#cookening

[nerdpoe]

filling out my grimoire today

translation; researching and adding to my personal cookbook

[nerdpoe]

I have to transpose my box of loose-leaf recipes into a book I got for recipes, so I'm gonna share my favorite one. Solyanka.

It makes enough to feed an army, and it's a go-to for if you're getting over a sickness and are not throwing up.

Make Ukha for if you're that sick.

Anyways.

Ingredients;

2 liters water

4 pickles, kosher

1 glass of pickle juice

2 onions

20-ish black olives

150 grams of beef

150 grams of ham

150 grams of doctors sausage

4 hot dog wieners

2 tablespoons capers

3 potatoes (mid-small)

like a palmful of dill

same for parsley

2 carrots

2 bay leaves

1 can tomato paste

2-3 tablespoons salt (no that's not a typo, you need that much cuz ur making ur own broth)

Cut the beef into fist-sized chunks.

Fry it so that all sides are browned. This will make it taste better and be more tender.

Put water in pot, a BIG pot. No, bigger. This is gonna make more than you think. Now add the beef to the water. Now boil for 30 minutes.

Cut up sausage, wieners, and ham into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.

Cut up pickles, onions, carrots, olives and potatoes. Separate the olives and potatoes from this mix. Now separate the olives and potatoes from each other.

DO. NOT. THROW. AWAY. THE. DISGUSTING. BEEF. WATER.

Check if beef is cooked all the way through. When it is, cut it into bite-sized pieces. Fry it with the other meat in a pan. You may need a wok.

In fact, save yourself the trouble and just get a wok.

In another pan, fry the onions, carrots, pickles, and tomato paste for about 5 minutes. 6 if you're not a coward.

Boil disgusting beef water again, but with potatoes in it this time. Boil for around 15 minutes.

ALL ingredients in the pot now. Your fried veggies, olives, meats, bay leaves, dill, salt, all of it.

Boil for 40 minutes. Not a roiling boil, but like, a soft chill one. Best results; roiling boil on medium-high, slap lid on it, and take that down to medium.

Does not freeze well, keeps for 4 days when refrigerated, so I hope you like it because you'll be eating it for breakfast lunch and dinner.

I am not joking this makes way more than you think it will.

[chouxer-blog]

Soif de découvertes, soif de voyages, soif de rencontres.

[craigslistalternatives]

What is the Sharing Economy?

In recent years, concepts such as peer-to-peer, collaborative consumption and the sharing economy have become mainstream. All these concepts have one idea in common – excess capacity, a situation in which something or someone is utilized less than its (or their) full potential.  

An example is a car that you own. The time that you don't use your car is considered "excess capacity" and from a business perspective that is lost opportunity. Meaning, when you buy a car, the less you use it, the more it costs you per hour to use it (monthly payment divided by hours of use).

According to Robin Chase (founder of Zipcar and Buzzcar), "People who own cars, and use them rarely (well, that is everyone – cars are in use only 5% of the time) can rent them out to their friends and neighbors who would like to use them." In this way, you are monetizing your excess capacity and reducing your overall cost per hour of usage.

Other examples include:

Unemployment or under-employment

Tools and appliances that are infrequently used by its owner

Attics full of perfectly good stuff not in use

People's talents or skills not in practice

One taxi per person from an airport to town

An empty guest room

Your home or apartment while on vacation

An office space with empty desks

The list goes on and the more we explore our own excess capacity, the more we realize how much waste we are generating through under utilization. And in these times of economic hardship, those pennies most definitely add up.  

The idea of excess capacity is an old one, but the new movement of the Sharing Economy has its roots in Cloud computing and Amazon played a key role in its development. With one of the largest computer networks in the world, Amazon found that they were using as little as 10% of their server capacity at any given time, but needed the other 90% for the occasional spikes in traffic. In 2006 Amazon created a new product offer called Amazon Web Services (AWS) which allowed them to "sell off" their excess capacity to web developers. In turn, created the "cloud" revolution (most websites you visit probably use AWS in one way or another). Other developers in silicon valley and around the world took notice and realized that this model could be applied to other things in life that we buy but rarely use such as a car (or even that ladder that you bought for $200 and only used once in the past year). It has also expanded into other areas, with people monetizing their excess work capacity (e.g. Taskrabbit), living space (e.g. Airbnb), knowledge (e.g. General Assembly) or even sharing a dinner with strangers (e.g. Cookening).  It is important to note that this isn't strictly about business (or making money) but about less waste. When we think about waste reduction, the first thing that comes to mind is recycling, reusing or extended use. However excess capacity is waste too and by selling it off, you are in turn reducing the number of cars on the road or the number of ladders needed in a single neighborhood.  The sharing economy helps change our consumption habits by reminding us that borrowing, sharing and trading is good for everyone and makes business sense too!

[lifeofthibault]

Next time you travel to Paris, don't forget to have a real local experience with Cookening!

[cookening]

Cookening @ LeWeb

The Cookening team was attending the International Tech Event LeWeb in London last week, as this year's topic was the Sharing Economy. 

Cédric Giorgi, co-founder of Cookening, was listed as a speaker for this edition, and talked during a 10min keynote about the biggest impact of the sharing economy: Connecting Cultures. 

Here's the video of this keynote:

And here are the slides

  Press Articles

  LeWeb was just a few weeks after our launch, so the Press was very interested in hearing our story. Following the amazing coverage we already had for Cookening, we gave several interviews:

TechWeekEurope (English)

ItWeb.tv (French)

Bloomberg (English)

Informilo (English)