Amazing use of the Lebanese Cedars

The first Nebraska Agribusiness Club After Hours event, held at the Misty’s on 40th & Old Cheney in Lincoln on Thursday, was a success! Especially as we raised over $575 for the club’s CEDARS Adopt-a-Family.

This was the club’s second year to participate in the CEDARS Adopt-a-Family program. Last year, the club collected $360 and over 50 pounds of food to donate to people in the community, during the monthly meeting. For the CEDARS family last year, we purchased toys, clothes, diapers and kitchen items with the money donation.

This year’s family has two adopted boys and we were grateful to hear about their family from President-Elect, Mat Habrock.

Thank you to all who came and look forward to our next After Hours social event in the upcoming year.

Recently, I’ve been thinking, “Imagine if a photojournalist from the 1950s had Instagram, what would the photojournalist do with it?”

I definitely don’t claim to be a photojournalist, but I am a journalist – and I did just sign up for an account on the popular photo-sharing app. While I use my personal account for non-journalistic photos, I also made an account for Cedars (the student news organization at my college), even though I have not posted any photos with that account yet (I mostly made it to snatch up our “CedarsatCU” handle before it was taken.)

But I do wonder if I should actively use Instagram for Cedars and how to do so. I follow several news organizations, and this is how I’ve seen they use the app:

To engage the community with news-related hashtags: Many of the organizations I follow create hashtags specific to their organization and to a specific event for readers to use with their own photos. For example, the Huffington Post created the hashtag #HPL2012 for their followers to use for photos from local polling places on Election Day. They said they then might use these photos on their Huffington Post Live site.

To request user-generated content with very soft news-related hashtags: Sometimes news organizations want readers to share content related to a hashtag that is less than serious. USA Today recently used the hashtag #mustachemoment to ask users to share photos of their mustaches grown during No-Shave November.

To highlight the work of individual journalists: Reuters recently posted a photo of a French couple kissing during a thunderstorm in an Ukrainian stadium while a Euro 2012 soccer match was put on hold because of the weather. Photographer Michael Buholzer took the photo. In addition, a CNN senior editor in Asia, Tyson Wheatley, has a very popular Instagram account that he uses to post photos of life in Hong Kong.

In light of this, I have to ask: Imagine if every newspaper printed all their photos with a soft, Instagram-y filter, what would that say of the state of photojournalism? How much should the media use filters when posting Instagram photos?

I’m still thinking through how to best use the app for Cedars. How do you think news organizations and individual journalists should use Instagram?

All Instagram(tm) logos and trademarks displayed on this website are property of Instagram, Inc.

The Blackout Room at The American Beauty Mill for the 2012 Cedars Open Studio Tour.
(
http://www.reverbnation.com/theblackoutroom
)

The Blackout Room at The American Beauty Mill for the 2012 Cedars Open Studio Tour.
(
http://www.reverbnation.com/theblackoutroom
)

The Blackout Room at The American Beauty Mill for the 2012 Cedars Open Studio Tour. My handsome fellow is wailing away on the drums. :)
(
http://www.reverbnation.com/theblackoutroom
)

Lights on my boyfriend’s bass drum as The Blackout Room plays at The American Beauty Mill for the 2012 Cedars Open Studio Tour.
(
http://www.reverbnation.com/theblackoutroom
)

We also went to The Chestnut Tree in Denton, Texas to visit my painting, Somber Thoughts. It will be only display there until January.

The Chestnut Tree is a cute restaurant with friendly staff, great food and a very intimate atmosphere.

We enjoyed lunch: a caprese and chicken salad sandwich. I was delighted to learn they sold Dude, Sweet Chocolates and nabbed a couple of those at the end of our meal.

Somber Thoughts
2′ tall by 4′ wide
© 2012 Kelly Jacobi
Acrylic Ink on Wood Panel

I think the pale green walls suit her quite nicely!

At my university, the president recently announced that he is stepping down at the end of this school year to serve as a chancellor. He announced this on the day all of the content for our November issue was due. However, considering this was the biggest story any of us would ever cover as student journalists, we knew we had to put our current plans for November on hold and deliver some great content on the president’s decision.

The story involved multiple reporters producing multiple stories. Even though some of us needed to interview the same person, we couldn’t all do so. So I started a Google Doc. on Google Drive where reporters could post who they were interviewing so that other reporters could then enter questions they wanted that reporter to ask the interviewee.

I shared this document with all reporters involved in this project. We put in a lot of hard, long hours on the November issue (which came out about a week ago), and Google Drive played a small role in helping us put out a great issue. Check it out.

© 2012 Justin Schaefers
Digital Infrared Photography

Yesterday my boyfriend and I went to the American Beauty Mill Lofts to hang our art in preparation of the Cedars Open Studio Tour today. We’re both incredibly grateful to Owen for allowing us this opportunity!

