Qatar, Jean Nouvel, & Urban Development

- Qatar, Saudi Arabia -

Jean Nouvel wants to build this:

"At the intersection of the cities, you can find empty spaces that take unpredictable shapes." Photo courtesy of nytimes.com

here:

Let's for a moment, forget all the resources this will take, and appreciate the glorifying impact of great architecture. Especially when the brain behind the idea wants the building to reflect the cultural identity of Qatar, the nomadic Qatari:

"The challenge is to translate the beauty of their origins. These nomads, who stopped at the edge of the water..." Photo courtesy nytimes.com

Photo courtesy nytimes.com

 "{The Qatari} found unexpected resources in the desert that led them to a type of modernity that is somewhat harsh." Photo courtesy Luciedbelkova.com

 "Because the natural gas or oil, and all the industrial riches that came are expressed in ways that are the opposite of Qatar's origins."
Photo courtesy of  nytimes.com

Chuck Close

- Eric (in progress) -

Depriving Liberties, or Enforcing Safety Regulations

-Montesano, WA-

Estrella Farm - Photo via Estrellafamilycreamery.com via Tacoma News Tribune

Kelli Estrella a small artisan cheese maker of Estrella Creamery is defying F.D.A orders that declare her cheeses unsafe for consumption. While the F.D.A says that a listeria bacteria has contaminated all her products, she does not want to accept that the government orders are simply in regards to food safety. 'She says she believes that the F.D.A's crackdown is part of a larger campaign against raw milk, and she is fighting for her customers' right to eat whatever they choose. "I don't think this issue is about bacteria and it's not about cheese," she said. "I think that we are loosing our freedom." '

Functioning Like a Forest

- Portland, OR -

Echinacea, on TLC Farm

 "TLC Farm likes to think of a forest as a visionary model. A forest symbolizes chaos and all that is unplanned and unruly, yet forests are peaceful and comforting, not to mention efficient and resilient. It is their seemingly unintentional and symbiotic relations that makes them beautiful. The community's organizational structure and leadership of the Farm are based on the theory of permaculture, which mimics a natural ecosystem. Permaculture is a holistic design technique, as well as a way of life, encouraging beneficial connections between elements in order to create sustainable, regenerative systems. It is also about cultivating relationships that make sense in order to decrease energy input and increase longevity of systems."

Off The Grid

- Northern Maine -

Keliy Anderson-Staley (no relation:)) is a born and raised Mainer. As a photographer, she wanted to document the lifestyle in which she and her family grew up, living off the grid in Maine. Vowing to maintain an unglamorous shooting style, her endeavor shows how other families in this state have long since chosen to remove themselves from the electronic, plugged in world that most of us have evolved to know.
A composed series with brief explanations can be viewed here.

david bowen

watch the beetle

this video is so bizarre and weird but touching, and amazing and, and...! had to share

Bringing Life to Empty City Lots

- Dorchester, Mass -

"City law allows for community gardens, but not farming. And the city wants to change its zoning code to permit urban agriculture as a way to increase access to healthy food in under served communities..."

The leaders, City Growers Inc, working to evolve the Dorchester plots have experienced success in previous endvors:

"The team hired Codman Square farmer Tim Cooke to tend the soil. Since the original soil might be contaminated, he laid down cardboard and poured roughly 18 inches of soil on top...he planted lettuce, basil, arugula, beets, and tomatoes. By July, a delivery man was pedaling the food by bicycle to local restaurants, retail niches, and hotels."

How??WHAT?? no...?You're kidding...right?

- Make it illegal to save and dry seeds? -

- Make it illegal to grow and sell your own food? -

Senate Bill 510 suggests so...

This video will help explain...

This woman's words will more poetically articulate this potential disaster.

Cheery Delivery !For Dreary Message :(

-narrated by annie leonard-

Rudolf Steiner & Bio-dynamic Farming

To explain bio-dynamic farming today typically requires the word 'resurgence'. The increasingly popular tradition of chemical free, high soil fertility, and crop-rotation, has after all been around for centuries, and was once considered standard; basic; dare one say, 'normal' practice in agriculture and farming.

And now, with a monstrous demand for food, crop disease problems, and general land degradation - issues that are typically man-made - chemical-use to combat bugs, produce larger and greater quantities of fruits and vegetables, has been the savior for many farmers across the world.

