Everything starts from within, Berlin May 22

‘Everything starts from within’
Performative dinner at Kemmler Foundation
Orchestrated by The Performance Agency
Dinner concept by Céline Pelcé & Marente van der Valk
Poetry by Alex Housset
Performance by Richard Kennedy
Music by Mauro Ventura
Clothing by Lemaire
Ceramics by Atelier Maia and Tanja Neubert
Photos Melanie GLück

“We’ve all heard all about all the sticks and spears and swords, the things to bash and poke and hit with, the long, hard things, but we have not heard about the thing to put things in, the container for the thing contained.That is a new story. That is news. And yet old. Before-once you think about it, surely long before-the weapon, a late, luxurious, superfluous tool; long before the useful knife and ax, right along with the indispensable whacker, grinder, and digger- for what the use of digging up a lot of potatoes if you have nothing to log the ones you can’t eat home in—with or before the tool that forces energy outward, we made the tool that brings energy home […]

Video: @Rosanna Graf edited by @Kemmler Kemmler

If it is a human thing to do to put something you want, because it’s useful, edible, or beautiful into a bag, or a basket, or a bit of rolled bark or leaf, or net woven in your own hair, or what have you, and then take it home with you, home being another, larger kind of pouch or bag, a container for people, and the, later on, you take it out and eat it, or store it up for winter in a solid container, or put it in a medicine bundle or the shrine or the museum, the holy place, the area that contains what is sacred, and then the next day you probably do much the same again — if to do that is human, if that’s what it takes, then I am a human being after all. Fully, freely, gladly, for the first time.”

’Everything Starts From Within’ was inspired by visionary author Ursula K. Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction in which she elevates the container into the founding object of human civilization—the recipient, the holder, the story. The dinner concept was developed along with culinary artists Celine Pelcé and Marente Van der Valk, whose staged menu drew from the properties of the container: a meal to be offered, unwrapped, and shared.

Swedish artist Louise Waite designed a series of bread spoon casts to scoop the herbal broth opening the five-course dinner.

Mise en bouche

Smoked nameko mushroom, miso and maple glaze, dried lilac
Sprayed thyme eau-de-vie

Herbal Brot
Aspargus, fennel and elderflower broth, buttered radishes, cherry blossom, bronze fennel tops, wraped in rice paper
Spoons by Louise Waite

Fish steamed in a lotus leaf
Charred perch, herb einkorn, braised wild greens, tarragon salsa, bergamot essence
Drops of calabrian bergamot orange

Eggs and root vegetable, woven and hung
Marbled beetroot and gochujang eggs
Roasted parsnips and heritage carrots, tamaring glazing, smoked salt, spice dust

Trou normand
Apple, raw honey and rum soked walnut sorbet
Served with homemade alexander liqueur, in beeswax cups

Dessert, hung in baskets
Apples in clay, sourcream frangipane, raw honey, bee pollen garum, flowers
homemade Nocino

Oerol 2022 ‘Diner Om Oost’

Voor Oerol 2022 was ik uitgenodigd om een ervaringsdiner te bedenken met het thema ‘Voedsel van de Toekomst’. Dit werd uiteindelijk ‘Diners om Oost’ en vond plaats bij de Wierschuur aan het einde van de ‘beschaving’ op Terschelling (hierna is het beschermd natuurgebied). Deze prachtige locatie symboliseerde eigenlijk erg mooi wat de onderliggende gedachte was van de diners; we gaan in de toekomst dichter terug naar de natuur en leven met de seizoenen mee. Dit betekent dat er per seizoen soms iets minder vers beschikbaar is, maar door middel van spannende oude en nieuwe kooktechnieken, slimme conserveringsmethoden en door het (her)ontdekken van wat de lokale natuur te bieden heeft werd het uiteindelijk toch een feestje! Het menu bestond uit lokaal gefoerageerde ingrediënten die meegenomen werden in een diner wat samengesteld was van wat lokaal geteeld wordt en met een knipoog naar het culinaire verleden van de Waddeneilanden werd geserveerd. De voedzaamheid van deze interactieve diners was net zo belangrijk als de smaak, de presentatie en ervaring en daarom werd elk ingrediënt op zijn eigen manier geëerd. Hiernaast lag er een focus op uitheemse invasieve exoten zoals ook de Japanse oester. Door van deze ingrediënten te genieten help je de lokale natuur dus ook een handje mee. Als laatste is verspilling een belangrijk thema; het menu is deels opgesteld om verspilling tegen te gaan door dagelijks een flexibele opstelling te hebben wat betreft surplus ingrediënten en misschien wel oplossingen te bieden voor ingrediënten die nu worden verspilt (bijvoorbeeld de wei tijdens het kaasmaakproces).

https://omropfryslan.bbvms.com/view/regiogroei_fryslan_web_videoplayer/4842439.html

Gang 1 – Een ‘Handscape van de Onkruidenier’

Gang 2 – Gerookte Japanse oester, gefermenteerde zeevenkel, duizendknoop mignonette, knapperige wakame en getoaste brandnetel zaadjes. Geserveerd op een decoratief bedje van lokale kruiden/wieren
Met huisgemaakt zwartmoeskervel drankje geserveerd in de schelp van de oester

