swedish neatballs

Exclusive to Dezeen, we are treated to three sustainable, future-proof recipes to try at home from IKEA’s laboratory Space10. By releasing a cookbook and encouraging individuals to experiment in their own labs and incubators, IKEA is hoping to come closer to closing “the gap between future trends and real life” and enable people to become active and engaged agents of positive change. Check out recipes and learn more about Space10’s test kitchen at the link above.

ad mensam

Schloß Hollenegg (DE) outside of Graz (the summer residence of the House of Liechtenstein) is no stranger to hosting unique exhibitions and the latest installation by curator Alice Stori Liechtenstein is no exception—with twenty-one site specific pieces throughout the castle’s sculleries and dining hall that explore table manners and dining etiquette as a social wedge that goes beyond the act of nourishment to afford all the chance to gather together and a place at the table (the Latin title). Much more to explore and chew over with Dezeen at the link above.

musterküche

Via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake, we learn about the Frankfurt kitchen (die Frankfurter Küche), which transformed our relationship to food preparation, dining and living, created by interbellum designer Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (*1897 – †2000) and first Austrian woman to be credentialed as an architect.
Assigned the task of creating the kitchen spaces for a new, post-war housing project to rebuild Frankfurt am Main in 1926, Schütte-Lihotzky took inspiration from the efficiencies of railway dining cars and created kitchens for hundreds of thousands of units and though perhaps not as narrow, one can detect elements of Schütte-Lihotzky’s vision and basic layout in our own new kitchen. Sensing the eminent fall of the Weimar Republic, she and other architects joined Ernst May—the chief designer behind the New Frankfurt project and other rebuilding and re-housing efforts to form the “May Brigade” and went off to the Soviet Union to help with Stalin’s Five Year Plan. Once conditions again became untenable during the Great Purge (Большой террор, 1937 – 1938), their group became unrooted again and Schütte-Lihotzky settled in Chicago and worked on the World’s Fair Century of Progress exposition.

macroalgae

Instead of the usual plastic cups or bottles of water offered to parched runners, for this past London Marathon participants were handed out some thirty thousand gulps of a sports drink encapsulated (previously) in a seaweed-based edible container. Among the newest wonder material, designers and the industry are just beginning to appreciate the potential of seaweed as a sustainable bio-plastic which, incorporated dietarily, can also combat the bio-genesis of methane.

6x6

attention kmart shoppers: an audio archives of in-store music and sales promotions from the late 1980s and early 1990s

it’s dangerous to go alone! take this: a scholarly exploration of the psychology of Legend of Zelda franchise

as seen on tv: a collection of fine products from Obvious Plant—previously

the medium is the mess: antiquarian JP Ptak’s card-catalogue of Outsider Logic

the legend of the visnaga: a turn of the century confectionary craze nearly wiped out barrel cactus of the southwestern US

afghan twin: some interesting musings on the unsounded market in sonic camouflage 

breakfast of champions

One of the intermediate achievements to come out of a four-decade experiment of The Land Institute’s founders Wes and Dana Jackson was trialled earlier this week before a body of scientists, conservationists and environmental activists in the form of a cereal milled from the grain of a perennial wheat, domesticated through a series of cross-breeding (see also) to make a potentially useful food crop out of wild prairie grasses.
Calling their cultivar Kernza, the team hopes to transform and invert the way industrial agriculture affects the environment and ecosystem as an enduring part of an environment that admits cohabitation rather than a seasonal interloper that requires energy intensive replanting year after year and causes a large degree of collateral damage despite its otherwise shallow impact.  In comparison, seasonal farming practises seem like a scorched earth campaign, with pesticides, erosion, vast expanses of monoculture that does not allow for a degree of diversity and the act of tilling itself that releases a bigger share of carbon dioxide than most other human enterprises.  Learn more at the links above.

hemebase

While this latest fare I suspect wouldn’t be for someone like me who has happily been a vegetarian for over two decades, meatless options moving into the fast food business (I was afraid that this was some cynical prank because of the timing but gladly not) are certainly positive developments all around and might encourage omnivorous appetites to significantly cut back on beef consumption.
There’s always an element of acclimation—I suppose the same as I would go through trying to convince myself that what was being offered to me—and I’d be willing to try—was not a hamburger but something completely plant-based, but changing diets without compromising anything in terms of taste or texture is pretty pivotal. Our dietary choices have consequences, and when beef becomes cheap and disposable, we are paying for it dearly elsewhere. I wonder what we will ultimately gain in return for moving in a more healthy and humane direction.

