Here’s a really nice film documenting people getting together to grow their own food with support from an organisation called Community Foodie.
Archives for posts with tag: inspiring people
Wanted to share this short film about young crofters in Scotland figuring out ways to gain access to land, to practice small scale agriculture and local food production. Passionate, inspiring people.
Enjoy the Guardian podcast above with Jane Perrone, Anni Kelsey and Martin Crawford Thanks to Anni for her wonderful blog where I first saw this. Inspiring and eas(ier) gardening, climate friendly and cheaper, plus interesting, tasty things to eat.
I just happened upon this wonderful illustrated history of Johnny Appleseed. Enjoy!
And here’s something that makes an interesting (and convincing) contention: Johnny Appleseed and the Golden Days of Hard Cider.
Here’s “Man in the Maze,” a short film about Food System problems (hideous) and people-centered solutions (beautiful). The film is specific to “the geopolitical boundary with the greatest economic disparity in the world” but offers inspiration to people anywhere working hard “to rebuild the food system up from the bottom in a participatory way,” as Gary Paul Nabhan puts it in the interview — “to heal that food system, our economies, our bodies, and the land.”
Thanks to the lovely Charlotte Spring for the recommendation.
Food writer and activist Jack Monroe on poverty, hunger, feminism, being a mother with a toddler, and the weight children bear on their “little teeny-tiny shoulders” of reckless financial decision making, political cleaning up of which justifies Austerity. Cutting ribbons on food banks as a disgrace. Inequality. Wanting change. Worth your time watching.
Here’s a beautiful short film in which Sandor Katz talks about processes of fermentation. He is funny and compelling– and I will always be grateful to him for Wild Fermentation which has been such an influential, important book in my life. Using Wild Fermentation I taught myself basic skills that now serve me constantly in the kitchen, but the book also presents a wonderful vision in which personal, political and microbial transformation serve as metaphors for each other. Wild Fermentation is a guide to practical alchemy (and for this reason, if you have to make a choice, buy it before the also wonderful The Art of Fermentation).
This film captures some of the magic. Read the rest of this entry »
Reallyreallyreally worth a read, and please share around . Francis is an amazing, righteous Pope, and though I don’t identify with the religious stuff in any religious way, I feel the spiritual truth of it all very deeply. As much as we want the people to lead and the leaders to follow, it feels a relief this time for a true leader to lead from a place of such integrity, truth and vision.
Marguerite Patten has died. I cherish my copies of her Coronation Cookbook and We’ll Eat Again: A Collection of Recipes from the War Years (Rose-Hip Syrup; Potato Pastry two ways) with its insights into ration cookery and government advice. Her Basic Basics Baking Handbook is also a treasure of fundamentals from which one can vary and play– no food-porn pictures, just practical descriptions that really could make a modest domestic goddess out of anyone.
Watching and listening to her when she’s an old lady, you see she’s really got the long view as a food educator and, indeed, activist. Love that she’s such a pressure cooker aficionado.
When you get a chance, and if you can, have a listen to the Woman’s Hour radio show featuring her wise, comforting voice as it was in 2009. RIP, Marguerite Patten.
“I wanted to be kissed by hummingbirds every day,” says Ron Finley. “I wanted to see butterflies. I wanted to smell lavender, and jasmine, and rosemary. That’s where it started.”
In case you missed it, as I somehow did, you can watch his amazing TED Talk on his website.
“Funny thing, the drive-through is killing more people than the drive-by.”
He’s got a vision of cities and how people and plants can live in them. He is all about health for people, for ecology, and for beauty.
“The problem is the solution. Food is the problem, food is the solution.”
“Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do, especially in the inner city. Plus you get strawberries.”
“The funny thing about sustainability, you have to sustain it.”
Ron Finley has the gift of energy and the gift to inspire, and a boundless supply of fantastic one-liners. He’s the kind of DIY-meets-Social Change that brings hope.
Kitchen Counter Culture 