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Food Opera
THE PLATE IS THE STAGE
We develop multisensory dining experiences that we call food operas. The plate is the stage, as diners encounter a customized soundtrack that responds to their individual rhythms and decisions. Music pairings are delivered via a custom speaker array that positions the source of the sound as close as possible to the dish it accompanies, incorporating cutting edge music technology to achieve an unprecedently close synchronization of music with a meal. Every stream of sound is coordinated in harmony and rhythm by responsive, real-time software, transforming the entire dining area into a lush, immersive sonic environment. This merging of the senses encourages an intensified awareness, enhancing appreciation and enjoyment of not only music and food, but the overall atmosphere of the restaurant.
We consider food opera to be a whole new genre for aesthetic expression, capable of encompassing a wide range of narratives. In past events, we have explored the phenomenological links between the senses, interpreted poetry, and told the stories of local farmers. Food operas foster community in a unique way; since the music is linked to each diner's actions, they become complicit in the experience themselves. We hope that participants emerge from a food opera with a heightened sense not only of the interconnectedness of their own senses, but also of the connections that link them to the people around them, as well as their place in the food supply ecosystem and the broader environment.
FOOD OPERA EVENTS
on the sensations of beer (2018)
A multisensory dining experience that puts the writings of pioneering 19th century German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz in dialog with contemporary researchers and poets to explore the links between the senses of hearing and taste, taking place at BRLO BRWHOUSE in Berlin on September 20, 2018, as the official banquet of the fourth Web Audio Conference.
MUGARITZ XX (2018)
A special collaboration with Andoni Luis Aduriz and his team at Mugaritz in San Sebastián, Spain. To celebrate their twentieth anniversary, we designed a system of intelligent plates with embedded sensors and music playback devices. These plates network together to play music in response to diners' actions, accompanying a dish that resembles an acorn embedded in amber. The dish was first served on June 13, 2018, and will remain part of the 20+-course tasting menu for the rest of the year. More information about this unique project is forthcoming!
Le Dîner des Amazones (2018)
Our second collaboration with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and chef David Verdo, this work takes as its point of departure French Romantic composer Étienne Méhul's overture to his opera Les Amazones, presented as a pre-concert dining event at Symphony Hall, January 6 and 9, 2018.
quiver, pop and dissolve: three essays in gastromorphology (2017)
A collaboration with Jozef Youssef of Kitchen Theory in which the soundtrack to the dining experience was delivered via participants' mobile devices. Premiered at the third Web Audio Conference, Queen Mary University of London, August 21, 2017.
ploughman's lunch: an aural reconsideration (2017)
A collaboration with David Matchett of London's Borough Market. Premiered at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, July 9, 2017.
Music + Food Class (2017)
A complete summer semester course on the food opera project, presented through Berklee College of Music's Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship. Classes took places in Berklee's Dining Hall, and students worked with chefs on regular food scoring exercises in preparation for a final project scoring a four-course meal in collaboration with chefs at America's Test Kitchen.
cena concertante alla maniera di vivaldi (2017)
A culinary remix of Vivaldi's Piccolo Concerto in C, RV 443, developed in collaboration with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and chef David Verdo, presented as a pre-concert dining event at Symphony Hall, January 5 and 7, 2017.
Untitled cocktail #3 (2016)
November 30, 2016. A collaboration between Ben and Café ArtScience's award-winning bartender Todd Maul. Presented in the context of Ben's presentation "Food Opera: Exploring Audiogustatory Correspondences" at Le Laboratoire, part of the Non-Event curated 2016-2017 speaker series.
The Saint Paul Food Opera (2016)
October 6-8, 2016. A collaboration between composer Ben Houge, acclaimed new music ensemble Zeitgeist, and some of St. Paul's most well regarded chefs and food purveyors: Leonard Anderson of Tongue in Cheek; Adam Eaton of Saint Dinette; Cheyenne Broughton, pastry chef of Handsome Hog; Tracy Brice of Golden's Lowertown Deli; Izzy's Ice Cream; and Brake Bread. This event is supported by a Knight Foundation grant and a Berklee Faculty Fellowship. For more information visit http://www.zeitgeistnewmusic.org/saint-paul-food-opera.html.
The santa Croce Food Opera (2016)
Developed and presented as part of the First Crossmodalist Symposium, which took place on July 26-31, 2016, at Santa Croce, a former monastery on the outskirts of Batignano in Tuscany and home to British sculptor Emily Young. Sounds of the surrounding landscape blended with the voices and rituals of the community, accompanying a meal of local ingredients by Charles Michel, one of the Crossmodalism founders.