Enter Rudolf Steiner (1860-1925), then and now. His philosophies and influences surrounding bio-dynamic farming helped farmers of Eastern Germany in the 1920's, and today continue reminding the world about the importance of healthy soils, purely organic resources, and... for those of you with an astrological inclination... his belief systems that connect the weight of the cosmos to plants vitality.  :)

G R E E K:
bios=life; dynamis=energy

What is Rabelaisian????????

Gargantua

To be raunchy, outrageously crude in every way and totally stubborn in matters of truth, persistent against all forms of hypocrisy, and popular opinion. OR simply put: to break all rules of the social norms - aka AXIOM BUSTING!

The above definition typically relates to the second explanation of the term 'Rabelaisian'. The first, and most common association pertains to Master Francis Rabelais, French author, satire solicitor, food enthusiast and comical pleasure seeker of a five part series titled The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel. The stories follow the life of two giants - Gargantua the father and his son, with as much vulgarity as a French 16th century author can invoke.

But fast forward to modern day 21st century and you can find flexible variations of the rabelais term, extending in the case of this blog, to a fine food and drink book shop in Portland, Me: Rabelais. On the quaint and often cobble stoned streets of Portland's downtown Old Port, Rabelais is owned and operated by a wife and husband team with plenty of background experience to support their popular and successful, sensuous based selections of antiquated (and new?) books circling farming, gardening, foods and wines.

A visit this week is in order.
More soon:)

Re Imagining Detroit

- Detroit, MI -

 "French Filmaker Florent Tillon hopes his documentary "Wild City Detroit" will draw attention to the citie's attempt to reinvent itself." photo via CNN+Floren TIllon.

"Now that we've emptied out a good portion of the city and we don't expect to fill it up again with shopping malls and new housing, we can be a greener city; a more environmentally sustainable city with more parks and more green corridors -- perhaps using Detroit land not for consumption but for production.

"We might have wind farms or fields of solar panels, urban agriculture, grow our own food -- there's already a local food movement and a lot of interest in urban agriculture." more

Always B**ching and Complaining

That's what cotton farmer Dahlin Hancock of New Home Texas had to say to NPR, in regards to Brazil.

See what farmer Dahlin and these t-shirts: 

photo via NPR+flickr/pureandapplied

...have in common, on NPR's Planet Money, and why the US and Brazil are currently in a war over...Cotton.

foodage enthusiasm

Can The Carrots Beat The Cheeto?

photo via NPR; Crispin Porter; Bogusky via AP

photo via smoothherald

photo via 101recipes

photo via clusterflock

V I C T O R Y

- Public Garden Plots in Boston - 

And here's the deal: 

500 plots condensed within one central point of park land.

$30 a month pays for one plot (each about 20x20 ft). 
You can buy as many as you'd like - providing the space is available.

So, what more do you need?

F E N W A Y   V I C T O R Y   G A R D E N S

 K E L L E H E R   R O S E   G A R D E N

 A Rose...

 Is a Rose...

 Is a Rose...

Is a Rose. - Gertrude Stein.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Down the Hall in Boston:
are architects, and artists (and new parents to baby Kya!),  Meejin Yoon and Eric Howeler.

"White Noise White Light" Installation

This installation - among many other projects - is their beautiful work.*

"White Noise White Light" Installation

"Hover" Drafts

"Hover" Installation

"Hover" Installation

*All photos from the firm of Howeler Yoon - hyarchitecture.com.

How Much Food Goes to Waste ????

According to a New York Times article on Monday, "A lot, if you are typical. By most estimates, a quarter to half of all food produced in the United States goes uneaten — left in fields, spoiled in transport, thrown out at the grocery store, scraped into the garbage or forgotten until it spoils...."

To Have Visited...

- Long Island City, Queens, NY -

...With Only a Cellphone Camera ...

Brooklyn Grange through the eye of a camera phone

Awwww, to have arrived in nyc and realize one has left the real camera back in New England! But a trip to Brooklyn Grange to visit Ben Flanner, Head Farmer and organizer for a chat, was well worth the visit; just in time to see the plant beds, and roof be laid to rest for the winter.