Being present.

"A cook, when I dine, seems to me a divine being, who from the depths of his kitchen rules the human race. One considers him as a minister of heaven, because his kitchen is a temple, in which his ovens are the altar." 

Marc Antoine Desaugiers

Dear Business Owners.....

If you are going to do nothing more than bagels and coffee, please do them well. 

The humble bagel is more than just a blank slate for you to be creative with- it should be a well baked bread.
Don't under bake it.  Don't burn it. Don't be a dummy.
Coffee is more than just throwing grounds in a machine.  Have you even tasted the range of flavor you can get through fresh roasts, and less aggressive brewing techniques? Spend 5 minutes and a few dollars in a true coffee house, (not St*rbucks!) and then try your coffee again.  It's sad really.
And when you charge 300% on food, I understand, you're in business to make money.  But don't forget that without a respect to your customers, and their levels of taste, you have no business.

Good day sir!

Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world.
 

~Ada Louise Huxtable

in.gredients

Here's another great idea to inspire us. 

It's a great example of good people making a good effort, consciously & creatively.

A new grocery concept is schedule to open Fall 2011 in Austin, Texas. 

  In.gredients will be the first PACKAGE FREE, ZERO WASTE grocery store in the U.S.    

A similar store in London, Unpacked, has been a great example of how this can work.  So, how does it work exactly?  Locally & seasonally sourced market items will be available to you, sans packaging. Since your pockets will fill quickly, you can bring containers from home or use their compostable containers.  The goal is to "pre-cycle".   And get this- with every purchase, the consumer decides what charity a portion of the proceeds will benefit.   

I like it.

Log onto their website for more info, which includes a great blog.  They are accepting donations and investors to get the doors open.  

Godspeed!

The (not so) Fun Facts

• The US fills 63,000 25-ton garbage trucks every day; about 700,000 tons of garbage is placed in American landfills on a daily basis.
• Packaging makes up about 40 percent of that. The packaging we throw away, then, annually totals nearly 39 million tons of paper/paperboard, 13.7 million tons of plastics, and 10.9 million tons of glass.
• Meanwhile, 30 million tons of packaging was recycled annually from 2005 to 2010.
• The total amount of packaging wasted from 2005 to 2010, however, grew 1.8 percent annually.

Mark your calendar. Go ahead, I'll wait.

"From the Ground Up:

Seed Starting and Garden Planning,"
presented by Christy Wilhelmi.

Sunday, June 26, 2011
10:00 am-11:00 a.m.

3300 S. Centinela Ave. at Rose Ave. in West Los Angeles
90066. South of the Santa Monica Munipcial Airport, north of Palms

Sponsored by Ocean View Farms Community Gardens, a nonprofit community
garden, Los Angeles County Smart Gardening Program, operating the gardens
under permit by Los Angeles County Dept. of Recreation and Parks.

The general public is invited.
Contact - Melody Girard, educationchair@oceanviewfarms.net

It's called a knife people!

Save your pennies.

Mochi, mochichi!

Let's start off by saying this is no chocolate chip cookie, but it's good!

While trying to please both a gluten free and vegan crowd, MOCHI came to the rescue!

Mochi is a Japanese cake, made of glutinous rice.  It is pounded into a paste and then molded into shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki. Mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year and is commonly sold and eaten during that time, but you can find it year round.  Sushi restaurants often have a green tea version for dessert, and whole foods carries flavors like what we had, cinnamon raisin.   It's not a texture that Americans are used to in dessert foods- it's a little chewy, and not very sweet.  Moral of the story- it's worth a try- MOCHI!

Hats Off.

Being a farmer is damn hard work.  

With minimal groundbreaking in my new garden achieved,  I'm toast.  I've never felt back pain like this before.  For once, the romance of homesteading isn't turning me on.  I have officially been kicked in the pants. Year one is no joke.  Proper tools, the right time of day, and moxie are speaking loud and clear.

Noted.