World’s costliest marmalade?

December 1st, 2011

Readers of this blog will know that stories about marmalade have a particular fascination for me, especially at this time of the year when stocks of the stuff are at a low level and I’m thinking how many weeks it is til early February, when the new crop of oranges from Seville will be in the shops.

This week’s story comes from New York, where our own correspondent has sent news that if I am really desperate for a good pot for Christmas, there’s help at hand in the big Apple.

What’s the deal? The photo opposite shows what you can buy on Madison Avenue – a pot of Orange marmalade (‘Les Confitures de la Creation’) from the Savoie for $25. I know there’s a certain cachet about French made products, but this offering from Manhattan’s Eli Zabar Manhattan store must be the world’s most expensive jar yet of the golden preserve.

At today’s exchange rates this makes it £15.94 for the pot. What’s not clear is the weight! As every well taught 12 year old knows, a kilogram is not 2 lbs but 2.204 lbs (or 2lbs, 3.27 ounces), which makes a 500 kg pot weigh 1.102 lbs, not 16 ozs. We need some help here from the Weights and Measures Inspector!

And finally just let me know if you come across a more expensive pot – anywhere in the world.

Posted in Culture, International | 1 Comment »

Chicago: Old Town & new art

October 5th, 2011

We knew all about Chicago’s skyscrapers and Frank Lloyd Wright houses, about its gangster days and speakeasies, about Obama’s role as a community organiser in the 80s in the housing projects, about Kapoor’s 110 ton entrancing silver sculpture, ‘Cloud Gate‘ in Millennium Park (see opposite) and about the magnificent Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) nearby.

We did not know however about the influence the Institute’s School of Art had on shaping from the 1920s features of the houses and environment of the Old Town – the neighbourhood just north of downtown Chicago – where we spent last month.

In 1927 two AIC students Sol Kogen and Edgar Miller set up the Carl Street Studios there in Burton Place, off Wells Street, to provide workspace for artists and to promote modern art. Its influence on the neighbourhood and its buildings has been considerable.

Walk round the streets of Old Town and you’ll come across murals, mosaics, stained glass windows, multi coloured tiles in odd settings and intricate doorways, many of which were created or inspired by Edgar Miller, who was a talented artist, metal worker and designer.

We encountered this first in the interior of a 1930s small block of apartments where we were staying. Open the front door and immediately at your feet in the small tiled lobby was a large mosaic with a humourous self-referencing title ‘Mosaic’ (see photo above).

Walk up the narrow stairway to our first floor apartment and there’s another surprise. Attached to the iron bannister and rising to the next floor is a 15 feet tall hardwood ‘totem pole’, with a series of detailed carvings. At the bottom (see opposite) a deftly carved figure of a standing nude woman with long flowing hair hits you in the face . What joyful exuberance on a winding stairway!

Fortunately the City Council has recognised the contribution made by the Carl Street Studios to the area’s charm and bohemian character with some plaques and two contrasting sculptures – a powerful male figure in burnished steel in a bed of flowers and a striding woman with rusting chains on the pavement (see photos below).

Street art and sculpture adds to the quality of any city or town, whatever the continent. It’s a humanising force and a great eye catcher as I showed in the case of Valencia in Spain.

It makes me think that Keswick our mountaineering capital of England would be a great venue for some bold new sculptures. Perhaps the Town Council could be persuaded to give some thought to the idea. Let us have your views in the comments section below.

Posted in Culture, Environment, International | 3 Comments »

Mallory, Everest & The Lakes

September 30th, 2011

What makes you a good candidate for climbing Everest and taking on a challenge which will require spending time in the ‘Death Zone’, the top reaches of the world’s highest mountain? We’ve been thinking more about this since seeing for a second time ‘The Wildest Dream’, the film of Mallory’s and Irving’s fateful attempt on the Everest summit in 1924.

We’ve met people from Europe and the US, who’ve wondered if there is anywhere in the UK, where the altitude and mountains can really prepare you for the conditions you’re likely to meet in the Himalayas.

If you have experience of winter walking or climbing in Scotland or the Lakes, you will of course know the answer. Last year we met Jon Bennett, one of the Helvellyn climbers who daily report in the winter on conditions at the top. He described taking five hours summiting from Thirlmere through snow drifts up to five feet deep. That’s tough!

And back in the 80s we remember a fierce August night beside wild Loch Avon below Cairngorm, when we just managed to hold up our tent with our two young children beside us in the tail end of a violent Hurricane Harry. We survived, but sadly we learnt on our return that a German father had that same night lost one of his two young children through hypothermia when trying to cross the plateau from Braemar to Aviemore. He had been used to the Alps and wasn’t ready for the Scottish weather.

Yes, the conditions on our high fells, though under 1000m, can still be arctic even in summer and can prepare you for the worst. We were reminded of this when reading Graham Ratcliffe’s, ‘A day to die for’, an account of the Everest climb back in 1996, when eight people tragically lost their lives.

Ratcliffe points out there that the photographer Bentley Beetham – whose impressive photos of the 1924 expedition and of the tent, where Mallory and Irving spent their last night alive, have helped to maintain interest in the expedition – learnt his mountain skills as a young teenager in the Lake District. Not for nothing do they call Keswick the climbing and outdoor capital of England!

