countlan issue 05
DESCRIPTION
Countlan is a quarterly magazine dedicated to exploring how people all over the world entertain at home.TRANSCRIPT
countlanentertaining globally // issue fi ve
AUTUMn EnTERTAInInGa Moroccan Harvest Dinner
THE RIsE Of URBAn APIARIEsHoney in its current state
MUsEUM sHOPsa source for conversation pieces
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As fall arrives, it seems like the number of guests passing through our door for a meal increases. A coffee and dessert here, a dinner there - on a weekly basis there is always something to plan, organize and prepare. Autumn is a great season to entertain and catch up with people you may have missed over the summer or want to see before the ensuing holiday season. The produce is plentiful, and shorter days and cooler nights make for a great motivator to cook at home and cre-ate a cosy atmosphere.
The fifth issue of Countlan Magazine focuses on the theme of con-nection. When we entertain, the innate desire to connect with people in our lives fuels our desire to invite, shop, spruce, primp and cook. Thanks to this driving force, we make time in our busy schedules to contemplate what will bring pleasure and entertainment to the guests seated at our table.
In the following pages, we focus on the four main areas of entertaining that help facilitate connection: ingredients, tableware, technology and resources. As always, I hope Countlan’s collection of stories from around the world in-spires you to entertain at home and to establish new traditions with family and friends this season.
Sarah LamberskyEditor and Co-Founder
FROM THE EDITOR
EDITOR:SARAH LAMBERSKY {DENMARK}
AssIsTAnT EDITOR:MiKE DRAcH {cANADA}
ART DIRECTOR:BENTE BARTH {GERMANY}
PHOTOGRAPHER:ADAM GOODMAN {DENMARK}TiNA BROK HANSEN {DENMARK}
ILLUsTRATORs:PHiLiP KENNEDY {UK}ANNA KOvEcSES {cYPRUS}LUKAS cHLADEK {czEcH REPUBLic}ANDREA DAvALOS {czEcH REPUBLic}
COnTRIBUTORs:KRiSTiN PEDROjA {AUSTRALiA}EMiLY BAiLLiE {cANADA}ANTONiA cAfATi {cHiLE}LiSA NiEScHLAG {GERMANY}jULiA cAwLEY {UNiTED STATES}EvA KOSMAS {UNiTED STATES}cOSiMA OPARTAN {ROMANiA}cARLA iSiDORO {PORTUGAL}ERiN SOUDER {UNiTED STATES}BiRGiTTE BRONDSTED {iTALY}
COVER PHOTO:NORMANN cOPENHAGEN
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CONTENTScountlan
entertaining globally
FOODThe Need for Bees and Urban Honey 06Bringing Consumers Closer to Food 14Designing Cuppacakes 22The Melbourne Microcosm of Coffee 24Magical Marrakesh 25Liquid Art 26What's Cooking: Beetroot Cacao Cake 28What's Cooking: Chestnut Soup with Mushrooms and Thyme 30A Taste of Autumn in Southern California 32
DESIGNTabletop Hip Shops 36Made In: 38Pop Up Retail Food Museum 44Discovering Conversation Pieces 46The Return of Bordallo 50Soup Presentation 52Material: Resin 53
ENTERTAININGNotes on Entertaining with Erin Souder 56The Autumn Moroccan Harvest 58Entertaining Tech 60Page Worthy Books 62Take Stock: Florence 64
ISSUE FIVE
FOOD
ENTERT
AINING
DESIGN
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//Food//Food
//Food
Passionate foodies and social entrepre-neurs take the limelight of our food section this season.
From Mexico City to Beirut, you will meet a handful of individuals who are doing their part to better connect consumers with food. Take San Francisco based, Good Eggs, an e-commerce site that enables you to order food directly from the farm to your door, or Souk el Tayeb, a Beirut based farmers’ market and food education organization that is bridging cultural and religious gaps in Lebanon through its local food events.
Food travels from the land to our tables one way or another; these are the people keep-ing things interesting.
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Ever since it was reported that bees in North America and Europe were increasingly threatened by what is known as colony collapse disorder (ccD), a situation where strong bee colonies can lose their entire workforce in a matter of weeks, beekeepers from all walks of life have stepped up in rural and urban settings to join the crusade and reverse the trend of dying bees.
countlan speaks to the newest generation of apiarists who have taken on the plight of caring for bees and producing honey in the most unusual settings. The relationship between bees and global food pro-duction becomes a bit clearer as does why we should pay attention to what is really in our honey jars.
A Few Good Bees to wAtch on Film:01 More Than Honey (2012)02 Queen of the Sun (2010)03 vanishing of the Bees (2009)
Soon after graphic designer Russell Gibbs relocated from urban Toronto to Dundas, Ontario, a quaint historic valley town near the Niagara Escarp-ment, he felt the urge to do ”some-thing“ to help him connect with local growers. Through this mission, he also discovered a love for connecting with the land — something that was missing from his city life and design career.
Family Honey
The Need for Bees aNd UrBaN hoNey
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//Food
{DunDas, CanaDa}
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After learning that his beekeeper uncles were not going to keep their bees forever, Russell jumped at the chance to maintain the sweet busi-ness. ”I have fi ve colonies right now. There are always plans to expand, but I have to balance making honey with my other career — running my own design business. Oddly enough, beekeeping is the perfect compan-ion. It gets me away from the computer and puts me right in the real world, where I am just a small speck“ says Gibbs.
Gibbs Honey is entering its third season. Russell’s honey (which he pre-fers to eat straight from the spoon) is made from bees that feed on clover, buttercups, and wild grapes. Russell sells his honey packaged in simple, timeless bottles at a Sunday farmers’ market in Burlington. When he has harvest, he is lucky to keep stock for longer than a month.
www.gibbshoney.com
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HELT is a Danish word meaning ”hero“. ”I think bees do a heroic job“ says Anthony Lee of Helt Honey, a small ur-ban honey company based in Aarhus, Denmark. Anthony, a trained archaeologist, moved to Denmark a few years ago after meeting a Danish girl on his travels around Eu-rope. He soon found that archaeologists were not in high demand. With time on his side and an interest in animals and wildlife, he signed up for an evening beekeeping class.
Hooked on this new body of knowledge, Anthony secured a summer job with a local beekeeper who happened to run one of Scandinavia’s largest beekeeping enterprises. He spent three years learning all about bees, honey, and the surprisingly backbreaking work involved in beekeeping. While learning his trade from these experts, an idea for his own small honey company was germinating. Living in downtown Aarhus, Anthony decided to set up beehives by his apartment. After two years of preparations and market testing, Anthony was ready to work full-time on Helt, which launched in 2012.
”Each time I open a beehive, I still get this peaceful feeling and I am slightly mesmerized watching bees in their wild, untamed environment,“ says Anthony. He views honey as both an economic and social means to life. The majority of Helt’s honey comes from the Aarhus area, although An-thony also collects, the rare heather honey from Denmark’s west coast. His dream is that an increased demand for honey will encourage a new gen-eration of beekeepers to take up the profession and ensure a healthy future for bees.
www.helthoney.dk
HeRoiC Honey
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{aaRHus, DenmaRK}
”Each time I open a beehive, I still get this peaceful feeling and I am slightly mesmerized watching bees in their wild, untamed environment,“ says Anthony. He views honey as both an economic and social means to life. The majority of Helt’s honey comes from the Aarhus area, although An-thony also collects, the rare heather honey from Denmark’s west coast. His dream is that an increased demand for honey will encourage a new gen-eration of beekeepers to take up the profession and ensure a healthy future for bees.
Photo Credit: Anna Overholdt
Photo Credit: Heidi Mølgaard
when they shouldn’t. There are mis-takes which are normal for begin-ners, but it’s hard because everyone is trying to learn“ says Cat. ”The be-ginning of anything is always diffi cult, and beekeeping is no exception.“
As for the honey, at an average alti-tude of 2,000 meters, Balyolu’s bees pollinate plateaus of wild mountain herbs and fl owers like thyme, rose-mary, and spearmint, resulting in a complex-tasting fl avour.
