. prepop

An Open Letter to Patty Lou Persue

OK - In no particular order

I really think you should go back to Patty Chase - It’s just too pop. You can always reconcile those past triumphs that live online or just republish them. Then you can create a hundred new triumphs in the next incarnation.

I’m in a very deep Arthur Russell world. We watched the documentary now on the third round, and I never watch anything where I have to be seated. I’m inside the book and it’s completely taking me there. I play the haunting music  and it rounds it out. Really, really amazing. Thanks for knowing it was the right thing, right now. Committing to a creative life is such a struggle and it helps me to see how people just do it, blind to anything but the experience, like young people do.

It’s been a tremendous summer with friends and collaborators doing the CampDude experience. It has become a place where creative things happen.

The garden is plain ridic in abundant production. I’m trying to keep myself from spending all my time canning, so I’m giving a lot of it away and we’re eating well.

After two years of work, our experiment SuperTwitter will have it’s own iPhone app available in the next couple of weeks. It’s a rich immersive real-time experiment that is really something else. We’re shopping galleries to install it.

Thanks for flagging me down to get the Patty Chase stuff out of my head.

Every experience right now is a peak. Is this what the 50’s are about? Well what then of the 60’s and beyond? What then?


* My old high school chum, then referred to as Patty Lou Persue, visited this spring - catching up felt rewarding as a summary of what’s going on as a mid-year check in.

slideshow

full screen if you’ll be so kind http://www.flickr.com/photos/elvispresley/show/

Our Trends API

Paul has just pushed out our SuperTwitter api. Thanks Paul.

The “supertweets” query grabs trends, then matches them with tweets that reference images from all the major Twitter image services. This is a beta release and we hope you’ll send feedback and report bugs.

By releasing the api - we hope you’ll find new ways to make Twitter more visual with us. We can’t face another day when a compelling tweet references an image that is too far away.

We want to put the SUPER in trends and tweets.

Review: SF Underground Farmer’s Market

Last night I attended (as a vendor) the exhilarating happening known as the San Francisco Underground Farmer’s Market. This emerging movement was spawned by Iso Rabin who was leading urban foraging tours and before he knew it he was hosting a market of hobbyist food makers. The first market happened on December 18th and received a lot of press and a visit from the Health Department.

It costs up to $4,000. for a farmer to get into the Farmer’s Markets you see in the neighborhoods these days. Many vendors are required to have access to expensive commercial kitchen to participate. While I understand the needs for some regulation, I think Iso is pushing the issue that there needs to be an easier way to make real local food available - a middle ground for participation. As a small grower I’m so interested in what will come of it all.

The event was packed to the gills in a Mission District loft with a line stretching halfway around the block. There were perhaps twenty vendors selling everything from sauerkraut to cupcakes, to fresh herbs and corned beef sandwiches. With card tables covered with cloth tablecloths and labeled mason jars, it had the feeling of a church social. That said, it had the San Francisco spin with a little improvisational drumming and a Hello Kitty keyboardist jamming to add to the merriment.

Poster by Philip Clark  phclark @ gmail.com

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My offering to the affair was some jars of kimchi which sold out in under an hour. I gave samples of Bread and Butter pickles, pickled green tomatoes (a favorite), pickled asparagus, saurkraut and two sweet treats, Spiced Pear Almond Conserve and Pear Jelly. I got such positive feedback and met so many nice people that I’m sure I’ll do it again.

There was some discussion about the enthusiasts coming to CampDude for a food retreat or gardening weekend. If that materializes I’ll keep you posted.

There was some great cooking starting up in the kitchen when I left, but I had to drive to the mountains so I thought it best to go early.

My “booth”

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Below is the recipe for making Sauerkraut and Kimchi.

Kraut Tips
from Kelly Galligan, Chef at Cantina in Bisbee, Arizona

Crunchy veggies that don’t have a lot of sugar work best.

Cabbage of all kinds

Cauliflower
Onions
Garlic
Scallions
Seaweeds!
Eggplant
Celery
Cabbage
Jalapenos, serranos, etc.
Tomatillos

can also add: fresh ginger, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, red pepper flakes, fresh herbs, etc.

You need good salt - the less refined variety with more minerals is preferable. You can use salt from Utah, or Celtic sea salt (I use the latter)
The salt does several things:
1. It helps draw the water out of the veggies to create the brine that they ferment in.
2. It keeps the veggies crunchy.
3. Few bacteria live in salt, so it narrow  the range of bacteria.
4. Salt slows down the ferment.

Fermenting vessels:
Use glass, ceramic, old crock pots. NEVER use metal or plastic (you can mix in those, just don’t store to ferment)

Shred or chop the veggies you want to use, salt them pretty liberally. I usually chop a bunch of cabbage, toss it in a bowl, throw some salt on that layer, and keep repeating.

When you’ve got your mix of veggies in the bowl, you can either give them a pounding with a wooden pounder (or a potato masher), or you can just dig your hands in there and start massaging. Just pick up handfuls and crunch in your hands. The veggies may give up some liquid (ideally they will), but don’t worry if they don’t. Once it’s all good & integrated (a few minutes), you’re ready to put them in jars.

