sustainablehouse.com.au » Food facts

Real food pop up cooking school

Michael — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 03:51:55 +0000

Kate Walsh, a Sydney real food seller and promoter, has pop up cooking classes this July.

Learn how to make real butter, sausages, tortillas, pickles, ricotta and other foods from the farmers and producers who make them for a living; from Feathers and Bone to Pepe of Pepe’s butter.

Information is here.

The People’s Supermarket

Michael — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 06:40:18 +0000

The People’s Supermarket

In England there’s a supermarket called, The People’s Supermarket.

The supermarket was brought to my attention by someone I met at one of the events to promote my new book, Sustainable Food, Christine, who also sent me some photos of it and they’re above and below.

Christine wrote:

“I had a great time at the People’s Supermarket when I visited it in August this year. I got a tour of the whole premises and met some of the original coop members, who’d featured in the TV series.They had to make a few compromises when the partnership with Spar stopped them from going under. They still are able to stick to their principles of sourcing cheap local produce and getting produce like the curly cucumbers, which is rejected by the supermarket chains but perfectly OK to eat. They are opposite Great Ormand Street Children’s Hospital so along with local residents, they have a ready supply of customers for both food and the cheap meals they prepare on the premises.

Cheers and happy days Christine“.

The People’s Kitchen

Let’s we the people control, sell and grow our own food . . . now,

New York Times – record droughts now ‘normal’

Michael — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 00:25:08 +0000

New York Times – record breaking droughts ‘normal’ from now on; will seem ‘wet’ compared to droughts that lie ahead in the next decades.

www.nytimes.com…

‘It is increasingly clear that we already live in the era of human-induced climate change, with unprecedented weather and climate extremes . . .

Smaller Aussie bees pollinate more than introduced bees

Michael — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 17:39:51 +0000

A friend, Maryanne, has let me know that Aussie native bees are more effective at pollinating than the feral introduced bees used mostly for the commercial honey market, and says:

‘www.aussiebee.com…

The main thing they mention is the smaller size (Presumably can get inside smaller spaces). Some native species , though not the one you have, can also do a different type of pollination called buzz pollination in which they release pollen by effectively shaking the flower. I get one of these bee species in my garden, you may too

bluebandedbees.com…

There are some plants that require this, but it is also more effective for self pollinating plants like tomatoes.’

How about that?

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,

Carriageworks Kitchen Garden stall at Eveleigh a buzz

Michael — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:14:49 +0000

: Alice, Vera, Stef and Bob

Holy stalls Batman. That was fun.

Yesterday Alice, Vera, Stef and I met so many terrific supportive and energy-full folk yesterday at our community kitchen garden stall at Everleigh Markets.

Truly, Earth can give a bloke a good day every now and then and the black dog can be locked up in its kennel.

Forty-eight signatures for the Sustainable Communities Plan.

Several copies taken away by designers, community networkers . . . we’re on a roll.

Citizens signing the petition for the Plan

Met the mover and shaker Siobhan Toohill who gave me a card for her new business, Pure and Applied: www.pureandapplied.net… Good luck with it, Siobhan.

Met Bob, one of the gardeners who’s worked on the road gardens in Darlington, Chippo and elsewhere. The rising star (I reckon so, anyway) Ash Berd, turned up – her video about the Plan is a professional triumph for a person making their first video: vimeo.com….

And caught up with Andrew Muscat, a farmer from Richmond; says he’s been getting rid of winter weeds in summer and summer weeds in winter and he can’t understand the weather anymore.

Nameko Mushrooms, primal-looking, eh?

Tried some new mushrooms I found called Nameko; grainy texture and surprising sharp aftertaste when eaten raw; will experiment in the kitchen and report further.

Local markets are the belly of a village and it’s there we can find so much more than food – community, friends not seen, new ideas, farmers who we can give thanks to, and much more.

May the markets be with us,

And so . . . to chestnuts

Michael — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 23:37:18 +0000

A friend, Stephanie, has alerted me to a source of fairly local (near Canberra) chestnuts, and will roast some at afternoon tea this Saturday. They’re ordered on the Net from Tweenhills Chestnuts: www.tweenhillschestnuts.com….au

Fresh chestnuts are available direct from the farm duringApril and May.

Their website says:

‘John and Heather Kane established Tweenhills Chestnuts in 1997. The orchard comprises 1,700 grafted trees on 10 ha. Tweenhills is operated using modern horticultural practises with limited use of chemicals.

We have trialled many chestnut varieties and selected the best ones for our region: chestnuts that peel easily and taste good.

We specialise in producing roasting chestnuts. Our main variety is an Italian style chestnut, De Coppi Marone.

De Coppi Marone is our main variety. This is our preferred nut for roasting as it is sweet and easy to peel. We prefer to supply this variety to our online purchasers.

