10 Questions About…

Last night, I went to the TEDxTC with my mom. It was all about food – a grea t topic. My only direct qualification is that I like to eat – but I also have a brother who is a series chef. Billy went to the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and has been warning me about genetically altered food for years. So I felt kind of prepared.

A quick primer, TED (Technololgy Education Design) is a format for quick (less than 20 minutes) lectures on ideas that are worth spreading. A TEDx is independently organized event. TEDxTC was held at the Minnesota Science Museum. There were two showings; I went to the later event, which included dessert. It was a funny, mixed crowd. This was my mom’s first TEdx. I noted that several people seemed to be there with their moms; the topic may have brought out the generations. The food-family conenction was prominent in at least two speakers, which included LaDonna Redmond, Winona LaDuke, Kevin Ryan, and John Walden.

Formerly of Chicago, currently at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, LaDonna Redmond spoke about how her son’s allergies to just about everything got her interested in food. Apparently a handgun was easier to get in her part of Chicago than a fresh tomato when she started to really think about food. (My dad also has stories about decades earlier traveling from the near north side of Chicago to the suburban grocery stoire to find food with expiration dates that were not yet passed.) Redmond worked with youth in her neighborhood to plant local, community gardens and sell local produce to low income neighbors. She challenged attendees to start asking about the origin of their food by asking grocery store managers about the food. Where does it come from? Who grows it? Her point being that food should be nutritious and support fair labor. Consumers can make a difference.

I was particularly interested to hear former Vice Presidential candidate Winona LaDuke, since I actually had the honor of meeting her last fall (at the Cabooze of all places!). She spoke about food as a family matter and about the importance of wild rice to Anishinaabe peoples. How Nokomis (and maybe Nanabozho – I should have taken better notes) followed a white shell to a place where the food grows on water – such as with wild rice. How Pawnee corn wasn’t able to thrive outside it’s natural habitat and how lack of diversity in the diet has been so unhealthy. Growing food locally is good – but growing food that was intended to be grown locally is even better. It suits the crops and the people.

John Walden gave a demonstration of a new way to sanitize that uses electricity, not chemicals. It was very cool. A spritz or two of “charged water” and food, counter, body parts getting prepped for surgery were sanitized.

Finally Kevin Ryan from General Mills spoke. He’s some kind of food visionary – or other job we’d all love to have except it’s probably harder than it looks. He was a great speaker and talked about how he uses history and human nature to predict food trends. For example he spoke about how we came to think of yellow as a good color for food. The super condensed version is – The British were fighting the French, which meant no wine. Their allies, the Spanish offered port. The British drank loads of it. Egg whites are used in making port. The huge uptick in port meant tons more eggs. But that left lots of unused yolks, which they gave to the nuns. The nuns used them to make yolky pastries, which we all love. Yellow yolks meant yellow desserts meant we like yellow. Fun food trivia but also fun approach to reasoning and predicting the future.

Both Redmond and LaDuke brought up the dangers of genetically altered food and the idea of usurping nature for some other purpose. Everyone recognized the impact that food has on health, which seems obvious but I think sometimes can’t be overstated, especially when we’re talking about choices that are made before food and consumer meet. One big lesson was the importance of getting to know your food and your food providers.

Northern Spark hosted a night of art lights Saturday night in St Paul and Minneapolis in a celebration that went from dusk to dawn. There were dozens of events happening across the Cities mostly happening from 9pm to 6am. We joined some of the festivities at St. Paul’s Upper Landing. For those who don’t know what the Upper Landing is (and I assume that’s most of us, since although I knew the area, I didn’t know the name) it’s the area on Shepard Road overlooking Harriet Island and behind the Science Museum. They’ve built up that area quite a bit in the last few years.

This was the inaugural Nuit Blanche (white night) in the Twin Cities; I only attended events in St Paul but it was fun to know it was a cross-city event. At the Upper Landing, we started with an ArtCar Serenade, which I caught on video below. Conductor Philip Blackburn led six ArtCars and their horns in a brief concert. It was fun. Each horn was very different. Occasionally, drivers on Shepard Road joined in.

Immediately following the serenade we witnessed the flipping of the switch for Jim Campbell’s Scattered Light. It was very cool. It included more than 1600 blinking light bulbs suspended from a frame. You could walk through and touch the light bulbs – and we all did. It’s funny how everyone there was drawn in. If you stepped back, you could see that there was a method to the blinking. If you watched long and carefully enough you could see the shadow figure of a person walk through the lights.

It turns out we had plenty of time to watch the lights because we hung around to see Andrea Stanislav’s Nightmare, which according to the program was an “eerie and unexpected vision of a white horse galloping on the Mississippi at night, produced by towing a video screen on the river.” First it was going to happen at 9:45, then 10:00, then 10:30; we left around 10:45 and as far as I know the horse never appeared – but the people watching was great. There were lots of different folks – some of us were with kids, some were clearly making the rounds and planned to hang on all night, some were just folks who happened to be walking by. And everyone had a theory on the horse. One said that the name (Nightmare) should have been a hint. Another asked if the horse was named Godot. Then someone eels asked if this was the plan. Did someone have a camera pointed at us – were we (the waiters) the exhibit?

