the butter supper club: fat

the butter museum

as part of cork city’s first fridays initiative, i was invited to present on a moderated panel-and-tasting at the butter museum of cork.

this specific buttery encounter presented a favorite topic of mine - fat! the format was a fun, light presentation-meets-tasting of two famous fats - butter and olive oil. the supper club was moderated by dr. regina sexton, an irish food historian of no comparison, and i was joined by toby simmonds from toonsbridge dairy to speak to fat through the lens of history, culture, and modern conceptions.

together with twenty-plus participants, we tasted types of olive oils from italy (liguria, tuscany, and sicily) and olive oils from toby’s import business (crete, spain, and portugal if i remember correctly). we also did a butter tasting, comparing industrial piemontese butter, artisanal piemontese butter, and craft irish butters from toby’s production (with one incredible buffalo-y surprise!). the tasting evolved quite nicely into an aperitivo-style meet-and-greet/informal q&a, accompanied by a spread of cheeses, bread, and olive oil from toby and burro e acciughe brought from italy and composed by the helpful, intelligent, and charismatic butter museum staff.

you can check out the instagram reels mentioning this supper club through both this link and this link.

i am so grateful to danielle o’donovan for her invitation and willingness to collaborate with me, introduce me to the incredible butter museum, and for allowing me the space to share my interests, knowledge, and passion. even though this supper club joking played on “team butter” versus “team olive oil” and i live in italy, i will always be team butter!

learn4earth

sowing the future: seed saving

in the autumn of 2022, the pollenzo food lab at the university of gastronomic sciences asked if i would be interested and willing in participating in a part of their project. departing from the “farm to fork” concept, this EU grant-funded project focused on developing innovative methodologies, approaches and hands-on activities to raise awareness in european schools about the current climate change challenges.

this presentation was developed for a “teach the teacher” training hosted at the pollenzo food lab. teachers from multiple european nations participated in-person as part of the project training with the goal of understanding how to teach their students about this topic (or similar), who then could teach their peers. in summary, moving from a “teachers teaching students” to “students teaching students” dynamic of horizontal learning and experience.

the arden skole, located in arden, denmark, then invited me to present this same topic at their school as part of an EU multiplier event. this was presented to over 200 students, teachers, and parents, who then participated in a hands-on activity on how to safely extract seeds from different available produce in order to learn how to save seeds.

naples botanical garden - education & visitor experience department

at the beginning of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, our programming at the garden had to shift from in-person, tactile, personable experiences to virtual platforms. it was a great challenge initially to attempt to teach about plants, already a topic that people have distance from. i hope you appreciate the shift not only in content and presentation, but also general knowledge of video editing software and technical adjustments.

to watch:

to read:

bee aware: helping native bees

bananas vs. plantains + 5 tasty recipes

diy closed terrarium

milwaukee public museum - anthropology department internship

in 2018, at the beginning of my interest and start in museum studies, i applied for and accepted an internship with the anthropology department at milwaukee public museum. under the supervision of dawn scher thomae, the curator of the anthropology collections, and alongside a handful of other interns, we completed research, assisted in programming for exhibits and education, developed presentations, and worked on cataloging and object identification.

it is hard to sum up what joy, curiosity, and challenges came with this internship - it ignited a great interest in this realm for me. i worked with native researchers, did stints in the herbarium, and interacted with visitors and members on the exhibit floor. i found the type of organization and institution where all my passions met - people, place, and things. i see how that is such a vague sequence of words, but it does quite a solid job of summarizing. i find great joy in discovering and interacting with people and their interests - answering and posing questions, discussing and relating, and enticing the curiosity out of both of us. being in a place like a museum (an ever-changing and challenged institution) gave a home to these interactions - and these objects. to hold and have history in solid forms, as you’ll see below, a whole story can be crafted with facts, findings, and research. an identity can be revealed, a purpose presented, an intent exposed for physical collections. 

pow-wow research for the Tribute exhibition: 

object identifications for the education department:

Halloween Hauntings: poisonous plants of wisconsin:

exhibit floor research & presentation:

samuel barrett collections & field notes - drawer identifications & research: