KEEP CALM AND GO VOLUNTEERING

KEEP CALM AND GO VOLUNTEERING

Feb 11, 2022 | ECONOMY, ENVIRONMENT, ITALY

Keep Calm and Go Volunteering! 

In this case keep calm is not for the coffee but for an interesting as well as admirable volunteer project.

The general objective is to sensitize young people to the adoption of sustainable and responsible lifestyles, in contrast to the increasingly widespread “culture of waste” and disposable use.

The active promoters are four young people from different backgrounds: Edisona Xhani from Albania, Sophie Anvroin from France, Hamudi Salama Batah from Spain and Mehdi Meddeb from Tunisia who are involved in sharing information and promoting initiatives by working in the fabric of the community to combat food waste.

Keep calm and go volunteering therefore consists of a European Solidarity Corps that is funded by the National Youth Agency and promoted by the Europe Area of the Belluno Committee of Understanding. 

In fact, on Sunday a flash mob took place in Belluno to involve more people with the aim of raising awareness the population.

And speaking of the fight against food waste, I suggest you follow Paola who through her book ll gusto di non sprecare, her blog Primo non sprecare for years has been diligently and deeply involved in the fight against waste.

It was nice to discover that many of us use coffee grounds, so I trust in just as many precious suggestions for food as well.

What do you think?

HOW DO YOU USE COFFEE GROUNDS?

HOW DO YOU USE COFFEE GROUNDS?

Feb 8, 2022 | ENVIRONMENT, SHOES

Have you ever reused coffee grounds?

I sometimes add them to the earth of the pots.

Unfortunately they were less helpful against the ants, you say they were particularly naughty like all the insects who decide to move here?

Have you ever tried?

Or maybe you can read them? The first scene that comes to mind is in Joel Schumacher’s Dying Young, when Estelle played by Colleen Dewhurst sees a bad omen in Campbell Scott’s cup.

What do you say? Better to focus on other ways of using it.

For example, RENS from Helsinki, Finland had the best idea of using coffee grounds together with recycled plastic to make sneakers!

They named them coffee shoes, isn’t it great?

I quote verbatim: we transform post-industrial plastic and used coffee grounds into feature-rich products that are made to go the distance.

While waiting to go the distance, this is definitely a first step, don’t you agree?

THE THREAD OF INFINITY IS TIED TO THE PAW OF EVERY FLYING BIRD

THE THREAD OF INFINITY IS TIED TO THE PAW OF EVERY FLYING BIRD

Feb 4, 2022 | ENVIRONMENT, BOOKS, ENVIRONMENT, ITALY, ITALY, BOOKS

The thread of infinity is tied to the paw of every flying bird

I find that this sentence by Victor Hugo somehow fits the thoughts that this video by Ugo De Cresi gives:

Do you understand why I get angry when Lomellina, this land of rice paddies and beauty is poisoned? 

Don’t you seem to really perceive that thread of infinity that is mirrored, like the sky, and leads you to breathe in a better dimension?

That flight of sacred Ibis is a melody of freedom and harmony.

Yet, the Ibises are not at home, indeed, environmentalists consider them an invasive species because they are not native, a bit like the otters.

But how did they get here?

The man brought them to us.

Always we who break the balance …

Paradoxically, they turn out to be extinct in Egypt, where they were depicted as the representation of the god Thot.

According to Treccani, Thot was revered as the god of writing and magic formulas, and obviously I can’t help but think immediately about the magic of books!

What is the book that triggered the magic for you?

What is the book that made you feel at home like an Ibis in Lomellina?

What is the book that made you fly tied to the infinity thread?

RICE FIELDS DON’T RISE FEELINGS

RICE FIELDS DON’T RISE FEELINGS

Nov 6, 2021 | ENVIRONMENT, ITALY

According to the annual report published by the National Rice Authority, Lomellina and Pavese are confirmed as the area with the greatest extension of rice paddies.

“The checkered sea” as my cousin used to say when we were children… yes, here we are quite far from the sea and therefore we are content to find beauty with alternative visions.

The checkered sea or rice paddies.

Paddy fields but no laughter.

Or, quoting neorealism, bitter rice since the conditions of livability, or should I say mortality, due to high rate of cancers, certainly do not allow smiles.

I don’t get tired of periodically reiterating the high danger of the poisons we live with, because the damage they cause to the body is terrible.

But as Charlie Chaplin taught us, a day without laughter is a day wasted.

So if the smile is still a little difficult, I would say to start at least with rice.