Vinfonies (2015)
Ben composed a new piece of music to accompany a 2012 Azul y Garanza Garciano as part of this annual event near Barcelona, September 24-27, 2015.
Opera Tech Workshop class (2015)
In the summer of 2015, Ben taught a class at Berklee College of Music's Valencia campus, exploring the technology behind his food operas as well as the science and aesthetics of pairing music and food. Students presented their final projects in the context of an eight-course tasting menu at Quique Dacosta's Michelin-starred restaurant El Poblet.
The Search for Metaphorical Matchings through Wine and Music (2015)
Ben collaborated with Janice Wang of Oxford University's Crossmodal Research Laboratory and Alistair Cooper of 1855 Wine Bar on an event that paired music with six different wines as part of an experiment to see how sound affects the perception of taste, February 23, 2015.
Beside the White Chickens: A Summer Food Opera (2013)
Our third collaboration with chef Jason Bond took place at his Bondir restaurant in Cambridge, MA, on July 30, 2013. The five-course menu featured chicken supplied by Pete and Jen's Backyard Birds of Concord, MA, and was loosely inspired by William Carlos Williams' poem "The Red Wheelbarrow," with prominent contributions from sous chef Rachel Miller.
Sensing Terroir: A Harvest Food Opera (2012)
Our second collaboration with Jason Bond, and the first at Bondir, incorporated field recordings from the local farms that provide his ingredients and interviews with the farmers, presented via a 30-channel speaker array, considering a meal from the standpoint of sensory ethnography and applying the "farm to table" ethos to sound. The event took place on November 13, 2012.
Food Opera: Four Asparagus Compositions (2012)
Our first public event took place on May 22, 2012, our first collaboration with Jason Bond, as the final event in a food and design series at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, curated by Jutta Friedrichs, Lizzie MacWillie, and Sara Hendren.
Shanghai Workshop (2010)
While living in Shanghai, Ben invited a group of artists, curators, and friends to participate in a workshop presented in collaboration with chef Caroline Steger, developing an idea that had been gestating since 2006. Ben composed music based on the multicourse meal and influenced by the ensuing discussion, some of which was incorporated into the first public event at Harvard.
Additional Presentations
Presentation at Boston Tech Poetics, July 10, 2018
Science by the Pint: Original Gravity, a discussion hosted by Keith Kirchoff, hosted by Aeronaut Brewery (listen to the podcast here), January 18, 2018
Food Opera presentation at HUBweek in Boston, including music paired with a chocolate mochi by chef Tracy Chang delivered via audience members' mobile phones, October 14, 2017
"Web Audio in the Dining Room," presented at the third Web Audio Conference, Queen Mary University of London, August 21, 2017
"The Sonic Landscape of Food: Imaginary Landscapes and Virtual Terroir," presented at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, July 9, 2017
Workshop with La Fura dels Baus and Mugaritz, Badalona, Spain, July 2-5, 2017
Music consulting for tasting events at Dr. Frank Winery in the Finger Lakes region of New York, in collaboration with Dr. Janice Wang of Oxford's Crossmodal Research Laboratory, summer 2017.
Kitchen as Studio, Restaurant as Stage: Exploring the Links Between Music and Food, Berklee ICE Creative Entrepreneurs Conversation, a panel featuring Jason Bond, Tracy Chang, Brother Cleve, and Youji Iwakura, moderated by Ben Houge, Berklee College of Music, April 20, 2017
Food Opera: Art, Technology, and Perception in the Dining Room, ArtTechPsyche III, Harvard University, April 20, 2017.
