Learning to cook and sensory food capacities

Posted on February 16, 2014 by geofoodie

I did something yesterday that I haven’t done in about 35 years. I took a cooking class. The last time I had formal cooking lessons was when I was in junior high school. In exchange for being allowed to use one of my class periods to work the the school office (for free and where I learned to file), I agreed that I would also take home economics (what is now understood as domestic science). In my school home economics involved learning to sew from a pattern, and some very basic cooking skills. We learned, for example, how to overcook minced beef and the proper doneness of green beans. Yesterday’s lesson was somewhat more inspiring. Continue reading →

Urban food: Lines of opportunity into patterns of possiblity

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At the moment the Sheffield Food Festival is happening. Over the course of the weekend, in the town centre, there are stalls of folk selling the foods they grow, make, deliver, and cook. Given the weather has been wonderful, it makes for a very nice day out. This being England, along with purchasing your food items to take home, you can also buy a nice bit of something to eat, a drink to get a bit happy with, and find out more about urban gardening (the last of which is what this post is really about). Continue reading →

An inside view: Backgardens, Greystones, Sheffield

Posted on September 17, 2013 by geofoodie

Back gardens of terraced houses in Sheffield, 2013

Despite being bombed in World War 2 (what some refer to as the Sheffield Blitz), Sheffield has retained large areas that are built up with terraced housing built around and prior to 1900. From street view, these houses look like long rows of anonymous and identical dwellings. And indeed, if you have been in one, you pretty much know what the layout of every other house on the street will be. Every couple of houses has a passage that runs between into the back garden space. Because of this, the internal spaces, those behind the street view, are, or historically were, visible to all, making a kind of private community space, which forms a stage upon which everday life is played out for neighbors to see. Continue reading →