Archive for the ‘Portfolio’ Category
Kombucha: Love it or Hate it? Love it.
So yeah… I’ll acknowledge that it looks gross, but there’s just something about brewing your own kombucha, and if you haven’t already jumped on the fermented tea train, it’s time to do it. Check out the latest installment of Foodie Underground to find out how (and why you should).
Foodie Photo Addiction
This week over on the Foodie Underground column I had the delight of writing about one of my favorite subjects: food porn. Sure, that may sound a little harsh, but if you’re addicted to beautiful pictures of good food, you know exactly what I’m talking about.You find yourself with a camera often closer to your plate than your fork, you know exactly what shutter speed to use in a dimly lit restaurant and shopping at farmers market takes twice as long as the average person because you’re forced to do a round to zoom in on all the fresh carrots and bell peppers.
New Column: Foodie Underground
My very first official column just debuted today over at EcoSalon. Pretty excited about it; going to give me the chance to all of the crazy, cool, avant garde things happening in the food world. Think taco trucks meets super clubs meets homebrews.
This week’s topic is “Amateur is the New Black,” taking a look at how you no longer have to have a fancy diploma to take part int he food movement. A sort of “democratized gastronomy.” Here’s an excerpt:
Maybe it’s the result of an economy that requires a skill for penny pinching or maybe it’s just a renewed love of food, but whatever the reasons behind it, amateur involvement in culinary culture is happening big time, bringing the power of being a foodie into the hands of everyone who wants a taste. Call it indie, call it DIY, but this trend is simply expanding on something we’ve done for centuries: create sustenance.
Now go read the whole thing!
Dream Job? Photo + Conservation
I dig my job. But there are a few people out there that I’m a certainly a little jealous of. Cristina Mittermeier being one of them. She’s a trained marine biologist and super skilled photographer, which led her to found the amazing organization International League of Conservation Photographers. If you’re not familiar with the iLCP, their main prerogative is to encourage environmental action through awe-inspiring photos. The results are pretty amazing.
We recently had the chance to interview Mittermeier over at Mountainfilm, and she has some great thoughts on the environment and the influence of media.
As human beings we are hard wired to tell stories. Passing down stories of our common humanity has been key to the development of our societies and today, with the internet and the development of new media, we can move the proverbial “camp fire” to a whole new level. All media are important to telling the story of our planet. People in all levels of society rely on stories to understand and react to the changes in our planet. We have to scale our storytelling efforts to make the stories relevant and urgent.
Read the whole interview here.
Where Does the Time Go?
I’m trying to keep up with this blog, I swear. But I haven’t even had time to go through the plethora of photos from opening day of Farmers Market last weekend (except of course for the one above)… it’s been that kind of a week.
But in the meantime, here are a couple of links to check out:
Can Bike Change the World? An Epic Adventure Points to Yes
Saving Wildlife One Social Network at a Time
And the most inspirational quote of the week:
Because the truth is, our small behaviors really do add up. As proof, just look at the world we live in: it’s the product of hundreds of millions of people each behaving as if we don’t matter. The result is a catastrophe, which we have all participated in creating. And so it turns out, so far, that we all mattered without even realizing it. Each one of us really has made a difference, perhaps in a bigger way than we have the courage to admit to ourselves – Chris Jordan.
Be Inspired to Do Something Good.
“To do good, you actually have to do something” -Yvon Chouinard
This quote has been inspiring me all week long (it’s pulled from a video created for American Express), and it has reminded me, that sometimes, even when tasks seem small and unimportant, often they are part of larger efforts affecting change. An important thing to keep in mind, particularly when you get down on yourself for not doing enough.
Maybe it’s helping to spread a message, maybe it’s donating time to a cause, or maybe it’s as simple as educating yourself on an issue so that you can inform others; even though are efforts are small in comparison to the size and scope of the world around is, we all have an effect on our surroundings and the planet as a whole.
What good have you done today?
Celebrate Women All Year Long!