Cooking up Ideas: A Conversation with Mugaritz, panel discussion at MIT, November 2, 2016
The First Crossmodalist Symposium, Santa Croce, Batignano, Tuscany, Italy, July 26-31, 2016
Percepción Sensorial y Arte Culinario in collaboration with Mugaritz, Miramar Palace, San Sebastián, July 13-15, 2016
Art Technology New England, Boston Cyberarts Gallery, February 24, 2016
Berklee Teachers on Teaching, including a three-course meal with musical accompaniment, developed in collaboration with chefs at Berklee's new dining hall, January 11, 2016
Hugo Boss fragrance event, in collaboration with chef Jozef Youssef of Kitchen Theory, London, England, November 17, 2015
Chivas whisky tasting event with chef Jozef Youssef, London, England, September 16, 2015
Presentation to the R&D team at Mugaritz, San Sebastián, Spain, August 7, 2015
Presentation to the R&D team at the Fat Duck, Bray, England, June 29, 2015
Oxford University, Crossmodal Research Laboratory, February 24, 2015
Invisible Places Sounding Cities conference, Viseu, Portugal, July 18-20, 2014
TEDx Berklee Valencia, Valencia, Spain, June 21, 2014
The Second International Workshop on Musical Metacreation, Northeastern University, Boston, USA, October 14-15, 2013
Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, presenting alongside chef Jason Bond as part of our first public food opera, May 22, 2012
"The Influence of Music on the Perception of Oaked Wines: A Tasting Room Case Study in the Finger Lakes Region" by Janice Wang, Meaghan Frank, Ben Houge, Charles Spence, and Kathryn Anne LaTour
Presented at the 12th Annual American Association of Wine Economists Conference 2018, Ithaca, New York, USA, June 10-14, 2018
"Web Audio in the Dining Room" by Ben Houge
Presented at the third Web Audio Conference, Queen Mary University of London, August 21-23, 2017
"Quiver, Pop, and Dissolve: Three Essays in Gastromorphology" by Ben Houge
"The Sonic Landscape of Food: Imaginary Landscapes and Virtual Terroir" by Ben Houge
Presented at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, July 7-9, 2017
The following four articles, published as a series in NewMusicBox in November 2015, provides a fairly comprehensive overview of the project to date.
"Tasting Notes," November 2, 2015
"Bridging Gastronomy and Art Requires Making Connections," November 9, 2015
"Vinfonies, Nessun Dorma, and Gastromorphology," November 16, 2015
"Complicity and the Chemical Senses," November 23, 2015
"Food Opera: Transforming the Restaurant Soundscape" by Ben Houge
Presented at the Invisible Places Sounding Cities conference in Viseu, Portugal, July 18-20, 2014
"Food Opera: An Approach to Scoring Everyday Life" by Ben Houge
Presented at TEDx Berklee Valencia, June 21, 2014
"Food Opera: Merging Taste and Sound in Real-Time" by Ben Houge
Published in NewMusicBox, September 11, 2013, incorporating material from the MUME 2013 paper below.
"Food Opera: A New Genre for Audio-Gustatory Expression" by Ben Houge and Jutta Friedrichs
Presented at the Second International Workshop on Musical Metacreation (MUME 2013), which was held at the Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 13), Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, October 14-15, 2013
"Food Opera Manifesto" by Ben Houge
Published on Ben's blog, Aesthetic Cartography, October 19, 2012
"How Shapes and Sounds Can Change What You Taste"
Molly McDonough, Culture, May 9, 2018
"Ben Houge of Berklee Pairs Meals with Music in Food Operas"
Jenna Pelletier, Boston Magazine, April 11, 2018
"Food Operas Elevate the Art of Eating"
Alison Arnett, The Boston Globe, January 22, 2018
"Ben Houge: Symphony for the Devilled"
Tom Jenkins, Fine Dining Lovers, November 7, 2017
"How Music Can Influence the Way We Eat"
Rafael Tonon, Foodlosofers, November 7, 2017
"Berklee Students Compose Music for a Feast"
Cristela Guerra, The Boston Globe, August 25, 2017
"At Berklee, Scoring a Meal like It Was a Movie"
Kristin Toussaint, Metro Boston, August 9, 2017
"Music Class Teaches Students to Score Meals"
Elisabeth Sherman, Food & Wine, August 3, 2017
"¿La escasez nos hace ser más creativos?"
