Archive for August, 2007
Last Friday we finally managed to get everyone together for a FEAST rehearsal. FOUND were a bit apprehensive as Kimho had sent us mp3s of traditional Chinese percussion pieces he wanted us to learn. We had listened to them and decided they would be a little too difficult in the time we had available but Kimho assured us that he had managed to teach one of the songs to a class of primary school children in under an hour. Uh oh, I thought . . . he’s going to find out our ability level is slightly lower than primary school kids!
Continue Reading August 28th, 2007
Tommy
Nice start to the day. Get up to discover FEAST previewed in this week’s List.
As previewed in the List. Photo by Michelle Kasprzak.
Thanks to Donald Reid food editor who contacted us last week to ask how we would describe FEAST: film, music or theatre?
To be honest, that threw us a little. FEAST could be any or all of these things. As it happens it looks great in the film section. Page 27. Go get a copy of the List, this is the last of the weekly guides to fringe and festival.
August 22nd, 2007
Fay
On a wet, wet Saturday morning we went along to Edinburgh Farmers’ Market to thank East Coast Organics for donating vegetables to add taste, colour and texture to the FEAST filming session.
Despite heavy rain bouncing off the roof, the guys on the stall were amazingly cheerful and people were queuing up to buy purple beetroots, yellow gourds, green beans and all the other healthy stuff they grow on an organic farm near Pencaitland in East Lothian. Every Saturday they are here from around 8.30 am whatever the weather but for the first time anyone could remember the boss, Mike Callender, was away on holiday catching some sun.
On the phone a few days later, Mike admitted that he hasn’t had much time for summer holidays with the family in the last ten years. But demand for organic vegetables has been growing steadily. And East Coast Organics, who have been coming to the Farmers’ Market on Castle Terrace ever since it began now deliver 1800 ‘eco boxes’ of seasonal fruit and veg, bakery and eggs to customers in Edinburgh and the Lothians every week.
Most of the produce is grown on site with the help of 10,000 square feet of polytunnels (where it always feels and smells more like summer) but East Coast Organics also work and trade with other local organic farms to give a viable alternative to selling through the supermarkets.
Mike, who has a degree in architecture but decided to do something completely different to earn a living, says he enjoys Chinese cooking. “When people ask what they can do with a vegetable they haven’t tried before I usually recommend soup or stir fry. Especially if you don’t really like something, flashing it up in a wok with soy sauce works wonders.”
See East Coast Organic website for other recipes!
August 21st, 2007
Fay
Chillies for the FEAST filming session were donated by Trees Can’t Dance as they began to gather this year’s harvest from their two acre site in Northumberland.
Of all places! Against expectations chillies from some of the hottest places on the planet are thriving on a windy hillside in the North Pennines. Between July and December crops with names like Thai Dragon, Korean Hot and Prairie Fire emerge from heated polytunnels to be turned into sauces, oils and ketchups for an increasingly discerning food market.
“This most unlikely business”, as the Trees Can’t Dance website calls it, was started two years ago by Dan May, a professional photographer who acquired a taste for chillies when he was travelling across the world. “When I came home I discovered it was hard to make the same kind of foods in the UK,” he says, “So I decided to start growing chillies myself.”
Now around 60 different varieties of chillies from all over the world are used to make a rapidly growing range of foods. The environmentally entrepreneurial Trees Can’t Dance (there are plans for a wind turbine to heat the polytunnels) also spot opportunities to export sauces to Mexico.
Luckily Dan May didn’t listen to a word of advice when he first thought of growing chillies. Any time he asked he got the same answer: “You can’t do it, it won’t work”.
But he could, it did and a hobby has turned into a full time job. See much more on the Trees Can’t Dance website – including the story behind the name. Oh, come on, you’ve got time to click on the link. It’s a good story.
August 20th, 2007
Fay
Thursday, August 9 and the sun shines on Castle Street. With just three weeks to go, Kimho Ip and FOUND visit The Eating Place to plan how to screen the film of the FEAST while the band plays music inspired by the sounds of preparing and cooking Dim Sum. The challenge is to find a way of projecting the film in broad daylight.
Plan A, is to use a white van as a screen (thanks to ECCM for offering the white van!).
Plan B is to hire a plasma telly. Or two.
We’ll keep you posted.
August 14th, 2007
Fay
Many thanks to everyone who came along to the FEAST performance at Out Of The Blue on Tuesday 31 July. The event was a great success. Please click on the above image to see more photos of the night.
Read what Robert Sharp had to say about the night on his blog.
See Michelle Kasprzak’s pictures on Flickr
August 7th, 2007
Tommy