Monday of this week was International Women’s Day, and I spent a large part of the day checking out a number of female-focused causes and organizations and reading stories from women around the world celebrating their designated day. I didn’t really know about International Women’s Day until I lived in France during college.
People filled the streets with pro-women related signs that voiced their opinions on everything from education policy to reproductive rights. Pictures from celebrations around the world covered the front page of the newspapers. It seemed like the whole world was brought together for one big party, all focused on the global rights of women. Inspiring.
Unfortunately, I’ve never seen anything quite the same in the U.S., which is not to say that Americans aren’t supportive of women-related causes, but I have never experienced such a uniting event as I have in Europe. Fortunately, there’s the internet, and yesterday the web was swamped with stories, photos and videos of women all around the world. Again, inspiring. So inspiring that I kept thinking about all the cool initiatives and projects I could take part of in order to do my part to promote empowered women around the world.
Which got me thinking: why did it take one day to get me inspired and motivated to get active with some of these causes?
Having a day specifically devoted to a cause is a wonderful thing, because it allows for global targeted action that’s organized, which in turn makes the message stronger. But that energy needs to be rolled into everyday policy. Focusing on girls and women in both developing and developed societies is an integral part of creating healthy communities. Girls need to have the chance to be educated, healthy, empowered individuals no matter where they live; the results of which are felt the world round.
Did you know that an extra year of secondary school boosts girls’ future wages by 15-25%? And that when a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. When we’re talking about big global issues like economic development and over population, these are important statistics.
Celebrating and empowering women needs to, therefore, be an everyday act, no matter how big or small. It’s our future we’re talking about.
The City Girl’s Guide to Urban Hiking
Loved writing this piece for EcoSalon… but maybe that’s because I like in a city that’s particularly well suited for this sort of thing…
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Soot, screeching sirens and forbidding skyscrapers; is this your definition of the big city? Think again. The urban landscape might seem like the epicenter of everything that’s wrong with the world, but in fact cities are where some of the most interesting components of the green movement are currently taking place.
With everything from urban farms and electric cars, large cities are surprisingly livable, and now there’s another trend on the rise: urban hiking. Living the city life has long been equated with staying indoors and neglecting to feed our human need for spending time in nature, but the onslaught of urban hiking tours is showing us that it is in fact possible to get outside, be active and explore new places in the process.
What is Urban Hiking?
Forget the days of mindlessly jumping in a taxi to go from point A to point B. Urban hiking is all about planning, executing and enjoying the journey, another great example of slow travel. According to the Urban Dictionary, urban hiking is “the exploration of diverse urban environments on foot.” Conservation and travel groups alike promote urban hiking, as it not only gets people outdoors and active, but also allows them to explore the ins and outs of urban landscapes.
Conscious Living: Notes from the New Media Age
This article is cross-posted from Elephant Journal.
“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” – Jawaharial Nehru
That quote was pulled from an excellent list of 50 inspirational travel quotes that is a constant point of reference whenever I need to be reminded of the important things in life. Last week I also came across another list of good “life reminders” entitled How to Be an Explorer of the World. Good stuff, eh?
So with all these wonderful, inspirational reminders, I should be living a healthy, balanced and creative lifestyle, right? But something still feels a little off, and I’m not alone. From my friends in the social media world (you know who you are) I often hear “it’s hard to keep up” or “the amount of information out there is overwhelming.”
There are many of us that spend plenty of time writing about the benefits of living slow, conscious lives, but when we take a step back and look at our daily realities, how slow and conscious are they? In fact, although they’re necessary tools to doing my daily job, a Crackberry, a constantly updated TweetDeck and a plethora of RSS feeds aren’t really vehicles to feeling more balanced.
New Under Solen Media Site: Women Rocking New Media
So excited about our new website over at Under Solen. We also announced a new team page which includes some rocking women doing really great things. A big thanks to all the people out there that have made this venture possible. We’re running as fast as we can!
Go see all the new stuff for yourself!
blog.annabrones.com 