Pecha Kucha with Structured Green's Camilla

Come support Camilla, tomorrow night at: S.P.A.C.E. located at 9 W. Henry St. (between Bull and Whitaker Streets). Thursday, October 1, 2009 from 8-10 pm (doors open at 7:30pm).

Devised and shared by Klein-Dytham Architecture, Pecha Kucha Night is a party.  It's an art salon.  It's a night of show and tell.  Through word of mouth, it's now in over 180 cities around the globe.

Camilla's presentation is called I Heart Muay Thai.  She'll be discussing her 8 years of studying and practicing and now teaching the martial art.

More info here.

OOps we did it again.

 

All too often, the hunt for baby furniture leads one down a path of fairy tale turrets and country kitchen floral.  Luckily, we came along with our Oops crib.  Built from our Drop Detail: a composition of reclaimed and FSC certified woods, this crib is playful without being childish. 

 

Every piece is an original, since we’re using reclaimed wood that comes from serendipitous and intriguing sources.  We’ve found wood in 150-year old barns, or abandoned at the Savannah port, or reclaimed from botched installation jobs.

 

We use FSC certified bamboo for the sides, and finish it all with local beeswax and USDA food grade Tung Oil.

 

This is one that Moms and Dads can be proud of.

 

-SG Team

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outstanding in the Field at the Love is Love farm. September 19, 2009

This weekend I had the good fortune of eating dinner at the Love is Love Farm in Douglasville, GA at an event put on by the good people of Outstanding in the Field.  Chef Kevin Gillespie of The Woodfire Grill in Atlanta, and of current Top Chef fame was presiding over the outdoor kitchen, which was no small feat considering the flood warning style rain we were all enduring to be there.

 

For those who don’t know, as worded by the founder, Jim Denevan, “Outstanding in the Field is a roving culinary adventure - literally a restaurant without walls. Since 1999 we have set the long table at farms or gardens, on mountaintops or in sea caves, on islands or at ranches. Occasionally the table is set indoors: a beautiful refurbished barn, a cool greenhouse or a stately museum. Wherever the location, the consistent theme of each dinner is to honor the people whose good work brings nourishment to the table.

 

Ingredients for the meal are almost all local (sometimes sourced within inches of your seat at the table!) and generally prepared by a celebrated chef of the region. After a tour of the site, we all settle in: farmers, producers, culinary artisans, and diners sharing the long table.”

 

Our mission is to re-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it.”

 

Farmers Judith Winfrey and Joe Reynolds operate Love is Love Farm which “focuses on heirloom and endangered vegetable varieties, and employs soil-based agricultural practices, such as continuous crop-rotation, cover cropping and labor-intensive hand weeding to cultivate the best and healthiest vegetables. All fertility and soil amendments are composed of natural sources. We believe that a direct relationship with customers and transparent growing practices are the most assured ways to preserve the safety of our food supply and protect our community as well as the environment.”

 

After a quick stop to Target to find Wellington boots (I have to say, I do love the rubber boots and fancy dress combo) Ryan and I wended our way to the farm, and moseyed around for an hour checking out the beautifully blooming Okra field, watching the hens in the “boudoir” section of the pen clucking and preening one another.

 

Just before dinner time, Joe gave us a tour of the premises, explaining his rejection of the USDA organic certification, holding himself to a higher standard, of personal conscience, synergistic practices and clean, conscientious growing, harvesting and replenishment.  He has started a stunning and challenging shitake farm, and grows the most elegant Zinnias.   In addition they produce an array of salad greens, aubergines, squash, beans, pears, honey, seasonal fruits, broccoli rabes, and on and on.

 

Finally we were seated to dinner inside the barns, alas, the rain would not abate.  But it was stunning: a sultry mist in the air, and a glow of setting sun behind clouds.  Everything was delectable, each course paired with a suitable wine.  Every dish had a story, a provenance and description far more poetic and intriguing that an airplane ride from Chile.  We got tipsy and got to know our table companion’s stories from Dublin to London to South Carolina.

 

It was an enchanting night.  It felt adventurous and sophisticated at once, and it’s inspiring to see an idea so whimsical, become a meaningful and rooted way of spreading good food, good sense and good conscience.

 

-Camilla

Trees, Trips and Automobiles.

Growing up in England, with a Nebraskan mother, I have always imagined taking the great American Road Trip. This summer I finally had the opportunity to do such a trip, and returned just a week ago from a month on the road. The trip went from Savannah, diagonally across the U.S., culminating in British Columbia, then a straight shot down to New Mexico and across again home, with plentiful stops along the way in National Forests, friend’s homes and the occasional super-grotty motel.

For the return ride, we (my boyfriend and I) listened to the book on tape of Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded, and realised that even our ultra efficient, ultra low sulphur, diesel car, was still a blight on the world, -as we did Friedman’s math on how many pounds of carbon we were effectively dumping in our wake.

Catch 22 I guess. Stay at home, keep my horizons limited, and ride my bike, or hit the road, expand my world, and leave a hefty footprint. One day, soon I hope, we won’t have to make that choice, and experiencing the world, meeting people, seeing unrecognizable vistas, sleeping under the stars, and eating local fruits won’t have to occur at the expense of our climate and well being.

They (the wonderful, omnipresent, anonymous, they) will build the cars, the planes, find the fuels and the energy to make our living less damaging. But in the mean time, with doubting Thomas’s questioning the veracity of global warming, we will be held back, persisting with our damaging, outdated technologies, and letting us who do believe the “HYPE”, to feel bad that our green choices are limited by the technology available to us.

The book is great; more heartening and patriotic than one might think of a book that is decidedly tree-hugging. And the road trip was amazing, everything I could have hoped for, and a whole lot more. America’s an extraordinarily beautiful country, I hope our carelessness won’t go on to such an extent that we threaten that beauty permanently.

-Camilla