In my last post, I included video, slides, and the rough transcript from my presentation last weekend in Linz, Austria for Ars Electronica as part of the Cloud Intelligence Symposium.

In curating the symposium, David Sasaki also created “An Outsider’s Guide to Linz.” This post is an extension of his excellent guide with video and a heavy emphasis on food. (You can also find places David marked in Dopplr’s Social Atlas for Linz with geocoordinates.)

My Linz trip began with a burger in Cafe Walker that David didn’t mention would arrive with hidden corn kernels,

and later that night, through the drizzle as I walked out of the Haufplatz (the main square), I spotted my friend Seth Hunter.

Joining him and his fellow MIT artist Noah, we were off to fetch their bags from their installations, then to Italian restaurant Bigoli in nearby OK Platz (order the gnocchi), where Seth taught us how to make origami butterflies and we talked about the food of the future:

Back in the Haufplatz, young dancers in white unitards tucked glow sticks into their hair,

and then the lights went off, darkening the entire square, the better to see the glowing dancers move glowing balls to the other side of the street.

Friday morning, the market bustled in the same square (so much speck!),

and I bought a superlative cream-filled pastry with a hidden meringue layer,

thinking about food photography as I prepped for my talk (video) at the Ars Electronica: Cloud Intelligence Symposium the following day.

While the rain continued, I went to see the Ars exhibits for inspiration. A few of my favorites (also see my friend Ethan’s favorites):

a typewriter of images:

open sailing, a project about a floating community that models sustainability,

an LED abacus,

a skeeball marimba installation,

Arthur Ganson’s piece with scraps of paper winging their way,

and my very favorite, the geotextile mesh “Hylozoic Grove” by Philip Beesley,

that sensitively moved as you entered its translucent, shimmering space, brushing against branches.

Later that night, artists shrinkwrapped themselves as part of the Ars Gala,

and David toasted to the following “arscloud” symposium in classic style,

I had a wonderful tagliatelle at Cafe Lentos (highly recommend) with local chanterelles soaked in butter with steak and crunchy bits of sea salt, while Ethan had a Sicilian pasta with a large sardine,

and outside, the Ars Center pulsed with light patterns into the night.

In the clear morning, I could see rooftops and the Danube sparkling,

before I meandered around the organic grocery to find yogurt and granola to fly through last-minute revisions;

as part of the day’s proceedings at Ars on cloud intelligence, we asked all the “arscloud” symposium participants to hack their lunch (using fancy fast food as a model), and the winner made a CloudWurst (he explains):

After a full day, I opened my window to watch people mingle next to the river,

happy and tired from a long day of thinking about clouds and intelligence with this smart group,

and I stopped by a few sweets vendors on the way to group dinner,

purchasing a tangy yogurt cream pastry,

before traditional Austrian food (I had a black seafood risotto) at Alte Welt,

and then fireworks

and fire works (listen for Juliana’s take on this particular pile of flames).

The next morning, I wandered Linz, peering through open doorframes,

and admiring the fineness of the pale architecture (that almost has an icy tone to it, heavy on the glass),

watching those walking,

under crosses,

and past buildings with glittering, embedded religious mosaics,

on my way to the park,

and the buildings beyond,

On my way back, I found door handles shaped like pretzels,

more traditional Austrian for lunch,

and traditional dress to complete the lesson.

Before a trip up the mountain for dinner, I had gelato with David (hear what he discovers his favorite flavor is),

then it was time to meet gnomes,

follow them on signs,

to this restaurant,

where we all liked the pumpkin seed cheese best,

until the first course at the castle arrived,

consuming all our attention until (at least for me), this table sat down,

and there was birthday fire.

The next morning held pastries with Ethan and David,

this last is David’s favorite, and he felt it would power a longer morning run in the Austrian hills with Teddy of Project Diaspora (a former Ugandan Olympic hopeful in the decathlon),

and asking slightly less of other pastry, I purchased the Brandl Bakery version of the famous Linzer torte for the office, heading off to discover shaggy pastel marshmallows,

glistening jellies,

and an exhibition of recovered mosaic pieces from places of worship,

that included twinkling ships.

From the mosaiced currents, I opted for a fish sandwich a few doors down,

and wandering further, like a siren song, organ chords drew me into an old cathedral,

where I watched sunlight fill more and more of the pews as an unseen organist played on into the afternoon, sounds I carried with me back to Brooklyn…

This weekend was the fourth of July as well as the fourth weekend I’ve spent living in Brooklyn. It began with a market (see previous post) and continued with Superfine portobello sandwiches, my wonderful friend Andrew, and the restored Jane’s Carousel, which was playing “Battle Hymn of the Republic” as it spun.

A few doors down, the new Jacques Torres ice cream shop—next to his chocolate shop—was similarly dizzying in its superior sugared goodness (and you wonder why I work in the DUMBO area of Brooklyn?) that carried us to the New Museum’s “Younger Than Jesus” exhibit and then Pier 17 for Here We Go Magic, part of the River to River Festival.