Near the village where the organi-zation is based, bees also feast on the pollen of wild roses and chamo-mile as well as heartier grains such as sainfoin and wheat. ”Later in the season, we see wild mountain this-tles, which are unique to this altitude and region. The biodiversity results in a light-coloured, fragrant honey that tickles the back of your throat.“
www.balyolu.com
mountain Honey
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{KaRs, tuRKey}
when they shouldn’t. There are mis-takes which are normal for begin-ners, but it’s hard because everyone is trying to learn“ says Cat. ”The be-ginning of anything is always diffi cult, and beekeeping is no exception.“
As for the honey, at an average alti-tude of 2,000 meters, Balyolu’s bees pollinate plateaus of wild mountain herbs and fl owers like thyme, rose-mary, and spearmint, resulting in a complex-tasting fl avour.
Near the village where the organi-zation is based, bees also feast on the pollen of wild roses and chamo-mile as well as heartier grains such as sainfoin and wheat. ”Later in the season, we see wild mountain this-tles, which are unique to this altitude and region. The biodiversity results in a light-coloured, fragrant honey that tickles the back of your throat.“
www.balyolu.comwww.balyolu.com
mountain Honey{KaRs, tuRKey}
In the mountainous region of north eastern Turkey, in an area once part of the Silk Road, apiarists tend to bees in rural villages. The apiarists are a part of Balyolu, a social enterprise that creates economic opportunities for rural women in the area.
Catherine (Cat) Jaffee, Balyolu’s founder, launched the beekeeping and honey tourism organization after accumu-lating experience in the region as a Fulbright scholar and National Geographic Young Explorer. Once Balyolu was in motion, the local communities were eager to commit to the project and the steep learning curve that comes with keeping bees. ”I don’t think they (the local communities) realized how much work it (making honey) takes and that it wasn’t easy money. Even I was caught off guard, and I have been working at this for fi ve years!“ says Cat. The chal-lenges for the team are both large and small: ”Every night we have bears attacking our village, and bees swarming
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pResseD Honey
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David, infl uenced by his father who had lived with the Rikbaktsa tribe in the Amazon for a few years, travelled to Brazil to learn about his father’s past. It was in Brazil where David studied the Rikbaktsa tradition of making pressed honey.
Back in Austria, he assembled a team who shared the same ecological and economic concerns to raise aware-ness of the importance of bees in the ecosystem. Togeth-er they embarked on creating a pressed honey of their own. From its packaging to the honey, everything about Mein Honig is hand made and a labour of love. ”I spend evenings covering the caps with our special paper. I walk through the fi elds looking for lavender to dry and put in our Bienenpatenschaft boxes, an opportunity to sponsor a Queen Bee and recieve the honey from the colony’s sea-sonal production“ says David. The team prefers to keep their pressed honey operation small, in favour of produc-ing a higher quality product; something that David calls pursuing prosperity without growth. ”So we would rather stay small and keep our work fun.“
www.meinhonig.at
{uppeR austRia}Mein Honig, a small
honey startup that launched in Upper Aus-
tria’s Kalkalpen National Park, is the story of six indi-
viduals, 20 bee hives and a hon-ey making technique connected to
an indeginous warrior tribe in the Amazon forest in Brazil. It start-
ed with David, a nature loving, self-taught beekeeper, who
inherited three bee hives from his father when
he was 13 years old.
Photo Credit: Thomas Lichtblau
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What Vanessa Kwiatkowski calls ”a moment of clarity“ led her and her partner Mat Lumalasi to launch Melbourne City Rooftop Honey, a project that cultivates honey from beehives located on underused rooftops around the city. Fuelled by concerns over food production and the world-wide decline of bees, Vanessa — an avid gardener already accustomed to growing her own food — saw the project as an opportunity to raise awareness of the various threats and diseases that put honeybees at risk. By offering hive adoptions and sponsorships, along with partnering with local restaurants, Melbourne City Rooftop Honey connects people, food, sustainability, collaboration, and community.
”We encourage people to get involved in any way possible“ says Vanessa. ”We teach people about bees and how to keep their own hive, and en-courage the general public to plant bee-friendly plants to attract bees and supply food for them.“ Currently, Vanessa and Mat oversee 73 hives in the city where they install, maintain, and care for the hives using natural beekeeping methods.
www.rooftophoney.com.au
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RooFtop Honey{melbouRne, austRalia}
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sKinny jaKe’s Fat Honey
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After being banned for more than 30 years, urban beekeeping was legal-ized by the Minneapolis City Council in 2009. It was at this point that Jake and his wife decided to take advantage of the new ordinance and set up a hive in their backyard. It set the groundwork for what would evolve into a network of more than two dozen backyard ur-ban apiaries throughout the city.
Countlan talks with Jake on the name of his honey brand and the impor-tance of urban apiaries.
{minneapolis, usa}
on naming your unpasteurized, raw,local honey and beeswax:my name is jake and i’m a rather lanky fellow, so the skinny jake part came from that. Fat honey felt like it had some attitude, and made a good juxtaposition to skinny jake. i tend all of our hives personally, and i am a big ad-vocate of local honey. i love our bees and our honey, and i often remark how fat and happy they are. thus, skinny jake’s Fat Honey. why urban (backyard) honey?as urban populations continue to grow, the disconnect between how and where food is made, and how it is pur-chased and consumed grows larger. people that host hives in their backyards (and their neighbours) get to see a kind of farming and harvesting happening right on their property. they get to eat honeycomb freshly drawn from a hive, they get to smell the welcoming aromas of beeswax and nectar that waft from the hive on a warm day, they get to see an unordered banner of bees in the urban sky condense into the nectary nebula of the hive.
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//FoodA front row seat:the closer you are to your food, the more clearly you see its value. Honey doesn’t just appear on shelves —one bee makes .083 teaspoons of honey in its entire life. it takes hundreds of thousands of bees to make a bucket of honey. what you have learned as a beekeeper:beekeeping, while incredibly fun, is a lot of work. it is a type of farming. the amount and quality of honey we produce is dependent on the health of the bees and the weather. When our honey supers (the boxes that are stacked on beehives) are full, they weigh up-wards of 60 pounds, and make for some heavy lifting. how to eat honey:i love it in my morning tea. i know it may seem simple, but i think its aroma and fl avor come through best in the simplest applications. my wife, Kerstin, enjoys baking with it, especially in almond cake.
www.skinnyjakesfathoney.com
Photo Credit: Kerstin Hansen
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Mexico City is undergoing a gastronomic boom. There is an infl ux of new underground dining experiences, food trucks and pop-up restaurants joining the city’s puestos, fondas, and food markets. Popular international foods such as bánh mì and kebab can be found alongside the ubiquitous tacos and fresh juices. Even the Canadian government sponsored a food truck to serve poutine.
Enter Comilona: a new quarterly travelling food market in Mexico City. Comilona was established to support the growth of small scale independent food projects and invite people to connect and experience the city through the on-slaught of new food. Started by Andrea Viedma, the Comi-lona food platform provides emerging food concepts with a venue and a means to reach a broader audience.
The fi rst Comilona food feast took place in an abandoned space in down-town Mexico City in August. ”Each of the projects involved with Comilona has a unique way of experimenting with food. Given most do not have a permanent venue of their own, we de-cided to gather all these small busi-nesses together in one single venue and showcase what they are capable of to a larger audience“ shares An-drea. ”By doing this, we hope to en-courage people to try new foods that are outside of what they would get from dining at the usual restaurants.“ With the success of his fi rst event, Andrea is already looking for a larger venue. In between Comilona events, the plan is to host food related work-shops, lectures and fi lm screenings.
www.comilona.com.mx
three Comilona Food projects:
pichón is a pop up restaurant. every sunday pichón fi nds a new location from which to cook and offers dishes made from local ingredients.
latitud started in 2012 as a weekend brunch ”pop-up“ con-cept serving anglo-jamaican-mexican food using mexican ingredients.
Ñham Ñham is part of the recent food truck boom in mexico. they make Vietnamese food which is new for us.
Gastronomic Renewal{meXiCo City, meXiCo}
>> BRINGING CONSUMERS CLOSER TO FOOD <<//Food
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//FoodWe don’t just like to cook food; we are interested how it gets to our table. Short of becoming farmers, we selected six businesses that will help you establish a closer connection to what you eat and the people who make it.
