Now he is on to redefining the Easter Egg. Using Original Beans Cru Virunga 70%, this is a complex chocolate structure of egg inside egg. Available at Liberty’s and Kings Fine Foods for a limited edition and time. Get it now.

Vier Schokoladen, vier Weine. Die Schokoladen sind von Original Beans, die Weine von 4 Winzern, die zu den fuehrenden Produzenten ‘natuerlicher’ Spitzenweine gehoeren. Also biodynamisch am Hang, und ohne Chemie im Keller.

Wir haben 300 Weine verkostet, um die richtigen Paarungen zu finden Ueberzeugt Euch selbst und schaut vorbei am Stand auf der Biofach, oder bestellt z.B. bei www.probiowein.de

We don’t want to be moralistic about all the companies who participate in exploitative cacao production, including some brands who explicitly speak about the issues, but don’t change hem. We simply cannot understand such business ethics.

For the consumer, we have a few simple guidelines to avoid the worst:

1. Buy only chocolate worth more than $3 per bar.

2. Eliminate any chocolate that does not declare its country of origin. Most likely, an undeclared chocolate product originates from West Africa – Ivory Coast, Ghana, or Nigeria.

3. Look for certification labels (Organic, Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, Utz Certified).

Giant trees offer critical habitat and forage for wildlife, while transpiring massive amounts of water through their leaves, contributing to local rainfall. Old trees also lock up massive amounts of carbon — in some forests they can account for up to a quarter of living biomass.

According to field research in Cost Rica by scientists David and Deborah Clark, tropical forests could shrink over time. The largest, oldest trees would progressively die off and tend not to be replaced. Alarmingly, this might trigger a positive feedback that could destabilize the climate: as older trees die, forests would release some of their stored carbon into the atmosphere, prompting a vicious circle of further warming, forest shrinkage and carbon emissions.

Read more: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0126-big_trees.html#ixzz1klxd6KAO

Transformational times call for tranformational actions, and the German Advisory Council on Global Change (Wissenschaftliche Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen, WBGU) thinks that in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, people need to transform the way they live and embrace a new global social contract. In a new, 424 page report called “World in Transition: A Social Contract for Sustainability”, they look at everything from governance structure to the importance of change-agents for what they call “a  great transformation” to a low-carbon sustainable society.

Rather than focusing only on needed changes, the report looks at the systems and transitions already underway, including political, technological, and financial structures and individual efforts.  Then it provides strategy recommendations to move these developments forward. Two of the key needs for the transformation, according to WBGU, are proactive states and individual responsibility.  Read more of this important document here.

Stevie trained at The River Cafe, Moro and Petersham Nurseries and has travelled the world seeking out new recipes and ways of cooking. A natural progression from his pop up project, Moveable Kitchen, the Dock Kitchen restaurant, in designer Tom Dixon’s Portobello Dock showrooms in London’s Notting Hill, opened in 2009 to great critical acclaim.

As Science Daily reports, new study shows that because these climate models don’t account for species competition and movement, they could grossly underestimate future extinctions.