SufďŹ ciency living a simply life
Introduction If I talk about living with natural, I observe of living with a simple life and natural, Sometime life that way not up to money but happy happened from me by I loved in sufficiency. I would say, if you known of sufficiency and natural, you will have happy when you tired from everything. By the way you will see life around you that from smile, journey, living and sad, everything that is around us. In this newspaper, my fi1st newspaper, this newspaper would say to everybody that living in a simple life and something that you like e.g., market, food or countryside, Those are all does not affect to people, I would to everybody known of happy and nature around us. We do not need to away the boredom and self-sufficiency. Make yourself known to grow your own, do it yourself, everything starts from the word itself. Sufficiency depends on many things such As self-sufficient living, eating and traveling, we can choose to be. I would let anyone desiring to live the way you like. In this newspaper project, I would say to enjoy your dream and sufficiency for living. Also this is will be a inspiration for living with nature and sufficiency. Take something inside this newspaper for creative your dream, one day it will return to you some how.
Sakon Boonyakait
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Contents
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A day story
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Camping
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Small Space
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Essay
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Life
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The Journey
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Rooftop Garden
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Borough Market
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Columbia Market
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Global warming
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Good Morning
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Pad Thai Recipe
A DAY STORY
Words Sakon Boonyakait Photographs Sakon Boonyakait 4
A DAY STORY
A DAY IN THE PARK ‘‘ Make every day happy by the looking at life around us ’’
In summer that coming to the town, we can see in the park everybody came out to using life in the park. Some people had life style different, I walked in the Hype park met people on the road. In this road, I can got happy around the park Also I observe people today that they came out to relax and exercise by smile and have energy in the park. In the same way but opposite, life in the underground only bored and sad but the things I saw that everybody happy. I walked to Kensington and Chelsea Gardens passed Princess Diana’s house and I met group of people that used Barclay bicycle for travel in the park. So I still walked around the park until I met cafée’s in the park that got simple cafée’s and food, I really want to try cappuccino my favourite coffee with one brownie that make my day perfect in the park. I sat with drink I observe that children around me, that remind me when I was children in Thailand why my city not have park like in London but I think one day Thailand will happen. Today, I would say that I was happy then I still walk around took a photo and met group people but these time they came with One bicycle but the thing was bicycle got 4 children can you imagine that when I saw that I thought of happy is around us, you just try to came to the park you will see it, I believe that. Sometime, I met couple of people in the park. Sometime, Old people hold hand each other that remind me of my mom and dad when they were teenager in Thailand. Now, I still walked side of lake, it was very long lake, I observe people around that area, they picnic and bring food and dessert enjoyed together that make everybody share every story together. My day nearly finish I still met something special that my country not had that somebody took a dog to jogging and exercise, I really would like my country have the park like London one day, I hopefully that if it happen. Finally, Life in the park it is a place of happiness people coexist with nature close to home because it is a place to share and love together on a sunny day it makes everyone happy.
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LIVING Words Sakon Boonyakait Photographs Sakon Boonyakait
Camping
Living in the simple life
I had opportunity to camping in England, I am Thai people but I very happy that I came to camping in here, I used to been here before but that time I been for ride trip of bicycle. My story was about happy not up to money but happy that up to living, but sometime, I had to live in London for long time that it make me want to living outside city and life slowly with natural, I came here and sat with natural that make me feeling London very quick life until I was cycling, my life a little bit slower but still fast, When I came here I would say my life slower and quiet, I really happy to camping again but these time, I came alone but so happy to do that I could talk with myself check my story in the past and throw old story away, then living with natural. In tonight my friend was nature, I was cooking a food alone but very happy to do that I could not explain that I was cooking food I am not cook often in city but in here that kind of food very helpful to my life in here with one glass of wine. In the thing I got save money and happy and very beautiful life. If I ask my self, can I find these thing in London, I would say yes but not the same at all because money not answer of happy living but happy is from loved and passion. In England even in summer or winter for camping that easy because of make food and living with peach if in the dark, it was happy a bit cold that make me feeling good, I don’t need any thing more than happy and natural.
