Hops grown at Eden flavour Sharp’s spring ale

The latest speciality beer from Cornish brewers Sharp’s features hops grown here in Eden’s outdoor gardens.

A golden coloured ale, Atlantic IPA includes a blend of four different hops, which give it “a fresh, citrus aroma and light candyfloss notes”. Sharp’s describes their latest creation as having a “heady grapefruit and passion fruit” aroma and a gentle fruit flavour “giving way to intense bittersweet”.

The Rock-based brewery is working with the Eden Project on a range of seasonal beers throughout the year, which use local ingredients and help re-establish hop-growing in the county. Find out more about how Eden has worked with Sharp’s in this video.

Atlantic IPA is available on draught in pubs and bars from 1 March. Next up is Honey Gold in the summer…

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Cornwall, Food, Horticulture

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Cornwall, Food, plants

Stunning ‘candle’ flowers bloom in Mediterranean Biome

We’ve got some gorgeous exotic flowers out in our Med Biome at the moment – from temperate regions across the globe. Right now, the South Africa section is a blaze of colour with a collection of giant Aloes putting up brilliant blooms in candelabra clusters.

Here’s our Mediterranean Biome Supervisor, Catherine Cutler, with the tallest of them all (right). The magnificent Aloe ferox bears many of the same properties as the Aloe vera plant, as it is used to treat cuts, wounds, burns and indigestion.

Just around the corner are the saucer-shaped flower heads of the pink and yellow King Protea (left – Protea cynaroides), the national flower of South Africa, where it is commonly known as the King Sugar Bush.

Nearby, are the elegant blooms of the Arum Lillies (below – Zantedeschia aethiopica), which grow to more than six feet tall in the Biome.

Mediterranean Biome Supervisor Catherine Cutler said: “This has been the longest, hardest, coldest winter any of us can remember and it is an incredible tonic to see all this colour and life coming back to the garden, both inside the Biome and across the whole site.”

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• Horticulture

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Aloes, Horticulture, Mediterranean Biome, plants

Recycled hotel to pitch in Eden Biome for the night

Visitors to Eden will see an unusual structure come to life in the Med Biome next week – a ‘one-night hotel’ made out of 10,000 disused tent poles.

Designed by the engineering company behind the velodrome for the 2012 Olympics, the shelter is being put together by a world-class team of experts – along with local volunteers and businesses – to raise money and awareness for Cornwall-based humanitarian charity ShelterBox.

Its paying guests will be delegates to the forthcoming creative business summit held at Eden, Intersections 2011, who will enjoy a unique night ‘under the stars’ inside our Mediterranean Biome.

While the temperature is likely to drop below 10°C during the night, the team will create sumptuous surroundings with reclaimed fabrics, using the likes of sheepskin off-cuts and ribbons. Guests will also be treated to live music, a hamper of ethically sourced goodies and a breakfast cooked by a top chef.

The idea behind the hotel is not only to create an unforgettable experience but to remind people that, while these guests are only staying for one night, in Haiti and Indonesia families have been living in temporary ShelterBox tents for over a year. The project also aims to demonstrate just what can be done with the large amounts of usable scrap that is sent to landfill each year.

The ShelterBox hotel and design conference (http://intersections2011.com) are part of Cornwall’s wider design season (www.cornwalldesignseason.co.uk) throughout February, March and April, which will see events and installations at 15 locations across the county, including Eden, Tate St Ives and Falmouth Art Gallery. We’ll bring you news of what’s happening at Eden over the coming weeks…

If you’d like to get involved in helping to build the hotel on 2 March, or dismantle it on 3 March, please contact clare@dottcornwall.com

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Architecture, Construction, Design, Sustainability

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Architecture, charity, Mediterranean Biome, Sustainability

Recipe from Eden’s Med Biome: Pork belly and chorizo stew

Our chef Tony Trenerry has come up with a warming Mediterranean-inspired dish that we’re serving up in our Biome.

If you’d like to try this at home, here’s the recipe. 

Pork belly and chorizo stew
This is a simple recipe. Once you’ve prepared the ingredients, the mixture only needs about 15 minutes on the stove before you pop it in the oven for several hours. Serves six.

Ingredients:

• 400g pork belly, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 80g smoked streaky bacon, roughly sliced
• 80g chorizo sausage, roughly diced
• 80g red onion, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
• 20g smoked paprika
• 400g tinned chopped tomatoes
• 60ml red wine
• 400g canned cannellini beans
• 150ml water
• 15ml olive oil
• 500g potatoes, diced

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C / 325 °F
2. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-based, oven-proof pot that’s large enough to hold all the ingredients.
3. When the oil is heated, brown the pork belly pieces in batches and remove from the pan.
4. Add the bacon and sauté for a couple of minutes, then add the onions and garlic and continue cooking until the onions have softened.
5. Add the paprika and chorizo and cook for a further two minutes.
6. Return the pork belly to the pot along with the tomatoes, red wine and water.
7. Place into the preheated oven and cook for 1.5 hours.
8. Remove the pan, stir in the diced potatoes and cannellini beans and return to the oven for a further 30 minutes.

Serve with crusty bread.