© 2012 Kelly Jacobi
Ink on Board & Paper

Drilling into the cement of the silos was a challenge and we were lucky to have access to a giant drill and proper hardware. Thanks, Will!

Late night t-shirt printing accompanied by wine!

My boyfriend’s band, The Blackout Room will be performing at the after party tonight around 6 so we did some last minute t-shirts to give out. I’m actually on my way to the store to pick up a few more shirts to print before we head to the tour today.

The Nebraska Agribusiness Club is excited to host our first After Hours social event. $10 admission will be collected, and all proceeds will benefit CEDARS Adopt a Family program (read about what we did last year here). For the second year in a row the Nebraska Agribusiness Club has adopted a deserving family and will be providing them with gifts and items needed to help them have a happy holiday season.

Invite your coworkers, friends and family to join us for great socializing and to help support a great cause. If you are unable to attend please consider making a donation. Donations can be sent to the Nebraska Agribusiness Club and will be included with the proceeds for the evening.

Nebraska Agribusiness Club After Hours
November 29th
4:30-6:30 at Misty’s South
3930 Village Drive (40th and Old Cheney)
Light appetizers and cash bar provided

Please RSVP with the form below or email nebraskaagribusinessclub@gmail.com. 

GROUNDED – 8 X 8 – ACRYLIC

What does getting grounded have to do with a labyrinth? There’s a magical small park nearby that rests above the ocean on a small peninsula. It’s full of cedars, firs and maples as well as, get this, bald eagles. Tons of them. I’ve walked here in early summer and counted twelve big eagles – soaring, chasing and calling out with their high pitched shrill shrieks… It’s beautiful to witness.

LABYRINTH AT KWOMAIS POINT PARK, SURREY, BC

Recently, the park added a labyrinth to walk and appropriately it’s called Eagle’s Nest Labyrinth at Kwomais Point. I came upon it in the pouring rain the other day and decided to walk it, much to the confusion of my dog, Bella. whose idea of fun is to explore at a fifty foot radius away from me. Though at the labyrinth, she kept witnessing me walking slowly, turning back the way I’d just come, rounding a new turn, repeating the process – until she magically joined in right behind me and we ended at the center together! Grounded in calmness and beauty – then I made her wait while I shot this photo, haha!!!

Cedars, Saints, Khalil Gebran…and One Hell of a Lunch.   

Several Christmases back, on their first trip to Lebanon, I took my Canadian parents to Horch el-Arz el-Rab—The Cedar Forest of God—located above Bcharre. After a long trudge we reached the clearing, and its spectacular views of the ancient cedars, boughs heavy with snow. My father leaned over and, not wishing to spoil the moment, lowered his voice to a whisper: “So…what exactly are we supposed to be looking at…?”

True, snowy fir trees may not strike the average Canuck as a touristic “must-see”. But Bcharre is still worth the long and switchbacked road that veers up from the coastal highway near Batroun. A word to the wise: Bring a couple bottles of good wine…and a spare tyre.

Divine Trees

To make the most of a day trip, start at the top and work your way down. In season, you will need to pay a nominal admission fee to walk among God’s cedars. While the reserve is technically closed in winter, that doesn’t seem to stop anyone. Follow the path that wends up toward the clearing to enjoy gorgeous views and the breathtaking sculptures by Lebanese artist Rudy Rahme, who hails from Bcharre. Rahme’s work portrays innumerable faces and representations of Christ carved into dead cedars, a fitting tribute in a region fiercely proud of its religious heritage.

If you come in spring or summer, it is possible to plant a baby cedar on the reserve. Just locate one of the groundskeepers, who will provide tree, shovel and water and help you select a suitable spot. 

In winter, the snowy peaks beyond the reserve are a quiet alternative to ski-crazed Faraya, further south. Chalet Tony is a friendly, family-run operation perfect for a weekend escape. Larger groups should book the Charles De Gaulle suite, with three bedrooms and gorgeous views of the mountain.

Lunch on the Edge of the World

Driving down from the reserve, you’ll hit a fork in the road. Ignore both paved options. Instead, look for the path broken through the underbrush by hungry pilgrims and head offroad towards the ancient church steeple in the distance. Next to it, spread along the edge of a cliff, you’ll find Salib: A traditional Lebanese restaurant with great music, fabulous food, and what is potentially the best restaurant view on Earth.

Hand one of the waiters—possibly the chef and owner himself—that nice bottle of wine you brought along, and order one of everything off the menu. No, seriously. Order all of it. Then sit back and feast your eyes on Wadi Qadisha, the Valley of the Saints, laid out hundreds of feet below.

