Filed under: 5/5, Art, Bread, Design, Food, Foraging, Helsinki, Network, Recipes, Recycling | Tags: activism, bread, city, community, consumption, event, experimental, food, forgotten, knödel, overproduction, participatory, salvage, waste
Our kitchen this morning
The last and final event of the project ‘5 The dish’ took place last night at my home on Iso Roba. Starting at 5 pm, last guests left around 1:30 am – that would be 8,5 hrs of Knödel party! This morning, I woke up with a hangover of sorts (which was not caused by too much glögi) – was this really the last event? I feel sad, but also relieved; now, the writing can start, and tomorrow, I will take off to Austria and Germany afterwards for holidays (if the snow storm doesn’t wreck my travel plans).
‘Waste’ bread from the supermarket
Preparations started with a supermarket tour on Thursday morning, when I picked up a bag full of the bread that would have officially expired the next day (supermarkets usually sort out products one day before expiration date), and which would have gone to the bin. I felt a bit like Santa Clause with that huge heavy black plastic bag full of goodies on my back, tramping back home through the snow. I unpacked the bread to prevent it from becoming mouldy – my flat smelled like some sort of bakery for three days.
The plan was to make so-called ‘Knödel’ from the waste bread, a typical German dish that recycles stale bread. I am sure none of my guests would have expected those hot steaming round bread balls to be as tasty as they were – not even me! I have to admit, the first Knödel in my mouth just truly made my night – so hearty, warming, and comforting! (talking about food arousing memories) The kitchen was packed with people, and nevertheless we managed to cook together. People just started chopping up bread and following the recipe that hung next to the stove. I didn’t even count how many different doughs were made last night, but there were quite a few, ranging from rye-beetroot- over normal white-bread-parsley-onion- to mixed-bread-with-carrots-Knödels.
All photos but first two by Marina Ekroos
The night went on with our ‘analogue Facebook’ wall – visualizing the social network of people at the party and those who had participated in former events and workshops of this project. It only stopped when we ran out of stickers! When people left, ‘Knödel doggy bags’ with the recipe printed on them were handed out to be filled with leftover bread from the table. Long live the Knödel!
Check out more pictures taken by Marina of the night on Facebook or/and Picasa! Thanks to her again for the great support. :)
Filed under: 5/5, Art, Bread, Design, Food, Good to know, Helsinki, Network, Recipes, Recycling | Tags: activism, bread, city, community, consumption, event, food, knödel, overproduction, participatory, salvage, waste
The art and food event series ‘5 – The dish’ comes to an end with this big final event: an open invitation to the artist’s house! Welcome to bring as many friends as you want. The only thing I ask from everybody is to bring old bread – either from your own kitchen, salvaged from the supermarket waste bin, hunted for in a bakery, or from elsewhere – be creative! We will pile up the ‘waste bread’ and turn them into delicious ‘Knödels’.
This event is a chance to meet new and known faces, build up new networks, think of new projects, and reflect upon past, present, and things to come…
Date: December 5th 2010 (this week’s Sunday)
Location: at my home, on Big Mama’s 5th floor (where I share a flat with two girls). Iso Roobertinkatu 26 A 14, 00120 Helsinki
Time: starting from 5 pm onwards. Open end.
Looking forward to seeing you!
Filed under: 3/5, Art, Bread, Food, Helsinki | Tags: bread, city, culture, elements, event, experimental, food, history, local, nature, participatory, process, slow, storytelling
I hate talking about the weather, but I am still in awe of the weather circumstances we were blessed with last night: what are the odds to wake up to pouring rain after a beautiful sunny/ moonshiny night on Seurasaari, which was actually preceded by a minor snow storm the day before? So, big thanks to Petrus and his buddies for the meteorologic conditions!