>> BRINGING CONSUMERS CLOSER TO FOOD <<
Photo Credit: Dylanelee
Illustration By: Andrea Davalos
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In typical Bay Area fashion — where San Francisco meets Silicon Valley — Cathy Bishop and Rob Spiro ap-proached the challenge of creating a closer bond between people, food, and technology. Good Eggs is an on-line platform where customers can order directly from local farmers and artisanal food-makers, with goods delivered to their home or dropped off at a convenient location. Launching a pilot of their digital marketplace in 2012, they followed with a full service and distribution system in the Bay Area in early 2013.
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Our mission is to grow
and sustain.. .
High Tech Farm Delivery {san FRanCisCo}
Photo Credit: Colin Price
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Driven by a mission to grow and sus-tain local food systems worldwide, Cathy and Rob built Good Eggs based on feedback they received from local producers who wanted to easily con-nect with consumers. ”We’re building tools to service the local food move-ment — also called the ”integrity food movement“ — and the amazing food producers who are a part of it“ Rob explains. ”Ultimately we see better food as a means to a better world, where the folks who succeed are the ones doing things right: caring for their land, their communities, and making food with integrity.“Good Eggs is gaining momentum, adding new producers weekly to their roster of over 150 Bay Area farmers and producers. The team will soon be expanding to Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and New Orleans.
www.goodeggs.com
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. . .local food systems
worldwide.
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When Jan Schawe sought to open Mutterland, a delicates-sen-café in the heart of Hamburg, he strived to create a concept that better connected people to local, high qual-ity food. A refl ection of his own philosophy and taste, the name Mutterland (motherland) is suggestive of the type of menu items and delicatessen products carefully selected and made in-house since 2007. Mutterland’s cakes, sand-wiches, jams, muesli and soups pay homage to tradition-al German home style (how mother made it) cuisine and highlights time honoured recipes from around the country. At Mutterland’s three locations, Jan and his team only work with small family owned manufacturers in Germany to stock the fl oor to ceiling wooden crates (shelves) and displays throughout the store. ”The interior of Mutterland is democratic and not snobby, which means people will feel comfortable to come inside“ says Jan. The Mutter-land head offi ce on Ernst-Merck-Straße is divided into a 26 seat café with large chalkboard walls as the backdrop and a delicatessen showcasing the various cheeses, meats, quiches, pastries and specialty food items such as small batch olive oils, jams, honey, pasta, beverages, chocolates, sauces and spices.
What’s next for the six year old company? ”Lots of people have contacted us about opening concepts like Mutterland in other parts of Germany. We want to grow slowly. Up next, we are rebuilding our web-shop for spring 2014, updating the design of the café and have a new chef in the kitchen.“
www.mutterland.de
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From the Motherland{HambuRg, geRmany}
FiVe loCal items FoR tHe pantRy:
01 borgmann 1772 premium Herb liqueur (berlin): The Borgmann family started making this spe-cial (and secret) blend of indigenous herbs by hand in its family pharmacy in 1772 in Berlin.
02 marge Feine Kreationen jam (Hamburg): Produces a variety of homemade, hand labelled, seasonal marmalades, pesto and jellies. Moin Hamburg, a blend of grapefruit, banana, peach and passion fruit is made exclu-sively for Mutterland. ”Moin“ is a greeting to say hello used in the Lower Saxony region of northwestern Germany and Southern Jutland in Denmark.
03 Kaiser Honig lime and ginger (berlin): Started by Kris Kaiser in Berlin, Kaiser Honey makes a va-riety of fl avoured honeys and honey based spreads in the city.
04 the Deli garage multipurpose noodles (Hamburg): A local delicatessen food label that sells regional food in creatively design packages. Their bolts, screws and nuts make up this traditional pasta made from durum wheat semolina and organic eggs.
05 juwelier Feinkost pickles (Hamburg): Homemade pickles packed in Weck jars that will satisfy the strongest pregnancy craving (see pickle jar label) or simply accompany an outdoor picnic.
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City life often comes with its advantages; one of which is ac-cess to a variety of food. We head to specialty stores, local grocers, supermarkets or hypermarkets to do our shopping and typically make a choice based on familiarity, necessity, price, packaging, word of mouth or convenience. However, as the team behind The Making Of film project questioned, why don’t the people and the story behind the product play a greater role in influencing the decision process?
From this starting point, Ignacio and Constanze aimed to ex-plore and document a better way to connect people and food. ”Our videos are about people who started food projects within their lifetime, as opposed to having inherited a running busi-ness. These individuals successfully created their own pro-jects. For these producers, being featured in one of our short films means certain recognition to their life´s work“ says Ignacio. Currently, the group has made 15 films which are posted on their website and will be posting more soon.
www.themaking-of.eu
Growing up in Palermo, Sicily, home of the Cosa Nostra (Si-cilian mafia), Riccardo Adragna the founder of Social Good Stories, was conscious about the importance of support-ing socially and ethically responsible producers when he launched his online gift basket business in Copenhagen. In the 1980s, Italy adopted a law to confiscate the property and assets of the mafia. Local organizations such as Lib-era Terra, gathered over a 1 million signatures to sponsor a bill to redistribute the confiscated mafia assets to the community for social projects, and cooperatives.
Social Good Stories connects consumers to socially re-sponsible food producers by arranging gift baskets packed with socially responsible items. For example, the break-fast basket contains marmalades from Libera Terra, coffee from a small Ugandan cooperative, and honey from Bybi, a local organization that trains and employs homeless peo-ple to become apiarists. The Christmas hamper has a wine from a Sicilian producer whose brother was killed by the mafia and extra virgin olive oil from a NGO where Arab and Israeli women work together.
www.socialgoodstories.dk
Anti-Mafia Gift Baskets {CopenHagen,DenmaRK}
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Documenting Food on Film {euRope}
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Photo Credit: Social Good Stories
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”Food is the best expression of tradition, yet people have lost the link with the origin of their food,“ laments Kamal Mouzawak, founder of Souk el Tayeb, a Beirut food organi-zation inspired to ”Make Food, Not War.“ The organization brings together farmers’ markets, food festivals, educa-tional projects, and now Tawlet, a farmers’ market kitchen. As the son of farmers and producers, Kamal has first-hand experience about the generosity of the land and the con-nection between food and people. After travelling around Lebanon and exploring its ethnic and geographic diversity, he concluded that despite being a divided people, ”we are all the same.“
Kamal started Souk el Tayeb (Good Market) in 2004, lat-er joined by social enterprise consultant and managing partner Christine Codsi, to create a common ground from which to showcase the wonderful food and agricultural traditions of his country. What started out as a weekly Sat-urday morning producer-focused farmers’ market blos-somed into other food projects celebrating local specialties and promoting sustainable ag-riculture. The organization is as much about relinking the urban and rural — the producer and the consumer — as it is about providing an engaging gastro-nomic experience. Take, for in-stance, Tawlet, Souk el Tayeb’s newest project that intentionally shifts the role of producers from ”suppliers“ to ”chefs.“ Set in an open kitchen, farmers become culinary ambassadors as they are invited to transform their own produce into regional deli-cacies for market patrons to try.
”Food is just a commodity product on a supermarket shelf. We have forgotten who planted it, who harvested it, and who cooked it“ says Kamal. With someone this devoted to championing local farming and food tradition, there is no doubt that his organization will continue to have a positive cultural and economic impact on Beirut and beyond.
www.soukeltayeb.com
{beiRut, lebanon}
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Photo Credit: Wondermilk (M) Sdn Bhd
Designing Cuppacakes {petaling jaya, malaysia}
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In a country like Malaysia where eating is a national pas-time, it is not hard to see why the intricately designed and themed cupcakes by +Wondermilk is a hit in Petaling Jaya, a city just outside of Kuala Lumpur. In fact, +Wondermilk’s cupcakes would win over the eyes and stomachs of any passerby. What started off as a graphic design bureau has evolved to include a variety of creative businesses in the city including an art gallery for upcoming young urban art-ists, a small retail operation which sells quirky handmade goods and Cuppacakes, +Wondermilk’s bakery.
