London, England
Bird of the Day: Common Wood Pigeon – coming in for the kill!
London, England
With Quinoa, All’s Well Only If It Ends Well
A man holds Peruvian quinoa. New studies of detailed data gathered by Peru’s government find that the global quinoa boom really was good both for Peruvians — both those who grow it and those who eat it. Juan Karita/AP
Thanks to National Public Radion (USA)’s Salt program for this important update:
Your Quinoa Habit Really Did Help Peru’s Poor. But There’s Trouble Ahead
The price of quinoa tripled from 2006 to 2013 as America and Europe discovered this new superfood. That led to scary media reports that the people who grew it in the high Andes mountains of Bolivia and Peru could no longer afford to eat it. And while, as we reported, groups working on the ground tried to spread the word that your love of quinoa was actually helping Andean farmers, that was still anecdote, rather than evidence.
Continue reading
Non-metaphorically Strange Fruit
A mix of tropical and hybrid fruits recently available in the United States. Credits: Photograph by Anthony Cotsifas. Styled by Michael Reynolds. Retouching: Anonymous Retouch. Prop assistant: Caleb Andriella. Photo assistants: Karl Leitz and Jess Kirkham. Fruit courtesy of Melissa’s Produce and Frieda’s Specialty Produce.
From the New York Times, the most unusual short news feature we have seen in some time just came to our attention. An April Fool’s item, perhaps? Click to the end of the story to see these “fruits” identified:
In a world of very few absolutes, here is one: Nature has no more perfect offering than fruit, nothing that seems better engineered to delight and entice humankind’s every sense. But of course, the real purpose of fruit is not to make humans happy, but to make more fruit: While it is the result of a relentless biological process that we happen to enjoy, the creation of fruit itself — from its larval stage as a flower to its dropping from the tree or bush onto the ground and growing into a new tree or bush — would go on whether we were there to appreciate it or not. Continue reading
UberPool’s Social and Environmental Impacts
For “baby boomers” the concept of car pooling is a standard one – and not just for over-scheduled kids being taken to after school soccer, dance and music classes. In the mid-20th century fewer people owned a car, and if they did it was one per family, so it was a common occurrence for friends or neighbors to coordinate their morning commutes. Augmented by public transportation, those trips were part of the community fabric.
As the now global Uber app continues to both expand and adapt to the market’s changing demands and needs, it’s possible that UberPool may have both social and environmental impacts.
Unlike a standard Uber ride, in which a single rider starts a one-time trip, UberPool works like a party line for cars. Travis Kalanick, Uber’s co-founder and chief executive, describes it as the future of his company — and thus the future of transportation in America.
Call up the app, specify your destination, and in exchange for a significant discount, UberPool matches you with other riders going the same way. The service might create a ride just for you, but just as often, it puts you in a ride that began long ago — one that has spanned several drop-offs and pickups, a kind of instant bus line created from collective urban demand…
…Mr. Kalanick said it was likely that soon, in big cities and even in many suburbs, most Uber rides will be pooled, meaning each Uber car will be serving more than one rider most of the time.
If that occurs, and if Uber continues growing at its breakneck pace, it would represent a momentous transformation in how Americans get around. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Common Shelduck
Gazaldoba, Siliguri, West Bengal
Not So Surprisingly, An Awesome Podcast
After a few of us listened to the first few podcasts recommended in this earlier post, we started poking around the Gimlet website. We found this. Wow. Did you see the movie called The Big Short? If so, and if you found it awesome, there is a high probability that this podcast will work for you. Both Adams worked together on that film, one as the improbable director (whose other movies, all lowbrow forms of “humor” you would not have seen promoted on this site) who showed a level of genius transforming dry into crisp; the other was an advisor on the film because of his proven ability to make dry money-related things seem crisp. So, no huge surprise that they can make unlikely topics pop. Continue reading
Sustainable Socks
Raymond McCrea Jones for The New York Times
News about socks? News about the deep south of the USA? Both seemed unlikely to show up on these pages until just a few minutes ago. And then we read this, and it fits the news we can use test:
Bird of the Day: Andaman Bulbul
Port Blair, Andaman Islands
Camera Trapping Bounty
A female mountain lion called P-35 was photographed by a camera trap in the Santa Susana Mountains northwest of Los Angeles. National Park Service
From today’s Science section of the New York Times:
Photographing Wildlife Without a Photographer
By
Camera traps can help illuminate the world’s most elusive animals. When a cougar, elephant or other creature triggers the device’s motion sensor, it snaps a picture.
