sundance

Farming Chicago’s rooftops: The Urban Canopy

Back in August when I wrote about The Plant, a former meatpacking warehouse turned urban farm in Chicago, I made only the briefest of mentions of the business incubation plans the founding organization envisioned for the space. The brewery planned for the space has received the most attention thus far, but if you head up to the rooftop of the building, you’ll find another sustainable business at work: The Urban Canopy. As you might imagine, they’re in the rooftop farming business, though they’re taking a quite different approach from most with their rooftop hydroponics system.

The 30 Project: Three decades to a more sustainable food system

Remember 1980? The Miracle on Ice? Voodoo economics? “Funkytown” at the top of the charts? Seems like eons ago, doesn’t it? You may not remember (or even realize) that 1980 was also a seminal year (or, the round-about time for big changes) in our food system. Consolidation of agriculture? That’s when we started to see it. High-fructose corn syrup? It started showing up in, well, everything right about then. A decrease in US agricultural aid to other countries? That, too.

So, is any of this important to us now, or just a little food history trivia?

Best of Kickstarter, 11/21

We scoured the pages of Kickstarter to bring you this week’s best projects. Have a great Kickstarter project of your own or see one you think deserves some extra attention? Let us know about it the comments and we may just feature it in our weekly roundup.

TECH

Desktop 3-D Printer: The 3-D craze continues with the first personal three-dimensional desktop printer. As it turns out, a 3-D printer is not something that makes weird images you can look at with 3-D glasses, but it actually prints out three-dimensional objects.

Capta: I’m a major dropper/smasher of iPhones, so this weird octopus-like contraption, the “Capta,” seems like an excellent solution for clumsy folks like me. Rigged with a magnet at the back, you can mount the suction cups to different surfaces to keep your phone out of the way but still accessible…

Breakfast from fifty countries

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. Correction: Breakfast food is my favorite, but I don’t typically do breakfast in the morning. In fact, I’m notorious for not being a “morning person.” This compilation of breakfasts from fifty countries by Design You Trust combines my love for eggs at any time of day with something else I’m a fan of: world travel…

Bring on the food porn: The NY Food Film Fest

Even though there’s a specific, Food Porn event at NYFFF (that’s the other film fest, the food film fest), let’s face it – with a tribute to the taco and cheers to burgers and beers (picture close-ups of melting cheese oozing out over a perfectly grilled patty poised on a nice, buttery bun), it’s allll food porn. And with four days of tastings cooked by a line-up that includes Dos Toros, Rockaway Taco, Dos Caminos, Di Fara’s Pizza, An Choi’s Banh Mi, Ovenly’s Beer Cupcakes and Peruvian celebri-chef Gaston Acurio – that’s not a bad thing…

Real Time Farms: Yelp for the local foodie

Do you use a service like Yelp to check out a new restaurant before visiting? Do you read other people’s reviews and maybe even leave your own? Most of us do (at least the former), but if you’re interested in the sources of the food the restaurant serves, you may be out of luck. Unless it’s one of those relatively rare places that promotes its use of locally-sourced ingredients, or even lists the farms from which it buys, you either have to ask a lot of questions or take your chances…

Now arriving at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport: garden fresh food

Airport food is generally only memorable for the high prices we pay for such lackluster fare. We don’t expect much more than this, and we’re happy if we can get it quickly enough to make our connection. That’s been the standard for as long as I can remember, but it turns out that as of mid-September, you can now add “fresh” and “nutritious” to the options at one US airport. Chicago’s O’Hare now has four restaurants that buy local produce for their menus, and, in these cases, “local” means “grown at the airport.” The airport has opened the world’s first “aeroponic” garden in Terminal 2, which grows “44 different types of organic herbs and vegetables” for use at Tortas Frontera, Wicker Park Seafood and Sushi, Blackhawks Restaurant and Tuscany.

Suburban agriculture: food, not lawns

As someone who lives in an urban setting (and, yeah, I know, my NYC friends are snickering at that), I’m as guilty as anyone of sneering at the suburbs. I always associate the term with cookie-cutter subdivisions in driving distance (but probably not walking distance) of big box stores and chain restaurants. In many cases, that’s fair, but, as The Wall Street Journal noted last week, developers around the US have started to experiment with something different – and potentially more sustainable – in suburban design: the agricultural community.

Organic farming in Uganda: can pineapples lead to prosperity?

I admit that I know very little about Uganda: Idi Amin (gathered largely from THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND) and news reports of the bizarre “Kill the Gays” bill pretty much sums it up. I learned a bit in January about efforts to protect their coffee crop from the effects of climate change, but still wouldn’t want take a test on the country. So perhaps my pleasant surprise at news of a growing organic agricultural movement in the country is just a sign of my ignorance, but it strikes me as a really positive development in a nation that has been torn by by political and social unrest for decades.

Animated edibles by Alexandre Dubosc

Alimation from Alexandre DUBOSC on Vimeo.

