Kbaumlier

Author: Kbaumlier

Kristen Baumlier’s work spans the full spectrum of interdisciplinary media, including performance, interactive installation, video and audio works.

Richard Mabey’s Book: WEEDS – In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants

Posted on January 11, 2012January 11, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Do you spend part of spring or summer trying to get rid of weeds? If so, the book Weeds –In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants by Richard Mabey might give you a new perspective on these plants that we consider to be invasive and essentially “in our way.” Since the development of agriculture, weeds have been seen as a problem. The concept of a weed was developed by man, and the classic saying “a weed is just a plant in the wrong place still applies.

Weeds have served as food, fuel, medicine, dyes and have functioned as a building material for a variety of insects, birds and humans. I was surprised to learn that weeds are largely a consequence of human activity. We have delivered weeds to other areas in a ships’ ballast, in the storage areas of trains, in packaging materials, in wool and brewing merchants’ raw goods, in the soil of our plants that we import or export.

The book is a biological and cultural history of weeds and covers the role of weeds in literature, art, folklore, and medicine. The book highlights the usefulness of weeds. Weeds stabilize soil, provide shelter for plants, control water loss, and can help repair landscapes affected by landslides, flood, fire, development and weaponry.

After I go hiking and I return home surprised to see the back of my pant leg is covered with burrs, I am reminded by how ingenuous weeds are. They have evolved to have hooks, burrs, spines, rib hairs and even a glue-like substance in order to traffic their seeds to other places. Often the seeds of weeds can wait a long time, as much as 40 years, in order to grow.

Many times when we try to get rid of weeds, we improve the health of the weed. Using a hoe often does not get rid of weeds with deeper roots, and chemical weed killers often can affect those who develop a resistance. Due to our actions, weeds have evolved to mimic the size, shape, height and coloring of plants favored by us to grow for food. Weeds sometime seem supernatural. They can grow fast, morph into new shapes, travel through ingenious methods, change color to adapt, and also endure rough conditions.

Over the centuries, we have tried every conceivable method of getting rid of undesirable plants. In Medieval times, farmers tried curses and negative names: calling weeds names such as hellweed, devil’s claws, devil’s fingers, devil’s daisy, devil’s tether.

In his book, Mabey promotes our acceptance weeds and writes that, “at a time of great environmental change and uncertainty, weeds may soon be all we’ve got left.” He recommends that we learn to tolerate them, and even celebrate them.

When the snow melts, and the weeds start to pop up around my yard – I’m not sure I’m ready to celebrate them yet – but I do see them a little differently.

Image Source:
Anecdotal Evidence

Links:

Weeds: In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants

Interview on NPR – ‘Weeds’: In Defense Of Botany’s Cockroach

Land Art Generator Initiative NYC Renewable Energy Public Art Competition 2012

Posted on January 10, 2012January 10, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Freshkills Park is a new public park in New York City. It was once the world’s largest landfill (formerly called Fresh Kills Landfill) but will eventually become the city’s biggest park, almost 3 times the size of Central Park. The park will be transitioning into its final farm in stages over the next 20 years, and will be designed to be a symbol of sustainable natural ecology within the context of the constructed city environment.

The park already is providing sustainable energy, and there are plans for more. The landfill below the park is currently generating methane gas, which is being sold to a local utility at an amount, which is enough to heat 22,000 homes. Due to the proximity to residential areas, the wildlife, and its role as a public park make it a unique site that requires sustainable energy that also can provide a visual, educational, or unique experience while conserving the natural environment

Got any artistic ideas of how renewable energy can be installed at the site? In partnership with New York City’s Department of Parks & Recreation, the 2012 Land Art Generator Initiative design competition is being held for a site within Freshkills Park. The competition is free and open designers, artists, engineers, architects, landscape architects, university students, urban planners, scientists and anyone else can enter with public art installation proposals. There is $20,000 in prize award money, and also a $1000 contest for high school students

The website promotes artist doing solution –based art and says, “The time is now for artists to go further and take an active role in solving the problem through their own work: solution-based art practice.”

All proposals should be pieces that are large scale clean energy generation which will continuously distribute clean energy into the electrical grid, with the potential to provide power to thousands of homes. Got an idea? You need to register with the website, and submit your final proposal by July 1, 2012.