“Most animals are hiding, you actually never get to see them and you might be led to believe there’s nothing out there,” said Roland Kays, a zoologist at North Carolina State University and author of the forthcoming book “Candid Creatures: How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature.” Continue reading
A 3-minute Visit To Iceland
It is about two years since several of us took turns reading drafts of Seth’s honors thesis. We had been reading the summaries of his archival research since the summer of 2013, and by March 2014 he was describing Iceland in centuries past in a manner that made us hope such a place still existed. This small video makes us think it may still exist. It reminds us: we must go soon (as 19th century adventurers also said). It is too beautiful to describe in words, so instead may we recommend clicking on the image above and just going for a few minutes?
Bird of the Day: Steely-vented Hummingbird
Tacacori, Costa Rica
Can You Top This?
Kamilla Seidler, center, who has worked in some of Europe’s top restaurants, leads the kitchen at Gustu, which is both a restaurant and an experiment in social uplift. PHOTOGRAPH BY BENJAMIN LOWY / GETTY IMAGES REPORTAGE FOR THE NEW YORKER
What were we thinking? Yesterday we chose a favorite without considering all the evidence. We stand corrected. Here we have a story of a restaurant at the top of the world, and at the pinnacle of how the game is played today, it sounds like. The content of this story is as superb as it is well written, and the theme is much closer to our hearts with regard to our organization’s core values and social enterprise roots:
Letter from La Paz APRIL 4, 2016 ISSUE
The Tasting-Menu Initiative
Can a restaurant for the rich benefit the poor?
BY CAROLYN KORMANN
Look out the windows of Gustu, the most ambitious restaurant in La Paz, Bolivia, and you’ll see the city climbing up toward the looming peaks of the Andes in a lumpy, shimmering mosaic. Continue reading
Float
The ocean stirs the imagination and inspires the heart. In its frolicking waves and every grain of sand is a story of the earth. And the beautifully timed crash of the waves whisper about nature’s simple treasures. For the sea and its tales along the land are a continual miracle. – Rosanna Abrachan
The tale we hear is thrilling – of knowledge passed down for generations, of artisanal fishing practices that grace us with sustenance from the Arabian Sea without depleting her waters.
Come sea!
Bird of the Day: Small Minivet
Masinagudi, Tamil Nadu
Fair’s Fare, More Than Fair
The Salon de l’Agriculture, held every year in Paris, is also a political crucible. PHOTOGRAPH BY IMMO KLINK FOR THE NEW YORKER
It is our favorite annual edition of our favorite source of longform journalism, and this looks like it could be our favorite article from this year’s edition:
Come to the Fair
The food-and-booze fest that is France’s national agricultural exhibition.
BY LAUREN COLLINS
It would be a mistake to think of microtourism, the latest invented word to capture the imagination of the travel sector, as mere staycationing. The practice, as defined by a pair of design students in Denmark who recently completed a project on the theme, is a prerogative of a future in which “gas prices are so high that we must develop a new form of adventure that does not require travelling great distances.” Microtourism is not glamping (no yurt) or bleisure (no work) or minimooning (no wedding). Nor is it Netflix and putter. If a staycation means pajamas and the garden shed, microtourism means sneakers and the subway. Continue reading
A Podcast Worthy Of The Binge
Alex Blumberg was only vaguely familiar to me when I listened to an interview with him on a podcast series that accompanied my early morning bicycle rides in late 2015. I had listened to Planet Money on occasion, and found it amusingly interesting most of the time. I had rarely, if ever, listened to This American Life, though many friends had recommended it.