My interest in baked goods was already pretty keen without there being a cultural incentive to drool in their direction. For his new short film, “Alimation,” French visual artist Alexandre Dubosc crafted a series of edible “zoetropes,” or moving illusions for this year’s Annency International Animated Film Festival. With everything from fresh crepes to elaborate, multi-tier cakes, the film is as mesmerizing as it is mouth-watering.

Green tech finds, 9/1/11

Lots of building tech this week, from shipping container “farms” to a net-zero rehab to a “living building” in Seattle.

Shipping containers as mini farms?: Is there anything you can’t do with used shipping containers? Atlanta-based PodPonics turns them into small hydroponic “farms” for growing food near the point of sale. (via Triplepundit)

Solar collector by day, light display by night: Move over, Jumbotron! Industrial designer Meidad Marzan‘s Urban Tiles concept combines solar panels and OLED panels that can be installed on the outside of buildings in an array, and which “flip” to shift from solar collector to advertising display, big screen television, or even a massive artistic canvas. (via Inhabitat)

The Plant: Chicago meatpacking facility turned vertical farm

What’s the Hog Butcher of the World to do when it’s no longer butchering hogs? How about grow vegetables? That’s the concept behind The Plant, a planned vertical farm in Chicago’s Back of the Yard neighborhood (which is also home to Testa Produce’s new – and very green – distribution center). When complete, the 93,500 square foot facility will house aquaponic growing facilities, and even help sprout numerous sustainable food businesses.

Snoozing through the most exciting food in the world in EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS

In a lecture given by El Bulli’s Ferran Adrià to his new crop of fledgling cooks, he tells them at the food at El Bulli is less about taste and more about concept. When it comes to avant garde cooking, Adrià is the leader of the pack. Until he shut down his restaurant this July, he would regularly close it for half the year to conduct experiments with his core team in Barcelona, and the reopen six months later it to diners who gladly shelled out $500 for one of Adrià’s epic 35-course meals.

Scandybars satisfies an electronic sweet tooth

While enjoying my ritual Green & Black’s dark cherry chocolate bar, it never occurred to me to stop mid-chew, turn on the scanner (that I don’t actually have), slap my tasty treat on the glass and reveal its delicious innards to the blogosphere. Thankfully, it did occur to the author of the fascinating new Tumblr, Scandybars, who – in the tradition of its predecessor, Scanwiches – makes delicate slices in familiar sweets to expose the artistic compositions contained in their cross-sections.

Organic gardening: the next big thing in creating interfaith communities?

Gardens get kind of a bad rap in Abrahamic mythology: just think Eden or Gethsemene. Despite those narratives, Catholic and Jewish congregations in Columbia, Missouri (the college town in the state) have found that gardening together allows them to not only demonstrate their commitments to creation, care and serving the needy, but to also build bridges between people of different faiths.

The Interfaith Care for Creation Garden Project traces its roots back to 2006, when an interfaith couple new to the area who wanted to get their children involved in volunteer projects. Fallow farmland behind Congregation Beth Shalom provided the perfect space for the effort; When founder Mary Beth Litofsky injured her back in 2009, the new Interfaith Care for Creation group (a project of the Columbia Climate Change Coalition) took over. The St. Thomas More Newman Center organized volunteers, and, all together, the effort produced 550 pounds of food – all of which went to local food pantries and kitchens that feed the needy.

Jasmin Schuller’s “Sweet Meat”

Jasmin Schuller’s “Sweet Meat” series combines three things I love dearly in life: 1) Dessert, which is my favorite course of any meal. 2) Fulfilling my carnivorous diet of meat. 3) The deceptive humor in trompe l’oeil art, which the New York Times once summarized as such: “There is no art more elementary (or more seductive) than trompe l’oeil. Truly a people’s art, it requires skill to produce, but no conditioning to appreciate and, as a branch of pie-in-the-face humor, it must be one of civilization’s oldest jokes.” In this case, Schuller tells a hilarious joke. She uses raw meat to create shockingly realistic and familiar-looking desserts like sundaes, pies, popsicles and delicate pastries. The reaction to the candy bright photos of these treats becomes unsettling revulsion once the viewer recognizes that there is more to these desserts than meats (pun always intended!) the eye.

LUDO BITES AMERICA – Ceviche

Watch LUDO BITES AMERICA Tuesdays at 9P

More masterful cooking from our guest blogger Justin, who, along with his wife, Lori, writes the food blog The Gastronomic Duo, a blog dedicated to couples cooking together in the kitchen and enjoying food with one another in their home.

I’m going to be straightforward here. I think ceviche is best served as the rustic and simple dish that it historically is: a poor man’s meal conceived as a way to get rid of fish and reduce waste on its last palatable day via light pickling. I’m also going to say that when done right, it’s a total delight. That’s why this SUNfiltered post is so exciting to me. When I read the recipe, I wanted to transport myself immediately to my Minneapolis kitchen and try it. I thought, “Wow, this is ceviche taken to the next level.” Milk granita, cucumber water and blackberries. I was delighted to give this recipe a shot. Maybe it would change my viewpoint on ceviche forever.