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• Food

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Food, Mediterranean Biome, recipe

Circus comes to town for Eden’s 10th birthday

We’re excited about a specially created show of aerial acrobatics, live music, dance and drama that’s to be performed exclusively at Eden over the sumer holidays. The season of performances (29 July – 29 August) is all part of our 10th anniversary celebrations this year.

The award-winning performers, NoFit State Circus, have been described by reviewers as “Cirque du Soleil without the Disney and the disinfectant” and as “one of the most shake-your-head-in-disbelief beautiful things I have ever seen”.

They’ll be performing the ‘Labyrinth’ show right across the Eden site, moving in and out of the audience, doing daring displays above our heads, and then taking it to an incredible finale inside Eden’s very own ‘big top’.

Find out more and get your early-bird tickets

Check out the video below of NoFit State to see the amazing stuff they’ve done.

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Celebrations, Cornwall, Eden's 10th birthday, Events, Music

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Fun, Music

This week’s Plant Record: Daphne & Celeste

As a bit of fun for the weekend Chris Bisson, the guy who maintains all the recorded information on Eden’s plant collection as our Plant Records Manager, recommends his favourite “plant records” – that is, songs that are in some way linked to a plant.

This week’s tune: ‘Ooh Stick You’, by Daphne & Celeste

While we can’t say the same for this tune, we’re loving our Daphnes at the moment, which are looking great and smelling awesome. We have Daphne bholua ‘Jaqueline Postill’ and Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’. These super shrubs can be found in our Outdoor Biome (i.e. in the open air) around the Core and in the flowerbeds near the WEEE Man sculpture.

Daphne and Celeste, hmm well… originally from the US, they formed in 1999 and lasted only a few years. Their other famous UK hit was U.G.L.Y.

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Horticulture, Music

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Music, plants

Seed swap heads for the Clay Country

We’re hosting a local Seed Swap to help people to get ready for spring. Members of the Eden team, including gardening experts and story tellers, will head down to Penwithick Community Hall on Tuesday 22 February to give locals a chance to plant, grow, cook, and share food.

There’ll be bulb-planting and free hands-on gardening and cooking sessions for anyone from the Clay Country and the St Blazey area, as part of our Seeds, Soup and Sarnies project, a scheme to get people doing things just like this.

We’ll also be bringing Eden’s Big Green Bus,  a refurbished double-decker complete with table made out of an old surfboard, which kids love clambering on.

If you live in the Clay Country, drop by between 11am and 2pm. Let us know in advance in you’d like to join us for lunch, on 01872 327520.

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Community, Cornwall, Food, Horticulture

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Community, Cornwall, Food, Horticulture, plants

Eden Project Cafe opens today in St Austell town centre

Our new Eden Project Cafe opened its doors to the public this morning! Pop along to the new spot in White River Place, St Austell, Cornwall, for delicious food and drink; late night openings, free wifi; a book exchange; a fruit and veg swap.

Find out more about the Eden Project Cafe.

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Community, Construction, Cornwall, Food, Sustainability

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Community, Cornwall, Food, Harvest, Sustainability

Seeking football talent for Homeless World Cup Trials

Talented homeless footballers from the South West could be making their way to Paris for the Homeless World Cup this summer, if they make it through tomorrow’s trials.

The open trials in Exeter (Thursday 17 February 2011) are supported by Great Grass, a collaboration to bring positive changes to people’s lives through football, and which the Eden Project helps to run.

The pick of the crop will make up a national squad to go to France in August for an international competition that aims to use the power of football to highlight homelessness and transform people’s lives around the world.

Trials will take place at Exeter University’s 3G Rubber Cumb Pitch on Thursday 17 February 2001, 11am-1pm. If you’re interested in taking part, or know someone who would be eligible, read the full criteria or contact jamie.vittles@exetercityfc.co.uk for more information.

Find out more about Great Grass, the South West footballing project for the homeless that’s run by Eden, Exeter City, Plymouth Argyle, Bristol City, the Football league Trust and Cisco Systems: www.edenproject.com/greatgrass

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social inclusion, south west, Sport

Eden Project Cafe opens in St Austell this week

The long-awaited Eden Project Cafe in St Austell will open to the public on Thursday (17 Feb) with the launch of a unique, personalised book swap scheme.

It will be one of a range of activities at the low-carbon and sustainable cafe that will showcase the best of local food, music and art as well as community projects and green living. The cafe,  in the White River Place development in St Austell town centre, will open its doors at 8.45am on Thursday.

The cafe’s book swap encourages book-lovers to exchange their favourite literature with each other. Each participant can write a short review in the sleeve of one of their most-loved books, donate the book to the cafe for other readers, and then pick up another book in exchange.

Eden cafe manager Dan Ball said: “We’re looking for books of all types for the book swap. I’m donating Thor Heyerdahl’s The Kon-Tiki Expedition – the incredible adventure undertaken by a man crossing the largest expanse of water on earth on a boat made of a couple of trees bound together with hemp – it’s brilliant.”

Books won’t be the only things that can be exchanged at the Eden cafe. Visitors can bring in home-grown produce and the cafe will buy it at wholesale prices to use either in café dishes or sell on to other customers.

The cafe will be open everyday during daytimes from 17 February.

Find out more, including a preview of the menu, on the Eden Project website.

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• Food

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Community, Cornwall, Food, Sustainability