Andoni Luis Aduriz, El País, February 10, 2017
"How Kitchen Sounds Influence Food Flavor"
Allison Aubrey, NPR's All Things Considered, December 24, 2016
"Taste with your Ears"
Molly Birnbaum, Cook's Science, December 19, 2016
"Ben Houge's Food Operas Turn Your Plate into a Stage"
Theresa Beckhusen, Paste Magazine, December 7, 2016
"Connecting Communities through Unexpected Pairings"
Ira Brooker, Knight Foundation Blog, September 26, 2016
"What's Cooking: St. Paul Food Opera Debuts"
Kim Ode, Minneapolis Star Tribune, September 22, 2016
"St. Paul's Musical Meals Let Diners Taste Food-Sound Pairings"
Nancy Ngo, St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 29, 2016
"St. Paul Food Opera looks to heighten the dining experience"
Levi Weinhagen, Knight Foundation Blog, April 30, 2015
"From Food Operas to Video Game Scoring, Making Interdisciplinary Connections through Music"
Alison Arnett, Berklee News, March 26, 2015
"Explainer: Interactive Composition"
Oliver Bown, The Conversation, November 25, 2014
"Rising to the challenge, St. Paul artists will split $1.4 million from Knight Foundation"
Mary Abbe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, September 30, 2014
"Top 5 Audience Participatory Opera Experiences"
Amanda Angel, WQXR, May 1, 2014
"Sounds of the Farm Accompany Diners at Bondir's Food Opera"
Allison DeAngelis, Cambridge Chronicle, August 8, 2013
"Boston Date Night Pick"
Mara Littman, Boston Herald, July 29, 2013
"A Sound Diet"
Jon Irwin, Kill Screen, June 20, 2013
"Sensing Terroir: Where Taste and Sound Collide"
Becky Tachihara, Dig Boston, November 12, 2012
"Feast for the Senses: MDesS students host Food Opera at the GSD"
Harvard GSD News, July 2, 2012
"Asparagus: a food opera"
Michael Mackenzie, Australia Radio National First Bite, June 16, 2012
"The Sound of Asparagus, as Explored through Opera"
Eyder Peralta, NPR, June 1, 2012
Ben Houge
Composer, Sound Artist, Professor
Originator of the Food Opera project
Ben Houge has been sharing his vision for connecting music and food internationally since 2010, not only in his acclaimed food opera events, but also in presentations at institutions and universities (including Harvard and Oxford), at academic conferences (The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, MUME, the Web Audio Conference), and at some of the world's leading restaurants (such as The Fat Duck and Mugaritz). He also works as a food and music consultant, having composed music for whisky and perfume. While there has been an explosion of interest in pairing food with other art forms in recent years, Ben's work goes beyond the mere observation that senses can be linked to consider what kinds of new experiences are enabled and what kinds of stories can be told.
Ben is also focused on how new technologies can allow music to be tightly coordinated with a meal in time and space to an unprecedented degree. He draws from his experience designing audio for the video game industry, where questions of indeterminacy and interactivity are a matter of day-to-day business, at companies including Sierra, Microsoft, and Ubisoft since 1996. Highlights from Ben's video game career include composing the classic string quartet soundtrack for Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura (2001) and developing an innovative cell-based music engine as audio director of Tom Clancy's EndWar (2008).
In addition to his work with chefs, Ben's other compositional concerns include networked music for audience mobile devices, multichannel sound installations, generative video, and music for dance, including a sixteen-channel soundtrack for New Movement Collective's Please Be Seated, a commission from Southbank Centre premiered in London in 2014. Ben has also composed extensively for choirs, including commissions from Emmanuel Church in Boston, the Minnesota Compline Choir, and the Esoterics, and he finds grounding in contrasting his high tech pursuits with the lowest tech form of music making that exists.
Ben grew up studying classical piano, writing pop songs, and fiddling with synthesizers. He holds degrees in classical music composition from St. Olaf College and the University of Washington, and he is currently an associate professor in the Electronic Production and Design department at Berklee College of Music. He recently returned to the Boston area after two years in Spain, where he helped to establish and develop curriculum for the Music Production, Technology, and Innovation master's program at Berklee's new campus in Valencia. There he investigated Spain's culinary landscape and incorporated concepts from the food opera project into his teaching; students presented their final projects for one class in the context of an eight-course tasting menu at Quique Dacosta's Michelin-starred restaurant El Poblet.
Ben has lived around one third of his life outside of the US, including six years developing video games in China and six years growing up in the West African countries of Liberia and Ivory Coast, and this multicultural perspective deeply informs his approach to interdisciplinary and multisensory collaboration. More information is available at benhouge.com.
Jutta Friedrichs
Producer, Curator, Designer
Jutta Friedrichs designs the speaker centerpieces and other visual elements of the food opera events, in addition to managing the production and communications. She has visited farms to conduct interviews with the farmers growing the food, part of her ongoing inquiry into people, public space, urban infrastructure, and the built environment; these recordings have been incorporated into past food operas. In addition to her work on the food opera project, Jutta is active as an artist, writer, and curator. In her writings and multichannel audio-visual installations she explores cultural and phenomenological interrelations between the body and its surroundings, and as a curator, she helped organize Boston's massive Illuminus Festival.
