17 November 2009

Keep Governments Out Of Saving The World

One of the areas of society that is exercising my thoughts at present is how societies organise themselves, are governed and whether we (as citizens) are actually free ... or just whether we are being told that we are free, but in reality are all jus...

09 November 2009

Steenbergs in the press

Steenbergs Organic is in the press again with some nice articles. 

08 November 2009

Recipe - Making Your Own Christmas Pudding

We have had a brief hiatus from Christmas preparations with Halloween and Bonfire Night, but this weekend I've got back to the task of preparing for Christmas.  This weekend was the turn of the pudding.

05 November 2009

Autumn Poems

Perhaps Autumn is a time for poetry.  So here are a few poems that conjur up the period for me. 

04 November 2009

Autumnal Leaves Falling

Autumnal leaves are falling everywhere.  They have hung on in there for quite a while longer as we have had a short spell of decent warm weather and very little wind.  But even so, nature cannot be stopped and even the delicate finger-like leaves of...

03 November 2009

Recipe For Sweet Chestnuts Foraged At Fountains Abbey

We (that's me and my 2 kids) have been enjoying a few walks this half term break - in the deer park at Studley Royal which is at the lower end of Fountains Abbey and at Brimham Rocks. 

30 October 2009

Carving Your Pumpkin At Halloween

Carving a pumpkin is really quite simple and (dare I say it) quite satisfying to do.  Here is how we do it in the Steenbergs household.

19 October 2009

Response from Kabul about Schools, Hospitals and Mosques

Relating to my blog dated 6 October 2009 (see below for links), I have had this response from Mike Hollis, who is Programme and Strategy Co-ordinator, Department for International Development in the British Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

15 October 2009

The Icefjord Commitment

"Amidst the wisdom and majesty of water, ice and sunlight, we have prayed within the realm of our own traditions.

09 October 2009

Steenbergs' Annual Organic Audit

This week heralded our annual audit by the Organic Food Federation, which is one of the UK's original organic auditors. 

04 October 2009

A better way to help Afghanistan

Today, General Sir David Richards is quoted in The Sunday Telegraph as saying "Taliban and al-Qaeda know that the conflict will not be lost in Afghanistan, it will be lost in Britain, America and France, and their tactics are designed to get at that...

25 September 2009

Organic...What's In A Name?

What’s in a name?  Everything according to branding consultants. 

14 September 2009

Summer's Over

Saturday was hot, a really glorious day.  However, the swallows have gone so the blue sky felt empty without their energetic dance swooping and soaring the catch insects.  They must have left while I was in London last weekend and into last week.  An...

13 September 2009

Turner's Rain, Steam, Speed - The Great Western Railway

Last weekend, we spent in London at The Speciality & Fine Food Fair 2009, where we had a stand displaying our wares to UK trade buyers.  It was a good show, with numbers slightly down, but the quality was there; the froth has gone out of the mark...

06 September 2009

Footprints in the sand

Earlier this year, anthropologists announced the find of ancient fossilised footprints in Kenya dating back about 1.5 million years.  That's 1.7 million years after our major prehistorical ancestor, Lucy or Australopithecus afarensis, whose skelton h...

04 September 2009

Fairtrade spices standards - a reprise

Steenbergs is a commercial enterprise.  We operate in an economy based upon free market economics and that is something that we are completely comfortable with.

02 September 2009

New Spice Standards for Fairtrade

Fairtrade has issued new standards for Fairtrade spices which seem to be a recipe for chaos.  They basically say that you can trade any spice or herb as Fairtrade and that the Fairtrade price is the price agreed between the buyer and the seller.  A p...

16 August 2009

Ignore the FSA and continue to believe in the best of organic foods

I have reflected further on the Food Standards Agency ("FSA") report on the nutritional and health effects of organic.  And I have 2 further thoughts, being, firstly, that the concept of the report is irrelevant, and, secondly, there is probably no p...