Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Detroit, A Love Song

The massive flood of articles about Detroit continues. But hey what is this? In a July 29th NY Times Op-Ed piece writer Frank Bruni describes Detroit and his experience (very different from mine) in the city for 5 years. After seeing reactions to this article from different people I really feel it has a certain emotion to it that so very many people in Detroit can identify with. One thing can certainly be true, there is so very much pride in Detroit, pride and aspiration to make it even better.Check this article out if you have a moment:

Detroit, a Love Song

Making Headlines

Check it out! I was recently interviewed by the United Methodist Church to talk about some of what we are seeing here in Detroit as a US-2 with the different bankruptcy procedures! It made the homepage of the denominational website, check it out!

www.umc.org- It was the largest frame, but I'm not sure that it will stay there, it is a "Featured Article"

Also here is a direct link to the article!
The People Behind the Headlines

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Photo of the Week- Produce Creativity- Blueberry Edition

As a part of my service here in Detroit I have added to the tenants of my service "living simply." This has encompassed my eating habits. Sense moving to Detroit I have experimented making more vegetarian dishes and more local produce and groceries. This has been an on going learning process learning to make everything from my own bread to how the heck do you cook eggplant? I have thoroughly enjoyed this adventure moving away from chicken on a Foreman Grill with a side of Ramen and on to the items from my own garden and Detroit itself. I believe I could go on for days about stories of failed recipe attempts (who knew I could mess up cooked collard greens so bad) and we'll call them less conventional recipes.

However, this week's photo of the week is of one of those experimental times. I was gifted 10lbs of fresh blueberries from outside of Kalamazoo, MI this week! While they were delicious I think I would have turned into a blueberry if I ate them all (straight off of Willy Wonka). Therefore I set out trying to find different uses and preserving methods. Check them out! I have to admit I am both surprised and pretty darn proud of how everything turned out.



From left to right we have:
-Dehydrated Blueberry- Soon to go into some granola!
-Frozen Blueberry- Holy smokes better than ice cream aaaannd I found an interesting recipe for them to go into a smoothie along with a bit of the mountains of kale that we have.
-Fresh Blueberry- No explanation needed, these are just awesome right!
-Accidental Blueberry Jam- Well it started with boiling some blueberries slightly to allow them to dehydrate faster after the skins crack...one thing led to another and BOOM- Blueberry Jam!

Friday, July 26, 2013

A Reminder From Art And Soul

Check out this awesome connection with N.O.A.H.! This video was created by a program that works with N.O.A.H.to provide an artistic avenue for the homeless that are a part of N.O.A.H. What an awesome creative reminder that More is More!