Jutta holds degrees from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and she is currently a mentor at the Harvard Innovation Lab. From 2005 to 2010, she lived in Shanghai, China, where she founded Mü Furniture as an outlet for her award-winning designs. She is the cofounder of Changing Environments, a company developing smart urban furniture, whose first product, Soofa, was launched at the White House's first Maker's Faire and has been well received in publications such as The Washington Post, Mashable and Fastcompany.
http://www.juttafriedrichs.com/About
JANICE (QIAN) WANG
Wine Expert and Researcher at Oxford's Crossmodal Research Laboratory
Janice assisted with a myriad of details for the two Bondir events and collaborated on a wine and music pairing event in Oxford in 2015. She is also president of Oxford's Blind Tasting Society.
https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/team/qian-wang
Stephan Moore
Sound Artist and Composer
Stephan is a lecturer in Sound Art and Sound Design at Northwestern University and an accomplished composer of music for a wide range of media, including extensive work in the field of dance. He helped operate the software at the two Bondir events and contributed the use of his unique, custom-built hemisphere speakers.
http://oddnoise.com
Enrique Gonzalez Müller
Producer, Engineer, Arranger
Enrique is a professor in Berklee's Music Production and Engineering department and a Grammy-winning producer. He engineered recording sessions for the Bondir food operas and provided support on the speaker configuration.
http://www.siameseschool.com
Thanks also to all of the musicians who have contributed to the food opera project over the years, including Melissa Howe, viola; Ro Rowan, cello; Fernando Brandão, flute; Peter Cokkinias, clarinet; Margaret Phillips, bassoon; Sergio Martínez, percussion; Victor Mendoza, marimba; and the members of Zeitgeist. Thanks also to the photographers who have documented our work, in particular Melissa Rivard and Andrew Janjigian.
JASON BOND, BONDIR
http://www.bondircambridge.com/
Tracy Chang, Pagu
http://www.gopagu.com/story/
david matchett, borough market
http://boroughmarket.org.uk
Jozef Youssef, Kitchen Theory
https://kitchen-theory.com
http://www.zeitgeistnewmusic.org
The Boston Symphony orchestra
https://www.bso.org
VINFONIES
http://www.vinfonies.org/wp/
The Crossmodalists
http://www.crossmodalism.com/#themanifesto
Q: I love opera! So there must be a lot of singing, right?
Ben Houge: Actually, a food opera doesn't necessarily include singing. I use the word for its multimedia associations; opera (along with video games and film) is one of the most all-enveloping art forms that we've got, involving music, drama, text, choreography, visual art, etc. I use the term to draw attention to the fact that I'm bringing together food, music, design, and technology in a completely new way that engages even more senses than a traditional opera.
But, yes, I totally love opera, too! Some of my favorite performances of 2015 were Berg's Lulu at the Met Opera in NYC and Keeril Makan's new opera based on Ingmar Bergman's film Persona at MIT.
Q: But are there live musicians performing while people are eating? Kind of a dinner theater thing?
BH: Actually, the music emanates from speakers at each diner's seat; there are no live performers, other than myself and sometimes another collaborator watching the room and operating the software (a bit like a DJ, I suppose). This project is about achieving an unprecedented synchronization between music and a meal, and so instead of having music coming from a stage on the other side of the room, I set it up this way to bring the music as close as possible to the food: the plate is the stage.
While I love going to live music concerts, I feel that having live musicians present in the restaurant can divide diners' attention in a way that detracts from the nuanced sensory experience we're trying to convey.
Q: So the music is prerecorded? You just press play on an iPod at the beginning of each course?
BH: "Prerecorded" isn't really the right term. The music is based on recordings I've made of acoustic musicians, but it's being deployed by a real-time software system I developed. This allows me to respond to the unpredictable timings of the dining room; I can't know in advance what dish someone will order, or when it will arrive, or how long it will take someone to eat it. So I wrote a program that lets me start each piece of music at the touch of a button, and it will continue indefinitely until I tell it to stop. It functions kind of a like a loop, but it never repeats itself; the software is constantly generating new, natural-sounding variations that won't get annoying or repetitive. This software builds on techniques I've developed in my career designing audio for video games since 1996; like a video game soundtrack, it's somewhere between "live" and "prerecorded."
Q: If the sound is coming through speakers, couldn't it be anything? Why use traditional instruments?
BH: I feel like the real-time processing I'm doing to my recordings mirrors the kind of alchemy that happens in a kitchen. You start with raw ingredients and then transform them into something new that nonetheless bears vestiges of the original materials. Some sounds are manipulated more than others. One piece I developed uses a recording of a hulusi, a reed instrument from China; the sound is pitch-shifted and arpeggiated and otherwise manipulated beyond recognition, but it retains a nice organic quality. Using these instruments also situates what I'm doing within a certain musical tradition.