Intyrelude

When you and your vehicle emerge from the gourmet off-roading, there is a pretty decent chance you will need to change a tyre. Well, there are worse places in the world to be stuck with a flat. Not only are you practically guaranteed to be offered a helping hand by friendly locals (three cars stopped in twenty minutes last time this happened to us), but the view of the mountains is stunning.

If your car is so lucky as to escape unscathed, use the found time to check out the Qadisha Grotto, whose location is well indicated from here. Otherwise, roll your stuffed bellies and re-inflated tyres downhill towards Bcharre.

A Stroll Through Town

This tiny, antiquated town is just a pretty place to walk around on a sunny afternoon. There are beautiful old homes, shops and churches to admire, a few little holes-in-the-wall selling ice cream, snacks and coffee, a stone fountain in the town centre with fresh natural spring water (bring some empty bottles to fill up), and everywhere you look, heart-stopping vistas.

At the very least, the steep, twisting roads will certainly help you walk off any overindulgence committed at lunch.

Source of the Prophet

Next stop is the Khalil Gebran Museum, located off the main road leading out of town. Gebran Khalil Gebran, an early-twentieth century Lebanese author, artist and poet, was born in Bcharre. The Museum is built into the side of a mountain, with cavernous rooms and exposed rock walls. It houses his collected works and many of his possessions, along with the luminary’s tomb. 

The museum’s bookstore is worth taking the time to peruse, and in summer an outdoor cafe looks out over Bcharre and Wadi Qadisha. 

Valley of the Saints

If you’ve got an extra day or two to linger in the North, explore the ancient monasteries of Wadi Qadisha, built into the cavernous rock that envelope the valley. Here, Maronite Christians fleeing Byzantine persecution hid themselves, ultimately developing a culture of hermitage that has survived (only just) until the present day. If you find yourself on a tighter schedule, the next best thing is to locate a overhanging rock ledge to soak up the view. I can’t disclose the location of the photo above—Wadi Qadisha is still a place of closely guarded secrets. But the patient explorer will surely find a perch all their own. 

I’ll leave you with an excerpt from Khalil Gebran’s masterpiece, The Prophet —just the thing to read as you contemplate unfathomable natural drama:

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?

And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?

The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle.

Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.”

And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.

Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.”

The tired and the weary say, “beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.

Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.”

But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains,

And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.”

At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.”

And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.”

In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.”

And in the summer heat the reapers say, “We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.”

All these things have you said of beauty.

Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,

And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,

But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.

It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,

But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.

It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,

But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.

People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.

But you are life and you are the veil.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

But you are eternity and you are the mirror. 

Never really completely out of commission until Stiv Bators’ death in 1990, the Dead Boys “reunited” for a gig on Oct. 25, 1986 at Cedars. The band cut the ill-fated comeback recording “All The Way Down/The Nights Are So Long” at Peppermint Studios in Youngstown in the days before the gig (Bators was on a break from Lords of the New Church). Guitarist Cheetah Chrome claimed in his book A Dead Boy’s Tale that the songs sounded like they were recorded in a polka studio (which of course was true). To this day, Chrome says he will not have anything to do with those recordings and admits he has been known to break a record or two if they are ever shoved in his face to sign.

Chrome did say the Cedars gig was one of the band’s best and it played to a full house. The Infidels, who later would actually fill in for missing Dead Boys members in future reunion shows, opened the show. In the run-up to the concert, Bators admitted to a Vindicator writer that the Dead Boys never played here before and made up a story about how the band would be turned away from gigs in these parts because they wore leather and looked like bikers. Pretty much total bullshit, but the writer took the bait anyway.

WHAT THE SHOW LOOKED LIKE: Here’s the band a few days later doing a Halloween gig at the Ritz in New York City:

To co-author stories.

On Election Day last week, my Covering Political Campaigns class covered the election for Cedars. We all had different jobs – video reporting, social media, web editor, etc. Another student and I were the print/web reporters. We both went down to the local polling place two times and spoke to voters about the election.

We ended up co-writing two stories from the polls. Now, if you have ever co-written something with somebody else, you know it is not the easier thing to do. But with Google Drive, it was the easiest thing to do. I created a Google Document and shared it with both of us. We were then able to both edit the document simultaneously.

This is how it worked: I would write a paragraph (the lead, perhaps), she would add on to it with a quote or maybe a paraphrase, and then I would add another paragraph, either directly after that or before it or what have you. Pretty soon the whole story was written.

This worked so well, and I can’t wait to do it again!

Sole cedar stands off
From fickle forest, ponders
Path always guarded.