Gang 3 – Salade van lokale wieren, zevenblad, jonge melde, ingemaakte rabarber, gefermenteerde zwartmoeskervel, wilde kruiden & bloemen en vlierbloesem vinaigrette
Met huisgemaakt gefermenteerde ‘kruiden soda’, bierbostelbrood en wilde kruiden&bloemen boter

Gang 4 – Risotto van lokale granen en zuivel, gekarameliseerde sjalotjes, gerookte tuinbonen, ganzenvoet zaden, ingrediënten van ‘De Zilte Smaak’, daslookolie

Gang 5 – Ijs gemaakt van schapenwei, ingemaakte engelwortel, duindoornbessen coulis, garum van bijenpollen en gaspeldoorn bloesem

Collaborateurs van het eiland en daarbuiten:

De Onkruidenier *
Marjanna van der Meulen
Flang/De Zilte Smaak
Oester Fabriek
Piet Zumkehr *
Pluktuin
Kaasmakerij De Terschellinger
Bakker Jumbo Mier
Schapenboerderij De Zeekraal *
Waldfarming

* Deze personen waren ook aanwezig tijdens de productie en maakte soms ook deel uit van de presentatie en de performance:

Het Oerol 2022 team:

Asli Hatipoglu Burger – https://www.instagram.com/asleasli/
Elise Briccolani – https://www.instagram.com/artichokeeater/?hl=en
Jérémie Rentien Lando – http://www.thesoftprotestdigest.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
Aliki van der Kruijs – http://www.alikivanderkruijs.com/wp/
Mark Franck – https://land-mark.nl/

Credits: Foto’s Aliki van der Kruijs, Video Omroep Friesland

Tabulatopia at Château de la Borie

By invitation of Château de la Borie / Galerie d’Art Contemporain. June 2020. Tabulatopia Collective (Jonmar van Vlijmen and Ronald Boer (together De Onkruidenier), Céline Pelcé and myself).

Tabulatopia was invited for a weeklong residency late June 2020 in order to explore the four different gardens of Château de la Borie. La Borie’s gardens consist of the traditional jardin à la française, a jardin en mouvement to the philosophy of Gilles Clément, a permaculture garden and a forest garden currently undergoing a rewilding process. The results of our research and findings of our residency were shared during two edible exploration walks and a workshop.

During our stay we have focused on the hyper local and have prepared little tasters found in 2m² across the four different gardens. These hyper local tasters were shared during edible exploration walks with visitors. Some elements we have worked with were; dried clovers to become part of a tempura, toasted dandelion root as a slightly bittersweet garnish, fern tops served sautéed as base for a canapé and sticky weed seeds as a coffee-like dust to garnish another little edible garden taster. The plant narratives, the local experiences and recipes we produced during this week will become a small publication.

CONSIDERED Magazine

CONSIDERED Magazine Volume Three, Summer 2020. Photography by Kim Lightbody. Food styling and recipes by me.

CONSIDERED Magazine is an independently published, bi-annual print magazine featuring sustainable and mindful lifestyle and travel articles. For Volume Three Kim and I created a series of vegan recipes with a focus on seasonality, cleanliness, serenity and nutrition and used a selection of locally foraged and fermented ingredients.

In the photos; A simple vegetable broth with rock samphire, wild chervil, green asparagus, British peas, shallots, radishes & radish leaves; Grilled apricots & Mirabelle plums with elderflower drizzle and bay leaf dust; Wholemeal Khorasan bread with tarragon, aniseed and sunflowers seeds; Start of summer salad with purple potatoes, pickled rhubarb, wild Alexander buds, wild pink sorrel, fennel tops and rhubarb vinaigrette.

Kleureyck Exhibition, Design Museum Gent (BE)

Re-table(au), performative installation, Design Museum Gent (BE) 2020

2020 was the year Ghent and Flanders were honouring the Flemish painter ‘Jan van Eyck’ and I was pleased to be invited by The Design Museum in Ghent to create content for two experience rooms for their large scale exhibition named ‘Kleureyck’. In collaboration with the Jan van Eyck academie’s Food Lab, I assembled a fantastic team of artists to develop a concept deeply rooted in the colourful landscapes of the ‘Ghent Altarpiece’ by Jan van Eyck. His unique use of colour was the genesis of our explorations as Céline Pelcé, De Onkruidenier (Jonmar van Vlijmen and Ronald Boer) and myself set about devising a new piece which we named ‘Re-table(au)’.

The realistically depicted scene in this particular painting is an imaginary one, where locations and seasons are innovatively blended. This concept of imagined reality provoked thoughts amongst us relative to our current global food system in which the fiction of van Eyck’s depiction of exotic produce is now very much a non-fictitious reality where almost all edible produce (at least from the Ghent Alterpiece) is possible to source all year round regardless of its natural season.

Re-Table(au) is an endlessly evolving foodscape reminiscent of seasonality; where both established and fledgling exploration/preservation techniques and poetic rituals are presented in a tangible way. Activation moments occur throughout the exhibition in which the evolving tableau is shared physically and internally through a ritualistic experience of colour and flavour in a multi sensory environment including edible objects and other concoctions allowing you to literally digest the landscape.

http://www.designmuseumgent.be/

Photos © Design Museum Gent, Filip Dujardin