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“ We work to live not live to have money �
LIVING
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“ Living in small space, We can choose to live life simple by living natural ’’
Photographs Sakon Boonyakait 9
Words Mark Boyle illustration Sakon Boonyakait 10
ESSAY
My year of living without money “ Is it possible to live without spending any cash whatsoever? After becoming disillusioned with consumer society, one man decided to give it a try ”
The
morning I finally decided to give up using cash, the whole world changed. It was the same day news broke about the banks’ misbehaviour in the sub-prime mortgage market, so when I began telling people of my plans, they assumed it was in preparation for some sort of apocalyptic financial meltdown. However, having long viewed credit as a debit against future generations, I was infinitely more worried about what George Monbiot called the “nature crunch”. Nature, unfortunately, doesn’t do bailouts. I suppose the seeds of my decision to give up money – not just cash but any form of monetary credit – were sown seven years ago, in my final semester of a business and economics degree in Ireland, when I stumbled upon a DVD about Gandhi. He said we should “be the change we want to see in the world”. Trouble was, I hadn’t the faintest idea what change I wanted to be back then. I spent the next five years managing organic food companies, but by 2007, I realised that even “ethical business” would never be quite enough. The organic food industry, while a massive stepping stone to more ecological living, was rife with some of the same environmental flaws as the conventional system it was trying to usurp – excess plastic packaging, massive food miles, big businesses buying up little ones. My eureka moment came during an afternoon’s philosophising with a mate. We were chatting about global issues such as sweatshops, environmental destruction, factory farms, animal testing labs, wars over resources, when I realised I was looking at the world the wrong way – like a western doctor looks at a patient, focusing on symptoms more than root causes. Instead, I decided to attempt what I awkwardly term “social homeopathy”. I believe the key reason for so many problems in the world today is the fact we no longer have to see directly the repercussions of our actions. The degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed have increased so much that people are completely unaware of the levels of destruction and suffering involved in the production of the food and other “stuff” we buy. The tool that has enabled this disconnection is money. If we grew our own food, we wouldn’t waste a third of it as we do today. If we made our own tables and chairs, we wouldn’t throw them out the moment we changed the interior decor. If we had to clean our own drinking water, we wouldn’t waste it so freely. As long as money exists, these symptoms will surely persist. So I decided, last November, to give it up, for one year initially, and reconnect directly with the things I use and consume. The first step in the process was to find a form of sustainable shelter. For this I turned to the amazing project Freecycle, through which I located a caravan that someone else didn’t want any more. I also needed somewhere to put this new home, so I decided to volunteer three days a week at an organic farm
near Bristol in return for a place to park my caravan. Had I equated this in terms of my previous salary, it would be like paying penthouse apartment rent for what was effectively a little tin box. But that was the type of thinking I was now trying to get away from. Having no means of paying bills, the next challenge was to set this home up to be off-grid. For heating I installed a wood-burner I’d converted from an old gas bottle, using a flue pipe I had salvaged from the skip. I fuelled it using wood from trees we coppiced on the farm, meaning fuel miles became fuel metres. A local member of the Freeconomy Community (the alternative economy which I founded in 2007), then showed me how to make a “rocket stove” from a couple of old olive oil catering tins that were destined for landfill. This meant that for the next 12 months, I was going to have to cook outside. I was a touch overwhelmed by the thought of cooking in the snow, rain and northerly winds of a British winter. But, surprisingly, it has become one of the joys of my life. While feeding the stove with broken-up old vegetable boxes, I would watch the moon rise in winter and the sun set in summer for the time it took to prepare my evening’s repast. Birds in the trees around my kitchen became my new iPod, and observing wildlife taught me much more about nature than any documentary I’d seen on the television. The one thing I did spend money on (about £360) before beginning the experiment was a solar panel to supply me with enough electricity for a light, my laptop and my phone (on which I could only receive