Luxury home in the woodland

In this episode of Kevin Mcclouds' Man Made Home he creates a hot tub made from a reclaimed jet engine and a drop down veranda made with vintage scrap metal to create a medieval drawbridge effect mechanism. In his project he has built up a magical luxury home in the woods made from only recycled and reclaimed materials from the area around him. With a little help from his friends and the community, he discovers that out of making relationships are built. A connection is created through materials, place, building and people making everyone involved a bit happier. 

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/kevin-mcclouds-man-made-home/episode-guide/series-1/episode-4

Wonderbag

In the theme of Fairtrade Fortnight this wonderfully innovative product is perfect for inspiring new ways in cooking and thinking about food. The WONDERBAG is a non electric heat retention cooker that allows food that has been brought to the boil to continue cooking hours after it has been removed from the heat source. Cooking in this way saves the energy that would be used to cook food traditionally; you can leave your meal cooking while you go and there is no need to reheat food from the wonderbag. 

The Wonderbag was originally created in Africa for Africans. For every bag bought in the UK a Wonderbag is given to a family in need in the developing world. The Wonderbags are distributed in South Africa with established projects who demonstrate the bags to help those who benefit the most.

nb-wonderbag.com

Slow Food

This Fairtrade Fortnight the theme is food. Celebrating farmers across the world for their harvesting methods, organic produce, nutritional knowledge and community values. Supporting fairtrade farmers allows more money to be put back into their communities and support their families. The theme encouraged me to research into how we farm our food here in the UK and look at the forgotten foods that we are in danger of losing. Slow food UK have this to say about food production:

Fast Life, Intensive Production Methods and Excessive Legislation are the main reasons that we are losing so many of our traditional foods and drinks. With their demise we also lose centuries of expert knowledge and cultural traditions. We lose choice, flavour and the varied landscape and wildlife associated with traditional farming. In short we lose biodiversity.

Those artisan producers who opt to swim against the tide of Fast Life need our help in explaining to the public why their products are special and, usually, cost more to make than mass-produced counterparts.
The British have been described as gastronomic magpies, owing to our eagerness to embrace other food cultures. It is often easier to find food from half way across the world than that produced on our doorstep and we have lost our sense of the link between our food, the land, and the people who produce it. However a growing awareness of the environmental implications of this has led to a renewed interest in our own food culture, and a fascinating journey of discovery awaits us as we re-learn to connect with the soil.

 http://www.slowfood.org.uk/ark-info/why-we-exist