Sustainability City

Dust off the candles for Earth Hour Day, March 29th, 2008

around the globe at 8pm your local time, for one full hour

without the conventional lights on.  What started as an

initiative in Sydney, Australia, in 2007, to draw attention

to global warming, has become a global event.  Extensive

activity around this event is taking place in the USA,

and many other cities around the world. 

(copyright Monika Roleff 2008.)

Continuing a series on food by Rebecca Gerendasy,

director of CookingUpAStory films, consider the views

discussed in Part One of a dialogue and talk by

Michael Pollan about his latest book on real food and the logic of

it, as opposed to some modern substitutes. 

“In Defense of Food” is valuable reading for anyone

interested in keeping vital foods “whole”.   It’s linked

in the sidebar, on Amazon.  This is a fascinating discussion,

as good nutrition concerns everyone, offering

some real food logic.

(copyright Monika Roleff 2008.)

(copyright cooking up a story, 2008.)

GREEN EGGS!

These lovely, truly free range eggs hail from

the foothills of the ancient “Grampians” , an area

near Ararat in Victoria, Australia.

Shelley and Alan Green lovingly care for their hens,

which are given all the room they need to feed and forage

in the green pastures all day, and are kept safe at night by two

beautiful dogs.  The eggs are produced using state of

the art facilities, with humane methods and sustainable

farming practices.  They deliver their produce straight

to the urban seller, so there is no time lag with handling or

spoilage to quality.  And they taste great! 

Explore the link above to find out more about

Green Eggs! 

(Don’t forget to scratch the “x” for more details!)

(copyright Monika Roleff 2008.)

On impulse attended a Slow Food Festival at Federation Square,

Victoria, with the family today.  My sister worked the Eureka Coffee

stand with her employer and his staff, and together formed a dedicated,

hard-working team servicing the crowds with sustainable capuccinos,

short blacks, and lattes all day.  We tried their coffee and the

flavour and quality was second to none.  Grown and produced in the beautiful

Byron Bay region of New South Wales, it is roasted on site at

Eureka, North Fitzroy, which makes it very local.  Add to that all

the other benefits involved in the making/production of it, the

“Slow Food” sustainability of it, it makes for a great coffee

experience.  Produce was available from all regions of

Australia: cheeses from Tasmania which we tried, all slowly aged;

a fruits/smoked meats/cheese “in season” platter with lovely

sour dough bread from Slow Food Melbourne, and a gorgeous

plate of freshly picked ripe figs from Slow Food New South Wales.  This

movement in food is supported by a large network of regular national

markets, forming the Australian Farmers’ Market Association.  It was

wonderful to enjoy eating fruit picked the day before, and the range

of product on show was wide and varied, from homestyle ice-cream,

to organic sausages, to seafood.  So the movement to slow food is

a style of eating that’s anything but boring, and it’s nice to just sit

and watch the crowds go by, busy swapping ideas on where they found what,

creating a wonderful community atmosphere, right in the heart of an

urban place. 

(copyright Monika Roleff 2008.)

The conclusion of the series about “Kitchen Literacy”, the book by

Ann Vileisis, hosted by Rebecca Gerendasy of

“Cooking Up A Story”, online.  Part 3 covers new ways

of thinking about shopping, food production, and changes

in thought about food for the future.   This is an excellent

series, which shows the new trending in sustainable food production,

and shopping habits around the globe.

(copyright Monika Roleff 2008.)

(copyright cooking up a story, 2008.)

Continuing the series on the book “Kitchen Literacy” by Ann Vileisis

on the history of food production and getting back to sustainable

ancestral roots in regard to what we eat.  This is part two of the

interview with Ann, part three to follow.  The series

is produced by Rebecca Gerendasy, from “Cooking Up

A Story” online, linked below.

(copyright Monika Roleff 2008.)

(copyright cooking up a story 2008.)