Chestnuts that are high quality, sweet tasting and easy to peel. We try to do this using limited resources in a sustainable way.’

I mention this before tasting them this coming Saturday as supply ends mid July so if you’re interested in sampling them time’s running out; if you do get some we can swap stories, yes?

Ever since I walked down dark, crowded streets during winter in Italy’s streets, snacking on chestnuts and the other sensations of the streets when I lived there for four months I’ve had a hankering for good chestnuts well-cooked.

May the local chestnuts be with us, oh yeah,

Fejoia is fab

Michael — Wed, 23 May 2012 09:38:13 +0000

Banana and fejoia

I’ve really developed a taste for fejoia; the one I photographed here I bought from Harris Farm, Broadway.

The fejoia is the best performing of our street fruit trees; hardy, doesn’t need watering, easy to espalier, and, best of all, not one has been stolen.

Try one – you may become a fejoia lover, too; it was a very strange taste the first time, part kiwi fruit, part something entirely new.

To eat; cut in half, take a spoon and eat raw – yum,

The Sustainable Communities Plan is on the web

Michael — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:38:08 +0000

Sydney City Council asked me to make a plan to make the whole suburb of Chippendale sustainable.

It’s not just a plan for this suburb; it can be used to make any suburb sustainable – it’s free and you’re welcome to put it to work where you are.

Now the Plan can be read on mobiles, kindles and is very easy to search, use and tweet. Get it here:

theplan.sustainablehouse.com…

Enjoy.

You can see some of the folks who support the Plan.

Please sign the petition to have the Plan exhibited for public comment. We want the Plan and there’s strong community support for it from here and other people across Sydney, Australia and overseas.

If we can get the Plan made here anyone may use it as an example to persuade other councils and governments to make a Plan to sustain the suburb where they live – if you’re reading this in Melbourne or Texas, USA – sign the petition for the Plan and you’ll be able to use a Plan like this where you live and work, too.

Michael

Another day, another composter

Michael — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:16:15 +0000

Got home tonight to find this lovely email:

Hi Michael,

I’ve seen you today giving a presentation to Canon employees. It was a very good one and it certainly made people think about the energy and water being wasted in our everyday lives. Many thanks!

I would like to let you know my thoughts on coffee grounds composting. Many small, local cafes do not produce enough coffee grounds to make farmers interested in reusing them (as in your example) so they need to pay for disposal. I believe people should use this situation as an opportunity to get material for compost bins in suburban gardens or to create raised beds. Of course, the coffee grounds should not be composted alone, being high in nitrogen they need to be mixed with carbon-rich material, like non-glossy paper or cardboard. The paper products which each household usually throws out or recycles should be used instead to produce food. Scrunched newspapers, torn junk mail, shredded documents, toilet paper rolls – they all make great compost combined with coffee grounds. This time of the year leaves from deciduous trees could be used as well. It is easy and doable even by someone who works full time.

I have an agreement with such a small local business and pick up 25-30 kgs coffee grounds per week and also large hessian bags they buy coffee beans in. My neighbours give me their old newspapers (I have a wire basket at the edge of my front garden for collection) and also let me to sweep fallen leaves. It all works very well.

I wonder if you could mention this in your blog as autumn is in full swing (which means more people drinking hot coffee and more fallen leaves).

Anyway, thank you again for an opportunity to listen to you. My head is spinning with new ideas!

Cheers

Margaret

Thanks, Margaret,

Go the composters,

Sale at our best gardening bookshop

Michael — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:13:38 +0000

Imagine a bookshop you can walk to where the staff know all the writers and have most of the books you have heard of and much more you never have – all about gardening, plants and Earth’s growing world.

I reckon it’s Australia’s best specialist gardening bookshop and it’s just off Glebe Pt Road, Glebe.

I’ve received this promo from Gil, the owner, for their annual sale:

We open the doors at 10.00am SATURDAY 28 April and run to SATURDAY 12 May. (Please remember we are now closed Sundays and Mondays).

Up to 90% discount on hundreds of titles, as well as the ‘bargain-bin’ table stock where you never know what you might pick up for a song (or a dollar or two). It might be the work of a botanist who has devoted 15 years of his life (more likely male than female we suspect) to the original study of a Patagonian plant family, perchance a book on manures for the war-time gardener, or perhaps some recent titles on Landscape Architecture, Ecology, Food Politics, etc. Who knows?

The books have come from all kinds of sources: from folk who are downsizing, changing interests, passing on, from publishers who didn’t see the GFC coming and from a certain bookseller who made blithe estimates as to the effect of wholesale pricing by internet dealers. (Check out www.florilegium.com….au in the near future.)

I nag Gil to put a sign outside his bookshop and he promises he will but he never does. It’s a bit like finding a hidden gem.

The address is:

65 Derwent St (Cnr Derwent & Mitchell sts)

Go the gardeners,