Today I visited the Winter Park Community Garden behind First Pres Winter Park. I shot some video and took some still of this incredible community garden. I’ll be posting more about the visit and the awesome young lady who is the garden curator soon.
But wanted to share this video with you before the weekend was over. I caught wind of this thank Emily Ruff at the Homegrown Co-op. She posted about Transition Orlando and their upcoming gathering. While there I learned about the 350 Garden Challenge and ended up spending some time in my garden pruning, watering, transplanting and picking a spot to plant my kiwi’s tomorrow. I hope you find this video as inspiring as I did.
I have the pleasure of working with some really talented people on my current project for Cape Canaveral National Seashore. One of these creatives is Brian Tortorelli. Brian is a consummate Renaissance artist. Trained in Digital Media to metal smithing, he is at the helm of our Turtle Cam’s aluminum frame fabrication.
But he is not just a whiz with a soldering iron, he also has a softer side. His current project, SEED, involves a community mural project tied in with a community project at a local elementary school. Check out this incredible video shot by Aaron Hose’ capturing the progress of the project to date.
Great work guys and keep it up. You are an inspiration.
A four day event, Otronicon is a celebration of interactive technology using video games to demonstrate the future of how we live, learn, work and play. The event focuses on a few key areas:
Larger than life video game experiences
State of the art medical and military simulators
Game design workshops taught by industry pros
Whether you’re a video game fan or just wondered what it is you’re kids are doing in front of that computer, there’s something for everyone at Otronicon, Orlando’s biggest interactive technology expo!
As many of you know Kamrin and I have another blog called Finding America TV where we document our love of hitting the open road. We have traveled through 39 US states and 5 states of Canada with our trusty travel trailer Kodi and filmed the whole thing. So when we heard the nomadic Airstream trekking musical duo Hymn 4 Her being interviewed by Julie Norris on Front Porch Radio we knew we had to see them live.
This duo, well trio if you include their full-time roadie their 3 year old daughter Diver, stopped through Orlando last week to play two gigs. Here is some video I shot of their show at the Audubon Park Community Market hosted at Stardust. Since the K’s were out of town I was flying solo but it turned out that Diver ended up being my table mate for the show. Armed with a coloring book, 32 color box of crayons and wearing a set of noise canceling headphones she proved to be well equipped and content to let her folks do their thing.
Hymn for Her also played at Dandelion for urban sketcher Thomas Thorspecken’s art opening. That is his sketch of their performance above. They will be back Jan 17th at the Copper Rocket’s 2nd Anniversary of their Southern Fried Sunday jams. You can catch them in February at Orlando Brewing as well, so hop over to their website for details and to check out the music video they put together as a tribute to their Airstream’s previous owners – pretty cool.
If you’ve been following the Locavore Movement for any length of time then you will surely be familiar with the name Michael Pollan. Well, thanks to a timely Tweet I caught him being interviewed on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart yesterday. He was promoting his newest book “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual“. In his previous book “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto” he expounded on the simple mantra “To be healthy, Humans should eat food, not too much and mostly plants“. With such a simple mantra you’d expect a short book. However as the page count grew and as Pollan expounded on the travails of industrial food system I began to realize that his simple mantra was an impregnable ideal.
To that end, to help demystify how to eat ethically, healthfully and to avoid the “edible food like substances” being marketed to us, Pollan has come to our rescue with a pocket sized “eater’s manual.” It is a shame that an eater’s manual is even necessary but when our local grocery store offerings are 85% processed, non-whole food, food substitutes, finding the genuine article can be like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. So I’m going to pick the book up tomorrow and will write a proper review once I’ve given it a read, but to tide you over below is his interview on the Daily Show. Enjoy and eat consciously.
A couple weeks ago I reported about the thought provoking artwork of local artist Jennifer Farhat. She has produced another locavore inspired instillation on the shores of Lake Eola in downtown Orlando, FL. On top of that she how has a shiny new home for work on the web called Know The Roots. Besides serving as a portfolio of her locavore artwork, the site also provides a great primer for why we all believe supporting an organic local food economy is so critical to the health of our families and the health of our nation.
As many of you know my favorite place to study is at the Winter Park Library. Well during my studying for finals I saw a flyer for a free Christmas concert put on by Jubal’s Kin. Surprise surprise surprise. These were the three young musicians that Julie Norris had on Front Porch Radio either the week before or after I was on.
Being a lover of traditional Bluegrass, roots and gospel I put these three on my radar the second I heard them on the radio. They have a great sound and their take on the genre is fresh and inspiring. So….we made it a point as a family to drop into the Library today to catch their show. We had a front row seat and our daughter was clapping away enraptured by the sound of live acoustic music.
I’ve cut together a little video that I shot with the Flip to give you guys an idea about the kind of music Jubal’s Kin plays. The trio was joined today by three other musicians, but their core group is made up of siblings Roger, Gailanne and Jeffrey Amundsen ages 21,15 and 11 respectively.
They’ve got a fair few awards under their belt already and with an engaging stage presence, some hot licks and a wonderful synergy, I expect great things from these young musicians. It is always a pleasure to discover new music, but when it is in your own backyard is that much sweeter.
What an exciting time to be a Locavore in Central Florida. It appears that during our baby hiatus the movement has grown real roots. There is no better example of this than at last Sunday’s Farm to Table event at the Enzian.
The excellent people over at Ourlando cooked up this idea of showing a thought provoking film like “Food Fight” (Which was excellent BTW) and paring it with the outstanding locally sourced kitchen creations of Chef Josh Oakley. I want to say a few things about the event but I figure the best place to start is with Lance Turner’s opening words before the “Food Fight” film. So poignant! I love this guy’s passion!
We particularly salivated over the pulled pork sandwich. Turns out the pork came from Jim Wood’s happy pigs at Palmetto Creek Farms. As Kamrin and I are part of the omnivore contingent championing of our local food scene it was refreshing to meet Jim after the movie and see that being a Locavore doesn’t necessarily mean becoming a vegetarian. In addition to ethically raise pork, Kam would like to mention that when she stepped out with our daughter during the film and she talked with Trish at Deep Creek farm. They are out of Deland and offer grass fed and finished beef and lamb.
We were more than happy to wash down our lunch with a Blonde Ale from Orlando Brewing and a glass of delicious herbal tea from Dandelion CommuniTEA cafe. Also sipping on some Austin’s fair trade coffee afterward was a nice pick-me-up after leaving the sleepy darkness of the theater.
It was also great talking to some of the other family farmers among the tents and tables wrapped around the Enzian. We had fun hanging with the Green Flamingo Farms community and talking about small scale sustainable farming. Also loved their homemade business cards made out of the backs of cereal boxes.
Finally got to catch up with the peeps over at Lake Meadow Naturals our source for Cage Free, Free Range, Free Roaming and Locally produced eggs. We picked up a flyer and are sure to get out there with our camera a vlog about it soon. Until then you can check out the video posted on Big Wheel’s site. Oh yeah we talked with Tony from Big Wheel Provisions too. Oh let me mention that I just got their e-mail about their offerings at tonight’s Audubon Park Community market and I can’t wait to pick up some of their lentil soup made with their proprietary local vegetable stock and herbs.
So much more to say. But that’s enough when I have a research paper due this evening. Procrastination how I love and hate you. Grrrrrr.
Oh oh I also want to mention Gus with My Yard Farms. These guys take the typical grass covered lawns and convert them into edible landscapes. Awesome.
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A four day event, Otronicon is a celebration of interactive technology using video games to demonstrate the future of how we live, learn, work and play. The event focuses on a few key areas:
If you’ve been following the 
