Tag: artisanal

Be in on the joke in AI

Hannah Everett, left, and Drew Carlson co-star in Artisanal Intelligence, at the Havana Theatre Jan. 14-18. (photo from Spec Theatre)

Drew Carlson and Jewish community member Hannah Everett are reprising their roles in Artisanal Intelligence, which again plays at the Havana Theatre, Jan. 14-18.

Written by Jewish community member Ira Cooper, the show had a limited two-show run this past July at the Havana; both of those performances sold out. It also traveled to a few Fringe festivals, garnering positive reviews.

Carlson plays Barry, a hipster customer-service robot who is filled with esoteric knowledge and mad skills. Everett plays Jane, the entrepreneur who created Barry.

“The content will be the same, aside from a few tweaks and tightens,” Cooper told the Independent about how the January production differs from the summer show. “One of the songs, ‘No Off-Switch for Love,’ will be fully orchestrated, as opposed to the passable version of it that I created on GarageBand with digital instrumentation, so that is exciting and new. I am hoping it will fill out the song more, give it its deserved panache, and get people dancing in and out of their seats. It’s a Boney M.-inspired funk track, so I am really happy that it will finally be given the backtrack it has always longed for.”

photo - Ira Cooper’s Artisanal Intelligence is at the Havana Theatre Jan. 14-18
Ira Cooper (photo from Spec Theatre)

The idea for Artisanal Intelligence took a couple of years to develop.

“In 2017, I went to live in China for a year to teach at a Canadian high school abroad,” said Cooper, who teaches the younger grades English and drama at King David High School. “My partner stayed in Canada and so I was there, in a new city, in a massive apartment, concocting, creating and percolating thoughts, ideas, words and scribbles to fill a void. Artisanal Intelligence was my attempt to write an accessible Fringe show…. Hipsterism just has so much great material to rib and, being that I would self-identify as a ‘hipster,’ I needn’t go too far to do my research. And robots. And AI. All are distinct and widely known, relevant, partaken in and discussed topics, so it seemed like an easy fit with my own personal playwriting aspirations this time around.

“I do not remember much about the writing process for the initial drafts. Knowing myself, it was probably over a three- or four-week period. Then drafts. Collaboration is integral to everything I and Spec Theatre do, so, early on in the process, I had people reading the script and giving me notes. Then it was sitting down with the director, Bronwen Marsden, for more edits. Then with the actors. Then with my partner, who is also the artistic designer for Spec, Ruby Arnold. The more feedback the better. The end result is a deeply heart-filled joint-effort, which we are all proud of and which we all had a part in molding, from the very words on the page outwards.”

Cooper said Artisanal Intelligence lampoons and lambasts hipster culture, as opposed to critiquing it.

“The show uses a lot of recognizable hipster motifs, tropes and allusions, but the audience is consistently in on the joke,” he said. “The show is a discussion on identity, self-perseverance, self-reliance and the impending (or not) robot apocalypse, but in a soft and humorous way.

“I think the show actually exemplifies why culture can be important, how it can bind us to something bigger than ourselves. We are constantly looking for the ‘bigger than ourselves’ entities. And so, with the culture references, the clearly identifiable razzing and fun that takes place in the 55 minutes of Artisanal Intelligence, the audience, who get what the show is alluding to, are part of each joke’s equation – that knowledge links culture, the audience and the performers.”

The performances at the Havana in January will be relaxed, said Cooper, which means “the houselights will never fully dim and people are free, if they need or want, to get up, stretch, move, go for a walk, etc. We want theatre to be accessible to everyone and we respect, acknowledge and cherish the diversity of our audiences. Also, if you’re an artist of any kind, Spec Theatre is always looking to collaborate, to make unique, experimental, new things. Reach out!”

For tickets to Artisanal Intelligence, go to spectheatre.com.

Making your own cheeses

Once a full-time organic farmer, David Asher offers workshops through his Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking. He has also recently published his own book, The Art of Natural Cheesemaking. (photo by Kelly Brown)

Have you ever wanted your own cheese cave? If not, David Asher might convince you to crave one.

Based on British Columbia’s Gulf Islands, the former full-time organic farmer is the author of the recently published The Art of Natural Cheesemaking: Using Traditional, Non-Industrial Methods and Raw Ingredients to Make the World’s Best Cheeses (Chelsea Green). His book covers all the details one needs to know to make a variety of cheeses at home – and, yes, creating a “cave” to age it. Step-by-step recipes include paneer, cheddar, feta, blue cheeses, gouda, and about a dozen others.

“It’s as easy to make cheese at home as it is to make good bread at home,” he said.

For the past seven years, Asher has been offering workshops through his Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking to teach others the “lost” art of creating their own natural cheeses without unnecessary additives. But he wasn’t always a cheese fan – in fact, for most of his life, just the opposite.

“We weren’t a cheese-eating family. We only ate that stack of kosher cheese slices stuck together without plastic wrapping in a slab. I suffered through really terrible cheese as a child,” he said.

Like his favorite food, though, his taste has ripened with age.

As a young boy, he was introduced to “Italian immigrants’ guerrilla gardens” by Montreal’s railroad tracks, where he would relish plucking carrots and harvesting kale. Eventually, he created his own garden and, by his 20s, he was volunteering at community farms.

It was during an organic farming apprenticeship, traveling around visiting other farms, that he met a home cheesemaker, who was “making some inspiring rounds of moldy goat’s cheese” in her home with milk from her very own goats.

“She made this alchemy happen,” he said. “To make this beautiful cheese … without any specialized tools or equipment, I thought, ‘I can do this.’”

On a mission, Asher consulted the go-to cheesemaking guidebooks to find out how to start creating, but he was not inspired by the recipes or by the techniques suggested. Part of the problem, he said, was that the recipes called for freeze-dried packaged cultures.

book cover - The Art of Natural Cheesemaking

“I didn’t want to have to purchase these culture starter packages to make my cheese, because I knew that traditional cheesemakers didn’t use these,” he said. “I knew there had to be a better way, but there weren’t really any resources.… There were no references as to how traditional cheesemakers grew their white rinds, their camembert, almost as if that information had been lost.” Truly, he was “feta” up with the lack of “gouda” details.

Through trial and error, he explored and learned natural methods used long ago, for want of a mentor. And then, much like a wheel of provolone, things came full circle.

“After years of experimenting, I felt confident with my techniques. I then decided that I’d write a book,” he said, adding that it also serves as a resource for his students.

Asked if he thought any decent commercially made cheese can be found in mainstream supermarkets, he responded with a deep sigh. “You don’t want me to answer that,” he said. “Call me when you’re ready to make your own.”

For those wanting to make their own, there are three cheesemaking seminars this month: with the Clever Crow Sea Salt Co. in Black Creek May 7-8, with Linnaea Farm on Cortes Island May 14-15 and in Chilliwack at the Valley Permaculture Guild on May 28-29. For more information, visit theblacksheepschool.com.

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than a hundred publications around the world. He is the managing editor of landmarkreport.com.