Ann Vileisis, food and environmental author, talks about writing “Kitchen Literacy” and restoring the connection to sustainability, by looking back at the handling of nutrition and food production from her local ancestors.  Here is a link to Part One of her dialogue on this subject, Part Two to follow:

This video posting was prompted by contact with Rebecca Gerendasy

from the wonderful American food resource,

Cooking Up a Story. 

Follow the link to find out more about her filming work,

and learn more about sustainable food logic.  Educating about

the value of natural food lore and keeping heritage alive is valuable and

worth following and knowing about for many reasons, not least for

its basic, tried-and-tested-through-time, logic.

Closer to Home:

More locally, the “connecting back to natural produce” theme reminds me of

my maternal grandparents’ unbroken connection with the land,

and domestic practices of sourcing out the best produce locally, keeping

an extensive kitchen garden, small farming with keeping chickens for eggs,

and cultivating fruit and citrus trees.  Their garden seemed endlessly

abundant, and when we would sadly have to go home after visiting

their rural area, our car would always be literally filled with

fresh produce from their garden.  My grandmother made her own

bread, assisted by her husband, her own butter, cakes, sweets and

biscuits.  She also followed the preserving calendar and bottled fruits

and made jam, all of which she shared with her large family.  It would be

a shame if these practices were not handed down and lost forever.   There

may be a lot of common sense in connecting back…

(copyright Monika Roleff 2008.)

(copyright cooking up a story, 2008.)

There are many ways to practice sustainable gardening in summer.  Planning ahead can create leafy environments, where plants, grouped together, and overseen by taller trees, create their own sustainability in summer.  This image was taken on a stately urban property which has it’s own recyclable water source, ensuring the areas that need it are well hydrated.  Watering is less necessary, if this kind of planning takes place, where the plants can support each other, as mentioned in David Suzuki’s book ‘Tree’ in a post a little further down.  A bit of forward planning can create less worry, and better sustainability in summer.

(copyright Monika Roleff 2007.)

This spectrum coming from the sun came about twice in a week, once seeing it like this from the sun, and another time seeing it reflected in a water stream.  It’s amazing what you see once you start looking, the same natural wonders as can be found anywhere in the world, can be found in cities.  When we see a rainbow, the colours are exactly the same spectrum, also seen in oil/petroleum residues, and some detergent residues.  What is this phenomenon, a spectrum of colour like this, seen in a range of ways in urban places?

(copyright Monika Roleff 2007.)

October, 2005: Today, toward the end of our walk in the Botanic Gardens, we saw something that surprised us. It was an old Cypress Pine, one of the original ones from the mid-nineteenth century, and its trunk was old and stiff. Yet, its growth was still green. Last year in summer there had been a storm, knocking down some older trees whose roots had done their work, and since then new ones were planted amongst the many surviving ones. But this one was very old and had appeared to have found a mate.

In David Suzuki and Wayne Grady’s latest book called simply “Tree” , there are many facts that indicate trees in forests “commune”, not just in groups, but communicate, in order to preserve the good of the whole. They share root space and nutrients, across large areas of land, for they know they protect the life that depends on them for survival, the birds, insects, animals and also the understory from the ravages of too much sun. Trees actually link through their root systems, swap nutrients, and grow to accommodate each other.

This old cypress had a brand new growth, and we wondered what it was. It curved its smooth trunk up close, from the earth, right up the knarly older trunk, as if it were a ballast. The top of it was green with fresh Moreton Bay Fig leaves, nestled in a cheek to cheek dance with the older tree, quarter way up its tall height. These trees share space with the Cypress trees and have done so for over a century. It seemed a courteous arrangement for the younger shoot to oblige the older one, lending a hand to the trunk which we saw, on closer examination, had been damaged where a branch had broken off, perhaps from the summer storms. The tree had been in danger of falling over completely because of the missing branch.

Seemed to us this is what life is all about — and the enigma of trees.

(Taken from Lemurian Hermitage, Soul Food Cafe, copyright Monika Roleff 2005.)