Orford Flower Show 2013 - Part 2

 

Here are just a few of the prize winning fruits and vegetables from inside the Orford Flower Show tent.

 

Orford Flower Show 2013 - Part 1

Early on the morning of the Flower Show I went with my Auntie to her allottment to help her collect some vegetables that she was donating to the Orford School's stall. I spotted the little frog above taking shelter from the drizzly rain under some cabbage leaves.

With her boot filled up with beetroot, cabbages, courgette, peppers, onions and more we headed to the Rec to drop them off to Orford School's stall where they were selling fruit, vegetables, cakes and their very own jars of pasta sauce and strawberry jam. The school teaches children how to grow their own produce throughout the year and they make all sorts of delicious goodies for themselves and their families as well as the pasta sauce and jam which they sell to raise money for their Jamie Oliver Kitchen Garden Project, I can vouch for the tastiness of both!

maison d'être coffee house

maison d'être is a wonderful coffee house found at 154 Canonbury Rd, London N1 2UP.

 

The chalkboard pretty much sums it up and they do it so well. Kim and Kostas who run maison d'être set the tone as they are so friendly and sweet and you feel that throughout the two rooms of the cafe. You can find Smy Chutney preserves within some of their delicious sandwiches and yoghurt dishes. You can also buy jars of Smy Chutney to be found in their shop.

 

2nd Annual Orford Food Revolution Day - 18th May 2013

Another great event getting the community involved to celebrate and support Orford Primary School’s Kitchen Garden Project at the Jamie Oliver's 2nd Annual Food Revolution Day - thanks to all the organisers and everyone who came out!

Orford's 2nd Annual Food Revolution Day - 18 May 2013

Musical Fruit & Veg by j.viewz

I prefer it when a YouTube weekend wandering take me to interesting videos like these rather than New World Order videos that always seem about three clicks away. 

Here's j.viewz (musician Jonathan Dagan) cover Massive Attack's Teardrop hooking up some fruit & veg to his Novation:

Brilliant.

Mortar & Pestle

I was trying to capture a bit of grinding action while making some Smy Chutney apple and pepper chutney at my cousins house for an upcoming tutorial. Here's a minute-long sneak peak featuring her stunning antique mortar and pestle.  I love the differing depths of imprints left from thousands of times when the pestle has met its mortar.  I am quite happy with my own mortar and pestle which is not an antique but solid, sturdy and large enough to hold rather a lot of herbs, spices and more and keep them in place as I pummel them to pieces.  I am so used to the rhythm of grinding pink peppercorns in my own m & p that when using my cousin's I felt as if it was gently laughing at me for trying to rely on  brute strength rather than the finesse needed when using hers. It has a basin worn smooth through use and I found I needed to alter my technique to get them to break apart.  The pink peppercorns were a perfect contrast to the creamy mortar and their intense aroma would form the basis of a fantastic perfume.

I also love imagining who has used these tools and for what purposes, what is its history, what time is its place?  That last phrase is a slight amendment to the phrase that one of my historic preservation professors, W Brown Morton III, used to ask us when studying old buildings, sites and items, "What time is this place?"  It has stuck with me and while the people below aren't using the same exact type of mortar and pestle as my cousin's the images capture the differing uses from inside to outside, for food, science, art and more.

Source: harvardartmuseums.org via Smy Chutney on Pinterest  

Joseph Janney Steinmetz - photographer

Untitled (man with large mortar and pestle), c. 1940

Source: arcadja.com via Smy Chutney on Pinterest

A Vanitas still life with an adder in a pestle and mortar, a sculpted head,
an astrolobe, an anatomical sculpture, a musical pipe, a skull,
a violin, a globe, musical scores, manuscripts, a paint pale.
Antonio Cioci, Italian, 1722—1792

 

Source: unf.edu via Smy Chutney on Pinterest

Woman pounding rice using a wooden pounding tool and a hollowed out log 
on a British East Florida plantation. 

Source: bbc.co.uk via Smy Chutney on Pinterest

Old woman with pestle and mortar  
Caravaggio 1571 -1610

Source: old-picture.com via Smy Chutney on Pinterest

Tlakluit woman seated with mortar and pestle. 

Source: Uploaded by user via Lucinda Brant on Pinterest

Italian apothecary. 18th-century 
National Historic Museum of the Medical Arts, Rome, Italy.