The most typical recipes of Lomellina, to stay on the subject of rice fields… mention among the first risotto with frogs … 

But I would “jump” directly to something else like the simple ris e lac: rice with milk or risotto with black-eyed peas.

Or, better still: why not take a longer jump outside the borders of Lomellina?

The caustic misanthrope proposed a tartare with Nero rice which to describe as delicious is few, and then she also told me about red rice!
I am a mess so on the first try I got the cooking time wrong but … you learn by making a mistake!
Thanks Lu!

Also on Paola’s blog: Primo non sprecare – First don’t waste, which I advise you not to miss, you will find a long series of recipes for cooking rice enriched with valuable advice, and they are one more interesting than the other!

I don’t know if I can choose, and you?

How about: can we dare a Keep Calm version?
Proposals are accepted!

LET’S BREAK BOXES

LET’S BREAK BOXES

Sep 22, 2021 | ENVIRONMENT

Separate waste collection has now given us wide awareness of the amount of plastic we consume weekly: something between the scary and the hallucinating.

A first obvious nonsense is the wild packaging.

Such as those packets of biscuits for which we then find ourselves having to throw away: external film, cardboard box, polylaminate wrapping, and finally plastic tray, very often with internal swelling, and this I say as deluded … it always seems that there are many more biscuits and instead then …

Of course I mentioned the cookies as they are a product that is well suited to coffee, but only as an example of a long sad list, list freely too.

It should be noted that the CONAI website informs us of the products and companies that have reduced the impact on the environment: here you can find specifically, a sample concerning biscuits, to stay on the subject.

Do you think we are at least in the right direction?

Is it really that hard to change habits?

I would like to tell you about my experience with the milk distributor, which I have missed a lot since they closed it down, unfortunately.

For me, going with the shopper full of empty bottles to fill even for the neighbors, was one of those mild moments on chaotic days.

My son, then little, had taken it as a game, happy to drink his glass of fresh milk after helping me: he was better than me!

The bottles were reused, the milk came directly from the producer: a farm in the neighboring hamlet of the town, and that could already be enough as a good thing, right?

It had become a beautiful sharing.

It had.

Like all good things, it ended early, because interest always prevails over everything, the cursed law of earnings, according to which the success of that small self-service had probably begun to annoy.

Fortunately, sometimes news arrives from other countries that prove to be more virtuous, do you have any testimony or anecdote to tell? It’s really like this?

How about breaking the boxes?

GENOA JEANS

GENOA JEANS

Sep 2, 2021 | ENVIRONMENT, FASHION, ITALY

I would like to point out the event that will be held from today until September 6: Genoa Jeans, a multifaceted and ambitious project that inaugurates the street of jeans.

Such an initiative could only take place in Genoa, the city that gave the name and origin to the most widespread and universal garment of all.

Genes blue.

Since we don’t pay attention to De Nimes, right? And not to bring out the usual rivalry with cousins from beyond the Alps … 

Curious to know what this “street of jeans” which is defined as the future Genoese Carnaby Street consists of, I found myself thinking about how jeans have changed from the first pair worn as a child to today.

So I tried to retrace the transformation of the models:
50s, Marylin, a myth

60s: B. B. embodies freedom

the symbolic image of the 70s is unquestionably represented by the flared jeans

that in the 80s tighten at the bottom and here there is not the slightest doubt: King Giorgio‘s high-waisted jeans. 
But I, who couldn’t afford them, loved the curled balloon version or alternatively with the basque.

ups and then downs? In the 90s the must was wide and long up to trample them …

in the 2000s life was lowered … until it almost disappeared

2010s we go back but the centimeters recovered disappear in width: skinny version

And now? Would you go on with quoting?
How many pairs do you own? How often do you wear jeans? Do you find that they can be suitable for all occasions?

Does your job include the possibility of wearing a pair of jeans or do you have a dress code? I think, for example, of when they were banned by Bush for White House collaborators.

Can you find them totally personal? I ask this because I find it singular even just the fact that there is a debate reported by the New York Times  according to which base FBI investigation on the uniqueness of the denim fabric worn by suspected criminals, since each pair has a unique wear pattern impossible to replicate in a completely identical way.

By the way, this is where the 501 was presented to us in a stone washed version.

But too much water has passed under the bridge so today the trend is directed towards those who instead promote eco-friendely behaviors such as Howies, Monkee Genes or even Mud Jeans which rents them for a monthly leasing fee that can last 12 months after which jeans are yours.

What do you think about?

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