But we're not limited to traditional, acoustic instruments by any means. In some projects we've also incorporated field recordings from the local farms providing the ingredients and interviews with farmers, applying the "farm to table" ethos to sound as a kind of sensory ethnography.
Q: Does everybody have to eat at the same time?
BH: No, it's asynchronous, just how people typically eat in a restaurant. Of course the system can also support a synchronized experience, but at our longest events, we took reservations anywhere between 5 and 10pm, and people would start their meal whenever they arrived. This means that you could be on your first course, while someone else is on their fourth, resulting in a kind of emergent exposition and recapitulation, based on the rhythms of the dining room.
Q: But if the music is synchronized with each person's meal, and everyone's eating different things at different times, won't that sound totally cacophonous? Why not just use headphones?
BH: That's the hard part! I write the musical textures for each dish to be modular, so that they will sound good in any combination. It's a little bit similar to the way you might isolate the guitar, percussion, and vocal parts of a song. Since everything is coordinated by a central computer network, I can ensure that all of the music in the dining room is playing in the same key and rhythm.
There have been some interesting food and music pairings that use headphones (most famously Heston Blumenthal's The Sound of the Sea), but I avoid them for two reasons. First, it cuts you off from the rest of the dining room, so you're not able to share the experience with those around you (especially if someone else wants a bite). Second, headphones might work for one dish, but I think they'd start to get uncomfortable if you scaled this up to an evening-length experience.
Q: Are there certain kinds of food that work best? What kind of music goes with this burrito?
BH: I try to avoid foods that already have strong associations. I like to work with chefs who put together ingredients in creative and innovative ways that don't overtly reference traditional dishes or culinary cultures. I feel like this helps people engage their senses, to tune in and really evaluate what they're experiencing, since they can't directly relate it to a past experience of the same dish. Particularly in ethnic restaurants, the association between traditional cuisine and traditional music is often reinforced in a way that can kind of short-circuit diners' critical faculties.
Q: Can you come do a food opera in my town?
BH: I'd love to! We've tried to design the system to be fairly portable, and I love meeting new collaborators. I'm happy to talk about developing a new piece, and I also have a repertoire of existing music for this format that we can present in collaboration with new chefs, just as a more traditional opera can be restaged in new productions with different sets, direction, and performers.


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Does Farm to Table Mean Pumpkin Pie?
'Pumpkin Pie'
courtesy of 'benklocek'
Hard to believe, but true — soon it'll be time for pumpkin pie! And pumpkin dip, and pumpkin muffins…nom, nom, nom.
As the fall harvest starts, Arlington is celebrating local foods like the great pumpkin. Its Farm to Table Month runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 14, with locavore dinners at several restaurants including Willow and Eventide.
There will also be movie nights, with films such as The True Cost of Food and FRESH. Next Tuesday's kickoff is from 6-9 at, where else, the Whole Foods in Clarendon.
An area resident since 1997, Donna C. is a DC outsider. When she's not running her writing and Web business, she's running around the city, exploring the great outdoors, or trying to figure out how best to go green. See why she loves DC.
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An area resident since 1997, Donna C. is a DC outsider. When she's not running her writing and Web business, she's running around the city, exploring the great outdoors, or trying to figure out how best to go green. See why she loves DC.
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They're searching tall grass, looking for the tiny, blood sucking ticks spreading Lyme disease.
"Yes, I think, I think everybody, in the back of their mind is, you know, worried about it a little bit."
Researchers say a growing number of infected ticks are migrating north from the US, likely a result of climate change. The number of reported cased went up from one hundred and twenty eight in two thousand and nine to over seven hundred last year. Canada's top doctor is sounding the alarm.
"The numbers could be in several thousands in the next few years."
And Lyme disease is uncharted territory for a lot of doctors.
"If they're like me, they went to med school and were told Lyme disease isn't something that people get here. Now it really is."
If detected early a short course of antibiotics cures most people. Left untreated Lyme disease can look like anything from a skin rash, or arthritis to heart problems and even meningitis, leaving some patients desperate for a diagnosis.
"People felt that it was hopeless, people, some people were even talking about considering suicide as an option, which was, was very distressing."
Patients had a chance to share their experiences with doctors and policy makers this week at a Lyme disease conference. Experts say new tests, for what some say is a chronic version of the disease are on the horizon. However treatment at that late stage is unclear.
