About Christine Carroll

Christine Carroll is a trained chef and co-author of the cookbook “Come In We’re Closed: An invitation to the world’s best restaurant staff meals” due out in October 2012. She is also the founder of CulinaryCorps, the nation’s first volunteer service organization for culinary professionals. She lives and tends bees in Washington D.C.

Author Archive | Christine Carroll

On Becoming a “BEEK”

November 2, 2012 · Christine Carroll

Smart Steps Before Starting Your Own Hive

Ask a “beek” (slang for a beekeeper) about honey, and many will say it is only a piece of the obsession. Indeed, beekeeping is diverse: part science, part hard physical labor, part group-think psychology, part backyard ecology and part folkloric magic. Undoubtedly, maintaining a hive of healthy honeybees is the most exhilarating micro-farming one can do within city limits.

Plus, the effort is helping to repopulate the planet with pollinators. With experts continually confounded by the causes and implications of Colony Collapse Disorder—the recent mass disappearance of worker bees—your new colony will create

Thinking Inside the Box

November 2, 2012 · Christine Carroll

How DC’s DDOT Caught the Beekeeping Bug

Photography by Hannah Colclazier

On a sunny March morning, Joey Perez, Supervisory Forester for District Department of Transportation, had the privilege of welcoming eight queens to the city. Instead of scepters, however, this royal family sported something a little more menacing: stingers.

The newly transplanted queen bees, and their broods of about 10,000 female workers, are part of Mayor Vincent Gray’s administration-wide request to introduce sustainabiliy initiatives earlier this year. Beekeeping is DDOT’s creative eco-friendly effort to increase the city’s sustainability efforts. “Many departments planted trees,” explained the 31-year old forester, “but we

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THE GAME CHANGERS: TEBABU ASSEFA

June 29, 2012 · Christine Carroll

THE COFFEE PROPHET

Local coffee roaster transforming the lives of Ethiopian farmers and his local community through a newly formed benefit corporation

For Tebabu Assefa, native of Ethiopia and local coffee visionary, a simple proverb sums up his life’s work: buno dabo naw (“Coffee is our bread”). As the creator of Blessed Coffee—one of the nation’s first benefit corporations—no one better understands how coffee, both the beans and the beverage, are critical to the survival of Ethiopia’s identity and economic health.

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