Oh to utter the words, food design...
September 28, 2005
Well it's about bloody time! Coinciding with all manner of design events going on right now in Amsterdam, the Stedelijk Museum hosted a symposium titled Food Design at the ubiquitous Club 11, featuring three speakers and three completely different interpretations.
Marije Vogelzang (Proef) is doing some very interesting work from her studio slash catering laboratory and counts the stars of Dutch design (such as the Ladies Hella Jongerius, Marlies Dekkers and Li Edelkoort) amongst her clients. After a stunning portfolio presentation, I can't wait to visit Vogelzang's restaurant in Rotterdam Proef and get down to the business of tasting and nibbling. (Proef means 'taste' or 'taste it', in Dutch.) Vogelzang's work is all about engaging the eater in the underlying concept of the food and its presentation. I loved her daring in a recent catering project in which she used WWII ration ingredients to invoke memories about this bleak period. She elegantly walks the fine line between being thought provoking and utterly disarming when she stated, 'It's design that someone puts in their mouth, and absorbs into their body. It's all very intimate'. That's what I call a laudable attitude!
Although it wasn't the most pleasant message to hear, I can't stop thinking about the corporate presentation by Hans van Trijp from Unilever. Food design according to the multinational means designing the market context in which a food product exists, and has very little to do with actual food. Van Trijp described Honig's SpongeBob pasta as the perfect marriage of food design and marketing. Predictably, I found van Trijp's take and food and food design extremely disturbing, but I am so very eager to get in touch with him to hear more of what he has to say about how multinationals, even when we wouldn't dream of buying their products, influence our every day life right down to the iggly niggly bit of designing a country's infrastructure. This means that while Marije Vogelzang is designing a lunch using 'forgotten vegetables', Unilever, by the very virtue of it's market share, is determining which races of grains farmers will be growing and how food will be manufactured and distributed in decades to come. I just can't help but think it's a wise idea to keep in close contact with the suits. I'm just as much a stakeholder as the next Lady, right?
Ex-designer and unwitting stand-up comedian Marti Guixé as per usual wowwed the audience with a portfolio presentation of more than a decade's worth of food-related projects. He is the well-known Catalunian ex-designer that has worked extensively with shoe brand Camper, and ultimately designed their flagship restaurant, Foodball, in Barcelona. Balls are something of a leitmotif in Marti G's gastro-design as you can see from this author's review. It might have been just the unfortunate lighting, but while presenting images of his 'corporate sponsored food', (in this case an omelette with a sauce-stamped Calvin Klein logo), Guixé claims to have noticed van Trijp's lip twitch.
Although I'm not willing to spill the beans just yet, I am looking forward to Guixé's collaboration with Mediamatic in just a few week's time. Guixé and Mediamatic will be opening up a temporary restaurant in the basement of the former TPG builiding where you'll... read about it in culiblog.
images from l to r: Vogelzang's salad course of city leafy greens (served with grilled pigeon breast), hanging etagères made of 2nd hand plates designed by Vogelzang for Dutch fabric producer de Ploeg, Gin and Tonic Fog Party by Marti Guixé (artificial indoor fog made of gin and tonic at Casco, Utrecht). The above images are from the (ex-)designers' websites, © and hopefully also courtesy of Vogelzang and Guixé.
Posted by debra at 09:03 AM | Comments (6) | post to del.icio.us
How to feel a food mile
September 19, 2005
If it takes me eleven days to really feel at home, just imagine how a piece of fruit must feel after travelling under much worse conditions and for a far greater distance! No wonder one must go to great lengths in the urban environment to find tasty fresh food. My head finally adjusted to being here this morning, which makes me think that I would have adjusted faster if I didn't have one.
The photos above are of the things that I am missing the most since I've returned to the North. Although the sun does occasionally shine, I've been forced to hide my pedicure de campagne under woolen socks and fabulous boots. Life is one big give and take.
Please read more... "How to feel a food mile"
Posted by debra at 10:00 AM | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
French disaster relief local food challenge
September 10, 2005
I should have cancelled heading up north last Wednesday morning when by 6 a.m. I had already made my way across two rivers, almost ruining the treasured Martin Margiëla heels! The bus ride down to Montpellier was spectacular, spectacular meaning that there's something in the scene that can kill you. And although it was in no way on the order of the weather going on across the pond, my return to the Low Country was defined by big Occitanian weather. Curtains of lightening illumniated the pre-dawn Pic St. Loup valley into liver coloured snapshots of wild boar narrowly escaping death by our bus.
It didn't occur to me that this weather would have any affect on me until we arrived at the transferium Occitanie in Montpellier where the gushing, thundering and lightening took on new proportions. Stuck in a hoard people seeking unavailable shelter, I was quickly soaked down to the innermost microfibres of my culotte and suffered the onset of hypothermia for an hour until summoning the courage to change into my dryest clothes au plein publique. Montpellier was one meter under water and all transportation had been halted until... no one knew.
Please read more... "French disaster relief local food challenge"
Posted by debra at 11:43 AM | Comments (3) | post to del.icio.us
Today's fig-related transactions
September 01, 2005
Went to bum a cigarette from my kitchen garden neighbour AlGouche,
and was invited to sit around eating figs and play with Abel's toes for awhile (Abel is 3 months old, so it's OK).
Received a fig tree as a present from Abel's parents, Amad & Lila,
and gave them some leafy greens.
Gave some tomatoes to neighbour Patrick across the stone wall,
and was given a huge jar of fig preserves that utterly rocked my world.
Inquired whether Patrick would like an assortment of leafy greens from my kitchen garden,
and received an apple on top of the wall, which I think was an 'exchange-a-thon' joke.
It's not really apple season yet.
Gave Patrick an assortment of leafy greens.
Gave Mme Afkir an assortment of leafy greens.
Have decided that tomorrow while watering the Family Afkir's kitchen garden, I will eat some of their figs when no one is watching.
images t to b: the gifted fig tree (black figs of yet unkonwn variety), corn stalks drying and all my leafy greens thriving, divvying up the leafy greens for those that want them:
Posted by debra at 12:23 AM | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
