Tilt

Tilt is fortunate to have clients all around the world and to be able to travel to experience the best and most unique food opportunities that exist on the planet. After being introduced to the Dutch consulting practice of KPMG in May, we have been staying connected and hoping that we could find a way to partner up on a few projects. Our new client and friend, selected a wonderful location for the discussion – De Kas Restaurant.

This space is out of this world or rather ‘on the farm’. With a beautiful and picturesque stage, set in the in middle of Frankendael Park in East Amsterdam, this used to be a working production facility for growing food for blue collar workers in the late 1920s through the Great Depression. When scheduled to be demolished in the early 2000′s Gert Jan Hageman took it upon himself to develop a spectacular restaurant concept.

The dining area is situated in and around a variety of different food production areas. Mostly for show, but nonetheless useful, there are two major growing areas at the front of the building at the entrance which leave little to the imagination about where the food will be eaten. It is great from an education standpoint to recognize what it takes to provide you with the food that you are eating.

Walking into the room at night must have a very different appreciation than what one would have during the day, but regardless you are overwhelmed with sense of space. Vaulted ceilings surround and are even higher than you can  imagine. The lighting is minimal and simplistic, making the glassware and people’s eyes twinkle. My client mentioned that there were several very well known faces in the audience that he recognized from the Amsterdam elite community. While I didn’t pick up on that component, I did feel like we all looked like stars under the endless ceiling.

A preplanned menu is always my preference – way less decisions to be made and we were fortunate to have a conscious and thoughtful chef who took my allergies into consideration (some of which didn’t translate perfectly, but the gist of it was clear and I was able to eat almost everything on my plate). The taste profile was a mix between what I would know of traditional Danish food blended with Norwegian and French cuisine. The scallops (which are shown below) were my particular favorite. The presentation was embedded into some sort of fairytale, with the shell acting as the stage and the radish and spinach leaf looking the part of the props. Fabulous.

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Last week in Amsterdam I got a taste of world cuisine. Currently I am fascinated with the flavor profiles of a mix of different cultures and in building the Tilt Cafe, this little spot of heaven was a must in my line of sight. So, I trekked through the foot of snow, the wind and the continuation of the storm for a quick 20 minute walk to a restaurant called Dish. Global Kitchen in West Amsterdam on Overtoom Street.

I would love to have this place in my retirement. Small, simple, basic and fun for all ages. There is really nothing special or signature about the layout. You walk in and up to the counter for order and purchase to take away or you can order and sit in the space if you rather. When you walk into the space, you step up from the front counter to the seating area, step down to the kitchen.

There are cakes and espresso available to purchase at the counter. Beer and wine are also available, and you can rest on a window stool if you wish. My favorite element is an stainless steel industrial juicer that is constantly running next to a very open service area for employees to use.

There is a community table and really fabulous can lighting. Total square feet is small and including the kitchen is around 1000 sq ft.

Everything feels comfortable and worn. Thousands of seats have graced the same seat I am sitting in which makes for a nice story. The community is very kids focused. They have a community neighborhood center next door and some good shopping areas up and down the street that make this a very popular area – albeit a little on the higher end.

My meal is excellent and tasty. Mixing salad with a coconut milk sauteed whole mushroom dressing. Just absolutely delicious. Sweet, spicy and a little touch of nutmeg or something winterish. You can certainly smell the kitchen going and the smells are coming up the stairs, filling the seating area. Embarrassing as it is to admit, but I had the same thing twice because it was so delicious!

The staff is friendly, but very non-chalont. They are helpful and understand everything on the menu. To a person with food allergies… they took extra care. The menu itself is a board with a screen printed logo, 2 rings and a bunch of laminated pictures. It is broken into categories of food profiles based on location and there are images that relate to that country. The general vibe is very Amsterdamesque – i.e. way too cool for school!

Interesting that people that you meet along your life and have similar thoughts and experiences as you. From my colleague Murali Krishnan who has been to Dish before: “I ate everything that was quintessential Amsterdam…and in all honesty DISH was the only place that fit my complicated profile. Meal was simple yet the complexities were subtle. There is something that they are doing right.

The simplicity, the decor, the complex lunch menu…I liked it. The guy that I spoke to was friendly but nonchalant (that is the overall vibe I got from amsterdam). ”

So, if you are in Amsterdam, stop by Dish and have a global treat. I promise a tasty experience.

On Monday President Obama, along with his wife Michelle, signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act into law. Tilt works with K-12 school service on a regular basis in both the US and the UK markets. While Jamie Oliver has made a dent in the educational aspect to K-12 dining on a PR side, there is a lot to do regarding actual presence, food quality and general opinions on what is good vs. what is healthy based on the standards that our students believe today.

Unfortunately, while there is no triangular food even found in nature, Doritos have hit the flavor profiles of many with the understanding that you can get a complete meal out of eating a bag – diary and protein (cheesy flavor), carbohydrate (corn chip base) and fat (the whole thing). Actually, most schools country-wide sell pizza on a regular basis as well since it completes all these profiles in order to meet meal reimbursement needs; top off the pizza with meat and it is a full-on complete meal. It is a little scary.