sakoku

Within a couple decades after Commodore Perry compelled Japan to open its doors to the West with the Treaty of Shimoda, Japanese society was beginning to relax its taboos against the consumption of meat other than seafood signalled by Emperor Mutsuhito’s 1872 New Year’s repast of beef—which caused much consternation among devout Buddhists who had helped cultivate the prohibition for over twelve centuries.
The Meiji administration changed its policy of isolation and was eager to adopt Western ways and technologies, effectively rescinding a decree from Emperor Tenmu in the seventh century not to eat useful animals during the farming season, which came to be a general avoidance (a heavy penance was put in place or transgression) for practical reasons as well as the belief in transmigration of the soul and the chance that would could be reincarnated as a cow or boar.

6x6

våffeldagen: make traditional waffles for Swedish Waffle Day (a corruption of the Feast of the Annunciation, Vårfrudagen)

if you run after me, i will go to the playground—the one you call the ‘trashy playground’: the Helicopter Bunny by Elizabeth Hoey, via Duck Soup

roslyn place: a drive down Pittsburgh’s last remaining wooden street, via Nag on the Lake

silent moscow: a meditation in street photography from Hermes Pichon

pass the salt: another very satisfying Rube Goldberg (previously) inspired way to accomplish a task

scholas occurentes: Hadi Partovi with the help of young students taught the Pope how to script a line of computer code, vis Slashdot

pass the dutchie on the left hand side or bong appétite!

Courtesy of Nag on the Lake’s fun and informative curated Sunday Links, we discover among other things that the great-great-granddaughter of etiquette and good-manners maven Emily Post is poised to publish an update which promises to impart poise and grace for any social toking session.
Lizzie Post’s Higher Etiquette supplements one’s finishing school decorum—good manners are about gratitude, respect and inclusion which the author and her ancestor’s institute promote and not about the intimidation or embarrassment which some fancy passing as class—ended with the title instruction or puff-puff-pass, neither of which appear in the guide (one should take three hits of a joint before passing it around).

båly bay

An undersea restaurant on the Norwegian southern coast whose ground-breaking caught our attention a year and a half ago is celebrating its official grand opening and welcoming diners. Designed by the Snøhetta group to suggest an emerging periscope, Under (that word also means a wonder in Norsk) hosts up to forty guests, for whom I hope the liminal experience makes a lasting and profound impression, and serves a dual purpose as a marine research laboratory when not serving meals. Learn more at the links above, including a peek at the menu and where to book reservations.

shashimi serology

A restaurateur in Tokyo—having trialled the concept at last year’s SXSW conference—is preparing to welcome diners, pre-screened ones, to the Sushi Singularity, which will print food—gelatine pixels—fortified with the nutrients complimentary or otherwise found to be lacking in biological swabs and samples submitted in advance by guests. While the concept seems intriguing, I don’t think I would like sharing that experience with strangers.

bjórdagurinn

A dry spell lasting from New Year’s Day 1915 to this day in 1989, Iceland placed a prohibition on beer for seventy-four years. A 1908 referendum that went into effect seven years later banned all alcoholic beverages outright for the island nation, but under pressure from the Kingdom of Spain, who threatened to stop importing Icelandic fish unless they were allowed to export Spanish wine, caused the Alþingi to relax their strictures a bit and a 1935 plebiscite allowed for the possession, sale and consumption of spirits.
Beer, however, remained excluded in order to appease the powerful temperance lobby, reasoning that beer by dint of its cheapness would result in greater dissolution. By the mid-1980s, the availability of international travel and greater tourism reconnected a generation of Icelanders who had grown up without beer back in touch with it and bars in the country were improvising with an expensive and potentially dangerous mix of non-alcoholic beer (which was legal) stiffened with shots of liquor. The Alþingi finally entertained the question again and lifted prohibition—an event observed annually.

all the presidents’ meals

The always brilliant Everlasting Blört refers us to a rather incredible, wide-ranging study from Foreign Policy on official White House State Dinners and how the evolution of the menu reflects changing tastes, health trends and American cuisine. Harry S Truman, hosting Dutch and British prime ministers Willem Drees and Winston Churchill, most certainly served samples of a certain new corn chip called Fritos and a couple of old fashioneds.
Nixon lost his creative flair after Watergate and recycled Bibb salads.  Jimmy Carter held the biggest state dinner with dignitaries from all over Latin American invited to attend the US transferring ownership of the Panama Canal. At one of the Reagans’ events, John Travolta danced with Princess Diana. Inventions of the kitchen—special sauces and desserts—were often named after the guests of honour. Reflecting popular diet fads of the 1990s, the Clinton White House only served beef on two occasions. Beautifully presented—plated, the interactive presentation that covers nearly nine decades of gastro-diplomatic fêting, we are ready to dig in and sample the courses through history.

