Honey, rockin' my world
October 27, 2005
A honey shop in the Kadiköy market in Istanbul is visited by wasps.
Posted by debra at 03:47 PM | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
I love smoking everything in moderation
October 22, 2005
Last year in Delhi I reported on why it's a good idea to keep a positive attitude while experimenting with stimulants. This year I simply throw myself into the task. By the volume of the blueish haze, one wouldn't suspect that we were entering an outdoor tea house, but the tea house, (and by tea, I mean smoke) of the Balkan Student Union is a vaulted-ceilinged wonder of kilim pillowed couches and abundant eastern aesthetic occupying a maze of very confusing little stone courtyards. There are only four things on the menu here: tobaccos, teas (apple, mint, black) or coffee, and a game resembling backgammon. After a long day's walk through the Istanbul Biennale locations, it was wonderful to get into a heady relax with a bowl full of nargileh. That's Turkish for waterpipe tobacco drenched in apple, mint or rose syrup. Smoking a waterpipe is like inhaling jewelry, so delicious. Dip your finger in the tobacco straight out of the tin and you'll taste that it's sweet as candy.
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
images top to bottom: an employee of the Istanbul University Balkan Student Union Smokehouse fills a waterpipe bowl with apple flavoured tobacco, a tangle of waterpipes in the storage room await new customers, the pipes unplugged
technorati tags: Turkey, Istanbul, waterpipe
Please read more... "I love smoking everything in moderation"
Posted by debra at 02:36 PM | Comments (3) | post to del.icio.us
Sort of public gardens
October 21, 2005
The urban garden is thriving in Istanbul. Walking around the Biennale's parallel programme locations in Karaköy, I spied some ad hoc agriculture in 'public' planters. These images show vegetables being grown amidst 'ornamental' city landscaping. Chapeau to the hacker-farmers growing squash, bell peppers, tomatoes and aubergines in their urban gardens. Look, they have even contructed a BBQ on which to do the grilling!
Smack dab in the middle of the Üskudar ferry terminal, ad hoc growers have cultivated tomatoes in all of the planters.
Images documenting beets being grown within public landscaping at a student housing complex in Nanjing in PRChina (April 2004).
And in Montpellier this summer, PRChinese artist Song Dong's salad installation.
technorati tags: public domain, urban gardening, food security, farming, food-related art, hacking, public space agricultural diversification, agricultural policy
Please read more... "Sort of public gardens"
Posted by debra at 04:04 PM | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
Amphora types according to culiblog
October 20, 2005
In one of the artist-in-residence gardens of the future Santral Istanbul, we found a plastic amphora, looking not dissimilar to the amphorae of old.
technorati tags: Turkey, amphora, Istanbul, Santral
Posted by debra at 04:19 PM | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
Hairy dairy
October 19, 2005
Turkish goat cheese packaged and sold in an animal skin, just the way it was originally produced. Shepherds discovered that animal milk carried in animal skins curdles, (especially the skins of baby animals) and the rest is culinary history. This tube of tulum cheese was being portioned at the Egyptian Spice Market in Istanbul. For some reason the practice of preserving and selling cheese in an animal skin is not echoed by the producers of cow's milk cheeses.
Posted by debra at 01:25 PM | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
Branding Iftar in Istanbul is handy to mouthy
In Istanbul I spotted this column next to the Blue Mosque, advertising the use of soup powders to flavour traditional Turkish dishes for Iftar meals. If the goal is to address a broad consumer base, Knorr marketing is right on target with this Turkish ad hocking of product during the month of Rammazan. I guess if you're a high-powered career woman in Istanbul, working as the curator of an international art event like the Istanbul Biennale, you don't really have time to whip up some break-the-fast nibbles every day at sundown, all the livelong month, and these powders could be handy. Handy to mouthy. Who am I to say that packaged flavour marketed as culture isn't sometimes a good thing?
technorati tags: Ramadan, Amsterdam, fasting
Please read more... "Branding Iftar in Istanbul is handy to mouthy"
Posted by debra at 12:25 PM | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
