Oakland Community Greenhouse: December 2010

Friday, December 31, 2010

In tribute to Mary Laredo Herbeck

Mary Laredo Herbeck

Jan. 21, 1955-Oct.1, 2010

Mary was signed onto this blogsite and I thought it good to give her honorable mention here. I was honored to co-create projects if only in the design phase in Southwest Detroit with Mary Laredo and Vito Valdez.
I know all of you would have enjoyed walking in Mary's garden where she lived near the old Michigan Central Railroad terminal.
Excerpt from Metro Times

She taught others how to heal. She shared a tremendous wisdom for life and love of the natural world. Her many public art projects include a garden park where her steel sculpture "Cocoon" trumpet vine annually blossoms and reaches out to the sky. Projects like this in southwest Detroit continue to be a testament of her strength and courage to believe in the true spirit of community for the common good. We share this vision. Look for her next project of four mosaic columns over Vernor Highway to be completed spring 2011 in southwest Detroit. She will always be the shining star in my heart * we love you, Mary —Vito Valdez, partner, artist, educator

The Earth is our mother. We have a great many stems linking us to our Mother Earth. There is a stem linking us with the cloud. If there is no cloud, there is no water for us to drink. We are made of at least 70 percent water, and the stem between the cloud and us is really there. This is also the case with the river, the forest, the logger and the farmer. There are hundreds of thousands of stems linking us to everything in the cosmos, and therefore we can be. Do you see the link between you and me? If you are not there, I am not here. That is certain. —Excerpt from Thich Nhat Hanh: Essential Writings selected by Mira Burack, artist, Kresge Arts in Detroit

She was a beautiful, inspiring, creative woman who fought the battle of cancer with dignity and grace, too young to leave us. I wish she would have been able to live out her dreams and experience the light she truly had inside. She will be missed by many. The loss of Mary Herbeck, Ron Allen, Marty Quiroz and Mick Vranich leaves a huge hole in our Creative Community. These people were unique individuals, who, by being themselves, were able to enrich and understand all who knew them. —Diana Alva, sculptor, painter

Wild Fermentation

The website http://www.wildfermentation.com/ is in support of a book called Wild Fermentation. I recently picked it up and am having a difficult time staying away from it. The way in which the story is told about fermentation for foods and beverages take's one on a holistic discovery of how cultures were and are formed. This topic alone leads to a widely diverse exploration of how and why we as a people have arrived where we find ourselves to date.
It is on target and well written to engage the reader into wanting to study all aspects needed for a well rounded education of science, math, history, sociology .... Ad Infinitum. The balance of hunger for the good food for the body and the need to nourish the mind and spirit leads one to explore the pursuit of knowledge from a vantage point rarely achieved in contemporary learning environments/

Here is an excerpt-

Wild Fermentation

Microscopic organisms - our ancestors and allies - transform food and extend its usefulness. Fermentation is found throughout human cultures.Hundreds of medical and scientific studies confirm what folklore has always known: Fermented foods help people stay healthy.
Many of your favorite foods and drinks are probably fermented. For instance: Bread, Cheese, Wine, Beer, Mead, Cider, Chocolate, Coffee, Tea, Pickles, Sauerkraut, Kimchi, Miso, Tempeh, Soy Sauce, Vinegar, Yogurt, Kefir, Kombucha.
Bread. Cheese. Wine. Beer. Coffee. Chocolate. Most people consume fermented foods and drinks every day. For thousands of years, humans have enjoyed the distinctive flavors and nutrition resulting from the transformative power of microscopic bacteria and fungi. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is the first cookbook to widely explore the culinary magic of fermentation.

"Fermentation has been an important journey of discovery for me," writes author Sandor Ellix Katz. "I invite you to join me along this effervescent path, well trodden for thousands of years yet largely forgotten in our time and place, bypassed by the superhighway of industrial food production."
The flavors of fermentation are compelling and complex, quite literally alive. This book takes readers on a whirlwind trip through the wide world of fermentation, providing readers with basic and delicious recipes-some familiar, others exotic-that are easy to make at home.
The book covers vegetable ferments such as sauerkraut, kimchi, and sour pickles; bean ferments including miso, tempeh, dosas, and idli; dairy ferments including yogurt, kefir, and basic cheesemaking (as well as vegan alternatives); sourdough bread-making; other grain fermentation's from Cherokee, African, Japanese, and Russian traditions; extremely simple wine- and beer-making (as well as cider-, mead-, and champagne-making) techniques; and vinegar-making. With nearly 100 recipes, this is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging fermentation cookbook ever