The third event 3/5:PREPARE started last night around 5pm at the BBQ-area of Seurasaari. A big pot was filled with different surprise ingredients brought and prepared on location by the guests: lanttu (turnip), onions, lentils, cauliflower, carrots, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and hemp seeds were cooked into a delicious stew, which was topped with water cress and nuts and seeds. It was no problem to brave the cold with that hot stew on the table and improvised story games at hand. Each spoon was marked with a letter from the alphabet, which was used as a starting point for a long long story. When dew started to fall on us, we decided to pack things up and leave for the warmer realms of city indoors. What a night! More pictures can be found on the 5-Facebook page and Picasa!
P.S.: As always, a huge thank you to all the brave participants who made it out there in a cold late-fall-almost-winter night!!! :D
Filed under: 3/5, Art, Design, Food, Helsinki | Tags: bread, city, culture, event, experimental, food, history, local, nature, participatory, slow, storytelling
http://foreca.fi/Finland/Helsinki?details=20101023
After this year’s first real, very light and blitheful snowfall yesterday afternoon, I was getting prepared for some snowshoes and heavy weather gear for today’s event 3/5:PREPARE – but no, the forecast tells us, we will have a bright sky and sun, plus a clear night with a full moon shining on us!
So, get ready, pack your one ingredient and story for our get together tonight at Seurasaari’s grillipaikka!
Filed under: 3/5, Art, Design, Food, Helsinki, Network | Tags: city, culture, event, experimental, food, history, local, nature, participatory, process, slow, storytelling
Here the invitation as is that I just published on Facebook (the event is open – so, welcome! – , but I will experimentally invite this time only via Facebook with some sort of system (see below) and be surprised with who will come!):
A full moon will bring light to this food and art event, taking place on an urban island in the sea waters surrounding Helsinki. An island breathing history: Seurasaari.
Welcome to the third happening of the 5-series. We will prepare a stew with as many cooks as there will be guests. Everybody brings one ingredient and prepares it on location. Stories and fairytales chosen or brought by the guests will be read and performed in any preferred way to accompany the mysterious atmosphere.
To make use of the unpredictable ways of getting connected with new people on Facebook, this invitation first goes out to the 21/33 fans of this project’s fans living in Finland. Please forward this invitation to 3 people of your choice on Facebook (of whom you think they might not know each other and be interested), and tell them to do the same. It will be exciting to see who will, in the end, attend the happening (please confirm on FB to be able to estimate the amount of guests).
Something warm to drink and fresh bread will be offered.
See you at full moon!
Some things to bring along:
– one raw unprepared ingredient (considering vegan and vegetarians, the stew will be without animal products. Any vegetables, beans, sprouts, herbs, etc. goes!)
– one story/ fairytale/ poem/ song/ …
– very warm clothes (imagine you would go skiing)
(- if at hand and desired, a blanket)
– any musical instrument is welcome!
P.S.: In case of rain/sleet/snow/storm the event will be cancelled and moved to a different day. Contact me via email or FB if there is anything to ask (katharina.moebus@gmail.com).
* Check this link for a map and directions http://www.seurasaarisaatio.fi/index.php?id=12. You can either take bus 24 (www.hsl.fi) or cycle (to the island, but no bicycles allowed on the island itself). After crossing the white bridge, just follow the signs to the “Juhlakenttä” (see map).
Filed under: 3/5, Art, Design, Helsinki, Making of | Tags: city, culture, event, food, local, nature, participatory, process, public space, slow, storytelling
The next event is in its planning phase. A trip to the venue has been made, and a suitable place found (only need the permission yet). Some pre-information: the event will take place on the island of Seurasaari on Friday, 22.10.2010, the day of full moon. Since waiting for the moon to become full is a slow but unstoppable process, I do not really need a calendar any more. Instead, I only have to check out the sky to see how much time is left for organizing,. Sort of like it. Even though my window is getting blocked more and more by the growing construction site on the other side of our flat. :(
The upcoming event is the third out of five steps of the production process: the preparation of the raw material. In industrial terms, one might speak of food processing, which has a somewhat negative connotation. Food processing takes raw food as material through lots of different treatments to achieve consumer products with a long shelf-life and good transportation characteristics. Depending on the context, the word process sounds very positive to me – at least when I think of this project and the relevance of different processes to it. In the end, even a process can be a result, even if it is part of a cycle and continuously changing.