Ludo Bites – lost and found in translation

Careful, there’s foie gras in those cupcakes!

Watch LUDO BITES AMERICA every Tuesday at 9P

More savory wit from our featured food blogger Diana Hossfeld, who writes the food blog Diana Takes a Bite.

The first time I ate foie gras was two years ago at Ludo Bites in Los Angeles. I hated it. The muddy-colored lobe had been chopped into thumb-sized chunks and surreptitiously slipped into a miso soup with rhubarb, hibiscus and beets. I didn’t understand it – I didn’t want to understand it. I just wanted it to go away. And I wanted to replace it with things I was used to ingesting in my miso soup – tofu, seaweed, shiitake mushrooms – not foie gras.

Pig knuckles and chicken feathers

The whole hog: a batch of pig ears ready for the fryer. Watch LUDO BITES AMERICA every Tuesday at 9P More savory wit from our featured food blogger Diana Hossfeld, who writes the food blog Diana Takes a Bite. Pig knuckles and chicken feathers. These were my mother’s favorite scary stories when my brothers and I were [...]

Ludo Bites a buffalo

Watch LUDO BITES AMERICA Tuesdays at 9P

More mouthwatering bon mots from guest blogger Zach Golden, the creator of the incredibly popular website, What the Fuck Should I Make For Dinner?

If you have an aversion to things getting shot, things getting skinned, hearts being eaten or French chefs, you may not want to continue. Or you may want to, we really don’t know each other that well, but consider this your formal warning.

Buffaloes and Bison and Ludo, Oh My!

Watch LUDO BITES AMERICA every Tuesday at 9P

More savory wit from our featured food blogger Diana Hossfeld, who writes the food blog Diana Takes a Bite.

“There’s buffalo by my house!” I piped up in the middle of Mrs. Johnson’s fifth grade U.S. History lesson about Native Americans. Heads whipped around to stare, Mrs. Johnson swallowed what I immediately identified as a skeptical snort and guffaw, and my confident declaration rapidly disintegrated into a physical declaration of embarrassment. My cheeks burned as I tried to explain how it was conceivably possible for there to be buffalo roaming around near my house in Newport Beach, California. I did not do well in pleading my case.

LUDO BITES AMERICA – Grouper Po’boy Sandwich

Watch LUDO BITES AMERICA Tuesdays at 9P

More masterful cooking from our guest blogger Justin, who, along with his wife, Lori, writes the food blog The Gastronomic Duo, a blog dedicated to couples cooking together in the kitchen and enjoying food with one another in their home.

One might not think we Minnesotans know much about the po’ boy and I’m gonna have to tell you, you’re wrong. If the po’ boy sandwich is about the fish, Minnesota has just as much knowledge as all of those Southerners, probably more considering the 20,000 lakes our state boasts.

It’s a bold statement. I am aware. It’s bold because unfortunately the po’ boy is not about the fish. For Lance it wasn’t about the bike and for the po’ boy sammy it’s not about the fish. That said, the same rules always apply when purchasing fish – source the highest quality and the freshest available.

Gulf Cuisine – Battered Up and Fried

Watch LUDO BITES AMERICA every Tuesday at 9P

More savory wit from our featured food blogger Diana Hossfeld, who writes the food blog Diana Takes a Bite.

“Anyway, like I was sayin’, shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. Dey’s uh, shrimp kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That’s – that’s about it.”

According to these wise words from Bubba in FORREST GUMP, there are many different ways to enjoy shrimp. The possibilities are almost endless, the flavors and preparations as varied as the heart desires, limited only by the imagination of one fictional character. Or, in the case of one nonfictional character (me), taste.

Beyond cows: community gardens in Omaha

Watch LUDO BITES AMERICA, Tuesdays at 9P, only on Sundance Channel.

When Ludo and Krissy hit Omaha tonight, they’ll be focused on soul food, rather than the beef for which the city is so famous. That means lots of vegetables… and while I don’t know for certain where Patricia “Big Mama” Barron gets her produce, it turns out she has lots of small-scale, local options available to her.

Potato chip, meet chocolate

Watch some sweet chocolate on potato chip action.

The salty-sweet thing is officially as ubiquitous as the time-honored PB & J sandwich, and everyone has their own favorite combo, be it the humble street cart kettle corn, sea salt caramels, chocolately-nutty granola bars or, my personal indulgence, dipping pretzels into buttery, rich Nutella. One time I even saw a guy pour one of those movie theatre concession-sized boxes of M&M’s into a big ol’ bag of popcorn. “Ooh,” his date cooed, “you do that salty-sweet thing, too?” The pairings can get downright bizarre. I won’t even go into the retch-inducing chocolate-covered pickle-on-a-stick I once saw a street fair, but it’s safe to say that the combinations are seemingly endless.