It's already been a week, so high time to share some pictures and feedback from the Foodtri.ps London Weekend with you. For reasons of authenticity/laziness I've decided to let the attendees do the talking. The pictures, as so often are by the amazing Daniela Haug and lots more can be found on the Foodtri.ps Flickr group site.

"Imagine this: Travel to London, meet about a dozen people in a private dining room above a lively pub and have the Young Turks cook insanely extraordinary courses just for you. Can't be a better night out, right? Here is the thing: The next day, you'll find yourself with the same people on a market, where somebody set up a kitchen for you, hands out cash and you can buy and cook whatever you want from that market. A one of a kind experience, that I would not want to miss, whenever there is another foodtrip. Oh wait, Morocco..." Paul, Berlin

"The set menu for dinner in the Ten Bells was extraordinarily good in setting, produce and execution and the following days tour of Maltby Street market with the hands on cooking was eye-opening, fun and and delicious. The visit to the re-emerging Brixton Village market in the evening was a fantastic closure to the event. Mama Lan's Bejing style dumplings alone are worth a trip down to Brixton. Unfortunately, the trio that half way through the dumplings started playing Miles Davis pieces next door in the market corridor will very probably not be around next time as well, but i'm sure one will make some other amazing discovery. Thumbs up!" Stefan, Zürich

I'm looking very much forward to doing another one of those in London, such a great food city right now.

When the last espresso had been drunk and a majority of the 50 people at Foodcamp Cilento had left there were still ten of us, slightly unwilling to acknowledge that it was all over. We had drinks that night and had some long discussions on the event. All praise aside I tried to keep the focus on what room there was for improvement as time would mask over glitches quickly enough. 

I have taken the feedback home with me, gathered some more data and have come up with a rough idea as to how the next Foodtri.ps Foodcamp could work. When I started planning the event in Cilento I used the metaphor of a package tour for myself, lacking a better idea. That meant joint travel arrangements, daily trips, a single hotel for everyone et al. It made a lot of things very easy, but it also made the event quite rigid: If you're on a coach with 50 people it takes a lot of self confidence to get up and say: "Hey, I just saw an interesting type of tomato growing there, can we take a detour?" 

Actually, that's exactly what Foodcamp should be about: Taking detours, creating experiences for yourself, trying things out that haven't been pre-validated. What was arguably the least planned activity in Cilento - going to a mountain village to buy truffles off old men - remains one of the most talked about ones. It was an adventure. But that can't serve as a blueprint for the whole event because it's nigh impossible to just meet at an airport with 50 people to see what'll happen because we'd end up wasting our time finding accomodation and hiring rental cars.

I want to create a framework that handles all the less exciting stuff like getting kitchens to work in, beds to sleep in, people to help with translations and the like and that leaves room for discovering, discussing, cooking and eating in the widest possible sense. I feel that it's necessary to be able to do everything on foot to enable people to change their plans quickly without overhead. I want to find a solution where people can pick from a range of accomodation options, I want students to be able to afford coming and I don't want to force silverbacks to relive what's less enticing about life as a student. I want to arrange very few actual activities in advance so that only the people who feel comfortable creating their own experience will come. And I want to do it in a place that is challenging, exciting, and that has been defining food culture in its region for a thousand years if not more.

Autumn 2012: Foodcamp Fez. Spice markets and lamb's testicles, sweet mint tea and majoun. Staying in the most beautiful Riads, chopping onions in secluded courtyards. Discussing and haggling, pacojet and tagine. It's what you make it. If you aren't already, get on the Foodtri.ps mailing list to avoid missing out.

It's been really quiet around these shores, but with no places available for the past months I did not want to make people overly jealous by telling them about all the awesome food related bits that South Italy has to offer. Now the time to make people overly jealous has finally come.

