La Casa Grande Colectiva

Category: house

  • La Casauerkraut

    I think it was this article http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/413/countertop_culture in The Sun magazine that first caught my interest in wild fermentation. Certainly, the pallid, soggy sauerkraut of my middle American world had never once lured me.  Still, my interest in home food preservation and the health benefits of raw, fermented foods made trying this irresistible, and so in I leapt. I can only say that homemade, wild fermented sauerkraut is one the most unexpected pleasures of my life now. Each batch is unique and that is part of the fun. I like to add a little garlic, a bit of carraway seed (against flatulence) and any root veggies that might be available like beets, carrots or radishes. I use the least amount of salt I can get away with which has been a bit less than the recipe and it has worked out well. Beets and purple cabbage both give the kraut a lovely pink hue. I don’t even like pink, but I have loved the colors of my kraut batches.

    Anyway, Sandor Katz is the wild fermentation maven. Here’s his website, starting right off at the recipe for kraut: http://www.wildfermentation.com/resources.php?page=sauerkraut

    This is the batch I made just a few days ago, dedicated to Dan Schreiber:

     

    Cabbagecarrotconfetti
    A bit of sauerkraut spirituality fun
    Julio giving the kraut crock some L-O-V-E

    I hope you make some of your own and you love it!

  • The making of a collective living room.

    During our last house meeting, Maggie led us in an activity that I thought was pretty cool and worth sharing here on the blog.  A few weeks ago we agreed it would be a good idea to reorganize the living room to better fit the ways in which we’d like to utilize it.  We hadn’t really gotten a chance to put our heads together and figure out exactly how to do that.  So, during last Sunday’s meeting, we spent some time reflecting on what we individually wanted to experience — first, in our home as a whole, and then, in our living room specifically.  The collective results of that exercise, the various themes and commonalities, were a pretty interesting reflection (to me, anyway!) of the group we have living here currently.

    As the newest member, I’ve been here a month, and so far I am still thrilled to be here!  I keep being warned that this won’t last, that I’ll soon become bitter and disillusioned (okay, no one actually said THAT, exactly), but until then… I really do consider myself fortunate to be able to experience life at La Casa.  Now…back to the activity!

    We were first directed to write 3-5 FEELINGS we wanted to experience in our home.  We performed this task individually and anonymously. Here were the results. (fyi, I tried to consolidate repeat words, those are shown bigger with the number of how many people wrote them)

    Feelings.  Home.

    We were then asked to write 3-5 ACTIVITIES we wanted to see happening in our home.

    Activites. Home.

    At this point, Maggie read to us the list of words we had written collectively, first for the feelings, then for the activites.  Next, we were to write 3-5 FEELINGS again, this time for our living room specifically.

    Feelings. Living room.

    Finally, we wrote 3-5 ACTIVITIES we wanted to see happening in the living room.

    Activities. Living room.

    The living room has gone through its first transformation since then (with the help and inspiration of a little tequila, so I hear).  Next time you get a chance to pass through, these might be a few of the things you might see happening there!

  • Of Flying Yoga, Laughing Snow Buddhas and Sweat Lodges

    I didn’t really think this post would have a particular theme until I wrote the title for it. Obviously at least some of us at La Casa are of a mind-body-spirit bent this season. I would say that, individually, we usually are, but things have recently coalesced so that these activities have entered into a somewhat more group sphere. As in many other enterprises, La Casa provides positive ground for do-it-yourself-improvement. I just made that up; do you like it? Anyway, we’ve got the space, the info, the mutual support to seriously pursue these interests without taking ourselves too seriously. A laughing Buddha would be the best sort to be, methinks.

    JP flying upside down
    Becky gets flown by Maggie
    Embryonic sweat
    Cold sweat

    Ice meditation, great cure for hangovers

  • Winter Awakens at La Casa

    सिद्धार्थ गौतम

  • Julio’s Second Month and Counting…

    My room at La Casa
    My son, Josh, chillin'

  • New Furnaces Include a Crane and a Sweet Repairman

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    We get nifty new furnaces after weeks of being just a bit too cold. The installation included a new flue liner which required a crane. Julio thought photos from up there would be great, so I asked the flying man if he would and he did, with alacrity. A new view of our humble (?) home.

  • Autumn around here.

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  • Andrew’s Big Changeroo

    On September 2, 2010, Andrew, a then two-years-&-one-month resident of La Casa — in other words, a La Casan — did that thing that every La Casan eventually does, perhaps th last thing that any La Casan can possibly do.  He moved out of La Casa!

