…is the next edition in the series of Edible Estates gardens which I have come here to begin work on (housed in a spacious airy new greenhouse on the top floor of the beautifully renovated six floor home for the new center for contemporary art SALT Beyoğlu opening on Apri 8th on Istanbul’s central pedestrian ..
Archives : March-2011
…is a visionary permaculture landscape developing on a small tract of community gardening land in the modern outskirts of Den Haag – initiated by my British artist friend and developed, maintained, and cared for by local collaborators – (commissioned in 2009 by Stroom, who I am here meeting with about a new project for the ..
…the public gardens of the royal palace, is where I find the happiest people in town today, sitting in a circle on the ground among their bikes playing guitars and singing about things I don’t understand – but the low point of the day was a visit to the nearby bustling soul-sucking supermarket of truly ..
…shipping headquarters and migrant housing for the thousands of Dutch headed to New York’s Ellis Island used to occupy this stately 1901 building, which survived wartime bombing, at the tip of a peninsula in the Port of Rotterdam – now occupied by Hotel New York where I am comfortably staying for a couple of nights ..
…is what I am noticing around springy Amsterdam today – after an early arrival to Schiphol for a few days around the Netherlands for meetings about upcoming projects – as parents are moving their kids around town side-by-side, one pushing the other, resulting in very fast moving children, which must be super fun for them. ..
…today includes happy news about the reals stars of the show at the moment, the bursting crop of fava beans (which I saw all over Praiano this week) starting to produce their gigantic pods, plus more lettuce than I can eat, pea-pods getting plumper by the day, little peach trees displaying their pink blossoms, baby ..
…the residence of the British Ambassador to Italy was actually the highlight of my visit for lunch today, where I came to hear about their plans for a new children’s edible garden on the grounds – which feature a magnificent ancient Roman aqueduct running through the center – and for the family to start growing ..
…I see side by side here in this wild majestic city which has been suffering from waste management issues ..
…or ‘beautiful vegetables’ is the apt nick-name of the local Praiano personaggio, or character, who grows his own food in perfectly composed and tended gardens, enclosed by beautifully laid retaining walls which he built with rocks from his modest piece of land, where he also bakes bread and pizza in his own wood burning oven, ..
…where I am staying for a few days (at a friend’s stunning collection of big farmed ocean view terraces accommodating a variety of little white houses dating from the 1600’s that have been in the family for generations, where she is now hosting a casual residency program for young cooks, farmers, and artists) on the ..
…is the 1984 book of musings (as recounted to and translated by Henry Martin) by Italian artist Gianfranco Baruchello (b. 1924) who in 1973 decamped to a modest piece of land north of Rome, near Formello, to begin a life of farming as art – and after years of carrying around this little book which ..
…here on the slopes below Castel San Pietro, some of which are said to be more than 400 years old and cultivated on this land for thousands of years, are getting their early spring pruning, like all of the other olive trees in the area, leading to aromatic bonfires of branches and picturesque billows of ..
…is the tiny hill town an hour north of Rome near Poggio Mirteto where I am lucky enough to be at a friend’s place for the weekend – from which you can see Saint Peter’s as a distant tiny dot on the horizon – taking long walks through the farm land where I am luxuriating ..
…is a bright green figure looming over me this morning – as I bike down to the mercato biologico at the ex-mattatoio – and my favorite extant ancient Roman monument, this colossal trash heap created from about 2 BC until 3 AD consisting of around 53 million terra cotta amphorae containers used to transport olive ..
…of the Roman rooftop homestead tonight included baby potatoes with mint/rosemary/nettles pesto – harvested during a brief afternoon break in the rain – as a steady stream of red, green, and white flag carrying folks pass on the sidewalk below returning from Porta San Pancrazio (where Prime Minister Berlusconi and President Napolitano made appearances) next ..
…sitting on a low wall by the sidewalk shocked me on my rainy hike back up the hill coming home from a lively interview with culinarily-passionate Luca Guadagnino (director of last year’s ‘I am Love’ with Tilda Swinton) for the upcoming Roma Mangia Roma book with Nero Pub..
…is on my mind again – as he often is while contemplating the materially impoverished, but joyous, lively, celebratory, marginal, scrappy, hard-working, essential, common, quotidian, local, humane, modest, austere, resourceful, diverse, connected, localized, sensual, civilized, defiant, earthy, bawdy, slow, simple aspects of Italian culture that are being steamrolled – and then I always remember those ..
…is the effusive indefatigable lively wise sage on cucina Italiana, the author of the definitive book on the history of food in Rome and the Lazio (previously mentioned here), and the recently released Encyclopedia of Pasta (plus about 30 other books…) which I just started reading this morning in preparation for the interview with her ..
…in a big barrel was my solution to the daily rearranging of my moss gardens by the big birds who rule the skies up here on the Gianicolo – so into the huge sideways olive cask went all of the mossy rocks that would fit, then filled with water, spilling into a lush mini landscape ..
…whose ceiling is laden with the most sumptuous depictions of all variety of fruit and vegetable was painted by Raphael at Villa Farnesina (1510), and was the highlight of a day that began with the third in a series of talks by Leonard Barkan at the American Academy in Rome on “Food Culture and High ..
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