This Act begs to change the relationship that kids have with food and to start positioning dining in schools as the primary nutrient-filled meal of the day. Learn more about this by going to the site, looking up info on Michelle’s Let’s Move! Campaign site or by watching the White House Chef Sam in action:

Here is Michelle’s email note:

Everyone knows that a child’s health is ultimately the parents’ responsibility. Everywhere I go, I meet parents who are doing their best to keep their kids healthy by cutting down on desserts, serving more fruits and vegetables and trying to teach their kids to eat well and stay active.  But kids spend much of their day at school, and for many children, school meals are their main source of nourishment.  So it’s critical that all the hard work parents do to keep their kids healthy isn’t undone by the foods in the school cafeteria or the vending machines in the hallway.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is a big step in the right direction.  Here are just a few things this legislation will do:

• 115,000 more students will have access to school meal programs.  This bill will also cut red tape and paperwork, making it easier for parents to enroll their children in these programs.
• Nutritional standards will help ensure that our kids have access to healthy food options.
• Communities and schools will receive assistance in setting up local farm-to-school networks to ensure that more fresh local foods are used in school meals.

Getting the proper nutrition has a major impact not just on our children’s health, but on their performance at school.  Students who get the nutrition they need perform better in the classroom and miss fewer days of school.  And lunchtime is a great time to teach our students important lessons about healthy eating that will last them a lifetime.

Article for Beanstalk by E. Rachael Baird

The air is warm and the sun gets brighter as the day peaks. It is the end of summer and laughter can be heard all over the neighbourhood as the kids of Dunster Street ride their bikes from end to end in a race. A chicken squawks from the corner of the back lot and neighbours wave hello as the signature ventilation caps turn slowly in the gentle breeze and we are all reminded that we live in BedZed. It is the ideal neighbourhood.

I have just moved here and already I feel welcomed. In the seemingly transient lifestyle of London, there is a respite for those who want to get to know their neighbours and have a community-style life. As the pilot project of Bioregional for a planned community, this 50 home neighbourhood in Hackbridge in Surrey is based off of the One Planet Living Principles and is a sight to see. My friends from the US typically refer to it as the Teletubbie homes because of the Disneyesque styling of the exterior with the lush plants that are almost unnaturally healthy looking. I can confidently say, that every component of the design has a purpose and is fun to look at, which makes it twice as good!

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There’s no shortage of talk about smart, sustainable retail. But how do we make it work in practice?

Sally Uren whips up a sustainable brand salad with her concepts. Here is a personal recipe.

A large helping of leadership
We need to speed up the shift towards sustainable business models – ones that deliver economic success within environmental limits. A great example of this is Unilever’s announcement that it will double its size, while reducing its overall impact on the environment.

An infusion of innovation
If you want to make sustainable living affordable and easy, innovation is the way to go. B&Q’s partnership with Bioregional and the London Borough of Sutton to offer home owners loans to improve the energy efficiency of their houses is just one example of the fresh thinking that will deliver immediate financial and carbon savings.

A dash of making-it-easy juice
By providing recipes and even little boxes for bits of food that would normally get thrown away, Sainsbury’s ‘Love your Leftovers’ campaign made it easy for people to reduce their food waste, and so reduce food to landfill.

A dose of reward
We all like a little more than a pat on the back. One of the best examples is the partnership between M&S and Oxfam, where M&S customers are rewarded with a £5 voucher for taking their old clothes, and more recently curtains, to the charity shop.

A layer of living it
It’s critical that staff on the shop floor can answer questions from the hapless consumer on green issues, and retailers can help staff practise what they need to preach. M&S offered their staff free home insulation, while Walmart handed out energy efficient lightbulbs.

And a topping of brand delight
People trust brands in a way they don’t trust business or government. Smart retailers will use this trust to encourage more sustainable behaviours, recognising that endless labels on packaging have their limits.

This is taken from Sally Uren who is Deputy Chief Executive, Forum for the Future.

Go global and make money while you sleep

When: Thursday 28 October
Where: Bartle Bogle Hegarty, 60 Kingly Street, London W1B 5DS
What Time: 8am breakfast / 8.30 event / 9.30 close

US designer E. Rachael Baird, owner of Baltimore-based Tilt Studio, opened her London ‘office’ earlier this year aiming to scoop work on the 2012 Olympics. Was her move drawn by this great opportunity and fuelled by the US recession or was she simply doing what every creative entrepreneur should be doing? Designer Breakfasts will ask her, “Does business here in the UK live up to expectations? Can small design businesses operate globally?

Rachael plans to expand into further new territory — the Shanghai office comes next. She says, “we work with global brands such as Compass Group, Starbucks, Subway and McDonalds, so why shouldn’t we be a global business?” She has a sustainability agenda and is determined to create change for the world through rough visuals and action.

