SuperForest

Okay, okay, so this isn’t very zen-like at all and doesn’t really create a relaxing atmosphere with which you can meditate to (trust me, I tried finding some sort of inspirational loop-hole with little luck), but the video does create smiles, and at the start of a fresh new week, you can never have too many of those.

Happy Monday, SuperForesters, go out there and do what everybody says you can’t.

With love,
C

(via.)

Hi SuperForest

So, after enjoying the flowers, my beloved zucchini have borne fruit (and it turns out that zucchini are, like tomatoes, technically fruit rather than vegetables, as they develop from flowers and contain the seeds for the next generation):

And they’re a key component of simple and delicious spicy zucchini linguine!

chop the zucchini, together with a chili, a couple of garlic cloves and a tomato:

Then fry up the zucchini for a few minutes in some nice olive oil, until they shrink down (losing a fair amount of water) and start to turn golden. In the meantime, stick some linguine (or spaghetti) on to cook (I don’t have great “al dente instinct” – so, in lieu of this, I add a good handful of salt to the water and genuinely do watch the clock for the cooking time it says on the packet – take the pasta off the heat at exactly [11] minutes, or whatever it says, not more, and you shouldn’t be too far wrong):

Add the chillies, garlic and tomato and stir it up:

Grate on a helping of parmesan, with vigour:

As Gordon Ramsay would say: Done!

Tasty tasty – and adjustable (more chilli, no tomato, more garlic! more garlic! good for the heart AND yummy) to your taste.  If you like pasta, then check out SuperForester April’s broccoli recipe – one of my favourites and affectionately referred to by my flatmate as “broccoli surprise” – the surprise being that the ’sauce’ is nothing but broccoli and it’s delicious. And I’m informed (by the parental helpline) that it’s not too late to put some garlic cloves in pots, keep them in dry conditions, and over the autumn they’ll start to germinate, ready for a new garlic harvest in the winter.

Love

P

Good Morning, SuperForest!

We’ve all heard of the Plastiki voyage in which a boat made out of 12,500 plastic bottles sailed from San Francisco to Sydney, but moored at the False Creek Yacht Club in Vancouver, a little raft has also been creating a little splash of its own.

Located near its restaurant partner “C“, this elegant dining room sits on a raft made of 1,700 plastic bottles set in a frame made of reclaimed pinewood. It seats about 12 guests and offers visitors a six-course sustainable seafood meal paired with organic and biodynamic wines. As described by creator, Shannon Ronald, this has all been developed as a way to fundraise for his School of Fish Foundation and its educational aspirations, which includes everything from educating chefs and changing the restaurant business to encouraging schools to collect scientific data from, and work closely with local marine conservation organizations.

After obtaining all of the necessary permits to proceed with his vision, the plastic dining room is now available for the general public to rent and enjoy.

Wins all around!

Shannon Ronald is shedding light on the issue of how plastics are affecting our oceans, and because he is such a clever cat, he’s found a way to create harmony between these enemies. And judging on the success of his little experiment, it is safe to predict several more of these plastic rafts might begin to float about in a port near you.

Have an excellent Monday,
Carla

(via.)

Hey SuperForest

As summer begins to wind down, back-to-school feelings surface and a slight crispness to the air in the mornings anticipates the build up to autumn, growth continues apace in my rooftop city garden – as if a reminder not to wish the summer away so fast:

My first sunflower!

The sunflowers are blooming – I find it almost impossible to look in the face of a sunflower and not smile at the condensed colour of the petals and abundance of tasty seeds.

And the chillies are bearing fruit:

I’ve been excited to see how many insects just a few containers are attracting: ladybugs, wasps, hoverflies and, most excitingly, bees -I like to think I may have contributed in some small way to some delicious London honey.

But gardening, as everything, poses challenges disguised as problems – most recently, in the form of powdery mildew on the zucchini:

white mildew on the leaves

Powdery mildew (the fungus Sphaerotheca fuliginea) is a pretty common infection in zucchini plants, starting with white spots on the leaves and – particularly in warm, humid conditions – developing to coat the leaves, eventually killing them – and without leaves, the photosynthesising powerhouses, the plants can’t flourish.

Sphaerotheca fulginea (via)

So, I was somewhat dismayed to see the fungus rapidly spreading across the plants. But one thing I’ve learned from this whole hasty endeavour in growing has been that my (I’m ashamed to admit) all-too-frequent tactic of sitting back, seeing if the problem will resolve itself, leads more often to dead plants than to Darwinian triumphs – and I didn’t want to resort to chemical fungicides – so, naturally, I took to the internet! (Yep, I would’ve called my Mum, but sadly the Gardening Hotline is on summer vacation). And a little google-fu discovered something awesome: whilst nature provides challenges, it oftentimes also provides surprising solutions – and the solution to powdery mildew? MILK

milky zucchini

Weekly spraying of mildewed leaves with a simple solution of milk and water (approx. 30% milk is thought to be optimal) controls the mildew as well as synthetic fungicides – a faintly funky smell results, but this seems a pretty fair price for avoiding the use of synthetic fungicides. Who knew?

post-milk bath

As you can see, it seems to have been quite effective: the yellowed spots were fully mildewed before and the plants look much healthier now.

I love when we can find natural alternatives to using chemicals or pesticides – do you have any tips to share? I’d love to hear them.

Bathing in milk: good enough for Cleopatra, good enough for zucchini.

Love

P

Gooood Morning SuperForest!!!!!

