Archive for the 'Fun Stuff' Category

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5 Must-Read Local Orlando Food Websites

Seems like food is a rising trend in Central Florida, and the following list of sites reinforces that with some great links and lots of juicy content to sink your mental teeth into. I present, in no particular order (and by no means comprehensively) a list of sites you should check out if you’re into food:
Winter Park Harvest Festival

  1. Winter Park Harvest Festival
    This website exists right now to promote an event, happening November 20th in “Central Park’s West Meadow”, whatever that means. Already, the site has loaded up with some great how-to articles for growing your own food and announcing some smaller events leading up to the festival.
  2. A Local Folkus
    Started in 2007, this locally-sourced blog is written by John Rife, who is now taking an active role in advancing the Slow Food and Slow Money movements here in Central Florida. He is well-known for taking massive continent-spanning road trips in his camper named Kodi, along with his wife and his dog. Now John talks about heritage, local markets, gardening, and local events, with lots more road-tripping thrown in. Subscribe and enjoy!
  3. The Good Garden
    I recently met author Sarah Kinbar through a local gathering called Florida Creatives Happy Hour, and it turns out we shared a former employer. Sarah has years of experience with traditional print magazines, and now she is stamping out daily posts on her site about growing food and fun things you can do with the things you’ve grown – lots of fun recipes and personal stories. Sarah also works with a team of contributors to make sure there is a “fresh” post every day!
  4. Edible Orlando Magazine
    Apparently, this website is also available in dead tree form… This brand new magazine produced locally about the great culinary escapades and I believe it is very focused on the Slow Food movement. As of this writing, all their content is locked inside the digital edition in the sidebar, but the full magazine’s content is available there. The site is part of a network called Edible Communities, which also produces a healthy number of podcasts in addition to almost 60 regional magazines.
  5. The Thin Chef
    This blog is a weekly entry by “thin” Katie Farmand, who happens to be one of the editors of the Edible Orlando mag above. She makes no promises about being a diet blog: In her own words, “Not low-calorie, or low-fat, but food that is real, whole, and fuels your body.” Still, there are some fun-looking recipes here, and it’s worth checking out.

Like I said, these are certainly not the only 5 sites about food in Orlando, or even about this particular subject. At the same time, I hope you have learned something, and will continue to learn by checking out these sites!

Some links via: Anjali Fluker, Orlando Business Journal

Still using plastic bags? Make Morsbags!

Cotton Mors Bags

sad fact: over 1 million plastic bags are consumed per minute globally.
gut-wrenching fact: marine wildlife mistake plastic bags for food and die.
frustrating fact: supermarkets and politicians will take years to sort it out.
happy fact: making morsbags will help, with immediate effect.Fnd out more about Morsbags, spread the word and make a bag of your own. You can meet other Morsbaggers in our forums

Morsbags

It’s all about having a group of friends around to chat whilst simultaneously making shopping bags out of old duvet covers, curtains, fabrics from charity shops, etc, to distribute en masse to shoppers to help protect marine wildlife.

Morsbags are fully recycled, fun and easy to make (see our pattern), washable, portable, foldable, unique, cheap, biodegradable and reusable.

When enough morsbags have been made, pods hand them out to happy and surprised shoppers heading into their local supermarket. Hurrah!

Urban Chicken Farming for Fun, not Profit

Our local Orlando Weekly paper recently published a cover story on “Clucking Around”, highlighting the hijinx of some anonymous downtown dwellers, who choose to remain so because raising chickens is illegal here in the City Beautiful. Go read the feature, it’s both informative and charming.
Clucking Around

On a similar note, a recent book read of mine had a chapter on raising chickens, not only for producing eggs, but as pets. There’s a great (sad) story involving some local predators as well, and the construction of an automatic chicken coop door.

The book is called Made by Hand, and it’s authored by the editor of Make Magazine, Mark Fraunfelder. In addition to the dozen or so other chapters about Mark’s journey toward self-reliance and connecting with his surroundings, he talks about tutoring his daughter, moving to the South Pacific and some other great stories that can’t be missed.