There is a great website of the whole of Beetham’s oeuvre in the Himalayas, which has recently been created by a new Trust in association with the University of Durham.

Posted in Environment, International, Walking | No Comments »

Farmers’ markets US style

September 26th, 2011

We’ve been fans of Keswick’s Saturday market for years, so it was natural that we would want to take a look this month at the farmers’ market in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. 

To get the best you need to be there early as this is a popular venue for people of all ages.

Farmers’ markets have proliferated in recent years from the first one in Bath, UK established in September 1997 in response to discussions about the Local Agenda 21 Commission. There are now over 500 in the UK.

Only a mile from Chicago’s downtown skyscrapers, the Lincoln Park market stalls are full of a wide range of produce and provide a marvellous contrast of colours.

Sustainability and environmental issues are key concerns for producers and many of the farms have full organic credentials or are certified green.

Farmers’ markets are not-for-profit bodies and have been increasingly popular in the US. They are overseen by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In the last seven years they have increased from 1755 to 7175, making a 17% increase in the last year alone.

But this is not big business like the average 450 acre farms in the prairies of Illinois and Iowa, where millions of tons of field corn (or maize) are grown every year for home beef production, for the rapidly expanding Chinese market and for ethanol production.

Typically farmers’ markets are made up of small producers with orchards or perhaps a 7 acre garden farm – with intense cultivation of tomatoes, peppers, onions, carrots, fruits etc – or others breeding cattle and pigs with specialist production of smoked meats. Most farms are under 50 acres and have to be within a defined radius; in Chicago’s case this is 300 miles, though for other markets it is a lot less.

A campaign of the market at present is to encourage shoppers to pledge to be ‘locavores‘, only buying and eating produce from within a defined local area.

Often the vegetable producers will be supported by CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) schemes where members of the local community guarantee to take a box of vegetables every week during the growing season. While people on benefits with food vouchers can shop here, prices of the produce are on the high side and tend to attract shoppers with more disposable income, higher qualifications and an interest in environmental issues.

The same however does not apply to the farmers’ markets in rural areas where jobs are limited and wages low and unemployment, well over the national rate of 9%, is hitting communities hard.

A New York Times article “Vegetable gardens are booming in a fallow economy” (9th September 2011) describes the situation in East Kentucky in the Appalachian foothills.

Here rural residents are turning over their ground and selling the surplus from their gardens at low cost to the elderly and unemployed, who look to squeeze their budgets to make ends meet.

As Tim Woods, Professor of Agricultural Economy at Kentucky University puts it: “You won’t see certified organic products or fancy marketing here. It’s a very different world.” But the growth is similar with a doubling of markets there since 2004.

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Rooftops Photo Gallery

September 19th, 2011

It’s just over two years since I started our companion photo gallery of buildings in high places and remote locations. Those who love mountains and wilderness where the wind blows free and clean, will know that these are places for reflection and release, for solitude and renewal. The buildings are if you like, one key to unlocking the nature of place. In Camus’ phrase here you can feel ‘beside oneself’.

The simple building opposite was originally a shepherd’s cottage in Cumbria on the moors above Penrith. Despite its proximity to a road and bridleway to Selah Bridge, it has all the feel of a wild retreat with a stunning panorama.

All these buildings are set in magnificent landscapes. The highest at 4400m is a Civil War frontier post on the 18 km ‘Rooftop of Africa traverse’ in Ethiopia’s Simien mountains; the lowest is 300 BC Mousa Broch in the Shetlands at 6m. We have learnt as we have collected the images that there is a key ingredient. Behind each of the pictures is a human story of engagement with that landscape – a story of toil, travel, exploration, warfare, farming and so on. Who has built them and why? Who has lived here? Who has left? How does this nomadic child in Kyrgyzstan on horseback with his father on the ancient Silk Road receive his schooling at 3500m?

To expand on our pictures, we have included some photos which show the people living there and hint at their life stories. Most recently we have added photos taken on the classic Haute Route long distance walk between Chamonix and Zermatt; and from South India’s Western Ghats in Kerala where at 1600 metres, technology has made it possible for families in remote villages to watch World Cup cricket via satellite dishes.

Most poignantly we have included a triptych of images of crofts at Calgary Bay on the island of Mull. Deserted by crofters in poverty in the 19th century, they are a reminder of how families then just as now are forced to leave their homelands in search of work and a new life. Does the photo below of Calgary Bay with its rays of sun piercing a cold sea reflect that new life or the chimera that has betrayed so many migrants in the past?

The gallery has been a great cooperative venture and we hope that in reading this you will want to send us other pictures for inclusion. We now have 57 photos, of which half have been supplied by other people. We would like to express our thanks to Barney Harford, Chloe Harford, David Harrison, John Loudon, Liz Moore, Jim Richardson and lastly Mog Empson for his translation of the wording on a refuge wall (see opposite) in Tiger Leaping Gorge In China. We have been greatly encouraged by their support.

Don’t forget to click here for a look at the photos in the Gallery! If you would like a full size image (2Mb-3Mb) of one of these photos to print out or for a Christmas present just email me (ian@lakelandbelvedere.com) for a copy. And if you like what you see on the site, why not pass the details to your friends?

Posted in Culture, Environment, International, Technology | No Comments »

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