It is a beautiful morning here in Ottawa and I rose late to enjoy a gorgeous breakfast of local raspberries and blueberries! I added these fresh berries to my yogurt and granola with a drizzle of honey and it was a great way to start my day. I picked up these local berries from my farmers’ market, The Parkdale Market, which is a stone’s throw away from my humble abode. If any SuperForesters ever come to visit me during market season I would be happy to show it to you!

It is just so fantastic to be able to enjoy fruit that is locally-grown and not shipped in on trucks from miles away. What are you enjoying these days from your local market? Please share a photo or a recipe :)

Yours in local food goodness,

SuperForester Heather

Goooooood Morning SuperForest!

This week, the lovely Felicia Cowden (of Akamai Backyard fame) made a town run and returned with eight fresh little yellow hen chicks. Four for Akamai and four for Zero One!

Here they are, looking so sweet.

Yay!!! Here’s to a long, happy life for the little fuzzkins. Now, make me some eggy weggs!

All photographs by Melissa Snyder.

I have been thinking lately about the weight of ideals. Being raised on comic books and other myths I’ve always been attracted to them, from the dark heroism of Batman, all the way to Plato in my studies in philosophy. That influential Greek thought that the “forms” were more real than reality, that all chairs are a (mis)representation of the perfect chair, which exists somewhere, but not here.

As many readers may know, I have lived in Asia for the past six months, and it has engendered a change in my thought. Westerners think in categories, while East Asians think in relations. In Eastern thought, the world is a continuous substance, not broken apart in into chairs, tables, and glasses of water. Do not separate the tones, Lao Tzu cautions us, for that does harm to them. In the West, we might call this “monism,” but the application of such a label misses the point entirely. While abstractions, such as logic, are useful, a cacophony (or symphony) of inputs exist in every situation. Existence is complex. Difficult to understand.

Idealism is wonderful, and necessary, I think, to live in this world. It can sometimes be a yoke in social relations. What I mean to say is this: I have wanted so much for this love to define my life, to be some great story. And while this is great for narrative, a life  — or two lives — is not steered by some ideal that I project. That is to put the cart before the horse. This, then, is an important realization: it is not that a story is my life, but my life is a story. I  need not  put pressure on it. I must concern myself with the matter of living, to be present in existence, and not as much in abstraction. While I often act as though it were, my heartbeat is not a metaphor; it’s right here in my chest, pumping, pumping, pumping into this body, into this world.

SuperForesters,

If you are in the Southern California area, are looking for something fun to do this weekend, and are at least 21 years of age, you are totally in luck. This Saturday, our buddy Seth Pettersen is going to be teaming up with the Aquarium of the Pacific’s “Seafood for the Future” program and the American Institute of Wine and Food to bring us a night of awareness to the importance of our oceans, excellent food, and surf culture. A pretty mighty combination, don’t you think?

Here’s how it’ll go down. At 6PM, the food will be served.

Jumpstarting the guests’ palates for an evening of food for thought, a trio of creative salsas will be served with chips. Then, between bites of bright, citrusy and refreshing ceviche on crunchy fried corn tortillas, Chef Andrew Gruel and Marine Biologist Dave Anderson of the Aquarium of the Pacific’s Seafood for the Future will marry culinary creations and scientific facts to educate guests about the impacts that our seafood choices have on the oceans. Finally, local and fresh grilled Mahi Mahi tacos drizzled with a Baja style cream sauce will be served with ice cold cerveza.

At 8PM, SuperForester Seth will perform. You’ll probably remember him from Iman’s interview or from the utterly fabulous “Baby Buddha” music video:

And if that wasn’t reason enough to go, they’ll cap the night off with some classic surf films! All in all, a perfect evening and something you definitely don’t want to miss.

Here’re some more of the deets:

So now you really don’t have an excuse for not going. :)

Good Evening, SuperForesters!

Last week, I shared with you an eye-opening video that showed the work of Electronic Recyclers United and how they handle e-waste. The recycling bit was pretty neat, to say the least, but what stayed with me the most was the demonstration of the sheer amount of waste that is created by mass production. Today, I share with you a story that is completely on the opposite end of the “make” spectrum. It’s a story about the Mast brothers who are a pair of chocolate-makers in Brooklyn but above all, it is a story about craftsmanship.

Despite the fact that I’ve never been a big chocolate fan, this video does two things for me: (a) It makes me want to visit their store and buy their chocolate really bad, and (b) it makes me really happy.

Love to all of you artisans,
Carla

(via the scout)

Hey SuperForesters! I thought I’d share a few snaps from my little patio here in Ottawa to show you the progress of my plants over the summer thus far! It’s no Zero One but it provides me with yummy herbs, soothing green colours and beautiful flowers! This is the first time I’ve ever had a garden of any sort, and I look forward to many more years of growing and developing my garden as it takes shape. Wherever I live, wherever I go I need to have plants around! Don’t you? And so without further ado, enjoy the green goodness of my little plant posse:

Little fernie started out this big…

he grew and grew…

flourished…

…and is now in the twilight of his life.

Mr. Hosta fit nicely in his pot…

but he wanted more out of life…

to spread his leaves and soak up more sun…

to shade the little weeds that grew below him…

and finally to grow into a deeper green shade, to mature and grow into himself.

All the while Ms. Gerbera looked on with a cheery glow…

and the only herb that grew and grew was Oregano!

Rosemary also showed strength, even after so much use.

The lettuce family and other herbs are finding July to be a hot, hazy month, but I have high hopes that they will rebound nicely in August! How is your garden growing, SuperForesters?

Yours in therapeutic greenery,

SuperForester Heather