Food Studio

October 2011 we visited Nordgard Aukrust Farm in Lom. The invitation to experience the offerings of autumn, as well as a cooking course with Maaemos’ Esben Holmboe Bang tempted Food Studio to Nordgard Aukrust Farm during the past harvest season.

Food studio loves road trips. Most of all we love the stops along the way. The bakery “Bakeriet i Lom” is one of those places. It's a real gem. The bakery is located in the small mountain village Lom, a few hours’ drive from Oslo, not far from the national park Jotunheimen. The man behind it, Morten Schakenda, has been a great inspiration for Food Studio.

Arriving at the farm this weekend was a true experience of stepping into winter wonderland. The rolling hills covered in snow and a bright reflection of the sun gave instant inner peace and joy to those of us arriving from grey city surroundings. No wonder the farmer Sidsel Sandberg had envisioned a Lavvo out here. She pointed out the spot next to her 16 square meter house, where she has dreamt of a permanently installed lavvo for the past ten years.

“It’s fantastic that you come here, that you’re interested in seeing and learning. But,” Sidsel smiles and exclaims: “someone has to do this work every day. Who are they? And when will they come and do it?” We are gathered around the long wooden table in the wash house. Conversation is flowing, and the heat from the fireplace is melting our backs. Fresh baked bread from the oven, soup with freshly harvested vegetables, wine in our water glasses. It’s the day before the fall Get Away, and we, the Food Studio team, are at Hegli farm in Nannestad, a short hour from the capital city.

On a warm Thursday evening in May, Prindseloftet coworking space was finally ready for a well-deserved housewarming out of the ordinary.

In summer, rain or shine, it’s good to be in Håøya. The large and wild island in the middle of the fjord of Oslo is a horn of plenty when comes the foraging o’clock. For the last Get Away of the year, we felt like putting on our hiking boots and go exploring the edible bounty of the season for a campfire dinner between sea and forest.

Scandinavia used to have a rich tradition of brewing beer stretching back hundreds of years. However, over the last few decades this skill seemed to have fallen out of favour. Recently, however, this forgotten art of craft beer-making has been resurrected by small-scale breweries across Scandinavia to great success. Here, Food Studio takes a look at what makes the Nordic approach to brewing beer so special.

During Grüne Woche, The International Green Week, we moved our office to a nice, airy apartment in Berlin and to various cozy cafés in the grey city with a green vibe.

I remember imagining Tasmania, when I was a little girl, as a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. Far, very far away from my country. I thought only Tasmanian devils would inhabit this land, swirling and roaring around just like in the cartoon.

It is the first weekend since the official beginning of spring in Japan, and for the local Tokyo habitant it means one thing: the season of the cherry blossom has finally arrived. Gone are the cold winter days and the short afternoons. Everybody is eager to stretch their legs and look for the best spots in town to witness the marvelous sakura trees come to life again. Along the Meguro River, the sakuras cover the river in white and pink, and a multitude of locals and surprised tourists walk through tunnels of sakura flowers.

The nature and our surroundings are filled with edible and nutritious plants and weeds. Foraging for food ourselves can give a sense of nearness to the nature, and offer surprising gastronomic experiences. Food Studio has been out gathering some of what the nature has to offer right now. This is a guide to some of the plants you can find, and our top tips to what to do with it.

The recent launch of the Oslo Kooperativ heralds a new dawn in bringing organic produce from small scale producers directly to the consumer.

Academic conferences and seminars might be associated with uninspiring talks, bad food and poor logistics, so when The National Academy of the Arts (Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo - KHiO) wanted to make a proper event for design dialogue they knew they needed to change the format completely.

When doing a workshop for the students in clinical nutrition at the VIA University College in Århus, we posed the question: "How can design and the social act of a meal affect the lack of appetite?"

2nd of February we gather a group of collaborators, friends and new acquaintances in Kødbyen, Copenhagen, for a night of exploring, conversation and dining. Gitte Holmboe of Bøgedal Bryghus and chef Thomas Randsøe, along with Anne Lunell and Charles Nystrand from Koppi, made sure we ate and drank well. The guest of honor this night was Stéphane Meyer and Lise Kvan, from the Jura region of France and Paris respectively.

Thomas Harttung, the man Time magazine calls a hero of the environment, presents a few ideas for how cooks can help improve our food systems at MAD 2015.

« Where you tend a rose my lad, a thistle cannot grow. » Francis Hodgson Burnett. To awaken your imagination, I’ll begin this piece with a brief recount of the story of ‘Mary Mary Quite Contrary’ in Burnett’s 1911 children’s classic The Secret Garden. The protagonist, Mary Lennox, is a sickly, ill-tempered young orphan who is sent to the Yorkshire countryside to live with her estranged uncle, Master Craven, a reclusive hunchback who is paralyzed by grief after the loss of his wife.

A wednesday in February. Forty fantastic food enthusiasts gathered in a photo studio at Lilleborg. By the entrance wooly warm socks and Hokkaido soup awaits this evenings guests. Chairs lined up in front of the stage, chit chats by the soup, the chefs busy; preparing, tasting, adding, stirring. Inspiring lectures, listening, learning. Outdoors: Snow. The cold. Indoors: Warmth. Laughter, cooled cider straight from the pile of snow outside.

The association between music festivals and food is not, typically, a happy one. While the bands may be world-class the food, sadly, is often not. No, festivals are for listening to live music at ear-shredding volumes, and if you want gourmet grub then go to a restaurant. But what if the restaurant, a Michelin-starred one at that, came to the festival?

ØKOSLO week recently took place from 14th to the 20th of October. Food studio participated in this inspiring experience and project that showed that Oslo has a lot more to offer concerning organic food culture.

When creative worlds collide, magic happens. Pudder Agency collaborated with Food Studio on the launch of a new branch representing four photographers, creating three different spaces referencing to the world of photography - the Lightroom, Darkroom and Outback.

An evening in April Food Studio arranged a tribute evening to the old-fashioned baking traditions that in the 90's were on their way off breakfast tables across Norway. Now, this traditional craft is on it´s way back, with growing interest amongst hobby bakers, professionals, food bloggers and other baking devotees.

Food Studio got up at 5 a.m. to spread and pack 2000 sandwiches, serving up a tasty, organic and free breakfast to Oslos' early birds, together with Trøbbelskyter and Mathallen Vulkan! Food Studios goal was to challenge the government's requirement of 15% of all food turnover in 2020 being organic. Food Studio went for 50%.
Photos: Christoffer Johannesen

The birds and the bees, farmers and business. Why viable agriculture is important for soil, society and you. Never in history have so few produced so much. Successful streamlining you may think? But what effect does this have on our food? And what is in our food, actually? What do we really know about the complex context in which our food grows?

"With these kinds of projects one must be surrounded by passionate souls, by people that love what they do and what they stand for." Jon-Frede Engdahl reaches out his hand and offers a good cup of coffee. It’s easy to talk with him about raw materials, market shares, possibilities, ecology and idealism. One story leads to another and, before you know it, it’s lunchtime and the restaurant is suddenly filled with hungry women and young mothers on maternity leave.