calls). Solar isn’t ideal because of the embodied energy involved, but at the start of what might be a lifelong journey, I couldn’t expect everything to be perfect straightaway. And the solar panel has always provided me with light – although in winter my phone and laptop time were severely restricted (frustrating, but only because my expectations were based on having infinite energy at the touch of a button). The last piece of my off-grid puzzle was a compost toilet. This should really be the symbol of the entire sustainably living movement, in the way the spinning wheel became a symbol of Swadeshi in India. Representing sanity and a respect for the earth, I made my alternative loo out of old pallets from a nearby hardware store. As I can no longer buy toilet roll, I relieve the local Bristol newsagents of some of the newspapers that fill their bins every day, and use them instead. It’s not double-quilted but it quickly seems normal, and I even used a story about myself once . . . I wash in a river or under a solar shower (better in the summer), and rarely use soap, but if I do I go for home-grown soapwort. For toothpaste I use a mixture of cuttlefish bone, which gets washed up on the UK’s shores, and wild fennel seeds. Food was my only other real necessity: I think of there being
four legs to the food-for-free “table”. Growing your own, which is obviously what I’ve been doing here on the organic farm (my staples are potatoes, beans, kale, carrots, salads, root vegetables, squash, onions and swede); wild food foraging, which is nutritionally exceptional and beautifully gentle on the environment (I forage for berries, nettles, mushrooms, nuts and greater plantain for a hayfever remedy); and also securing waste food and other goods from local restaurants and shops. This is an incredible resource to draw on, and although its existence is, of course, dependent on industrialised society, I feel like I have an obligation to consume it before using up any more energy producing food. In fact I’m currently organising a free mini-festival called the Freeconomy Feast 2009, where myself and Fergus Drennan, the BBC’s Roadkill Chef, aim to feed 250 people a three-course meal with full service for free, completely out of waste food and things foraged from the wilds of Bristol. It even includes free beer made from locally grown and foraged ingredients. The final leg of my food table is bartering – using my skills or any excess food I’ve produced to secure anything not met by the other three methods. This means I meet people from all walks of life doing what I do, and while many claim that they couldn’t – or wouldn’t want to – do the same, most seem to understand where I am coming from and resolve to reduce their own consumption wherever they can. When I first said I was going to do this, my parents probably wondered what they should have done differently during my formative years, but now they are right behind it, and may even contemplate joining me one day. But what I soon realised is that, in a moneyless world, everything takes much more time. Handwashing my clothes in a sink of cold water, using laundry liquid made by boiling up some nuts on my rocket stove, can take two hours, instead of 10 minutes using a washing machine. Finding stuff in skips – such as the steamer I cook with – takes far longer than popping out to the shops for one, and sorting out the compost toilet is a lot more hassle than flushing it “away”. Cycling the 36-mile round-trip to Bristol also takes a lot more time and energy than driving or catching the bus or train, but it’s also an economical alternative to my old gym subscription, and I find cycling much more enjoyable than using motorised vehicles. The point is, I’d much rather have my time consumed making my own bread outdoors than kill it watching some reality TV show in a so-called “living” room. Where money once provided me with my primary sense of security, I now find it in friends and the local community. Some of my closest mates are people I only met because I had to build real relationships with others based on trust and kindness, not money
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LIFE
How to live your life ‘‘ Life is short. Live your dream and share your passion’’
“ This is your life. Do what you love, and do it often. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV. If you are looking for the love of your life, stop; they will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love. Stop over analyzing, life is simple. All emotions are beautiful. When you eat, appreciate every last bite. Open your mind, arms, and heart to new things and people, we are united in our differences. Ask the next person you see what their passion is, and share your inspiring dream with them. Travel often; getting lost will help you find yourself. Some opportunities only come once, seize them. Life is about the people you meet, and the things you create with them so go out and start creating.