One reason why Cuppacakes stands out is the team is run by graphic designers-turned bakers. Their three retail shops are a take on a New York loft, with exposed brick walls, industrial fi xtures and a homey collection of mix and match furniture. In addition to their 25 cupcake fl avours, they also concoct cakes, cookies, gift items and occasion-ally, home décor items. ”Our most popular fl avor would be our Foxy Red Velvet cupcake. It’s a light, fl uffy and scrump-tious take on the classic fl avor topped with a not too sweet cream cheese frosting“ Ifzan Ibrahim shares, one of +Wondermilk’s founders. However it is not uncommon to fi nd unusual combinations such as lychee with rose but-tercream, avocado and pineapple, durian with vanilla and jackfruit with thyme.
www.ilovecuppacakes.com
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With a coffee scene bordering on obsessive, Melbourne is mentioned alongside London and Portland for having one of the most vibrant coffee scenes in the world. And it’s not just any coffee; Melbourne is undergoing a coffee renais-sance, where local roasters increasingly go direct to farm-ers to obtain beans and where drinking filter coffee from obscure plantations is all the rage. Starbucks even had to shut several of its locations (there are currently only six in the city) due to the strong network of independent coffee shops and local brands.
Salvatore Malat-esta was respon-sible for igniting Melbourne’s coffee scene. Malatesta opened his first café in 1996 while study-ing at the University of Melbourne. To-day his St Ali em-pire includes some of the best coffee outlets in the country including St Ali, Sensory Lab, Plan-tation, and Clement Coffee. He has a natural knack for knowing what the Melbourne coffee drinker wants and ca-ters to everyone, from latte-drinkers to specialty geeks. ”I am always the end user“ he says of his many businesses. ”If I can’t find something I want, I create it.“ He strongly be-lieves in building relationships with farmers, and spends many months of the year on the road at origin, along with travelling the world giving keynote lectures and educating others about his trade. ”I am an aggressive PR machine for the Melbourne coffee experience“ he says. ”I want to share this passion with the world.“
Newer to the coffee scene, Mark Knapp and business part-ner Nick Edgar opened their coffee shop, Balderdash in the beachside suburb of Port Melbourne in November 2010. Their café has become a highly frequented coffee destina-tion and has developed a reputation for its delicious, lo-cally-sourced food and an innovative coffee menu. ”Coffee
//Food
is an obsession. Every-one has an opinion about how it should be served and how it should taste. Food in Melbourne is an obsession, too, and this is integral to the coffee movement“ says Mark.
Head a few kilometers north of the river to trendy Collingwood and
you’ll find Proud Mary, a buzzy cafe owned by Nolan Hirte. No-lan’s passion is to educate Melbournians about ethical and sustainable coffee. A for-mer Barista Champion, he now sources and roasts coffee under the Proud Mary name. Celeb-rity chef Jamie Oliver was so impressed with Nolan’s coffee and Proud Mary that he featured Nolan on his website. ”As long as it gets people really thinking
about origin and sustainability“ Nolan says of his notoriety. ”There are a few really great specialty roasters and café owners in Melbourne, and we all share the same ethos. We know each other well and are growing and learn-ing together as a community.“
{WRitten by KRistin peDRoja}
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Visiting the Moroccan city of Marrakech is like entering an oasis of tastes and smells. Africa’s busiest square, the historic Jemaa el Fnaa, teems with locals and tourists looking to shop, socialize and feast after the day’s heat dis-sipates.
If you can navigate the square’s dizzying jum-ble of motorcycles, ac-robats, snake charmers, belly dancers, henna artists and spice vendors vying for your attention, you’ll soon reach food lovers delight. Spiced lamb and chicken kebabs, warm scented couscous, steamy escargot, fresh orange juice and exotic almond pastries are spilling from rows of street food stalls. Hearty and aromatic tagines, for which Morocco is legendary, are served in what becomes an open-air restau-rant by night.
Spices are used extensively in Moroccan cuisine, and the local cumin, cinnamon, ginger, saffron, coriander and brick-red paprika is deliciously potent. Nearby souks (North African market stalls) offer bulk spices for those eager to duplicate recipes at home.
No visit to Marrakech is complete without endless cups of sweet mint tea. Made with green tea, fresh mint and sugar, this hot drink is typically enjoyed with friends and family multiple times throughout the day.
The exotic and aromatic cuisine of Marrakech is a reward-ing treat for the adventurous food traveller. I, for one, can’t wait to return.
Photo Credit: Emily Baillie
//Food
Liquid Art{CopenHagen, DenmaRK}
In an inconspicuous building across from Denmark’s old-est museum, The Thorvaldsens, you’ll fi nd Ruby: a living-room style two-fl oor bar responsible for concocting some of Copenhagen’s fi nest cocktails.
When Ruby opened its doors in the summer of 2007, it was the only spot of its kind along the quiet strip of ca-nal. The opening of Rasmus and Adeline Shepherd Lom-borg’s cocktail spot coincided with the rise of the popular American television series Mad Men, a show that helped kick-start a renewed interest in classic cocktails. ”In the beginning, a lot of guys didn’t know what an Old Fashioned was, so they would order it and stand around not daring to admit that it was too strong for them“ says Sune Risum-Urth, part of Ruby’s management team.
Ruby’s beverages, which change seasonally, are simple to the eye yet offer guests an unhurried taste of aromatic art. Coupled with Ruby’s attentiveness to guests, theirs is a craft that reveals another facet of the city’s unwavering delivery of memorable sensory experiences.
www.ruby.dk
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02 whAt liQUoR oR liQUeUR Rooted in dAnish cUltURe?+ the House of Heering is a cherry liqueur that was created in Denmark by peter Heering in 1818. it is made by soaking lightly crushed Dan-ish cherries with spices and grain spirits. their cherry liqueur is more or less the standard go to cherry li-queur all over the world. between that and a good maraschino, you have all the cherry you could ask for.
+ then of course there is the Danish spirit called, aquavit which has been produced since the 15th century. it shares a fate with gin such that it was shunned for many years as altmodisch (outdated) and unsexy. the problem with aquavit is not the product itself; it’s the ritual around it. if i had to drink scotch ice cold and in a shower of shots, i probably wouldn’t enjoy that either. However, when you taste it, it is truly wonder-ful, and great for mixing. myrtle and red fruit make a great combination with aquavit for example.
03 whAt FlAVoURs will YoU Be PAiRinG this FAll?apples and plums are always a hit. they start to ripen in late july and some of the denser apples won’t be ready until october. We get several months of new fl avours and ever darker days. on a completely differ-ent note we just fi nished a pistachio orgeat, and we are positive that pis-tachio is going to be all the rage this fall.
liQuiD musings by sune Risum-uRtH oF Ruby
01 whAt ARe some UnUsUAl oR lesseR Known liQUoRs thAt cAn Be FoUnd At RUBY?We really like things like Cocchi, averna and Cynar - these great ital-ian bitters that can make grown men weep. more locally we have a hand in the making of a very small batch absinth and we have just fi nished our triple macerated peach brandy, that one is probably the rarest we have as there never exist more than 3 bottles of it.
//Food
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//Food
What’s Cooking: A N TO N I A CA FAT Ib e e t R o o t- C a C ao C a K e R e C i p ethe cake has a nice moist texture, the taste is a com-bination of cacao with a mild almond after taste. the blueberries give it a fresh tone.
CaKe:
1/2 cup of dates (if the dates are too dry, cook them in a pot with 1/2 cup of water on low heat until the water evaporates)4 spoons of honey1/3 cup of virgin coconut oil1 1/2 cup of rice milk (you can use almond, oat or any other non-dairy milk)1 egg (if you are vegan replace it with 2 spoons of lin-seed with a bit of water, imitating the texture of an egg)1/2 cup beetroot purée (2 beetroots cooked and mashed)1/3 cup bitter cacao powder1 1/2 cup almond fl our1 cup polenta1/2 cup chopped almonds
CaKe Filling:
2 cups soaked and peeled almonds, use 1 1/2 because it grows in water2 spoons honey1 cup water2 teaspoons lemon juice1 spoon virgin coconut oilblueberriesrice milk
must tRy in santiago:
my Cochayuyo avocado Ceviche: Cochayuyo is a local algae that goes great with avocado, red onion and seeds.
porotos granados con mazamorra is one of the few typical Chil-ean vegetarian dishes. it is a summer soup with fresh beans (po-
rotos), corn puree (mazamorra), basil and vegetables.
Chirimoya alegre (custard apple and orange juice) is a super nat-ural and fresh Chilean dessert.
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instRuCtions:preheat oven to 180C/350F. put the dates, honey and coconut oil in food processor, and blend until puréed. add the rice milk, egg and beetroot purée until you get a homogeneous mix. place the mix in a bowl, add the cacao, almond fl our, and polenta, stir well (it works better if you add the ingredients one by one). Finally add the chopped almonds. place the mix in a greased pan (with a bit of sunfl ower oil) and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes.
CReam Filling:add the almonds, water, honey, lem-on juice and coconut oil in a food processor and pulse until you get a cream.
CaKe assembly:When the cake is cool, take it out of the pan and slice it in half creating two layers. place the fi rst layer on a plate, pour a bit of rice milk in a spoon and use it to moisten the cake by sprinkling it on top. next, spread the almond cream across the cake followed by a layer of blueberries. place the second cake layer on top of the fi rst and repeat with the cream and blueberries. Decorate with edible fl owers and/or aromatic herbs, such as peppermint.
note: the fi lling is meant to be consumed fresh (within two days) otherwise the color changes and starts to oxi-dize because of its raw preparation.
//Food
Antonia Cafati the Santiago, Chile based vegetarian chef, teacher, writer and blogger behind Brotes y Racices: mis-cellanea naturista shares a recipe for autumn.
”I chose this recipe for its natural sweetness. It is ideal to serve it with hot herbal tea when it’s cold outside. The fact that the cake is made with dates, beetroot and honey, gives it just the right amount of sweetness without going over-board. I also wanted to use the last blueberries and fl ow-ers of the summer as a reminder of the warm season.“
Photo Credit: Sebastian Mejia
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//Food
Although Muenster and Brooklyn are separated by an ocean, geography didn’t stop designer and cookbook author, Liz and photographer and food blogger, Jewels from cooking to-gether. Their blog, Liz and Jewels, catalogues the adventures of two girls cooking on two
continents.
Online, Liz and Jewels tackle the same recipe using local ingredients and photograph their results. Putting their talents together, they also launched a series of workshops on food styling and photography which they run in Weimar, Münster and New York. For autumn, they tested a chestnut soup and shared the recipe with Countlan.
What’s Cooking: L I Z A N D J E W E L S
A MUST TRY IN MÜNSTER: Currywurst + fries from Dieks
Kaffee & Curry at the weekly market, coffee from roestbar, a small private roasting house and
waffl es from Milchmaedel.
A MUST TRY IN BROOKLYN: Australian feta from the Bedford
Cheese Shop in Williamsburg, a doughnut from the famous
doughnut place called Dough and an espresso from one of the many new really good coffee places we have here.
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE YOUR RECIPE FOR AUTUMN?
LIz:I just happen to love chestnuts! I love collecting them and can’t
wait until the christmas-markets start, where you can fi nd roasted chestnuts.
JEWELs:I also really like chestnuts. And soups are just so easy to make. Especially in the fall, when it gets
nasty outside, a warm, delicious soup is just the right thing to get comfy inside.
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//Food
Although Muenster and Brooklyn are separated by an ocean, geography didn’t stop designer and cookbook author, Liz and photographer and food blogger, Jewels from cooking to-gether. Their blog, Liz and Jewels, catalogues the adventures of two girls cooking on two
continents.
Online, Liz and Jewels tackle the same recipe using local ingredients and photograph their results. Putting their talents together, they also launched a series of workshops on food styling and photography which they run in Weimar, Münster and New York. For autumn, they tested a chestnut soup and shared the recipe with Countlan.
C H e s t n u t s o u p W i t H m u s H Ro o m s a n D t H y m e R e C i p e1 onion
1 tablespoon butter
400g of chestnuts (precooked or fresh)
1/2 liter vegetable broth
a handful of mushrooms
thyme
salt
pepper
2 tablespoons of cream fresh
i n s t R u C t i o n s :Dice onion, fry in butter, add chest-nuts, and then add the broth. Cut mushrooms, add to soup (put a few on the side to use as garnish). Let the soup boil for 5 to 10 minutes. In the meantime fry mushrooms you reserved as a garnish in a pan with some oil or butter. Puree the soup and add salt and pepper if needed. You can also add a splash of cream, if you like creamy soups. Garnish with thyme and crème fraiche.
//Food
A T a s t e o f Au t u m n i n S o u t h e r n C a l i f o r n i a
While the greater Los Angeles area does not experience autumn, 90 min-utes away by car, nestled in the shade of the San Bernadino Mountains is a little part of Southern California where a cooler climate not only ex-ists, but brings crisp air and a change of season. Driving down Oak Glen Road and around the Potato Canyon loop, visitors fi nd themselves sur-rounded by acres of apple orchards and pumpkin fi elds.
The scenic byway is dotted with lit-tle stands serving fresh-pressed ci-der, pie, and apple tastings; a true fall smorgasbord. Of the farms in the area, Snow Line Orchard remains a favourite. It harbors a secret sweet treat: mini-apple cider donuts. The cinnamon sugar coated donuts are made with the orchard’s own fresh-pressed cider and are served in a small paper bag. The texture of their donuts are light and fl uffy on the in-side with a slight apple aftertaste and crunchy on the outside enhanced by the generous sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon granules. If you buy them fresh, the piping hot donuts are the perfect snack to accompany a stroll through the orchard’s raspberry patch and apple trees.
{WRitten by eVa Kosmas}
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ingReDients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil3 eggs1 and 1/2 cups sugar1/2 cup apple cider1/2 cup apple sauce, plain1/2 cup milk3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon1/4 teaspoon ground cloves1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt2 cups all-purpose fl our2 standard donut pans, lightly greased
Cinnamon-sugaR Coating:
1/2 cup sugar1 teaspoon cinnamon
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//Food
b a K e D a p p l e C i D e R D o n u t s R e C i p eAfter my visit to Snow Line Orchard, I decided to make their baked apple ci-der donuts so I wouldn’t have to wait a year to taste them again. My donuts were more cake-like than the fl uffi er ones at the orchard, but tasted just as good and slightly healthier since I baked them rather than frying them. For a taste of autumn from Southern California, give these little guys a try next time you host a gathering.
i n s t R u C t i o n s :
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. In a small bowl, mix to-gether all of the dry ingredients and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the liquid ingredients until smooth. Add the fl our mixture and stir gently until just in-corporated.
Scoop the mixture into the donut wells in the pan, fi lling them up a tad over 3/4 full. Place in the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the donuts have risen and are lightly golden on top. Remove the pans from the oven and allow the donuts to cool until they’re still warm, but easy to handle.
While they’re cooling, mix together the cinnamon and sug-ar for the coating in a small bowl. While the donuts are still warm, toss them in the cinnamon sugar mixture until coated and serve.
ingReDients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil3 eggs1 and 1/2 cups sugar1/2 cup apple cider1/2 cup apple sauce, plain1/2 cup milk3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon1/4 teaspoon ground cloves1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt2 cups all-purpose fl our2 standard donut pans, lightly greased
Cinnamon-sugaR Coating:
1/2 cup sugar1 teaspoon cinnamon
Photo Credit: Eva Kosmas
//Design
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//Design
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Museums are not only great cultural institutions for learning, they also offer a treasure trove of conversation pieces for the table.
We look at three museum shops with a notable array of tableware items and meet several ta-bleware designers who can be proud to call the museum a point of sale for their work.
01 Le Petit Atelier de Paris - ParisTwo young designers opened the shop in the Marais district in 2005. In their boutique/workshop, you will fi nd hand-made porcelain objects and other delicate items with a graphic touch.
02 Chic Cham - LausanneChic Cham is an interior decoration brand that produces beautiful natural materials and poetic products for every-day life which are handmade in India. Their designers in-terpret fashion and trends to give the products a very con-temporary identity.
TABLETOP HIP SHOPS
//Design
{WRitten by Cosima opaRtan}
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F o u R s H o p s W i t H a u n i Qu e
s e l e C t i o n o F ta b l e Wa R e
Wo R t H n o t i n g.
03 Folklore - LondonHusband and wife team behind Folk-lore stock the shelves of their store with items that communicate crafts-manship, quality and durability. Their homeware, furniture and lifestyle items are a compilation of handmade, antique or recycled items.
04 Labour and Wait - LondonPurveyors of a variety of household goods, Labour and Wait has a strong vintage feel to its merchandise and includes everyday classics which are guaranteed to become your favour-ites with age.
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//Design
In our ongoing design ser ies, Made In ex-plores the country of or igin of tableware items in an attempt to dispel purchasing biases often associated with a country’s image With the ongoing ”made in“ rheto-r ic in retail stores, on products and in the media, this highly polarized topic about who makes the best x is worthy of con-sideration and discovery on the following pages.
//Design
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When oenophiles taste wine, the im-portance of visually assessing the contents of a glass is well under-stood. To challenge this step, Eva Mo-chalová and Marcel Mochal of LLEV Product Design designed the Decci, a black, glossy, opaque wine glass that masks the drinker’s ability to see its liquid contents. ”You can’t see wine when you drink from the Decci black but you can smell it; in this way, you perceive wine in a different way“ Eva shares.
The Decci set contains glasses for red and white wine, water or beer, a de-canter and champagne also comes in crystal. www.llev.cz
BLinD Wine{ j iZeRa mountains, CZeCH RepubliC}
When Philipp, an amateur baker, recognized he was miss-ing a Brandenburg Gate cookie cutter in his collection, the Berlin based family therapist sought to make one him-self. After locating a suitable manufacturer in Berlin who could produce the famous monument, Philipp’s cookie cutter was completed in 2007. He recognized his Branden-burg Gate cookie cutter not only cut out great cookie build-ings but also were useful as souvenirs.
He set up his company, Phil Goods, and proceeded to de-sign 21 global monuments, as well as, a celebrity series of prominent people such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Each cookie cutter comes with Philipp’s favourite vanilla cookie recipe.
www.phil-goods.com
City Cookies{beRlin, geRmany}
Photo Credit: LLEV Product Design
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Leave it to Italian ingenuity to turn scrap metal into an iconic product line. Since the 1960s, kitchenware manufacturer, IPAC, has been pro-ducing multifunctional clips from dis-carded stainless steel remnants.
”The Clippe was born from the by-product of a request by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. They were searching for the original producer of Antonio Chiti’s CLIP 01 to make a product called ”TOWER OF CLIPS“ says Paola Pagni with IPAC. Renewed interest in the clip inspired the owner of IPAC to develop the Clippe collec-tion- fi rst as a joke, then in coopera-tion with other designers.
Today there are 56 different Clippes from forks and milk boxes, to cocktail stirrers, fl ower holders and straw-berry tongs.
www.clippe.it
//Design
Clever Clippes{tusCany, italy}
Clever Clippes
Photo Credit: IPAC
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//Design
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Inspired by the texture of skin, Studio PS launched TAPED, a colourful se-ries of 16 porcelain cups that give the user a tactile experience while drink-ing.
The outside of the cup was left un-glazed so the drinker feels each wrinkle on his or her fi ngertips. ”We have always been fascinated by ma-terials, the way they look, feel and the attention they attract. We love how a tactile feeling can add a special ex-perience to a simple activity such as drinking coffee“ says Peter, one of the co-founders of Studio PS.
Using pigmented porcelain, masking tape and plaster for molding, each cup is made to have its own identity like skin.
www.studio-ps.nl
Phil Goods Cookie Cutters Berlin
//Design
TEXTURED CUPS{amseRFooRt, tHe netHeRlanDs}
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When the family of six who run Le Sorelle (the sisters), a retail store and design bottega in Tuscany, gather for a meal, there are always plenty of beautiful accessories from which to choose. The two parents and four daughters who work together in the family business excel at mak-ing objects to adorn the table like their terracotta bread warmers, ceramic plates, glass jugs and hand printed tablecloths. While their Tuscany inspired table items are popular, internationally they have developed a reputa-tion for their hard-to-pronounce paper bags. Le Sorelle’s UASHMAMA (pronounced wash-mama), is a series of decorative paper bags that is used to hold everything from bread and herbs to plants and cutlery.
For Marco, Emanuela, Chiara, Giulia, Gemma and Gaia, design has been a family affair for generations. ”My grand-father owned a women’s shoe factory in Tuscany and my father worked by his side for many years where he learned about materials, colours and product design. 20 years ago, my parents decided to start something new“ says Giulia, one of the four sisters. In 1994, Emanuela Sarti (Giulia’s mother) opened a small home décor and fashion acces-sories store in the historic square of Montecatini Alto. She had a strong desire to produce the objects herself and en-listed the design and manufacturing expertise of her hus-band to create the merchandise.
Later on, in an effort to bridge traditional manufacturing methods with technological innovation, Marco developed the idea for the washable cellulose fi ber material used to make UASHMAMA bags. With the success of their grow-ing product lines, the family opened three more Le Sorelle shops, two in Tuscany, and most recently, a fourth store in Florence close to the Ponte Vecchio.
www.uashmama.it
TABLE BAGS{tusCany, italy}
//Design
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Transforming a flagship store into a three-dimensional cookbook exhibition is no small feat. To expand on the 2012 launch of Normann Food, the recipe concept of Danish de-sign company, Normann Copenhagen, the entrance hall of the company’s flagship store was converted into a life size food and kitchenware exhibit. The store’s all-white gallery-like entrance was brightened by 12 recipes devised by Peter Elmegaard, the store’s Re-tail Director and exhibited alongside arty installations of Normann Copenhagen’s kitchen collection inspiring visi-tors to think creatively when serving their dishes at home.
www.normanncopenhagen.com
//Design
Pop-Up Retail Food Museum
Discovering conversation PiecesIt turns out, museum shops are no longer staid. Rather, they offer a cornucopia of conversation pieces for the table.
//Design
Pop-Up Retail Food Museum {CopenHagen, DenmaRK}
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Photo Credit: Normann Copenhagen
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//Design{V
ien
na
}MuMoK
tHRee ConVeRsation pieCes:
wool Blanket by Peter Kogler’s (Artist’s edition): great for keeping guests warm while dining outside and it’s large enough for several people to share at once.
Pendant lights by nUd: although simple in design, they add ambiance and great light to a dining room.
Recycled Bags by caritas for mUmoK. these bags are made from recycling mu-moK’s exhibition banners. they are designed and produced in cooperation with Vienna’s Caritas, an organization that runs the design project with long-term unemployed youth.
When the MUMOK moved to its new home in Vienna’s Museums Quartier in 2001, the 850 square foot museum shop designed by architects, Ortner & Ortner, was relocated to the ground fl oor of the building and the store’s product selection was rethought. To refl ect its new space, all the typi-cal museum shop products were swapped out in favour of procuring more interesting objects from lo-cal Austrian artists, young European designers and special artist edition pieces created for MUMOK.
www.mumok.at
Photo Credit: MUMOK
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The Red Dot Design Museum’s Design Museum Shop is a natural extension of the exhibition and a showcase for the internationally sought after design award that recognizes high quality in product design. Housed in the iconic Red Dot Traffi c building, the museum and its shop occupy the former Singapore traffi c police headquarters, a building which dates back to the British colonial era. The building’s bright red façade can’t be missed and draws attention to those who come to visit the area.
The Design Museum shop sits in a glass enclosed retail space and has an urban, futuristic feel. While the shop’s retail mix favours Red Dot Design Award winning products, which enables guests to bring home their favourite items from the museum, visitors can also fi nd the work of local Singaporean artists such as Mei from DUSK, Colin Chen from Fabrix and John Chan’s famous ”Singlish“ book.
www.designmuseumshop.sg
//Design
tHRee ConVeRsation pieCes:
the Aquarium dumbell by shinichi sumikawa: its elegant trophy like shape is a great conversation starter on the table.
the Geo Vacuum Flask by normann copenhagen: a colourful and visually appeal-ing way to serve liquids to guests.
the An&angel deco Bowl by Artis nimanis: every ta-ble needs a bowl with ele-gance and simplicity.
THE DESIGN MUSEUM SHOP {s ingapoRe}
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It is only fi tting that Czech design dynamo, Jakub Berdych of Studio Qubus, was invited to join forces with the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art to curate the gallery store. Before it was transformed into DOX, the Holesovice (Prague 7) art center was originally a factory that dated back to the early 1900s.