"There is some controversies and disagreements on what's the best treatment but we need science and evidence to support and tell us what's the best treatment is."
In the meantime, prevention is key. Covering up, tucking your pants into your socks, and using a bug repellent containing DEET go a long ways.
"You have to know that an engorged tick looks like a big freckle that wasn't there before."
Scan your skin, your children and your pets for ticks, they can be carefully removed with tweezers, not pretty, but it works.
Cristine Birak, CBC News, Toronto.


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Discovering Abu Simbel: Ramesses II's great legacy
Abu Simbel is one of the great wonders of Egypt, second only to the Great Pyramids of Giza for its iconic architecture and heritage. The crowning jewel in Ramesses II's illustrious collection of buildings and monuments, the temple complex has seen a thousand years of upheaval, emerging as one of the very finest monuments of the ancient world.
Discovering the world's heritage wonders has always played a major role in our river cruises and tours, and few destinations on Earth are better suited to this kind of travel than Egypt. Join us on the great River Nile and you'll have a front-row seat for a journey of exploration and discovery, as we encounter Egyptian monuments like Abu Simbel, Luxor Museum and the Pyramids.
Ahead of your river Nile journey, learn more about Abu Simbel and the legacy of Ramesses II in our in-depth and interactive guide below.
Abu Simbel's temples, shrines and monuments
Given it was built over 3,000 years ago, Abu Simbel was a hugely ambitious and progressive architectural project, spearheaded by the so-called 'God King', Ramesses II. The site is rich in design flourishes which paint a dramatic picture of Egyptian culture, capturing the pharaoh's approach to life, love and worship.
Discover more about the highlights of Abu Simbel below.
The Great Temple
The Great Temple is the most striking feature of Abu Simbel. Encompassing the main façade of the site, it stands at a height of 30 metres and features four seated colossi, including Ramesses himself. As you enter the main entrance of the temple, vast carvings and symbols can be seen on the walls, including images of Ramesses and Nefertiti paying homage to the gods. Ramesses' historic victory in the Battle of Kadesh is also heavily featured, with a large mosaic depicting details of the battle on the north side of the vast Hypostyle Hall.
The Small Temple
Abu Simbel's Small Temple is found close to The Great Temple, but is significantly smaller, standing at just 12 metres in height. Historians believe that Ramesses built The Small Temple and dedicated it to Queen Nefertiti. Indeed, the Pharaoh's adoration for Nefertiti is illustrated by the fact that the temple features two statues of the pair at the same height, which was unheard of in the ancient world. The interior of the temple is richly decorated with images of Ramesses and his queen, and also includes several depictions of Hathor, a sky deity said to represent the earthly vestiges of the sun god, Ra. Like The Great Temple, The Small Temple was moved to its current site in the 1960s, protecting it from the rising waters of the River Nile following the construction of Aswan Dam.
Ramesses' vision for Abu Simbel
The decision to build Abu Simbel in its original location, on the border between Egypt and Nubia, was no accident. Ramesses was well aware of the site's sacred history, and its ancient connection to Hathor. Throughout his reign, Ramesses was revered as a god among men, and the construction of Abu Simbel on this holy site served to bolster his image. The Pharaoh was obsessed with showcasing his supposed divinity, building the temple so the sun shines directly into The Great Temple, illuminating his image in the face of Ra. And, amazingly, the two days in which the sun falls directly on The Great Temple are believed to coincide with Ramesses' birthday and coronation, on 21 February and 21 October respectively.
Aswan Dam and the relocation of an ancient iron
In the early 1960s, the Egyptian government made public its plans to build the Aswan High Dam across the Nile, in a bid to reduce flooding and aid greater water storage and irrigation throughout the Nile Delta. In response, a team of archaeologists partnered with UNESCO to mastermind a grand plan to move Abu Simbel, which would otherwise have been left submerged in water when the Nile burst its banks.
Over a four-year period, the entire complex was painstakingly dismantled and moved to a new location 213 feet up to the top of the plateau, set down around 690 feet north-west of its original location. The work cost over $40million, and included the creation of a man-made mountain erected to make it appear that the temple had been hewn from rock. Great care also had to be taken to orientate the temples to the same position and direction.
