In 2004 Debra Solomon (US/NL) began publishing her independent research on culiblog.org on food, food culture, and the culture that grows our food.
Her recent work includes a series of temporary 'concept' restaurants including a sprout restaurant exclusively serving micro-greens, 'Grow yer own dang food', and now, the Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking repurposing restaurant in Rotterdam and a future restaurant for fasting in collaboration with Amsterdam's Lloyd Hotel.
Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking is a mobile snacklab and a culinary embassy serving up food from the ‘hood. Street food design by way of urban engagement and super-use of local food flows, expertise and facilities, these are the defining elements of Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking.
Lucky Mi is a collective design project involving food entrepreneurs from Amsterdam and Rotterdam neighbourhoods. Artist/designer Debra Solomon / culiblog.org developed the project for Imagine IC Amsterdam, Freehouse/Vakmanstad and Kosmopolis Rotterdam working in collaboration with top chefs, hotel school students and local culinary entrepreneurs. The Lucky Mi menu is based on in-situ snack innovation resulting in a purely dim-sumptuous snackology using the platform of a sexy mobile snackwagon.
For the NAi-Maastricht in 2006 Solomon co-curated the Edible City about food and the built environemnt. She was the food domain expert of Newcastle's Design Biennial (Dott 07) and designer for the Dott 07 Urban Farming project.
In 2008 she is designer invitée of the design biennial in Saint-Étienne’s (FR) Cité du Design showing community tools for food and sustainability. Currently Solomon is working with several architectural teams on projects that are radical visions for community involvement with food systems and urban agriculture. Aside from edible landscaping, her co-designs include open-to-the-public communal kitchen facilities and infrastructure aimed at bolstering social cohesion through local food-related micro-economies.
Read more on her weblog about food culture, www.culiblog.org.