In 2005, the site was redesigned by Kroupa Architects, a studio known for its modern, functionalist architecture and DOX opened in 2008. The 1000 square foot, all white, minimalist design store carries the best of Czech glass, porcelain and jewelry products. The shop also features the work of young Czech designers and frequently organizes in-store exhibitions to showcase new work.
www.qubus.cz / www.dox.cz
DOX {pRague}
//Design
tHRee ConVeRsation pieCes:
soup terrine by silvie lubeno-vá of maestrokatastrof: this illus-trator is known for taking old pieces of china and applying humourous or ironic illustrations on its surfaces, which makes for some funny soup.
marble tableware by studio deform: perfect for bringing a natu-ral element to the table.
decorated Plates by eva Pel-echová: Her plates which are deco-rated with photography and gold rims turn food into works of art.
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Photo Credit: DOX
//Design
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greatest value.
In an age when...
g r o w i n g n u m b e r s
of people tend to think dangerously alike,
art´s capacity
to suspend,
even for a moment,
our habitual ways
of seeinGm a y w e l l p r o v e t o b e o f i t s
{ }
- D oX m o t t o
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Furthermore, from a contemporary perspective, Bordallo’s work was of-ten considered tacky and connoted bad taste by the younger generation who was either indifferent or una-ware of his art form. Recognizing the risk of losing such an important popular art reference, a handful of entrepreneurs and artists banded together to revive Bordallo’s faience into something cool and trendy. Alongside the global design trend and interest in vintage items, Bordal-lo’s revival was perfectly timed. Coin-cidently, Portugal’s Visabeira Group, a producer of fi ne Portuguese china, bought the Bordallo Pinheiro factory and suddenly, Bordallo’s products became a must have. They graced the pages of lifestyle magazines, sold well in vintage stores, markets and decoration stores and were used on the tables of restaurants and cafes.
Today, young people ask for their grandmother’s permission to use vintage Bordallo pieces at home or on urban picnics.
www.bordallopinheiro.pt
Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro died in Lisbon in 1905. More than 100 years after his death, his work underwent a com-plete transformation in Portuguese society; for the better.
Brodallo’s name is a reference – probably the largest - in Portuguese faience, a tin-glazed earthenware, tiles and popular iconography of the 20th century. He was a pioneer in Portuguese caricature yet his talent was multifaceted and ranged from illustrations and plastic arts to ceramics. In 1884, he founded the Faience Ceramics Factory in Cal-das da Rainha, a city in central Portugal that is well known for its ceramics industry and is home to ESCAD, one of the top 100 architecture and design schools in Europe.
A few years ago, the Bordallo Pinheiro factory was set to close its doors. For decades the factory produced copies of Bordallo’s original decorative tableware, tiles and ce-ramics, but his style had fallen out of favour resulting in fewer orders and slowing demand from clients.
The revival of his work is important in the current context of society as the Portuguese are once again turning their attention to traditions of the past. The military revolution of 1974 and the rise of democracy in Portugal resulted in certain cultural manifestations being buried or forgotten. Bordallo’s pieces were commonly used in households up until 1974. After that, all forms of art and culture related to the past (and by extension, dictatorship) were avoided.
//Design
The return of Bordallo {WRitten by CaRla is iDoRo}
Illus
trat
ions
by:
Phi
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enne
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//Design
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Taking soup presentation to new heights, the Lantern, a bowl specifi-cally designed to hold Vietnamese Pho soup, was inspired by the shape of a Vietnamese paper lantern and functionally driven by the soup’s con-diments and utensils. The recent suc-cess of his Kickstarter campaign has enabled designer, Omid Sadri to put his Lantern stacking tableware into production.
Sadri’s Lantern is made of porce-lain and the exterior is coated with a matte glaze to enhance the design and feel of the bowl. It is comprised of four pieces that seamlessly stack with one another. The spoon has a small notch so it can rest on top of the bowl without sliding off. The top dish holds lemon or lime, onions, and peppers. The middle dish is for herbs and bean sprouts and the bowl holds the soup and chopsticks.
Pho Lantern Omid Sadri New York
SouP PreSentation {neW yoRK, usa}
//Design
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Resin is a curious material that pops up in tableware design from time to time. When the self-taught, San Francisco based, resin artist, Tina Frey started working with the materi-al in 2007, customers often wondered whether her dishes and bowls were made of glass or ceramic. Resin is a different base material all together and is neither re-lated to glass, nor clay. The synthetic, polyester-based resin that Frey uses turns into a light, durable material once the thermoset cures after being cast into a mold and allowed to set on its own. Resin can break if you drop it on the ground, but it does not shatter like class or porcelain. It breaks into larger pieces, making it safer for out-door, poolside or kitchen use. ”I love the translucency and variety of col-ours available with resin“ says Frey.
After much research and laboratory testing to find a resin that is food-safe, BPA-free and lead-free, Tina got to work on creating her line of unique housewares and table top ac-cessories. As she gained experience and understanding of the material, she realized its versatility — music to a creative person’s ears (and hands). ”If I can sculpt it, I can make it in resin. When I develop new products, sometimes I imagine elaborate din-ner parties and what I would like to use with guests.“ Tina launches two collections a year to coincide with ex-hibitions in New York and Paris.
//Design
This season, she is introducing a resin furniture line, including long benches and round coffee tables. ”I imagine the benches to be used with a long farm table with many guests all squeezed on it, dining with my tableware.“
www.tinafreydesigns.com
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enTeRTAininGENTERTAINING
entertaining
entertaining
entertaining
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Autumn entertaining offers plenty of opportuni-ties to connect with guests. No matter how sim-ple or lavish, head to your local farmers’ market, pick up the latest in seasonal produce, pair with some fresh bread, spicy olive oil, and cheese. No need to fuss over a table setting. Keep things simple. Set out a few serving platters, coasters, and plates. Add a few tea lights for coziness and warmth, chill a bottle of mineral water or wine and top it off with a bunch of fresh fl owers. Now get set to tuck into an afternoon of connecting. connecting.
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01 WHAT Is yOUR BIGGEsT EnTERTAInInG PET PEEVE?My pet peeve is a messy bar. Bottle caps, drips, trash, and empties cloud the aesthetic. I like to have a mini trash can (like a pretty ice bucket) near the bar for such things.
02 WHAT DOEs yOUR ORGAnIzATIOn PROCEss LOOk LIkE BEfORE GUEsTs ARRIVE?I am a big planner. For example, I will make a dish in ad-vance to test the recipe; I setup serving dishes with Post-It notes to indicate what will go where, and plan my timeline for the day. Organizing in this way helps me to enjoy the night by awarding me more time with my guests!
03 HOW WOULD yOU DEsCRIBE yOUR EnTERTAIn-InG sTyLE?My style is casually indulgent. I have a few go-to snack plates for drop-ins, pretty patterned napkins, stirrers, straws, and platters on hand to make everything appear very put-together even if the gathering is last minute. I find extra details always make guests feel doted on and indulged.
Notes oN eNtertaiNiNg with eriN souder
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House of Earnest blogger, Erin shares a few ideas about what keeps her organized when she entertains weekly, her trustworthy tools and her entertaining style.
”I love seeing people happy. Entertaining is a gratifying way to socialize and motivates me to learn new tips, reci-pes, and hostess tricks from others.“
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04 WHAT EnTERTAInInG TOOLs DO yOU LIVE By?A Cutting Board: I cannot live without a beautiful cutting board. It makes a great focal point for a bar (lemons, limes and garnishes) or a fabulous foundation for a cheese platter. A beautifully grained board will also make a gorgeous platter for passing around appetizers or cana-pés and work as a trivet when some-thing hot is going down on the table.Bar Tools: Pretty bar tools that actually work.
Linen Cocktail napkins: A good set of linen cocktail napkins; they even make drop-by guests feel super special.
A Wireless Bluetooth speaker:A wireless Bluetooth speaker so you can play music outside or inside and change tunes fast from your phone.
An Apron: An apron has saved my life on sev-eral occasions. I like to put finishing touches on dishes that I serve while guests are there, so a nice apron en-sures that I don’t splatter the soufflé on myself.
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1. Dominik Woods,Solid Walnut Wood Cutting Board, Etsy
2. Twig Bar Kit, West Elm
3. Linen Contrast Stitch Cocktail Napkins, Mark and Graham
4. SoundLink Bluetooth Mobile Speaker II-Limited Edition, White Leather, Bose
5. Apron- Grey, Williams-Sonoma
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To celebrate the harvest fl ower shop owner, Martin Rein-icke, hosts an annual gathering at his country home north of Copenhagen. Together with the help of his friend, pho-tographer and food stylist, Tina Brok Hansen, the pair put together a Moroccan harvest dinner for twenty friends. ”Autumn is my favourite time of year and we wanted to cre-ate a meal with lots of veggies“ Tina shares.