Pack the kraut into the jars really tightly. Push down as you go, and make sure there are no air pockets. This cramming will also probably draw liquid out of the veggies — ideally, they’ll be submerged in their own liquid by the time you finish packing the jar. Pack to within 1/2 inch of the top.

If you’re short on liquid, give it 12 to 24 hours. Still short, pour in a little non-chlorinated water.

Now just leave them out on the counter or wherever, away from direct sun, just at room temp.  Put them on a tray or on saucers, as they will  probably overflow & leak as they ferment. You should take the caps off every day if you think of it, to let air out. I usually forget.  Don’t forget to date them! And take note of what you put in each jar — sometimes I forget and I have no idea how to recreate a perfect batch :)

That’s it. Now it’s just a matter of how long you want to let them sit — 3 days is the minimum. A week is great. At two weeks it’s even stronger — I’ve never had the willpower to hold out longer than that. Once you’ve decided you’re happy with your fermenting, toss em in the fridge to stop the process, and they keep for weeks.

If some of your veggies get brown on the top, just take that part out and continue on. Keep your veggies submerged in the brine, that’s the main thing.

Kimchi Recipe

Kim chi is really fun - basic recipe
1 lb. Napa cabbage – chopped coarsley
1 lb. daikon – peeled, sliced ½ thick & either halve or quarter the slices depending upon the circumference of the radish
2 carrots, peeled @ sliced ¼ inch thick
5 scallions coarsely sliced
2 T finely minced ginger
1 ½ T finely minced garlic
1 T cayenne pepper, ground

What Have I Done for Me Lately?

My long-time colleague David Allen, the “Getting Things Done” guy, recommends asking yourself these questions at the end of the year. “What have you done lately? I mean, what have you actually finished, completed, and accomplished? If you haven’t made a list in the last year, I would highly recommend that you take a few minutes and capture that.” So, this list is a handy part of my way of tracking what’s on my mind, what has my attention, and what the hell I should remove so I can have more time to have fun.

This is what transpired last year. Given that we are making public our every breath these days - I’m posting it here.

Turning Fifty:
Sure, this seemed big, but it turned out to be not so scary at all. I took a week to soak in it with our godson Makanakai with his Dad Alexander and my beloved Lucky.  There were six continuous weeks of visitors from the core Team Tidwell - Karen, Barbara Ann, M@, the sprawling families, Ed and Kelly, and Scott and Madelyn.

The occasion cemented a resolute confirmation that I am first an artist. It takes many forms; architecture, growing food, designing online experiences, interiors, exteriors, reading and writing and painting. HOWEVER, when any other emotional drivers or middle-age obligations get ahead of the art, that’s when things are out of balance.

So that was easy - The next fifty should be more clear.

The Garden:
While always a gardener, the flame got turned up high in the early spring. I dug up the three beds that normally contained a sea of sunflowers and zinnias, The beds were desperate for regular watering and they weren’t really producing anything you could eat. So down I dug two feet deep in rocky soil, lined them with chicken wire, then gardening cloth,  then a great mixture of our soil, our compost, topsoil and manure. That wasn’t enough I added a raised three foot by twelve foot bed too. Then the magic ingredient, WATER - an automatic drip system run through the entire operation.

By Mother’s Day the garden was planted with cabbage, lettuces, arugula, zucchini, crook neck squash, winter squash, sugar peas, tomatoes (some that grew to seven feet tall), green beans, corn and a the usual herbs. The crops have continued into the winter and now I’ve got kale, cabbage, chard, parsnips, cauliflower and more surviving the freezes with a bed of straw blanketing the beds.

The crop was relentlessly abundant. We bought a freezer. I jarred up tomatoes, pickles, krauts and kimchee. That was before the fruit started coming in the fall. The pears and apples were nonstop this year. I mastered Julia Child’s Tarte Tatine and unearthed a new preserve recipe for Spiced Pear and Almond Conserve.

Like many, I’ve been thinking about the experience we have with food and where it comes from. Participating in the growing of what you eat really changed my relationship with food. I’m actively following a couple of young groups looking at farming and food, The Greenhorns and The San Francisco Underground Farmer’s Market.

The Sick Friend:
Back in the eighties a slew of my friends got sick quick and many died. The culprit was AIDS and it forced many of us to confront a series of deaths at a much earlier age than the generation before us. Our hearts were toughened up and those of us that survived moved ahead with our lives.

So when a friend suddenly became very ill in April, it came as something of a surprise and felt like a visit back to the eighties. We organized quickly around his recovery and some other “important” activities got moved to the side.

What I got out of his seven months in (less that desirable) public hospitals was the  lesson that the simplest kindness is so appreciated when there is little dignity, privacy or vibrancy in someone’s life. I took a box of pears to the ward one evening and the thank yous kept coming for months.

My friend is back on his feet again. We both grew and got better through the experience. Often through the year I read and re-read the book How Can I Help? Stories and Reflections on Service by Ram Dass. I recommend it highly if you get in a situation where help is needed.

