Swimming Sushi.

Do you love sushi -that healthy stuff from Japan- as much as I do?
Then you have to face the same problem I have:

Tuna is completely over-fished and salmon is usually farmed under industrial, environment-hostile conditions. Also most other sea-food ingredients are usually from problematic sources – hardly any of them being sustainable. In addition, the frozen fish, transported by cargo-airplanes leaves a double carbon-footprint: freezing and transportation. So if you want to consume ethically, you have to refrain from sushi as they are served or sold in most places.

source

But art will help. What? Art??

The interdisciplinary performing arts unit post theater has created a series of performances about the cultural history of fish-consumption, “Fish-Tales”. As part of their research, they traveled to Denmark, Iceland and Japan, to learn more about fish. Art can raise awareness, but the artists of post theater wanted to offer also a solution for the problem. Hence, they opened their installation/restaurant nekkko that serves sustainable sushi.

All major ingredients are as regionally and seasonally shopped as possible and most ingredients are certified organic. There are also vegetarian (V) and vegan (VV) variations in the mouthwatering menue (Berlin-Brandenburg). In order to reduce the friction, noise and energy of  the typical conveyer-belt system of running sushi, post theater replaces it with a miniature water canal. In it, wooden rafts in the shape of a boat or fish float in a circle, carrying the sushi to the diners. Some examples of what might float by:

* * * *
Zander Nigiri
Raw zander-fish painted with lemon, rapeseed oil, Tabasco, sugar, Maldon sea salt

Trout Nigiri
Home-smoked trout with dashi, brown butter, horseradish, lemon

Bacon Maki

yummy!

Fried bacon in thin slices with fried slices onion, marjoran, soy sauce, honey

Deer Nigiri
Pink roasted deer with cranberries, Mirin, horseradish

Beetroot Maki (VV)
Red Beet with pumpkin seed oil, soy sauce, Balsamico, honey

Carrot Mousse Gunkan Maki (V)
Carrot mousse with crème fraîche, saffron, ginger, lime, honey

Tomato Nigiri (VV)
Tomato filets marinated with Maldon seasalt, pepper, oliveoil, soysauce, rucola pesto
* * * *

nekkko is a pop-up restaurant, so if you want to try it - check out the dates. And you know what? If you cannot get enough of it - learn how to make it for yourself, either in one of the workshops, or with the book soon to be published.

Now: who's coming with me on september 18th - workshop and dinner??
Update: I was there - it was marvellous. delicious. soon to repeat.

(source for many text parts and round image: nekkko website)

Fish-Tales (Trio version) from post theater on Vimeo.

tiny town Big Berlin.

why is everything sweet in tiny?

Tiny Town - Berlin from Sam on Vimeo.

Tarte.

well, it's really a cake for sunny days - and today I heard that the seasons are renamed as: spring, shit, autumn, winter - but I wanted to share this beautiful cake with you since I saw it but not before I tried to make and eat it myself. I finally did and I can only say: I was so proud (no, I don't see a problem with a 'feminist' proud about her cakes...) and it was gi-ga-great and dazzling-delicious, yay. I found the original Stella-Cake (inspired by Stella McCartney's citrus-prints) by appolinas via todayyouinspiredme, I changed the recipie to a more european version (half the amount of butter of the original american version, cream-cheese instead, less sugar, more fruit). I will also soon add my version of the recipie to this post, with all european measures and so on.

WiS #1: leather.

WiS stands for THE question that made me insecure since I started this blog:
What is sustainable? What is sustainability?

Some things seem quite obvious, some answers are not as questionable as others, such as: cotton produced without pesticides is good. or: to use the bicycle whenever possible instead of the car is good. (yes, I just state these and at this point leave out the "because ..." and all potential additional circumstances that would be to consider).

The above product (mypaperbag via Lilli Green) is not, as the name suggests, made from paper, it is made from leather. Associative chain: papebags are more ecofreindly than plastic bags. cottonbags are even more ecofriendly (are they?). What about a leatherbag... can leather be ecofriendly at all?

First I have to say I am not a vegetarian.

Which means that I am ok with eating dead animals, which includes that I am ok with them being killed for ending up as my food. I am concious about it. For me personally this also includes that I eat meat only once every two weeks or so and if, then mostly bio-certified.

Transferring this principle to leather would mean, that I am ok with products made from dead animals skin. Admittedly I love leather. It is a beautiful strong, soft and natural material. And as I consider it very longlasting and a byproduct of "meat-winning" (I use this term as I am explicitly not okay with what is called meat-(mass-)production) it seems to me to have two sustainable aspects:
firstly it stands against throwaway-culture of cheap and sleazy products and
secondly it is part of the efficient and not thriftless and thoughtless use and spoil of the animal.

You might laugh but I mean it - It makes me think about what I learned about native americans when I was a little kid, how they were respectful with and valued nature (and animals) and were thankful for every bit it provided them.

Of course these ideas have some presuppositions: the animal should not be killed for only the leather. the animal should not have suffered from mass-production-conditions, neither during lifetime nor when being transported or killed.

I could only find one label/certificate (by the International Association of Natural Textile Industry (iVN)) that comes close to my ideas, but it rather focuses on an eco-friendly production-process of the leather and health-standarts for workers. It does not say anything about the "production" of the animal or the endproduct made from the leather...

Do you know more?
and what do you think about leather and it's sustainability in general?

yellowgrey.

The dress is perfectly mine! well, unfortunately it's not mine. but the simple cut, the bright and original but somehow still decent pattern and of course it's eco-aspect makes it a dream-inhabitant of my wardrobe, or rather the place my body wants to inhabit ;)

I'm not sure if the bag would go with this dress, I'd rather say no, but anyways - I have enough other stuff to combine it with, haha. just missing the bag still. damn it.

images and items via fashion-conscience.com, bag by Melie Bianco, dress by Fair+True