As well as The Great Temple and The Small Temple, all of Abu Simbel's original, statues and minor structures were also relocated, retaining the temple complex in its true original condition. To carry out the relocation safely while minimising the risk of destruction, each of the temples and buildings was sawn into blocks, which were lifted and repositioned by crane. The main bulk of the work was completed over four years, but the project wasn't fully completed until 1980, with historians and archaeologists going to great lengths to ensure that Abu Simbel was preserved in its foremost condition.
Today, the temple complex is the most visited ancient site in Egypt after the Pyramids of Giza, with thousands of visitors making the pilgrimage to the site each year. Shortly after the relocation work was completed, a small, regional airport was constructed in the adjacent village of Abu Simbel – such is the enduring popularity of this ancient wonder.
Experience the majesty of Abu Simbel with Emerald Waterways
Join Emerald Waterways on the timeless waters of the River Nile and uncover the illustrious history of Abu Simbel. Our Nile river cruises and tours through Egypt and Jordan give you the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Pharaohs, kings and explorers alike, as you cut a course through the heart of one of the world's most fascinating regions.
From Cairo, Amman and Luxor to the Deaf Sea, our itineraries feature discovery and wonder in abundance, as you marvel at a collection of Egypt and Jordan's most esteemed ancient sites. For more information, download our Egypt and Jordan river cruise brochure or call our team of cruise experts now on 0808 115 0469.
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Zend_Mail_Storage_Pop3 is what you are looking for.

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If you love puzzle mystery novels, complicated cold cases, and detectives tackling the most twisted crimes, take this opportunity to introduce yourself to USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith's Cold Poker Gang. Smith takes you into the world of his acclaimed novel Dead Money with a series focused around a group of retired Las Vegas Police detectives playing poker and solving cold cases. Retired Detective Bayard Lott hosts the weekly poker games at his home. The group calls themselves the Cold Poker Gang. And they have proven very successful in solving cases they take out of the deep freeze.


Can you learn Croatian in 3 days? Of course not, but with CROchat you learn Croatian greetings, how to small talk in Croatian, how to order coffee or shop on the local market - all by using Croatian!
If you are visiting Zagreb, it's a perfect oportunity to chat with us in Croatian in the heart of Zagreb - and make your Croatian travelling experience - even more useful and fun!
CROchat course lasts for three days, with two 90 minutes lessons per each day. If your staying in Zagreb is shorter, we can adjust the lessons to be held in 2 days.
Croatian medium course – CROplus is intended for people who have already adopted the basis of the Croatian language, whether they have learned it in some other course, or simply acquired it by staying in Croatia.
Croatian conversational course - CROtalk is intended and recommended for people who have an existing knowledge of Croatian language and want to improve it. You can take 20 or 30 lessons, according to your needs. This course will develop the knowledge of Croatian you already have, broaden it, while boosting your confidence, too..
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Microsoft Unveils Xbox One Tech Series Controller | Nerd Much?
Microsoft has announced a brand new controller to kick off the Tech Series of Xbox Wireless Controllers. The company has named it the Recon Tech Special Edition and it will be coming to retailers April 25th for $69.99 USD.
The design of the controller is purely ergonomic with a "textured diamond rubberized grip" on the back. The front gold accents and insignia are inspired by a military and almost steampunk style.
The custom button-mapping via the Xbox Accessories App and upcoming Copilot features (available in the next Creators Update later this year) are also compatible with the Recon controller.
If you don't already know, the Copilot feature is yet another brilliant innovation from Microsoft that "allows any two Xbox Wireless Controllers act as if they were one." It's part of the company's ongoing project to make gaming more accessible and I couldn't applaud them more for it.
As the announcement states, it's perfect for introducing new players, playing with your kids, and those that might require "unique configurations to play." All without any requirements from developers to change or add to their games, it's already in the console's system itself.
What do you think of the Recon controller? Is it worth the money for the ergonomic design and wireless features? Let us know in the comments below!


Miss Ahna Renee Malorin, 2016 Lil Miss Pincher and Mr. Cale Patrick Lasseigne, 2016 Lil Master Pincher will relinquish their titles on Saturday, March 18, 2017. Ahna is the daughter of Kristin and Paul Malorin. Cale is the son of Tara and Collin Lasseigne. Miss KateLynn Nicole Hamilton, 2016 Jr. Crawfish Queen will relinquish her title on Saturday, March 18, 2017. She is the daughter of Paul and Nicole Hamilton. The 2016 Ecrevettes are Emily Boudreaux, Bree Guidry and Riley Camacho. Forms for the 2017 pageant can be found on our "Events & Info" page.
Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival Association would like to thank them for a job well done!


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