Archive for January, 2007

raw food and vegan cakes

 

food experimentation

Sam and I have been experimenting with diet recently, we’ve tried

  • fasting,
  • eating raw,
  • eating only small quantities, and
  • eating what we want when we want.

They’ve all been good. I’ve learnt some interesting things about myself and my understanding of physical hungers through fasting. I’ve found that I love to eat more raw food, even in winter. I’ve found that I still eat too fast, and without intention. I’ve found that for a long time I’ve still eaten more than I need to. So after this bout of experimentation I am

  • eating about 70% raw
  • when I eat on my own, to really savour the food to the maxiumum, make it sensual and meditative
  • to eat smaller amounts

I’d like to become more sensitive to what I want to eat and when. I think continued experimentation and meditation will deliver this. Any ideas?

ginger chilli date cake

I want to start an improvised food section on the website. This is a cake I made up, it only took 2 attempts to get it this good!

ingredients

1 cup of dates
1 cup of plain flour
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup of mollasses
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsps ginger powder
2 pickled chillies, or 1 small fresh one
2 tbs of oil
1 cup of rice/soy milk

recipe

take the stones out of the dates, and then heat with mollasses and
milk and chopped up chilli.

mix up the dry ingredients, and then add the wet stuff gradually. aim
for a pouring consistency, not too runny, not too stodgy.

then bake at 180C for about 1 hour. a knife should come out nearly
clean, top should be dark brown.

hammock camping

In a quest for lighter weight camping I’ve been interested in hammocks. I first saw a guy in a park using something similar to the hennessy hammock. Basically,

  • get some nylon (ripstop is recommended – though none of mine are) at least 50cm longer than you are
  • hem the 2 short edges with big (3cm) folds.
  • push a carabina through each fold
  • tie it up.

Here is a pic showing the big hems, and how you push a carabina through them to gather up the ends.

hem and caribina
I use my slackline to tie the hammock under.

I end up with a line running overhead, with the hammock slung a bit lower down. The line overhead gives me a nice ridge to put a tarp over if its cold or wet.

My tarp is about 3m by 1.75m – with 6 elasticated loops round the edges. I use 10m of thin nylon twine and 6 tent pegs to tie it up/down/whatever the situation allows.

marketing blurb: the possibilities are limited only by your imagination!
4 possibilities of hammock tent
Close up pic showing the elasticated loops that are on the corners and halfway down the long sides. Elastic is good because you can tie stuff tight and then if its really windy things can move about a bit. A bit of applied softness there!

Also shown is the sealed seam. The nylon comes in fixed widths, so to make wider sheets I needed to sew pieces together. You can use a sewing technique to make sure that the water runs off the seam, rather than into it. Sealing it makes it a bit safer if its really rainy.
seam and elastic
My slackline, hammock, tarp, pegs in a stuffit bag weighs 1.25kg. Pretty good for a chair, sleeping, entertainment and rain cover!

gear and bag
Sometimes in cold weather you’ll want some insulation on your back, as the air blowing by will rob it all. I’m experimenting with the silver foil survival bags, but don’t yet know how well they last.

One issue with this method of camping is that I require trees. However, as I love trees, this is no problem for me.

Another plus is that where there are trees, there is dead wood to burn. So I can dispense with the weight of a gas fire and cook over a real fire! Remember to be careful with fire kids! Did you know you can set peat bogs on fire underground !!! Camp responsibly!

Resources

robot gong

A computer controlled tubular bell.


Features

  • beautiful tone,
  • the tubular bell can be any length (note) or colour. This version is A at 220Hz (1.28m long)
  • custom designs could feature multiple bells
  • I can provide easy to use Linux drivers and I’m sure Windows would be just as easy. You just write a command to the parallel port,
  • supplied with C source code, easy to customize

If you want one, I build them for £100 plus the tubular bell. The bell is more expensive the bigger it gets, and colours (anodized) cost more. £150 gets you the ringer and a concert A (120cm) tube. Stand not included, but its easy to hang from the ceiling or a wall.

I can also make the top boards from different materials (wood, aluminium, perspex) and hide the circuitry if desired.

How it works

A motor (pwm controlled) is used to wind up the arm and then a magnet on the arm sticks to the end of the solenoid. When the solenoid is switched on, it pulls the piston back, breaking the connection with the magnet. As the arm swings down, the motor unravels the string to make the movement as free as possible. The motor keeps running to wind the beater back up (to avoid damping the bell). A microswitch detects that the arm is back, and the motor unwinds gently to allow the solenoid plunger down gently (too much of a jolt and the arm breaks free).