Our audience will include designers from far afield and the event will be a Q&A session. Come along, join in and hear Rachael’s ideas on a range of topics including:

• Are UK designers as good as we think we are?
• What’s an American design company doing moving here to work on the UK Olympics?
• How can you run three international offices employing less than 10 people, alone and remotely, without the backing of a PLC?
• Are US designers working on risk and reward business models?
• We’re a small country — can UK designers continue to survive on local business?

How do you figure out a way of making money while you sleep?
To book your place at the October breakfast, please CLICK HERE.
Event £25 including VAT

Excellent talk this week! We really enjoyed the experience of talking with expert Noah Scalin and being able to discuss open ideas about what it means to take on the challenge of becoming a community of Design Rebels! We hope you tune in next month on November 18th for the followup talk titled, “Greenwashing is not awesome.”

Here is a recap from this past talk:

When Was it?: October 21, 2010 at 6pm EST, 5pm CST, 3pm PST
Where: http://www.tokbox.com/tiltstudioinc/ddsc
Topic: “Branding an Eco Army”<trans.gif>

• How do we increase the momentum of the greener design movement?
• Is working with corporate entities necessary? Or is just inciting change from within the profession enough?
• Who are some examples of rebel green designers?

Resources

http://www.brandchannel.com/brand_speak.asp?bs_id=174

http://footprintmag.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-eco-branding-sincere.html

http://www.psfk.com/2007/04/greenwashing-2.html

Our Guest Speaker Noah – Studied Theatre design in school, right out of college. Activist since Childbirth, Going to rallies as a child. Getting out of school and deciding on how to handle this as a child, he came up with this idea to invent a business model to:

1. Make a living
2. Do great design
3. Do what I love and not run counter to his ethics

Full time venture in 2001 and started as a freelancer in 1995. 10 years running, not just do it for himself, but do it to encourage participation to myself. Talked to people that were interested in connecting ideas. Work on networking that way. Created a Design Rebels class!

Q #1: What is an Eco Army?

• Eric – Collaboration is key
• Noah – Merging your ethics and institution
• Jess – Design field in general tends to be very much driven by individual personalities and trends. This can sometimes make it challenging to develop a strong sense of community that tackles some of the deeper, more long-range complexities like social issues and environmental impact.
• Stef – Switching from the big corporate world to doing something more concentrated and isolated. Started to feel the benefits as a collaborative type of community and similar qualities and objectives. Very open and reaching out to talk to people with similar views. UFP was individual, but ended up being very collaborative.
• Rachael – Appreciate the concept of collaboration, but I work with people that know nothing about what I do and I work with them to solve a problem.
• Noah – Production piece of architecture and product design. The eco solution is apart of the solution, not the whole component. Can’t really separate the concept of eco.
• Jess – Often times when people think of so-called socially conscious designers, they think of a very specific movement or group, and may not be comfortable aligning themselves with that so overtly. So it’s important to find ways to create and “in” for people that don’t necessarily understand the movement, or want to define themselves as specifically “socially conscious” or “eco-conscious.”

Concluded as:

1. Collaborators
2. Diversified people
3. Interest in the Environment
4. Social Changers
5. How we work and how we work with
6. Problem Solvers
7. Educators for clients and people that may or may not be on board
8. Supported – and not alone doing this

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In London Tilt has been donating time at two organisations: Food from the Skye and The People’s Supermarket. The common denominator in these places is Andrew Thorton who is an industry expert, entrepreneur and humanitarian. His work is created based on the principles for how he wants to live his life – thoughtful and considerate of both planet and budget. It is a marriage and match made in heaven. The People’s Supermarket is a wonderful example of how his expertise is being put into action. I am very appreciative of his ideals and overall direction! This is a short and great report on what is happening in his world!

The only day in any of our lives that we will hit a date with digits so perfect and exact. This is a benchmark date was many companies and individuals had in the diaries for a clear date of change… and it will be curious to see if people make their change goals. Life is short – sometimes too short for some – and you have to seize the moment and harness change in whatever capacity possible.

Today, TILT is gardening in Naples, NY to pay tribute to the simple way of life and to grow the practice into the future. Going back to the basics is sometimes the most sustainable way to live.

While in elementary school, I painted this graphic of the earth in a timer and I have been trying to figure out a way to incorporate it into something important. At first I thought it was the earth sinking into the end of time and literally dying, but after looking at it further and talking about it with my business coach Melissa, I think that it looks more like the world dripping into the future. Right now we are still partially stuck in the past without having transitioned into the next stage (which is the top part) and we are slowly trickling down into the new world. Melissa explains it better, but that is the gist of it!

What do you think? We would love to hear your thoughts and opinions.

Birk Beahr knows what he is talking about. Colorful packaging sways kids the wrong way, but is he just regurgitating everything that his parents and teachers tell him? Or his he making decisions on his own? This is kid is golden!