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Words The Holstee Manifesto illustration Sakon Boonyakait 13
THE JOURNEY
London to Brighton a tour of their own
A day before the pros would don aero helmets and skinsuits to rocket around the streets of Rotterdam, 15 Dutch cyclists accompanied by Tour champion Jan Janssen (1968), and by Hennie Kuiper, who finished second twice (1977, 1980), rode the opening kilometres of their own Tour de France in relative quiet. Nine months earlier, this group of school friends, in a moment of inspiration or madness, formulated a plan to ride the 2010 Tour, stage for stage, all the way to Paris. None of them had a racing background and one rider had never even ridden a road bike prior to December of 2009. It was, as you might say, a stretch. To add purpose to the challenge, they resolved to make this journey of self-discovery on behalf of Kika, a Dutch foundation that supports childhood-cancer research. Planning and training began in earnest. It’s fair to say, if not for football and cycling, social drinking might be the national sport of the Netherlands. These are a gregarious people. There would be no more alcohol or cigarettes till the Champs-Elysées. As winter set in, they ramped up the base miles, got on their trainers and got serious about diet. When spring arrived they steeled themselves with a series of classic one-day routes, including the Tour of Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. From March to mid-June, there was a major ride or event every weekend to slowly acclimatise their legs to the average-200km days of the Tour. In May they visited the Alps for three days of concentrated training. By mid June they were as ready as they were going to be, and the team’s attention turned to maximising sponsorship before their grand depart. It pulled me to the cause all the way from California. I arrived with my cameras three days before the prologue and immediately took a liking to every one of them. I didn’t know whether they were all capable of making it to Paris, but I knew the attempt would make a compelling story. 14
Stage One, and the 223km to Brussels revealed little. But Stage Two’s hilly 201km to Spa gave me the first measure of the team, and it was impressive. They were good on their bikes, and during the stage several of them demonstrated their handling skills, sitting up, taking their hands off the bars to stretch or to gain or lose a jacket. Going uphill they spread out a bit, but no one had any difficulty with the Cat and Cat 4 climbs. If one of them had a flat or mechanical, several teammates stopped to help. They rode as a team. In that first week, the kilometres ticked away and by the end of Stage Six it was clear all the training had paid off. To a man they looked fresh and ready to go every morning. Though I knew it was still early and the big mountains would begin the next day, I began to believe they were going to make it. After the summit finishes at Station des Rousses and Avoriaz I had no doubt. Leaving the Alps they rode south to the Pyrenees and something interesting happened. Just like the pros, some of the back markers rode themselves into better form and began to come to the front. That was inspiring. But what about adversity? The Tour is famous for doling out the unexpected, exposing any weakness and crushing dreams. Would they come through unscathed? Or would luck conspire against them? As it turned out, two riders had tough days. One fell and lost a fair bit of skin on his arm, shoulder and leg, the other ate something disagreeable and suffered as his guts turned inside out for several hours. But there was never any drama about it and no question of not finishing the respective stages in either case. Over the Tourmalet they went and, in due course, on to Paris. What an emotional scene that was. On the Champs-Elysées we met up with the Tour’s own fléchage
(signage) vans for an escort up that grand avenue to the Arc de Triomphe. Riding 15 abreast for the last kilometre, Champagne in hand, they were cheered on by hundreds, if not thousands of people on the street. Later at the Jacques Anquetil Velodrome they were received by the Dutch ambassador, the mayor of Rotterdam and 150 friends and family. True to their promise, they presented the mayor with a check for Kika totalling €100,000. I don’t suppose there’s an event that captures the imagination of cyclists more than the Tour. It, like Everest, is a dream for ordinary men and women. This July, I photographed a group of amateur cyclists living that dream. All 15 rode every kilometre of every stage, and made
Words Michael Robertson Photographs Sakon Boonyakait 15
LIVING The world in 21st century is the world in which things around us are moving incredibly fast. People are far busier than ever before, especially those who live in the city. Time becomes so limited. It seems as if we do not have enough time to do things properly. Some people want o make a shift in their lives by slowing down their pace and I am one of them. For me, growing vegetable does not come from the point where I want to save money from buying from supermarket. It is more about pride and pleasure I get from home grown vegetable. The turning point for me was when I thought nowadays any vegetable took as much time “to grow� as how long it took me to the supermarket near my place. Surely, there was something not quite right about that. So I started to look into how to grow vegetable and tried to grow some green salad on the rooftop of my flat. The result was incredible. Not only did I have super fresh green salad plus 100% organic which I could harvest for weeks, but also the fact that I had to take care of them for a month made it even taster. Having seen them gradually getting bigger and bigger gave every meal meaningful. Growing vegetable has completely changed the way I think. It lets me know the beauty of slowing down and doing things myself. It a little difficult to start but the less of project very easy to do
Organic food is the best way to living with us
It almost to ready to eat, I will enjoy for green salad for dinner tonight.
