Fish Mosaics

Tetra Pak Cover

2006-12-18T21:09:00.000Z

Experimented trying to make a DVD cover out of tetra pak. Top tip - scissors and all-purpose glue don't give the best results. Whilst tetra paks revolutionised the sales of drinks, milks and juices they are a recycling headache. Reusing them is pretty limited too - hats, purses and bags. It would be great to come up with some idea that doesn't look too cheap, tacky and desperate.

Largest Ketchup Bottle

2006-12-18T09:01:00.000Z

One that caught my attention this morning - "The World's Largest Catsup Bottle stands proudly next to Route 159, just south of downtown Collinsville, Illinois. This unique 170 ft. tall water tower was built in 1949 by the W.E. Caldwell Company for the G.S. Suppiger catsup bottling plant - bottlers of Brooks old original rich & tangy catsup.

It's got a website, fan club, visitors and merchandise. Wonder if there are other roadside, biggest, food related architectural gems out there? Bound to be. Biggest hot dog, burger, pizza in metal and plastic...

Make Olive Oil Spread

2006-12-06T10:39:00.000Z

I can't believe this works but the pictures show it can be done. Why buy pricey olive oil spreads with additives when you can make 100% olive oil spread for no extra money.
Homemade Olive Oil Spread

Onion Post-It Note

2006-12-05T10:32:00.000Z

Isn't this just great. A post-it note not in dull yellow but a red onion. Link to Tokyomango

2006-11-12T22:33:00.000Z

The proposed DVD is coming along, very slowly, too late for the Christmas market. Not done half the scenes, or the cut-aways, music, voice over...not quite the bish-bosh and now we edit it I was told to expect.
Provisionally called "Grocer's Kitchen", 'cos that's what I am - a grocer, and I've got a kitchen....

Make a cooking DVD?

2006-11-07T22:36:00.000Z

In the process of trying to make a DVD. It's about food, and what to do with it - yes cook and eat it. A full days filming was knackering, the prospect of another day I'm dreading. Then there are the cut aways on location, the editing, finding suitable music, artwork, ...Out of my depth. It's not like uploading a clip for YouTube. Then comes the pressing, having a room full of plastic and trying to sell it. The last bit I will probably enjoy. In the picture you can see Horace the sound operator, the Biffa herself who does the styling, and myself wondering what the hell I've let myself into. The story will unfold.

Coffee Collection

2006-11-05T11:53:00.000Z

Short, very short, a minute and less, videos about coffee. First attempt at trying to build a food / drink video channel. Not quite what I'd like.
Link

Vegan Lunchbox

2006-11-01T15:58:00.000Z

It's always some wek or other. This week it's sausage week and vegan week. The two arn't incompatable. You can eat vegan sausages. My favourites are Wicken Fen Mushroom and Tarragon. Though they do contain hydrogenated vegetable fat.

For more healthy options try Vegan Lunch Box. There is even a book you buy. It's in colour - see link. Check the blog and book and you'll never be short of ideas for take from home food again.

Microwave Popcorn

2006-10-29T21:49:00.000Z

Use regular popping corn, don't buy pricey microwave popcorn. Involves a paper bag, stapler, olive oil and salt...
Link

Only 5 campaigns

2006-10-24T18:22:00.000+01:00

The Garden Organic organisation sent me a leaflet, and a letter. The letter asked for donations. If anything comes in an envelope they usually want money. Back to the leaflet. Five Threats to our partnership with the land. Let's you in gently to big global issues.
1) Garden Grab - gardens being redeveloped as appartments. A lot of that goes on around here.
2) Terminator seeds threat to biodiversity. Had to look up this up but it's GM seeds that will produce crops and sterile seeds. Link
3) GM Seed contamination. Big issue, history shows you can't isolate plants. They get out, pollinate and spread.
4) Global Warming. It's possibly too late already. You can do a bit of marching and rallying like the I-Count are organising.
5) Organic has become just another marketing term robbing it of meaning.

Thoroughly depressed at the end of this. Not by the issues but by the action suggested. This amounted to "Lobby the Government", "Spread the Word", "Raise Awareness"...

Observer Food Monthly

2006-10-22T18:47:00.000+01:00

Billed as their "biggest food issue ever". Well it got me to buy a Sunday newspaper. A whole 108 pages - but 40% of that is adverts. I don't mind adverts but i do mind big profit making corporations telling me how eco-friendly they are - when their business practises are otherwise. October Edition online

One good article on the scandal of organic farmed salmon which shames the Soil Association which put its name to this cruelty. Lady Balfour would have been outraged. I've been hearing stories about the lowering of standards for the big producers of food so they can get an organic premium. They've lost all credibility with me. Why organic salmon is causing a nasty smell?