Blumberg caught my full attention in this conversation recorded in October, 2014 as he described the process of sharing his experience starting up a new company. Continue reading
From A Friend In San Francisco
Photo by Elaine Miller Bond
The magazine Bay Nature is new to us, brought to our attention thanks to a friend from that part of the world. It comes via this particular article, which touches on several topics–fungi, birds, conservation and Bay Area awesomeness–commonly seen in our own pages in the last five years. Have a read below and if you like it go read the remainder on their website:
Identifying With Lichen
How the surprising union between a fungus and an alga raises questions about the nature of identity
by Elizabeth Lopatto
In July, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill declaring the lace lichen—found along the Pacific coast and throughout the coast ranges—the state lichen. As of January 1, 2016, California will be the first state ever to designate a lichen as a state symbol.
Lace lichen, Ramalina menziesii, is easily recognized. It is pale green and dangles in strips from trees. It’s sometimes confused with Old Man’s Beard (Usnea sp.), which is also pale green and dangly. Lace lichen’s range stretches from Alaska to Baja California. It’s an important food for deer; it also serves as material for birds’ nests. I see it once, in researching this story, when naturalist Morgan Evans, a former student naturalist aide at Tilden Nature Area in the East Bay hills, removes it from her backpack and spreads it out. Evans is a pleasant and patient woman, whose true love is fungi. Her interest in lichens is an extension of that, she says. Anyway, she found some lace lichen growing in Morgan Territory Regional Park. She figured I’d want to see it and there isn’t much growing in Tilden that she knows of. She hands me the lichen, which feels strangely plasticine. It’s pale green—she wetted it so it wouldn’t crumble when she transported it—and dangles impressively, at least six inches long. Lace lichen can grow as long as a meter, and it has a netted structure that looks, to me at least, more like fishnet stockings than lace. Perhaps fishnet-stocking lichen would be a little too racy a nickname. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Buff-throated Saltator
Tacacori, Costa Rica
What The Holiday Wrought
Cutting cacao pods on Diego Badaró’s farm, in Bahia. PHOTOGRAPHS BY JASON FLORIO
Because celebrating the Easter holiday is now so closely associated with chocolate, I presume, this article from the archives is suddenly front and center at one of our favorite websites. During our time in India I have learned from artisanal chocolatiers about Cadbury, among other big candy companies, who incentivized the removal of the high quality cacao that was growing here, in favor of more economical lower quality cacao. Bummer.
I remember first learning about chocolate from this article (click the image to the right to go to it), and it was worth the time to read it again based on my now-expanded interest in chocolate; also because it is a great story of entrepreneurship; and because Bill Buford is one of the greatest long-form writers on food:
Extreme Chocolate
The quest for the perfect bean.
BY BILL BUFORD
On July 7, 2001, Frederick Schilling and his girlfriend, Tracey Holderman, arrived in New York to attend the Fancy Food Show and launch Dagoba, an organic-chocolate company. Schilling had just turned thirty, Holderman was twenty-nine, and the show was the first entrepreneurial event of their lives. Dagoba had no employees and no orders. It had a lease for a ground-floor industrial space in Boulder, Colorado (the “factory”), and an investment of twenty thousand dollars (borrowed from Schilling’s mother and an uncle), which, after flights, a hotel, and a fee for the smallest possible booth, against a dark wall in the basement of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, was gone. It also had “launch products”—seven bars, including infusions of raspberry and mint—an amateurish jamboree, confected and poured into molds by a man who had never liked chocolate, hand-wrapped by a woman who rarely ate more than two ounces a year, and tested only by their Boulder friends and roommates, a scraggly crew of ski bums and folksingers. Dagoba was more bedroom than boardroom. In New York, that changed. Continue reading
News We Can Cheer
A wind farm in Washington state. Photo credit: Daniel Parks / flickr
Thanks to EcoWatch for this unexpected news:
Renewable Energy Investments Set New Record, Twice That of Coal and Gas
Renewable energy investment totaled a record $286 billion, with China, India, Brazil and other developing countries accounting for $156 billion in 2015. China’s investment alone rose 17 percent from the year prior, representing 36 percent of the global total. Experts expect this surge to continue, while coal remains in decline; China also announced this week that they will be suspending construction of new coal mines in 15 provinces. Continue reading
Organikos 