Creative Inspiration: I was moved by some great artists through the year

• A perfectly curated SFMOMA exhibit of long-time favorites Ansel Adams and Georgia O’Keefe got me excited early in the year
• Mike Monteiro’s snarky paintings and the work coming from his studio with Erika Hall, Mule Design remain on the list again this year.
• Kelly Galligan and Vincent Lacava’s game company This is Pop continues to make me giggle and almost want to play online games.
• The same Kelly and Ed Briggs are now expanding from New York into their adopted community of Bisbee, Arizona, where they will take Kelly’s vegetarian culinary skills and Ed’s interior design finesse, mastered on the set of Law and Order, to a new restaurant “Cantina” opening in 2010.
• Dawn and Drew, my darling little podcasters on an old dairy farm in Wisconsin, are still cracking me up and they hatched a new band Smitten Bayou, who have a freshman album out that extends their ribald sensibility into some real toe tappers. They are spending the winter in Costa Rica - Hate them.
• 76 year old Yoko Ono produced a very modern album this year Between My Head and the Sky. I was very excited with some early releases and she really came through. As well as a modern Japanese feel, she got the downtown New York 70’s sound in there too. It’s really great with some fun for the dance floor too.
• DougA with the support of Ken and Firat, held court at Quarter’s Four - a divine piece of real estate at Fort Mason and hanging over the bay facing the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. The house itself was built in the 1850’s as the Palmer House.  In it’s new incarnation, Ken meticulously decorated it in a nautical theme. We were privileged to be regular guests.
• We returned to Burning Man for the third year with our gang of misfits. MaryL joined us this year and added a certain je ne sais quoi to the usual debauchery. Our theme camp was Biloba WOW! - a spoof on the late night tv commercials with a twist. We soaked long strips of fabric in icy cold Ginko Biloba tea and applied these as head wraps to passersby. Seems many of the recipients started remembering things they never knew they had forgotten. As usual it was cathartic, inspiring and transformative.
• I’m painting again and I’m very pleased to be reunited with that part of myself.
• My turntable is operational again and wired up to a great stereo in the living room. I’ve sold my cd’s and have been combing the castaway albums at thrift stores. The sound is so much richer and the songs are presented in the sequence they were intended to be listened to.
• The New Yorker subscription remains a great pleasure each week.

On the Internet, in the car and at the conferences:

I’ve been reunited with some extraordinary colleagues from E*TRADE, MarketTools and BabyCenter with the new consumer division of GreenRoad, We’re taking some in-car technology that has accelerometers (I still love saying and typing that), GPRS, GPS and a bunch of other gee whiz technology and turning it into a consumer friendly system and series of communications that really does make the roads safer and saves lives. Pam Kramer is leading the charge and I’m quite excited to be at her side again. We’re working with an progressive and innovative Industrial Design firm New Deal Design led by Gadi Amit.

I finished my tenure as Creative Director with BabyCenter and will miss the smiling faces and talent around the place. The creative team I managed did some great work around sponsored areas of content in the vibrant community at BC. Tina Sharkey is a world class executive and I’m glad I got to spend some time watching her operate. Her years overseeing the AIM product have given her a deep understanding of how people get together online.

I was honored to be a panelist at David Allen’s GTD Summit in San Francisco last March. I was on panels about creativity and productivity practices. David’s work has spread around the world and he resonates with the spirit of a person who has accomplished what they set out to do and he giggles all the way.

The Idea Network that our team created for Frito Lay at MarketTools was expanded to the entire PepsiCo network. The site brings insight and product development to all ranks within the organization.

Paul and I continue to inch along with our visual interface for mobile Twitter users SuperTwitter. We’re looking for a developer to help us out since we have day jobs and… too many projects on our hands. Here are some screen shots of what started coming up in our early tests.

My virtual team did a lovely job on the Girls Inc. Alameda website.

I’m advising a stealth-mode Design Lifestyle eCommerce start-up - Design Story, Inc. with the very bright Mia Lewin. Things are moving fast here and I think this year will be an interesting one for this young company. I love the contributions I’m able to make here and the subject matter is absolutely up my alley.

I’m still hooked to death on the Internet. I am amazed that it has happened in my lifetime. My new MacBook Air has made it even more pleasant - like a really interesting, never ending paperback with pictures, video and all the radio stations in the world! Twitter is my default source of news and what’s interesting right now. Flickr is still my visual storytelling tool of choice. I’ve retired my Blogger blog Interaction Society because Blogger is just not innovating anymore and it’s stopped being reliable. I’m sold on Tumblr for now and hope they have a long and healthy life so I don’t have to think about the pipes again.

CampDude:
We remain grateful to have our extraordinary property CampDude in the Sierra Foothills. The private and peaceful spot keeps me focused, clear and through the efforts of mountain life, a little healthier. We continue to work on our new construction and there is always plenty to do whether it’s replacing the well pump, keeping the driveway clear in the winter. We completed the Barn rebuilding this year and welcomed some anxcious urbanites that needed a break.

2010:

This coming year? I don’t really want to put any rules around it, nothing to interfere with the spontaneity. I can visualize it though - A creative existence in nature and the cities of the world. Let’s see how I do.