olfaction

Reading this account of how one person’s loss of her sense of smell, partial recovery and dealing with dysosmia—though far from suffering in complete solitude (27ᵗʰ February is Anosmia Awareness Day sponsored by the UK charity The Fifth Sense, which advocates for people with smell and taste disorders), left her a sort of shut-in (now rehabilitated) and made us appreciate our noses and taste buds and the even the crudest, simplest bouquet for all its worth.
Not only does a deficit in smell affect diet, routine and hygiene—as well as potentially posing a safety risk bereft of certain warning signals—it also steals away associative, sentimental memories. The author’s determination wrestle back that blessing through training and exercise, despite the rather bleak prognosis, is admirable and we’ll by searching later for our old vials of essential oils—lemon, eucalyptus, rosewater and clove, we knew they would be useful again one of these days—and starting on a vigorous regiment.

7x7

suburbia: Eliza Gosse paints Australian Mid-Century modern homes

emancipation of the dissonance: economist and performer Merle Hazard delivers an atonal tune

threadstories: crocheted masks and headdresses examine our online avatars and personæ

autoglyphs: Michael Light takes an aerial survey of the arid American west

forget about it: a versatile Italian word to know

needs more salt: a seasonings purveyor and a tech company collaborate to optimise spicing up your recipes

byggeskikk: a photographer becomes quite taken with a picturesque cabin 

la fête de la chandeleur

While parts of the world are obsessing with weather prognosis as determined by a groundhog, in France (and other Francophone parts, I’m sure) Candlemas (the presentation of Jesus at the Temple,
inducting the infant into the Jewish faith and community) is attended with the Festival des Chandelles. In addition to a rainy day (quand ii pleut) signalling further forty more days of stormy weather (depending on who you ask), the days is also marked by making crêpes and galettes, which symbolise the waxing Sun, harking back to pre-Christian syncretism, and the coming spring after a long winter.

sunday drive: kloster kreuzberg

Built on the western-face of Franconia’s “holy mountain” with some six hundred thousand visitors and host to eighty pilgrimages yearly and not to mention one our favourite nearby locales, I was a bit taken aback to find that I had neglected to make mention of the Franciscan Kreuzberg Cloister beforehand—but will make amends for the place we went to again today, taking advantage of the sunny and clear though cold day.
Until Irish missionaries arrived in the mid-seventeenth century, the mountain was known as Aschberg (after a warlike race of Norse gods Æsir, like the titans as distinct from the Olympians, and not the tree, however) and ostensibly the site of a tree-worshiping cult before being rebranded in the native language after Golgotha.  A convent was later formed and in the early 1700s, the brothers were granted a charter to brew beer (it is hard to object to a group of sequestered individuals who earn their keep through prayer and beer), which is still a major attraction to this day.
After making sport in the snow or hiking the trails, most repair to the guesthouse for a beer and refreshments. The monks also raise Saint Bernards to rescue the wayward, but the newest additions in the kennel were not in the mood to have their pictures taken.  We are sure to return another time when the place is a bit less crowded and once again more conducive to exploring.

à la carte

Via Super Punch, we’ve found ourselves obsessing and delighting over this menu from an Italian restaurant whose selection of pizzas are named after the dates of significant events in the lives of the proprietor’s family. It’s a pretty endearing and make us wish we had a restaurant to commemorate special occasions. More to explore at Super Punch at the link above—a consummate connoisseur of premium tweets and other fine hypertext products.

7x7

personality, wessonality: spot the celebrities at the 1986 All Star Party for Clint Eastwood

spargelzeit: a little education can be empowering for keeping the resolution to eat healthier, fresher foods

urban density: exploring the crowded high-rises of Hong Kong

ikumen: the rise of the Japanese hot dads is changing the traditional roles of parenting for the better

rubisco: botanists tinker with photosynthesis to make the process more efficient

fishbit and half-wit: an assortment of the dumbest smart gadgets premiered at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) technology expo

minor arcana: the Tarot deck-like miniatures of Robert Coutelas