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.

Atelier Food

Swedish project Atelier Food seeks new solutions and innovation through food.  International chef Stefan Eriksson began the new project in Stockholm which aims to explore the relationship between food and society.  Fellow chefs, artists, designers, business leaders and more gather to examine the future of food and its symbiotic relationships with culture, sustainability, transportation and development through workshops, food labs and discussions.

(via Wired)

Still Life by Petter Johansson Art Direction And Design

I am currently thinking, researching and writing about food to an extent that my conscious and unconscious are wandering a plan much like the one in Petter Johansson's beautiful images above.  I am unable to read Swedish to fully understand everything on the website but the interviews in English are fantastically eclectic and the ethos of the project makes me want to march to Atelier Food Lab and get involved.  I look forward to following their work closely. 

Classification Charts - Mushrooms

 Source: sandmarg.tumblr.com via Treacle on Pinterest

I have been fascinated with all manner of classification charts since I was a small girl and spent what felt like hours, but was probably twenty minutes, in a doctors waiting room. There was a poster on the wall of edible and poisonous mushrooms and I got lost in a small world of colourful mushrooms; some edible, some dangerous.  Neither of these are the psychadaelic 70s one I saw many years ago but they have the same effect...making me want to eat the correct one in order to shrink and play amongst them with fairies. 

Source: sandmarg.tumblr.com via Ale on Pinterest

                                         Source: whereapy.com via Chris on Pinterest

Big Hair Competition 18th century-style

 

 1776. Matthew Darly. The Extravaganza or the Mountain Head Dress of 1776. London.

(via It's About Time)

If it were the 1760s I would be the height of fashion as big, extravagant hair was all the rage, the latest trend to hit London from France.  By the 1770s the trend was satirized by the caricaturists. I particularly love the two following styles which feature whole fruit and veg stalls within the hair of each lady.

 

1777. Matthew Darly. The Fruit Stall (Market Fruits Ready to be Eaten). London.

 (via It's About Time)

1777. Matthew Darly. The Green Stall (a Hairdo fit for Market Day). London.

(via It's About Time) 

1777. Matthew Darly. The Flower Garden. London.

 (via It's About Time) 

This one has either a figurine or pocket-sized man perusing the orchards in her hair.

Becca Rothwell's NYE Duck Breast with Plum Gumbo

via Becca Rothwell's Instagram aka
@howtomakeamess aka 

How To Make a Mess

Thank you so much to Becca for sharing her photo of the New Year's Eve meal she made.  Using one of my all-time favourite combinations of duck and Smy Chutney Plum Gumbo she explains:

"I pan-fried the duck with a squashed garlic clove and some sprigs of thyme, deglazed the pan with red wine and stirred in a good teaspoon of your plum gumbo, let it bubble for a few mins to reduce down a bit then poured over sliced duck for a NYE meal."

It looks amazing!  All I want now is duck, chips and kale!

Check out How To Make a Mess for all sorts of fun regarding eating, cooking, crafting and baking...basically the creative quadrality of fun!!!