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Showing posts from March, 2025

Building memories around local food experiences

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Attending a recent facilitated food discussion got me thinking about the psychological or food memories we bring to the food spaces we engage in and how these spaces may look in the future by understanding our own psychology.   For me now these food spaces are a community garden, my home garden and kitchen, and a slow recovery mental health recovery kitchen and garden where I work. But in the past I ran my own little cafe.  I grew up living above our family restaurant and later, my family started a bakery. My father died in a car crash on the way to work at the bakery one foggy morning. I was 9. I have wondered what my parents' food memories are and the reasons they choose the paths they did. My mum was born in 1943 and grew up on a farm in England run by her mother while my mum's father was in France and India fighting with the Allies during WII.  She was sent off to boarding school at 9.  My father was born in July 1939 and grew up in Nazi occupied Vienna duri...

eCooking - transition from gas to induction

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eCooking- that’s cooking with electricity - not Eric Cooking. The centrepiece in most kitchens is the range oven/stove top or hobs/burners.  eCooking with stove tops means induction stove tops. But things have changed so we use a few other electric devices to cook with now -  air fryers, microwaves, pressure cookers, slow cookers and sandwich presses Want to read more about transitioning from gas to induction stove tops then get into Chapter 7 in “My efficient electric home handbook” by Tim Forcey. It’s at your local library if you just want to read the chapter. Tim has the details on how to get off gas in your home and transition to electricity.   Me, I’ve just placed a 2000 watt  Germanica camping induction hob  on top of my original kitchen combustion stove and next to my 15 year old gas stove with electric oven.   Why did I do this?  To learn to cook with induction.  To challenge myself and to work out what is needed before I remodelled my kit...

Payback or pay off - the double standards confronting EVs

Years ago when we bought a petrol or diesel vehicle, the payback period meant the time it took you to pay off your loan.  Now people are asking me what’s the payback period for my EV.  I know they mean “what savings will I make by going electric” . Because for some reason people think an EV should pay for itself yet an ICE vehicle you just need to pay off. Double standards I say. Anyway, I’ve done my calculations on paying off and paying back periods of my Kona EV.  You download the spreadsheet and run the numbers for your own circumstance and vehicle, but I've started you off with my figures. Let me know how you go.  Key things for me… I traded in my 2013 Hilux for $23k, I earn $1 per km ($400) a week for work travel, The Kona cost $58k plus on road costs - totalling $67k. So a loan of $43k I charge at home, during the night, from the grid. Our house electricity is from our local energy provider Indigo Power who source electricity from green energy sources, and pur...