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LIVING
Rooftop Garden
Words Watith Tangjai Photographs Watith Tangjai 17
THE WORDS
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Borough Market’s Food for Lovers Words Borough Market Photographs Sakon Boonyakait
Celia Brooks returns to the Borough Market Demonstration Kitchen this Friday for a ‘Food of Love’ Valentine’s Day special… proving that food is definitely the key to our hearts! Where do London’s most passionate foodie couples choose to tie the knot? As of recently, Borough Market has become an official wedding venue. No surprise as it’s a patently romantic destination. Not a day goes by when I’m in the Market that I don’t catch a glimpse of couples ecstatically sharing a delectable pie or ice cream, giggling with awe over the size and beauty of a mound of meringues, or snapping “couplies” (selfies for 2) in front of a dramatic display of cheeses. The intoxicating smells, sights and tastes at Borough make you want to share your emotional reactions to them, so it’s the perfect place for a date or an amorous afternoon out. If your Valentine’s Day mission is an intimate meal with your partner or potential squeeze, then cooking at home is the sincerest romantic plan. And there’s nowhere better than Borough to be inspired by ingredients to take home, either for cooking together, or for creating a playful and impressive meal to sweep someone off their feet. On February 14 in the demo kitchen, I’ll be cooking a very stripped-down menu that is easy and light enough to leave you feeling frisky after dessert, using some of Nature’s sexiest ingredients.
Elsey & Bent have some gorgeous globe artichokes in from Italy at the moment. These giant edible flowers (they’re actually giant thistles) mystify some people, but once you know how to tame them you’ll embrace their unique flavour and texture, but most of all the very hands-on ritual of eating them. I’ll be giving a little lesson in the anatomy of a grown artichoke and how to get straight to its heart. I’ll be pairing them with a stress-free Hollandaise sauce spiked with fresh lemon and black pepper to dress them up to the nines. The rich, alluring fragrance of truffles is almost pheromonal and Tartufaia will be providing the truffle oil for my Truffle-Scented Stuffed Mushrooms – juicy, roasted flat field mushrooms stuffed with a puree of mixed exotic mushrooms reduced with wine, garlic and fresh herbs and shot through with the finest Parmesan cheese – a luxurious dish you can really sink your teeth into. For dessert I’ll bring in a flirtatious floral theme with a Blushing Rhubarb Rose Eton Mess – pillows of whipped cream laced with rosewater from Arabica and crushed melt-in-the-mouth meringues from Comptoir Gourmande, swirled through with a hot pink compote of new season rhubarb from Yorkshire which has been harvested by candlelight. What’s not to love?
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MARKET
Columbia Road Shop and Flower Market Words Linda Wilkinson Photographs Sakon Boonyakait
It’s had several names over the centuries, but Columbia Road was named in honour of the heiress and philanthropist Angela Burdett Coutts, who had not only built Columbia Market (now demolished) but had instituted a Bishopric in British Columbia. The run of Victorian shops we see today were built during the 1860’s to service the population of the nearby Jesus Hospital Estate. Apart from providing all the necessities of life, many of the shops were given over to upholstery as an adjunct to the thriving wood trade in the area. Wood turning and milling factories peppered the area until the late twentieth century. The buildings which house the Fleapit Café and Milagros, being two of the largest. The Flower market began as a Saturday trading market, but as the Jewish population grew a Sunday market was established. The Saturday market lapsed, but the Flower market evolved. Initially this serviced the local population many of whose houses have small gardens. Plants were brought by handcart from nearby market gardens in Hackney and Islington and market pitches were claimed on the day on the blow of a whistle. The whole area went into a decline in the 1970’s. Indeed demolition was mooted, but the locals fought back and the area and market were saved. Since the 1980’s the market has grown into one of international repute. Today a wide range of unusual shops complement it, turning the whole area into one of the most interesting shopping experiences to be had anywhere.
