and Surinam, he also has his own fields right here in the Heimatt where he grows the delicious am soi, baji, and klaroen leafy greens. Together we’re working on developing a tropilocal salad box for the July 5th opening.
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Buy some coconut cassava bonbon with newly aromatic herring and watermelon pickle, and get a free fork!
Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking is a mobile snack restaurant and culinary embassy. In-situ snack innovation and collective entrepreneurship is the result of the collaboration between myself and brilliant neighbourhood food entrepreneurs from Amsterdam Zuidoost and in Rotterdam’s Afrikaanderbuurt. Lucky Mi is 100% food from the ‘hood and a purely dimsumptuous snackology.
Heads up, our menu-not-so-fixe changes frequently and at our slightest whim! Changes will be posted here and at our soon to be announced website.
- Surinaams Buffet Catering
Bedrijvencentrum Hakfort
Bullewijkpad 21 AMSTERDAM
Tel: 020-6090966
Fax: 020-6970405
e-mail: info at surinaamsbuffet dot nlBijlmerplein 1006 – 1008
1102 ML Amsterdam
tel: 020 489 48 66
fax: 020 489 48 65
e-mail: info at imagineIC dot nl
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