The day before the event, Tina and Martin headed up north to prep the garden where guests would have dinner and to get a head start on all the chopping for the seven fam-ily style dishes they would serve. Since the weather was conducive to dine outdoors, they decorated Martin’s long, wooden table for 20 made by a local carpenter and used all sorts of left over fl owers from his shop. Down the center of the table they added a row of small apples from the apple tree in the garden. Tina and Martin created a cozy, rustic setting as the backdrop for a lively evening of music, good food and a relaxing respite away from the city.
the autuMN MoroCCaN harVest
Host: maRtin ReiniCKe, oWneR oF blomsteRsKuRetpHotogRapHeR: t ina bRoK Hansen
menu :• Orange Salad with Red Onions and Black Ol-
ives• Baba Ghanoush• Fattoush Salad• Carrot Salad with Apricots, Almonds and
Honey• Bean and Parsley Salad• Chicken Tagine• Dates with Pecans and Oranges
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Sometimes travel is all you need for a mental refresh. In the case of Guy Michlin, it was a chance dinner with a local family while on vacation in Greece that led to a revelation and a new business idea.
EatWith is an online marketplace that brings together local hosts who love to cook and entertain with travelers and locals looking for a new dining experience (think of AirBnB for eating). ”We are constantly amazed at the power of food to bring people together. EatWith guests enter the room as strangers and often leave as friends“ says Michlin.
Since its launch, the company has been inundated with applications from passionate cooks and home entertainers from around the world. While based in Tel Aviv, a veritable gastronomic hodgepodge, the company already offers dining experiences in 20 countries. www.eatwith.com
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Q+A Eric Davich, Co-Founder of SongzawhAt is YoUR FAVoURite tYPe oF mUsic to listen to while host-inG A dinneR PARtY?It depends on the crowd and the occasion of course. If it’s a fun, casual dinner party with friends, I’d go for some retro soul and funk like our ‘60s Soul Dance Party: Deep Cuts playlist or The World of James Brown. If it’s a more formal dinner party, I might choose something like For Sinatra Fans or At Ease with Classical Adagios.
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Entertaining Tech Technology that makes
entertaining better.
02 sAY dUcK: A peep show for tech-savvy, design conscious users. We are talking about an augmented real-ity mobile app that helps consumers see prod-ucts in their home before items are purchased. Watch Say Duck in action.
www.sayduck.com
01 sonGZA: An app that positions music as a lifestyle en-hancement. It is entertaining tool we can’t live without. It’s a free streaming music service with a massive library of expertly-curated (hand-picked by a person) playlists on the internet. We can’t get enough of Songza’s Music Concierge which ensures you always have the right playlist at the right time.
www.songza.com
Photos Credit: Eat With
The highly illustrative book, A Place Called Home: Creat-ing Beautiful Spaces to Call Your Own, by Australian based freelance interiors, lifestyle and prop stylist, Mr. Jason Grant provides readers with a creative guide of useful tips and visuals on how to create a space that is meaningful to its owner. ”For real life, I don’t believe we need to create ’perfect‘ homes. Instead I think it is about creating a space that says something special about who you are and your style of living“ says Grant.
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PaGeWortHY BooKS 01 whAt tYPe oF GAtheRinGs
do YoU tYPicAllY host?Day into night bbQs. i am usually in charge of the bbQ.
02 which items cAn AlwAYs Be FoUnd on YoUR tABle when YoU enteRtAin?mix and match serving ware, timber serving boards, classic linen napery and my good set of stemless wine glasses, which are perfect for eve-rything from water to wine.
03 AnY AdVice on settinG the tABle?Keep it relaxed and casual, not eve-rything needs to match, and think about statement cutlery and glass-ware.
04 wheRe do YoU shoP FoR tABlewARe?West elm, small spaces (i love small, independent retailers) and Koskela, which is a large showroom in syd-ney that focusses on locally made design products.
Published by Hardie Grant Books, Photography by James Geer
{syDney}
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Q+A WITH MR. JASON GRANT
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Modern Country100 miles north of New York City, amidst the bucolic landscape of farm-houses, winding roads and charming hamlets is where you will fi nd an an-tiquing enclave in the Hudson Valley. The area, named after Henry Hudson, the famous 17th century British navi-gator, is where authors, Joan Osofsky and Abby Adams, stage the setting of their fi rst book together.
”The Hudson Valley has spectacular scenery, from the Palisades (monu-mental cliffs across the river from New York City) all the way up to the Adirondacks. In the nineteenth-cen-tury, artists like Frederic Church and Thomas Cole, painted these scenes; this was the Hudson River School, America’s fi rst native arts move-ment. They also inspired architects and landscape designers and preser-vationists. On a more intimate level, there are still lots of working farms, with barns and silos and fi ne old farmhouses, and herds of cows, as a constant reminder that it’s still an ag-ricultural area“ Abby shares.
The book, Love Where You Live: At Home in the Country, profi les 18 homes in the Hudson Val-ley and New England in an effort to impart the mod-ern country lifestyle that both women love.
Q+a: WHat Does moDeRn CountRy looK liKe as a table setting?joan: if i were setting a table, i would use vintage or lin-en cloths, artisan pottery dishes or my white ironstone dinnerware, hand blown glass simon pearce candle-sticks and vases, with seasonal fl owers.
abby: i always have some fl owers and candles on the ta-ble. i collect table linens wherever i go, and i like to mix them up. i also collect fl ower containers of all sizes; you can’t have too many. and i collect candlesticks.
Published by Rizzoli, Photography by John Gruen
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Written By Birgitte BrøndstedIllustrated By Anna Kövecses
Danish translator, photographer, mum and blogger, Birgitte originally hails from Copenhagen but has lived in Florence for four years. Her blog, A Dusty Olive Green
is where she combines her love of travel and photography with commentary on daily life in Italy.
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01 CHEEsE:I like to buy cheese and other delicacies at an amazing place called Gastronomia Galanti. They have a great selection of high quality cheese and lots of other Italian delicacies. Piazza della Libertà 31r. T. +39 055 490359
02 OLIVE OIL:Tuscan extra virgin olive oil is one of the most famous olive oils in Italy. If you want to try a place that specializes in oils, visit La Bottega dell’Olio where you will fi nd all kinds of olive oils and balsamic vinegars. Piazza del Limbo 2r. T. +39 055 2670468
03 fLOWERs:Every Thursday morning you can buy beautiful plants and fl ow-ers at really good prices at the small fl ower market in Via Pel-licceria just behind Piazza della Repubblica, under the ”portici“ (The arcades). The selection is great and the atmosphere is nice and relaxed.Via Pellicceria.
04 DEssERT:Since Florence is one of the best places in Italy for ice cream, I would suggest gelato for dessert. There are so many great gela-terias in Florence, and you can almost always buy big take away boxes, which you combine yourself and then bring back home. One place that beats them all is Gelateria dei Neri. Especially their sorbettos and semifreddi (mousse ice cream) are to die for.Via dei neri 20-22r. T. +39 055 210034
05 BREAD:Tuscan bread is traditionally made without salt, and it tastes ex-actly as it sounds: Boring! Fortunately the bakeries in Florence have lots of other goodies, especially the schiacciata, which is a kind of salty pizza bread. I buy mine at Pugi in Piazza San Marco. Piazza san Marco 9B. T. +39 055 280981
06 TABLEWARE:In Florence there are many little shops selling ceramics, but they are often quite touristy and expensive. You can fi nd nice ceram-ics at the Cascine market, which is held every Tuesday morning. Parco delle Cascine. Viale Lincoln.
07 OLIVEs:The indoor food market in San Lorenzo sells amazing olives. There are lots of different types to choose from and you buy them by weight. Piazza del Mercato Centrale.
08 fREsH PAsTA:Boutique della Pasta Fresca is located in my neighborhood. It is one of the most famous places for fresh homemade pasta in Florence. You can get all kinds of pastas such as ravioli, fettu-cine, tortellini and gnocchi.Via Domenico Cirillo 2c. +39 055 578087 65countlan
Next ISSUE SIX: January 2014VISIT US AT WWW.COUNTLAN.COM