    Out of La Casa & into a little rental house on Franklin St.  Now Franklin St is a strange little street — a dead end poking almost obnoxiously into Crystal Lake Park.  Obnoxious from th point of view of th park district, who’d like to see all th houses on th street torn down & th street turned into a parking lot!  But for th few residents who live here, in these 8 houses, it’s a strange & magickal anomaly.  And also not La Casa.
    View Larger Map

    Ok, first person now.  I moved in with my partner Carey & her soon-to-be-ten-year-old daughter Kaleigh (who, as I type this, is spending some days in Springfield with her Dada and her friends — Springfield is where she moved from on September 2, 2010).  So we’ve been settling in.  There are domestic things to figure out — child care, unpacking, washing dishes, making “supper” (that’s what they call it around here), digging garden beds for winter greens!  And there is love, passion, creativity here.  Carey & I continue to fall deeper in love and surprise each other.  Yesterday we harvested nine pounds of edible mushrooms!  And Kaleigh & I invented a board game last week called CrazyPlay!!, which she took to Springfield with her and is hopefully surviving lots of games (it needs to be laminated, but we haven’t laminated it yet).  We’ve also drawn & painted together, made bound books out of scrap paper, taken walks with Sophie, cast magic(k) spells with sticks.  And it’s not always easy.  As we settle into a new place with new people, there cannot not be turbulence.  But there is also patience and love to soothe it.

    C & K get up a lot earlier in th morning than I do.  I’m getting used to it.

    Today, with Kaleigh in Springfield and Carey at work, I’m doing some things that are important.  Blogging is on my list (check!), and so is composing music, turning th compost (check!), taking a bath, re-reading a Gregory Bateson article, doing yoga in th park, & washing some dishes.

    I miss my friends at La Casa.  It’s nice to find excuses to go over there.  It can’t happen every day, which makes it special when it does happen.  When I lived there, I wasn’t in th habit of giving everyone a hug every time I see them, but now I am!  I look forward to future La Casa events: potlucks, concerts, workshops, birthday parties….  It’s a nice circle to be in.

    Much love,

    Andrew, La Casan at Large.

  • invitation to odd instrument garden

    ODDMUSIC URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

    – presents –

    odd instrument garden

    at La Casa Grande Colectiva (a collective residence)
    906 S. Maple St, Urbana
    Sunday June 27 at 5pm

    FREE!

    Donations gratefully accepted to support our “artist in residence” program.

    You’re invited to an open house in th form of a temporary sound garden. Odd and 1-of-a-kind instruments growing together in a “garden” for you to see & try out. Come at 5 to see th “garden.” Then stick around, because at 5:30, we’ll have a “garden tour,” & you can hear all our odd instruments at play: a full concert in th odd instrument garden.

    = = =

    Oddmusic U-C is building a library of unusual and usual musical instruments at the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center and facilitates events to connect experimental composition, microtonality, & instrument-building with radical social change.

  • Look out, photojournalists.

    I have a digital camera, thanks to the dumpster-diving prowess of my friend Jackie in Richmond, VA.  Unfortunately the camera cannot take a picture of itself, so I offer this instead:

    The look in Maria's face knows that her time as the best La Casan life photojournalist has come to an end.

    The camera takes three AAA batteries.  I got some rechargeable batteries and a charger, so if you need your aaa’s charged you know who to come to.

  • What I made for Christmas

    Greetings from my familial home in the early morning of Xmas in Virginia Beach, VA, to wherever and whenever you, dear reader, read this.

    Among the Xmas traditions I have observed since being home is the Xmas Eve dinner, wherein the “kids” (ages 19, 21, 24 now, not including the firstborn who is at the in-laws’ this year) cook for the “grown-ups” (the two ‘rents, plus Dad’s sis Chris, a.k.a. Auntie Santie).  We did some vaguely Mexican things, including this recipe for sweet-and-spicy black beans. A big hit, it was, even if the beans weren’t cooked “a la casa” (from scratch).

    Also some flan for dessert—my first flan!  Sorry for the lack of pictures; I’m still not in the habit of snapping much.  Perhaps I’ll find a picture of the fam’, some of whom visited back in March 2008 on the occasion of a House Concert…

    There are plenty of tidings to go around, don’t worry…

  • The Truth About Injustice Always Sounds OutRageous

    (((An upcoming event involving La Casa residents & friends.  Note that it is taking place at a house that is not La Casa.  Consider yourself invited!)))

    House Theater Dec. 10, 11, 12: “The Truth about Injustice Always Sounds OutRageous”

    Sounds outrageous and outrageous sounds, brought to you by House Theater and UC-ODD MUSIC project. We invite you to an hour and a half “Letter to the Editor” on the system-designed killing of 15 year old Kiwane Carrington Oct. 9 2009 entwining experimental compositions in sound, dance, and poetry performed in a living, bedroom, bathroom of an Urbana house.

    You’re invited! You don’t need to know us to come!

    There will be three identical performances. Pick one or several:

    Thursday, December 10 @ 7:30pm
    Friday, December 11 @ 7:30pm
    Saturday, December 12 @ 7:30pm

    Where: 2106 S. Race St., Urbana (home of Ben Grosser, Kate McDowell, and Jasper)

    How much: suggested donation of $5-$10, or pay what you can

    Who: compositions by Grosser, Schuessler, Rzewski, Enslin, Simpson, Gaiuranos, Barton, Heathwaite, Parenti, Nix, Michaelis, Lieder,Chynoweth, Cage, Glick, and more…

    RSVPs are appreciated but not required.  Drop an email to grosser@bengrosser.com.