Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
When the sun is shining, break out the solar oven
Sarah Elton, The Globe and Mail
Solar cooking has long been the domain of wilderness campers looking to harness the sun’s energy to make backwoods brownies.
But with global warming in the collective consciousness, a small, growing number of urban dwellers are turning to solar grills and ovens to whip up carbon-free meals at home.
And while the solar-cooking movement has been fuelled by NGOs working in the Third World to provide a cheap, low-tech way to prepare meals, in North America there are solar-cooking aficionados in the gourmet set.
Brook Kavanagh, chef at the French bistro La Palette in Toronto, is a recent convert. Cooking with the sun, he says, is no different thanconventional means.
The ovens easily reach a temperature of about 350 degrees and are perfect for slow-cooking techniques such as braising, stewing and roasting vegetables, and for soufflés and baked custards.
“There is really not much limit to it,” says Mr. Kavanagh, who has used a solar cooker to prepare duck confit and crème caramel. “The food tastes the same. The benefit is that it’s not using any electricity or gas.”
(22 August 2007)
Deconstructing Dinner: Slow is Beautiful (Audio)
Cecile Andrews and Jon Steinman, Global Public Media
We’re hammered, we’re slammed, we’re out of control. Happiness is on the decline in some of the most affluent countries in the world and North Americans are troubled by the destructiveness of a lifestyle devoted to money and status. Yet no-one seems to have a clue how to exit from the Fast Lane….
Published in 2006 by British Columbia’s New Society Publishers, Slow is Beautiful analyzes the subtle consumer, political and corporate forces stamping the joy from our existence and provides a vision of a more fulfilling life through the rediscovery of caring community, unhurried leisure, and life affirming joie de vivre.
Host Jon Steinman was recently in Seattle, Washington, where author Cecile Andrews calls home. Jon sat down with Cecile at her home in the Phinney neighbourhood of the city. Food, as Cecile Andrews suggests, is a metaphor for life, in that our relationship to food is also suggestive of our relationship to living and how we connect with the world around us, whether it be plants, animals, people… or ourselves. Cecile’s book is similar to the way Deconstructing Dinner educates listeners about food, in that Slow is Beautiful deconstructs our consumer driven society in order to understand how we perceive happiness, what factors influence this perception, and how it affects our ability to feel alive.
Guests
Cecile Andrews, Author, “Slow is Beautiful, New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre” (Seattle, WA) – Is the author of The Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life (HarperCollins 97). A former community college administrator, Cecile has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University and affiliated scholar at Seattle University. She is founder of the Phinney Ecovillage in Seattle. Her work has been featured in the PBS video “Escape from Affluenza” and the TBS video “Consumed by Consumption”, CBSNews “Eye on America”, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, and various PBS and NPR programs. Cecile received her doctorate in Education at Stanford University and gives workshops and presentations; she has written a column for the Seattle Times; and she has co-hosted a local NPR program.
Deconstructing Dinner is designed to educate listeners on the impacts our food choices have on ourselves, our communities and the planet. The show, hosted by Jon Steinman, is produced at Kootenay Co-op Radio (CJLY) in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada.
(21 August 2007)
Video: Building the climate camp
The Guardian
Members of the climate camp at Heathrow tour the sustainable features of the temporary community.
(21 August 2007)