“ Columbia Road began its life as a pathway along which sheep were driven to the slaughterhouses at Smithfield. Like much of the land in East London it was finally built on to serve the needs of a growing London which resulted from the explosion of Empire during the Victorian era “ 21
TIPS Words AGNIESZKA BISKUP illustration Sakon Boonyakait
Global warming and the greenhouse effect
Earth’s atmosphere has been developing a small but significant fever Earth’s atmosphere works something like a giant glass greenhouse. As the sun’s rays enter our atmosphere, most continue right down to the planet’s surface. As they hit the soil and surface waters, those rays release much of their energy as heat. Some of the heat then radiates back out into space. However, certain gases in our atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor, work like a blanket to retain much of that heat. This helps to warm our atmosphere. The gases do this by absorbing the heat and radiating it back to Earth’s surface. These gases are nicknamed “greenhouse gases” because of their heat-trapping effect. Without the “greenhouse effect,” Earth would be too cold to support most forms of life. But there can be too much of a good thing. Carbon dioxide is released when we use fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas. We burn these fuels, made from the ancient remains of plants and animals, to run electricity-generating plants that power factories, homes and schools. Products of these fossil fuels, such as gasoline and diesel fuel, power most of the engines that drive cars, airplanes and ships. By examining air bubbles in ice cores taken from Antarctica, scientists can go back and calculate what the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been throughout the last 650,000 years. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been climbing to where today it is 30 percent greater than 650,000 years ago. That rise in carbon dioxide “is essentially entirely due to the burning of fuels,” Susan Solomon says. She’s a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in Boulder, Colo., and studies factors that affect climate. “We’ve always had some greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” Solomon says. “But because we’ve burned a lot of fossil fuels and deforested parts of the planet, we’ve increased the amount of greenhouse gases, and as a result have changed the temperature of the planet.” 22
TIPS
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hello morning “ I like to wake up with cup of coffee and simple breakfast to start my day happy”
Photographs Sakon Boonyakait 25
MAKE A DISH
Pad Thai recipe Photographs Sakon Boonyakait
Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients in this famous Thai dish - it’s very easy
Ingredients 1 tbsp dried shrimps (optional) 100g dried rice stick noodles 3 tbsp vegetable oil 2 eggs, lightly beaten 2 garlic cloves, smashed 200g small fresh prawns, peeled 100g bean sprouts, rinsed 2 spring onion greens, chopped into 3cm/1in lengths 3 tbsp Thai fish sauce (nam pla) 1 tbsp tomato ketchup 2 tbsp lime juice ½ tsp dried chilli flakes or cayenne 1 tbsp palm or brown sugar 2 tbsp roasted peanuts, lightly 2 tbsp coriander sprigs 1 lime, quartered
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Preparation method Grind the dried shrimps to a fluffy powder in an electric coffee grinder (you can clean out the grinder by whizzing raw rice in it). Cover the noodles with boiling water and leave for 15 minutes or until al dente. Rinse in cold water and drain well, then use 1 tsp of oil to coat your hands and run them through the noodles to help prevent sticking. To make the omelette, heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a wok and swirl to coat the surface. Pour in the beaten eggs and swirl to make a very thin omelette. Run a knife around the edge, turn out, slice into strips and set aside. To cook the noodles, add remaining oil to the wok and heat. Add the garlic and the prawns and toss over high heat. Set the prawns aside. In turn, add the noodles, omelette strips, bean sprouts, spring onions, shrimp powder, fish sauce, ketchup, lime juice, chilli and sugar, tossing constantly over high heat.
MAKE A DISH
‘‘ Pad Thai, which means “Thai-style frying,” is one of my favorite fried noodle dishes. The noodles are softened and then stir-fried along with eggs, bean sprouts, shrimp and peanuts. You can find the cellophane noodles at your local Asian market or any supermarket with an Asian section. What distinguish these noodles are the garnishes that make it colorful as well as delicious. Use as little or as much of the crushed red chili pepper as your guests will like, since it’s very potent ’’
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Life isn’t about Finding yourself.
Life is about
Creating Yourself. - George Bernard Shaw -