Festival Update

GIF credit: compiled from Vivek Kabra’s Suryakumbh epic “World’s Largest Solar Cooking Festival” in 2017. It’s hard to beat this Sun’s Eye view of the gathering!

Answering The Call

Most of my invitations to as many of the most active solar cooking experts have been sent. Already two dozen have answered the call, and we are inking in dates for them to log into the Museum’s Zoom Room. We’ve expanded our Zoom capacity to host up to 300 logged in guests!

If everyone who has received or will soon get an invitation answers the call, you’ll reap the benefit of decades of solar cooking experience from over eighty panelists, workshoppers, and livestreamers. And don’t sell yourself short, if you don’t hear from me soon that doesn’t mean I won’t tap your shoulder too—but don’t wait! If you have an idea for a topic not listed below, or are ready to livestream a cookout in your back yard, a park or farmer’s market, let me know!

So here’s the rundown, dates subject to change, but generally these are solidifying, and the time frame will be for about two hours in the window between noon and 5pm, Central Time USA:

Panel Topics:

Sept 13: (two panels/topics!) Solar Cookbooks: Conversation Among Authors. And Solar Cooking Complementary Tools: Trackers, Sunsights, and “Hacked Cookware”

Sept 14: (three panels) Integrated Cooking Methods. Thermal/Haybaskets. Solar Dehydrators.

Sept 15: Solar Photovoltaic-to-Electric Cooking.

Sept 16: Promotional Strategies for Solar Cooking Advocates

Sept 17: Makers/Spaces Meet the Maker Solar Cooker Design Challenge

Sept 18: (two panels) Organization Structures and Resources for Promotion. And Solar Cooking Peripheral Tools: Pasteurization Indicator Devices and Methods

Sept 20: Reflective Panel Cookers

Sept 21: Solar Box Cookers

Sept 22: Parabolic Reflector Cookers

Sept 23: Vacuum Tube Cookers

Sept 24: Fresnel Lens and Reflector Cookers

Sept 25: Hybrid Solar + Built-in Alternative Energy Cookers

Sept 27: Community/Institutional Scale Solar Cooking Systems

Several livestreamed events are inked in or tentatively scheduled:

Sept 12: Tucson Citizens For Solar/Solar Guild will host its annual solar pot luck near Tucson

Sept 19: Veteran solar cook and DIY/tech solar cooking tester Kurt Neubek and Matt Jones will be demonstrating solar cookers at the Galveston Sand Castle Competition. I’ll be recording as much of this as I can!

Sept 30: Weather permitting, I’ll be livestreaming from Nicollet & 35th Street in south Minneapolis, with cookies and pastries cooking in the Museum’s Villager Sun Oven, and other dishes in a wide variety of solar cookers.

Sept 12-20: Concurrent with our Earthwide marathon of solar cooking panels, livestreams, and workshops, Alain Bivas, inventor of the SunPlicity, is hosting a Festival de la Cuisine Solaire in France. Neighbors will be invited to bring their own food to cook, and a sea of SunPlicities will greet them.

The header animated GIF is a compilation of shots from Vivek Kabra’s wonderful Surykumbh events where kids are taught about solar cooking, with their own cooker, with the encouragement of their parents and teachers. We hoped to have Vivek reprise this overwhelming workshop and picnic during our Festival, but unfortunately September can bring monsoon rains to his region of India. Nevertheless, Vivek has OK’d a montage of clips from his several videos covering the events. Here is his channel!

I don’t dare publish and jinx the other penciled in dates where cooking promoters hope to launch livestreams of solar cooking workshops, these are still in the planning stages. Many hope to kick off their events prior to the above panel dates or livestreams. As these are recorded and shared, we’ll pass on the links and can re-air them during the Festival. With luck, we may hog interweb bandwidth for nearly 24/7 some days, given the wide variety of time zones :)

We also hope to enlist the help of dozens of solar cooking experts in several livestreamed “Ask A Solar Cooking Geek” Zoom calls. I’m seeking out folks anywhere on the planet who’d like to use the Museum Zoom to host them.

Lastly, if you have ideas for unique and productive livestreaming events, workshops, or demonstrations, email me at Museum@bigbluesun.net

As each date is in non-erasable ink, I’ll assemble the Zoom or Youtube links for each event and publish the calendar. By virtue of subscribing to this newsletter, you will always be the first to know.

Whew! Now I just have to finish my van upgrades so it can handle all the positive energy flowing through it in September :)

Luther