Most I think there were hiccups that did make the installation a nightmare – but save one very sulky teenager (not thank goodness my preteens) everyone had a good attitude. It was a beautiful night. The Mississippi, while bursting at it’s seams, was beautiful and the bridge lights were on for apparently only the second time ever. Not confirmed – but when you’re waiting for a horse that long you’ll believe and find anything interesting.

Today we went to the Flint Hills International Children’s Festival. If we’re in town, we always try to go, but this is the first year that we’re seen one of the indoor shows. We started our day at 11 am at the Ordway seeing Corbian the Dinosaur. It’s part light show, part puppetry. Picture Harold and the Purple Crayon meets deep sea bioluminescent creatures. It was really cool – even the older girls had to admit it. The music was great. Aine would not let go of my arm for the first 20 minutes with the loud music and the awesome glow in the dark dragons.

The music went from classic, to Baby Elephant Walk to a little Riders on the Storm and some Ta for Tots folk music. My only wish was that they would have thrown in a little Led Zeppelin. (Not because I’m such a Zeppelin fan – but it just seemed like it would have been a perfect fit.) The theater was filled. The tickets were only $5. There were a lot of babies crying and antsy toddlers. But that didn’t bother us. A highlight – and it’s tough not to get a little crude is when the mean, orange dragon poops out neon spirals that become flowers. (I’m sure there was a weird ecology lesson there.)

After the show we went to Bruegger’s to get the makings of an easy picnic. Then we walked around. The Festival had definitely expanded since the last time we were there – but it still includes lots of craft and projects for kids (more for Aine than the pre-teen crew) but it had something for everyone. Kids Hair was there giving free spray on tattoos and dye jobs. The butterfly net is always a big hit – even if also always a little too crowded . The parade was pretty good – but the highlight was the Bandaloop.

According to their web site, Project Bandaloop performs “in natural and urban settings, the company uses theaters, buildings, towers, bridges, cliffs, and skyscrapers as its dance floor.” So for this gig they did their dance suspended from the top of the Lawson Software building. The dancers repel gracefully about halfway down the building – and then they stop. (I counted at least 6 floors up.) It had to remind the parents of watching Batman and Robin climb walls – that’s what it looked like – only real.

It was fantastic!!

Even being deathly afraid of heights, the dancers are so good that I didn’t worry about their safety the whole time. The dance, flip and fly around the building. They danced to two songs. I have the first performance, a duet below. I hope the jumps from the building look as amazing in video as they did in person. (Aine liked this one best because the couple danced together more.)

Looking for something fun and potentially education to do outside without getting sweaty? Think mini golf at the Minnesota Science Museum. It just opened last weekend; so we took a foursome out to the course to check it out. The location is beautiful – the golf course is between the Science Museum and the River. It’s a 9-hole course. I don’t think it took us an hour to play.

Our group included a first grade a couple of adults and a few in between and we all enjoyed the game. We did institute the six-stroke rule. Once you get to six strokes on any given hole, you’re out. So that keeps the game rolling along – but we didn’t use it every hole. There’s a mix of luck and skill involved in the game. (Although I can tell you that the most skilled player did win the game!) A few holes involve water traps, which I’m sure will be even more welcome in the hotter months. There are a few sandboxes too for younger players who may need to regroup between shots.

Each shot contains a key lesson. For example, in the second hole, you have to hit your ball through running water to get to the hole – but since flowing water acts in predictable ways on materials (such as golf balls) the hole isn’t as tough as it looks. If David Hume can use the pool table to tech probability, the Science Museum can use miniature golf to teach about ecology. Also there are various notes about the surrounding area. Apparently the bushes surrounding the course will bear fruit later in the season and players are welcome to eat what they can reach to pick.

One note – you have to pay to get into the Museum and then pay for the mini golf so if you’re not a member, it can get expensive. But after 5 pm, you can get in for just $5 per person and forget about the museum fee.

Taking after her mom, Lily plays right field. Not taking after her mom – Lily caught at least on fly ball…

We did PeepsDioramas this year – I was just never able to submit our finished product to the Pioneer Press web site. Sorry! Several people asked me about it. (Thanks!) I did try a couple of time to submit our entries but no luck. You can enjoy them here:

We have two Justin Bieber Dioramas

And Aine and I did a Peep version of Sunday in the Park with George.

Well I think Spring has finally spring. It was warm most of the weekend – in fact it was a total bonus since it was supposed to rain all weekend – really it only rained Sunday afternoon. We took advantage of the good weather on Saturday by checking out he St Paul Farmer’s Market. There aren’t a lot of vegetables or fruit – but there’s chocolate popcorn, flower and eggs. Actually there are sauces and things too and it’s always nice to be outside and see the fresh ingredients. And there were free hayrides. So we got a hayride around lower town.

Then we headed to the Cinco de Mayo Festival in East St Paul. By the time we got there it was genuinely hot, which was kind of fun. Our big thrill was when Aine was selected to be a contestant for the Radio Disney game.
 

Aine and her Daisy troop had a bridging ceremony – they all crossed over to become Brownies. We are going to try to not lose her Brownie vest for the next bridging ceremony, which is probably two years away. We unfortunately did lose our Daisy vest. Or maybe we never really had one and what we really lost was Lily’s Daisy vest from five years ago. Luckily Aine does not mind details like a lost vent – just so long as we get to go to the party!