The rest of the magazine read like the 21st Century version of the 1700's. There are Celebrities who live in London, dress up and know about good food. Then there are the peasants who do the work of fishing, farming and making marvelous cheese and cakes. They live in the sticks, earn very little and never go to London. You are invited to glimpse into these two worlds. When none of it speaks about your life, it's time to move on or have a revolution.

Pizza Syracusa

2006-10-20T21:32:00.000+01:00

Why not invent your own pizza topping? Well it could all turn out to be big mistake and unfit to eat...However this one was a success and I've named it Pizza Syracusa after my favourite city in Sicily.

Base : 100g Strong white flour, fresh yeast, water, pinch of salt
Topping : 355g of spinach, fried with 60g of onions. That's way too much spinach. Also squeeze some of the water from the cooked spinach, which I didn't do. It prevented the base from really going crispy. On top of that are 33g of olives, 12g of capers, 12g pinenuts, 12g raisins. I don't normally measure things but this is suppose to be some sort of recipe.
Bake : 12 mins at around 225 degrees C.

Using all organic ingredients, it cost just under 2.00 GBP to make not including electricity.

Slow Food Nation

2006-10-19T23:10:00.000+01:00

I'm reading the wrong blogs. Only just found this - published September 9th 2006.

Edited by Alice Waters of Chez Panisse on Alternet it makes good reading, and long thinking "Food is destiny, every decision we make about food has personal and global repercussions". Right down to the aisles of the supermarkets. We now rely on just eight crops to provide 75 percent of the world's food. A frightening monoculture.
Intrigued ? Link

First Science - Futuristic Food

2006-09-12T08:57:00.000+01:00

First Science - Futuristic Food: "by Laura Goodall and Sandrine Ceurstemont"
Homaro Cantu, the chef at Chicago's Moto restaurant, makes dishes by printing flavored inks onto edible sheets of "paper" and combining this papercraft food with elements cooked from the inside out with lasers.

It moves! Remodelling [aho] one unit

2006-08-24T19:01:00.000+01:00

It moves! Remodelling [aho] one unit

A BBQ with a lot of USB ports ( actually 30 of them) wired together..

Fankhauser's Cheese Page

2006-05-10T09:59:00.000+01:00

Fankhauser's Cheese Page:
©David B. Fankhauser, Ph.D.,Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College,Batavia OH 45103
Nearly everything you need to know about making cheeses - mascapone, mozzarella included. Yogurt, ice cream, buttermilk & etc.

Jiaozi

2006-04-21T14:01:00.000+01:00

Fireworks and homemade Jiaozi (it's a filled dumpling, eaten especially at New Year - brings Good Luck).
See the short home movie (contains noisy fireworks)
here from blip.tv. A recipe is here at AllRecipes. Might have to have a go at this...

Cooking outside the box

2006-04-06T17:40:00.000+01:00

Had me fooled for a while - it's cooking an egg with two mobile phones and the radio switched on. Are mobile signals that dangerous they can cook? Answer is no
Wymsey Weekend: A Guide to Mobile Cooking
The truth is
Microwave: ~1000watts @ 2.45GHz
Cellphone: .25-1watt, sometimes 2 on old, analog models @ 850-1200MHz

It got me thinking about cooking outside the hob and oven. You can research all these methods - the Haybox cooker, using a dishwashing machine, solar cooking, candles, infra-red electric fire, trash can smoker and the usb noodle cooker. How about using an iron, an electric kettle to boil pasta, or a projector light to knock out pancakes - all done by Tom Scott in video of messyness. Hair dryers have potential as in the NASA Space Cooker (PDF), as do car engines. If it gets hot it can cook, but the results may not be gourmet. But "Solar Roast Coffee" is a maybe.

Getting started

2006-04-06T12:46:00.000+01:00

This weblog is about the efforts to publish a foodzine. Big learning curve, big writing and editing task. Yet it's only a small time publication. Has that punk diy spirit evaporated. So far I'm not happy with the end results. You wouldn't be either.
a) Need to find some examples of others work to give clues and guidance
b) Some more planning for what i want to achieve (which is? not too sure)

Okeh enough navel orange gazing
Read Cod Italia it's three jpg images which don't fit neatly on the page (another thing to sort out)

Shichimi Togarashi

2006-04-01T22:12:00.000+01:00

Seven is the magic number for this spice combination :

I N G R E D I E N T S
3 teaspoons sansho powder
1 teaspoon nori flakes
3 teaspoons dried tangerine or orange peel
3 teaspoons ground chili pepper
1 teaspoon black sesame seeds
1 teaspoon golden sesame seeds or poppy seeds
2 teaspoons minced garlic.

shansho - use ground sichuan peppercorns
Shichimi Togarashi