Soon, there will be a Facebook-invitation for the event via the 5-Facebook-page (yeah, it has its own page! Click here to get there!), where people can sign up and invite their friends via their online networks. I tagged this post with some new tags that will play a role for the event… So, stay tuned (and watch the moon)!
Filed under: Bread, Helsinki, Press | Tags: bread, city, culture, sourdough
Mika Tommola from MTV3 called the other day to ask for a short feature about the oven project at the end of the Sunday evening news- of course, we agreed! Due to rain on Saturday, we moved the baking and interview to today’s afternoon. Since Mika asked for some typical German bread, I prepared some “Mehrkornbrötchen” made from sourdough. Important about German buns in general is a nice crunchy crust and a soft inside, best if still warm. Actually, thinking about it afterwards, I could also have made “Schnittbrötchen”, which are buns with a cut in the middle, so you get a really beautiful crust. Next time! Today was actually the first day of baking rolls and bread in the oven, and it worked really nicely!
We had the freshly baked buns with butter (of course!) and home- made jam made from self-picked aronia berries from Herttoniemi (thanks to Felix, Anna, and Ville for the good hint where to find them!). Unfortunately, I was so busy baking and talking that I forgot to take pictures. Here just one from the set-up, after we had diminished all the bread. :)
Filed under: 1/5, Bread, Design, Food, Helsinki, Recipes | Tags: bread, event, experimental, food, participatory, recipe, rieska
For the 1/5 event on Sunday, I asked people to bring their own rieska recipes, self-invented, inherited, stolen, found. Some came into being during the process of experimenting with the ingredients. In return, people received a water bottle as a memory of the event. For inspiration and to show the wide variety of possibilities of how to bake rieska in different ways (to each maakunta/region its own), I hung up traditional recipes taken from the book “Suomen maakunta leivät” by Jaakko Kolmonen. Here comes the recipes, old ones and new ones! …
The recipe wall
Daniel’s grandma’s peruna-rieska recipe
Hessu found this on the internet
‘Gluten-free’ oat-rieska
Just a preview of a page from the book (don’t wanna get into copyright troubles), but here the link to the authors webpage! http://jaakkokolmonen.com/tuotteet.html?id=6/
Have fun baking and eating!
Filed under: Bread, Design, Helsinki, Workshop | Tags: bread, city, culture, event, experimental, food, forgotten, participatory, public space
The first event out of the 5-food event series just took place. About 20 people gathered in this experimental rieska workshop on a Sunday afternoon at Kalasatama and created all sorts of rieska – from really thin barley rieska over small thick delicious potato rieska, on cabbage leaves baked oat “röpörieska”, aronia berry-filled and potato-filled rieska, forestal porrige rieska, to beer-butter rieska (which tasted like croissants!) – people didn’t stop being creative! Wow!
Check out another hundreds of pics here.
Thanks to Aki Arjola from Maatilatori for the genorous sponsoring of the nice flours!! They are produced by miller Pekka Nikkilää , who earned last year’s title for making the best organic flour of Finland! Jam!
And, of course, thanks to all the participants for coming, the big interest, and creating those beautiful pieces of… art?
Filed under: Bread, Design, Food, Helsinki, Making of | Tags: activism, bread, city, culture, event, forgotten, participatory, public space, slow
Looking out of the window today, and spending time outside gathering firewood and things for the first official event weekend around the cob oven at Kalasatama, one might not believe there is any hope for even one single sunray left. But there is! http://foreca.fi/Finland/Helsinki
And here again the link to the Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113585698695682
So get prepared to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon outside, baking Finnish flat bread (Rieska) together with Helsinkians, in the urban cob oven “Archie” at the container square at Kalasatama. The afternoon starts early with firing up the oven, so that around 3 pm we can start together to mix ingredients and bake the first bread experiments in the oven. Be prepared for some surprises!
5 