Foodcamp Cilento has been an incredible experience and a lot of people have great stories to tell, here's a list of blog posts, I will add to this over time:

Fabatable

Glasklare Gefühle

Nutriculinary.com

Einfach lecker essen

Pastasciutta Blog

Luciano Pignataro

Eine Prise Salz

Little Jamie

Pictures can be found here:

Flickr Group

Eeek at 23

People Photographing Food  (properly meta, this)

It is quite hard to sum the whole thing up, especially from my perspective: How can I possibly pass judgment on something I organised? However, there's a great deal to be said about the people who took part: Extremely passionate cooks, writers, photographers, geeks, actors, hunters and eaters who easily spanned 25 years in age differences, lots more when it came to wealth or perceived status.

Of course we were all middle class, whom would I be kidding by pretending otherwise, but Foodcamp Cilento reflected a wide cross section of society, all standing around a fireplace rolling pasta. I mingled with people whom I normally wouldn't meet and had discussions on topics that normally don't come up. When all has been said about the great hospitality of the Cilento in general and especially Hotel Antonietta and their staff, the experience of bringing people together round a table will stay with me and do that warm fuzzy thing that's slightly kitsch.

Sometimes just looking at the calendar makes me laugh out in disbelief. It seems to want to tell me that it's June already, meaning: Only four months to go before Foodcamp Cilento takes off. And what am I to say: It's all coming along rather nicely and after a research trip last week I feel even more confident that we've chosen the right place. Robbin of Vineyard Adventures took a few snaps of San Marco, the local market, our hotel and importantly its kitchen and I'd like to share them with you. I hope you agree that San Marco and its surroundings seem like an achingly beautiful setting for this trip to the land of chickpeas, anchovies and wine. There's still a last minute chance to participate with four seats left, I suggest you get in touch very soon should you like to come.

(download)

Click here to download:

foodcamp-cilento-pictures-pFEdplFomFFlHIkqaBck.zip (569 KB)

This last few weeks have just whizzed by, I am developing a distinct streak of grey hair and if Google Calendar crashed I could probably do nothing but curl up and cry on the floor. However, I am fortunate to know wonderful people who document Foodtri.ps events the way I should actually feel obliged to. So, move on to the Evidence Matters blog and let me just briefly add that I enjoyed the evening immensely, so many interesting people, so much to talk about. "Will you be doing any more of these in London?", Tim Hayward asked at the end of the night, and not in a threatening manner. I truly hope that I will, yes.

It has been a long time in the making, but I finally feel confident enough to announce it here: March 31st is going to be Sous Vide Hack Day! There has been a lot of talk around Sous Vide devices and their use in the past few years: Professional kitchens have been using them for a while to cook ingredients so that they reach very precise temperature levels, thus creating steaks that are perfectly rare throughout and eggs with perfectly runny yolks and firm whites.

A consumer market is beginning to emerge in this field, but are these devices really worth the extraordinary amounts charged for them? And what are DIY ways around this? All this and more will be discussed at:

Sous Vide Hack Day

Program:

Talk by Michael Riemenschneider, the swiss born chef who held a Michelin star by his mid-twenties, then went on to do high level cookery classes and is now in the process of opening his first London restaurant. Michael claims to use sous vide for everything from starters to patisserie and has worked with both pro and consumer devices. He'll share insights into the gastronomic reasons for sous vide cooking.

Demo by Evidence Matters and Hackspace London of various versions of DIY sous vide equipment from slow cookers to Gallenkamp laboratory water heaters, chamber vacuum sealers and more. There will be lessons on how to assemble a basic kit for home use and more advanced projects featuring PID/Arduino/Auber elements to achieve even more precise results. If everything works out alright we'll even show the live assembly of a DIY sous vide kit. If you have an advanced interest in bulding a set up yourself at the event you should get in touch and we'll try and make that possible, too.

Fortunately demoing Sous Vide machines also makes it necessary to cook things in them. And that leads to food being available for eating. Alright, if we must...

So here it is: A wonderful geek extravaganza with exciting guests, food and electrical equipment stretched to its limits. Join us and please get back to me if you have any questions.