To read more, you can check out the Design Brief and competition information on LAGI’s website.
Image Source:
Land Art Generator Initiative

Links:

Design Brief for Fresh Kills LAGI Competition

Land Art Generator Initiative

New York City’s Department of Parks & Recreation

Fish Farming and Aquaponics

Posted on January 8, 2012January 5, 2012 by Kbaumlier

When I was back in Wisconsin for the holidays, I spent some time with my friend Joe Kaye, who has been doing research and experimentation in the area of aquaponics, and making a fish farm.

Aquaponics is the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a re-circulating system. In a greenhouse setting, Kaye has been growing perch and using cattails, irises, and other native WI plants to filter the water. The water needs to be filtered since fish excrete ammonia, which turns to nitrogen. The nitrogen needs to be removed or it kills the fish. Usually this is done by filtering the water through a bed of gravel, then to the plants, which remove the nitrates, and then back to the fish.

In Kaye’s greenhouse, the perch are in an insulated tank and are heated by day from the sun and light, and at night from a small heater. Kaye chose perch to grow, since they are the favorite fish fry fish, are currently are selling at $17 a pound, and are supposed to be easy to grow.

Today Kaye has 100 perch growing. Perch will grow to full-size in 2-3 years when outdoors, and indoors in one year. Keeping the water warm, and feeding them as much as they can eat will increase their growth.

Years ago in Milwaukee, people used to fish in lake Michigan, and within an afternoon fill up a 5-gallon bucket with fish. They would then bring the fish to their local church – and the popular Friday night tradition was founded. Statewide, at a fish fry battered or deep-fried fish is accompanied by potato (baked, mashed, French fries, etc.) and coleslaw. This became popularity due to the tradition of meatless Fridays among German Catholics and Wisconsin’s proximity to Great Lakes.

Perch used to be widely available. According to population estimates, the number of perch in the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan has declined from 24.6 million in 1990, to 2.6 million in 2000, to 316,210 in 2009. There are several efforts occurring in Wisconsin and other states to support improving water quality, and in increasing the fish population in the lake.

Milwaukee is location for fish farm and aquaculture. Recently at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, a new School of Freshwater Science was created which includes research and education in the area of filtering water, aquaculture and other water issues.

At the forefront of aquaculture, a national non-profit organization called Growing Power that supports access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food and is at the forefront of acquaulture. Their fish farms use plants such as basil and with the use of compost – other vegetable plants like tomatoes are grown while also filtering the water for the fish. It was started by Will Allen, a former professional basketball player who bought the Milwaukee farm in 1993. He was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” in 2008 for his work on urban farming, sustainable food production, and with Growing Power.

Next time I am in Wisconsin, I plan to visit Growing Power, and also to check in and see how Kaye’s fish are doing.

Image Source:

Growing Power

Links:

School of Freshwater Sciences

Growing Power – Hydroponics

More Canning in 2012? David J. Baumler Explains the Fermentation and CanningProcess

Posted on January 7, 2012January 7, 2012 by Kbaumlier

One trend for 2011 was an interest in food preservation, and an increase in sales of Ball Jars (the jars sold for canning.) Years ago I made pickles – and tried canning for the first (and only) time. I am considering trying canning again this summer. Over the holidays, I talked to my brother, David J. Baumler, who is an expert in fermentation and canning. Dave is a researcher in Cellular and Molecular Biology, a CIBM Post-doctoral fellow at the Genome Center the University of Wisconsin Madison, and an avid creator of homemade salsas, pickled green beans, and peppers. He helped explain the canning process, and the renewed interest that is occurring in food preservation.

Dave said that there has always been a correlation between a reduction in jobs, a recessive economy and an increased interest in canning. He said that with the current economy, and the increased interest in gardening and growing food – that it makes sense that canning and preservation are making a comeback.

When you grow your own food, you end up with a large batch of a vegetable, usually too much that you can eat. What can you do with a big batch of tomatoes, peppers, or other food? One solution to this is to preserve and can it.

Years ago, Dave increased the number and variety of pepper plants that he grew. During summer, he would have a huge batch of peppers and had a choice of drying, freezing, and canning/preserving them. This led to Dave learning how to can.

Fermentation was the primary method of preserving food before refrigeration. It remains today as a viable and sustainable way to preserve food. The canning process starts with fermentation as the first step – where certain bacteria are broken down, acid is made, and the food is “preserved.” This is done by cooking the food item with sugar or lemon, which later turns to vinegar. An increase of salt and fermentation to the food helps bring the pH of the food to below 4.5 – which Dave said is the “magical number” of food preservation.