Andrew folded the boat in the program (he’s always been good with the origami and the paper airplanes),

while we listened to opener Bachelorette from New Zealand. Andrew’s name for the paper boat references the recent Voice article we read while waiting for the bands, where Mike Powell skewers Wilco.

here’s the larger version

And hearing about the artistry at Locanda Verde (I’ll return for the breakfast menu instead), we topped our dinner there the next morning with new red potatoes from the Prospect Park Farmers’ Market,

that provided a base for baby onions, fresh corn, red chard, flowering thyme, and Parmesan.

We discovered that pheasant eggshells are blue inside,

and headed off to find more visual fabulous in “We Know The Secret of the Colors,” an ambient Manhattan adventure that started here,

led to a piece by Paul Richard,

paused for a public fountain,

directed us to look up,

at a nest on the side of a building,

to unscrew the cap of a fire hydrant,

pass a park with a rusty bike,

that gleamed almost at brightly as Kee’s incredible confections at Kee’s Chocolates, where Andrew and I forked from the ambient adventure for one involving tasting the fennel and the tiramisu truffles (the truffle oil macaron is sparkly, but go for the truffles that didn’t last for a picture).

Then we developed our own progressive dinner tour—snacks at the Park Slope Food Coop, sandwiches from the lengthy Bar Reis menu (there are 95, and yes, each is a thesis unto itself), and then pizza at Franny’s with local beer.

It was a day where we spied Shel Silverstein’s name etched where the sidewalk did, indeed, end,

under red leaves that sheltered birds calling out from hidden branches,

where even plastic strips forming a curtain to a receiving area were noteworthy,

and a stationary mailbox encouraged taking risks.

So we climbed to my roof, listening to sparklers going off in the streets below, and talked about the subtle explosions of everyday life, the small events that trigger cycles, in the way old friends observe patterns—Andrew’s toasted to four jobs with me now, and I heard the little crackles portending his meteoric rise through the worlds of science, policy, and (perhaps, perhaps) epidemiology…

This morning my spoon sails in and out of chocolate bread pudding from Formaggio Kitchen,

the gourmet shop in Cambridge where Charcutier (what a beautiful title) Leah Mojer crafts housemade rillettes, pâté, and a guanciale I could not resist when I visited on Friday.

I was in town for my last event with Knight Foundation, a gathering of the Knight News Challenge winners at MIT:

where I managed to convince some two hundred in attendance to wear Knight Pulse sweatbands and unveiled new pieces of the Pulse site—much more on that in a later post, where I’ll share what I learned this past year starting a niche online community space.

Some of my favorite people (including new friend Catherine) were in that number at MIT, and on Thursday night, I had dinner with them (Ethan, David, Catherine, Kevin) at Asmara.

Ethan explains the wonderful Eritrean food we ordered (I should say we actually let Ethan order and, like everything Ethan does, the order was thoughtful and nicely done):

My favorite was the lamb with jute plant (we ordered another), and like the spongy injera bread that serves as utensil in this cuisine, I felt my mind expanding as we talked of global politics, poison (not the band), and functional flows of local brain power. With this table of frequent flyers, it was so nice to land in this comfy restaurant and hear travel adventures narrated and future schemes plotted…

Being Cambridge, my mind also tried to bend around understanding why the buildings are numbered as well as named and around Erik Demaine’s work with computational origami (he’ll tell you simply that he likes algorithms). Erik is an extraordinary person (kind and the youngest professor in MIT history) and he folds balloons into octahedrons:

Driving out of the Cambridge rain, past the Charles River, and toward the smell of the Atlantic Ocean, I made sure these petit noirs from Formaggio Kitchen were tucked away,

delivering them to Matt and Maia’s kitchen in Newport, RI (fanciful chocolate for a lovely, artistic couple) on the way back to Brooklyn, where we’ll make charcuterie and chocolates and inflate balloons (a caveat that octahedrons are beyond me) now that the boxes are unpacked and neighborhood explorations begin in earnest…

Happy National Doughnut Day 2009! Last April I fried doughnuts in my mother’s kitchen because Krispy Kreme original glazed become even more beautiful then.

I’ll stand by what I wrote when I originally posted this (great comments on that post), explaining the recipe:

Why fry a doughnut that has already been fried? A turn in a hot pan caramelizes the outside of the doughnut to a crispy shell and returns the inside to a pillowy, soft state.

I hope you celebrate in style and to make these with all of you in all of your kitchens by next year this time (I’ll bring the lard)—

insisting you notice her even as she sweeps grandly away, trailing drops across leaves,

that bend in the sun, recovering from her fierce appearance,

and like filmmakers that race to shoot while streets are wet,

I am learning to wait in readiness, part of the Nature Paparazzi corps,

to catch her exit and the dazzling scene she leaves in her wake—