In a pH of 4.5, Dave explained that no bacteria can survive that can cause disease. The bacteria called clostridum botulinum (aka botox) is one of the main bacteria that can cause death, and can not live at the pH of 4.5 or more. Due to this, most canning recipes have you add at least 1 tbsp of vinegar or lemon juice, to help adjust the pH to a safe level.

The other important component to canning is using heat to prevent mold from growing in the canned goods. Most recipes call for boiling jars in hot water for 15 minutes, in order to kill any living mold spores. If this is done correctly, canned foods can be stored at room temperature for a year.

Today, canning is cheap and easy to do. Dave said that he got inspired to can when he saw the price of pickled specialty foods such as pickled green beans or brussel sprouts costing $8.00. Also, he had grown to like the flavor of pickled vegetables.

How to get started canning? Many universities (such as University of Madison in WI, or Ohio State University in OH) have food extension programs that have tested recipes for canning, workshops, workshops, and certification classes about preserving food and canning.

In 2009, a group called Canning Across America got started which includes cooks, food lovers and gardeners who wanted to revive the lost art of canning. The group does demonstrations, has recipes, and advice on getting started.

Image Source:
University of Wisconsin

Links:

Tested Recipes for Canning- UW Madison

Food Recipes- OSU Online

Canning Across America

National Center for Home Food Preservation

David J. Baumler

BBQ Sauce Made of Hay and Crabapples? A Potential Solution to Food Issues

Posted on January 6, 2012January 2, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Since 2004, the restaurant Moto has been creating “high-tech” dishes which incorporate elements such as carbonated fruit, edible paper, lasers and liquid nitrogen. The restaurant is located in the Fulton River District in Chicago, and is the work of Chefs Homaro Cantu and Ben Roche. Their kitchens have high-tech equipment such as Class IV lasers and liquid nitrogen, and is a laboratory for what Cantu calls, “food engineering.”

This type of cooking, called “molecular gastronomy” of making science-based food is credited to chef Ferran Adria of El Bulli in Spain. At Moto, Cantu and Roche have been redesigning the food and dining experience , serving 15- course meals with some food being reconfigured into new forms and shapes. Some of their dishes include a Cuban pork sandwich that looks like a Cuban cigar, a blended liquefied frozen carrot cake, and Chili-Cheese Nachos, a dish that looks like nachos but is actually a sweet dessert with crumbled chocolate that looks like “chili” and flash-frozen strips of mango playing the part of grated cheese.

Currently, Cantu and Roche are asking how can the food innovations pioneered at their restaurants be used for good? Is it possible to save fuel by taking the delivery driver out of the equation? Download pizza off the internet? Reduce landfill mass by making edible packing peanuts?

In their restaurants, they have experimented with edible packaging, making edible printed “paper” with an image of food on it, or edible menus, which tastes just like the food that is pictured..

They make challenges to their team in the kitchen – such as “How can we make a hamburger patty, but without the cow?” The outcome of this investigation was a juicy hamburger patty from the major components of a cow’s diet: Barley, corn, and beets, which they say is the first veggie-burger to bleed as it cooks, like meat.

Cantu and Roche see the flavor-changing miracle berries having great potential in helping the world’s food crisis. Miracle berries, when eaten, will mask certain taste receptors on the tongue that make things taste sour. This makes eating a lemon, instead of being to sour, taste like lemonade. Making “sushi” out of local watermelon, or paper that tastes like a Greek salad could have a future in helping reduce food transportation and increase food access.

Another assignment they explored in their kitchen was to see if they could cook with local plants and weeds in the Chicago area. For this, the chefs looked for plants in the sidewalks and backyards. With lots of research, they found many that were healthy and could be cooked. Out of this challenge, they made a BBQ sauce made of “free” and local hay and crabapples.

Using local plants the team sees as a solution to food access issues, and having potential of helping turn food miles into food feet, and leading to future grain sources to replace flour.

To hear more about their ideas and food, you can watch the 10 minute talk called Cooking as Alchemy given by Homaro Cantu and Ben Roche from the March 2011TED Conference.
Image Source:
www.moto.com

Links:

Homaro Cantu + Ben Roche: Cooking as alchemy – TED Talk