Eric M. Vogt
Copyright 2012

Deck the halls with demos and stalls! Cedars Health and Beauty Centre are set to welcome Christmas shoppers and philanthropists to their annual fundraising fayre on Tuesday 4^th December from 5.30pm until 9pm in aid of the Cedars Amethyst Trust. The £5 ticket includes a glass of bubbly on arrival and a free raffle entry, with all proceeds from ticket sales donated to the charity.

Full press release available at: http://www.aptmarketing.co.uk/christmas-bazaar-in-aid-of-cedars-amethyst-trust/107/455

‐ Minister of Social Affairs represented by Saleh Hdayfe
‐ Army commander Colonel Amin El­‐Aram
‐ Director General of Internal Security Forces represented by Mr. Hanna El-­ Lahham,
‐ Head of public relations divisions of the internal security forces Lt. Col.Joseph El Musallem,
‐ Traffic expert Elias Azzi,
‐ President of the Syndicate of Private Hospitals Sleiman Haroun
- Paramedics division of the Red Cross represented by Mrs. Alaa Allam
‐ Secretary of the commission of public works and transport, energy and water Akram Hassan,­
‐ and a number of social and media figures.

Aridi asserted that efforts by Kunhadi and other associations complement the work of official establishments and applauded initiatives taken to improve the current situation, and encouraged the support of the civil society. Aridi congratulated Kunhadi on its awareness activities and for being “an active partner of the ministry in solving and spreading road safety awareness in Lebanon. According to him, car crash statistics published by different institutions indicate that the main reasons behind traffic fatalities and injuries are: Speed, driving under the influence of alcohol and disregard of road regulations. Aridi called upon all municipalities to collaborate with the ministry and associations to reduce the toll of fatalities on the road.

Kunhadi vice president Mrs. Lena Gebrane thanked every one who believed and supported Kunhadi, be it in financial means, media coverage, moral support or volunteer work. And she promised “despite any obstacle and all difficulties, we promise you we will not stop our mission to spread road safety awareness and make our roads safer”.

Kunhadi president Mr. Fady Gebrane then explained more about the causes of car crashes and how to stop them from increasing and announced Kunhadi’s surprise for 2012: Lebanese and Spanish Formula 3 champion Noel Jammal has joined Kunhadi as the new road safety ambassador.Together with Noel Jammal, Kunhadi will shape a new understanding of speeding that will restrict speed driving to specialized racing tracks, under the slogan “We race on the track, we drive on the road.

Last week’s deportation of the Saleh family to Egypt and the acceleration of returns to Sri Lanka expose how UKBA routinely hire private jets to avoid due process, leaving a trail of shattered lives in their wake.

After the controversial mass deportation of Tamils to Sri Lanka on September 19th, many hoped the UKBA would reduce their program of chartered flights to the island. The opposite happened: UKBA hired yet another deportation jet for October 23rd, two months earlier than anticipated. To justify their bold move, the UKBA issued a new Country Policy Bulletin on Sri Lanka. The Bulletin slandered the pain-staking work of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom From Torture and Tamils Against Genocide, who had compiled a formidable dossier of evidence to show many Tamils deported to Sri Lanka are being tortured. The UKBA’s Bulletin repeatedly dismissed the evidence presented by these NGO’s, because the latter refused to disclose their clients’ names to the Agency. The NGOs’ reluctance violate the victims’ anonymity is hardly surprising given the UKBA’s tendency to accidentally(?) share asylum-seekers’ files with the Sri Lankan government.

The NGO’s protested that their reports had been misquoted in the UKBA’s bulletin. On the morning of the flight, the UKBA’s solicitors sent a letter [download] to the court, which suddenly retracted the most inaccurate sections in the Bulletin. The Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA) immediately published a response, complaining that:

“The letter was sent at 11.22 am; four hours and eight minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave, at 15.30 hours. The letter draw attention to errors in the UK Border Agency information about Sri Lanka which go directly to the question of the safety of that country for those facing return. That information has been in existence since at least 17 October 2012 when reference was made to it in a letter giving notice of the charter flight. The letter is not marked urgent and the only request made of Mr Magee is that it be out before judges ‘at your earliest convenience’.”

This fiasco must be viewed alongside the July 2011 version of UKBA’s Country of Origin Information on Sri Lanka. This report included evidence from an unnamed “Colombo based human rights worker”, who alleged that “it was well known that many persons who were held in IDP camps at the end of the conflict scarred themselves so that on release they could make allegations that the Sri Lankan government had tortured them”. This comparison reveals the blatant double standards with UKBA’s verification of torture: the government accepts evidence from an anonymous human rights worker and yet dismisses evidence from named NGO’s.

The UKBA’s contempt of court also shows how charter flights are their preferred vehicle for getting away with such hypocrisy. Once the plane is hired, everything is geared towards filling the flight, regardless of people’s rights. A question that must be asked is: why don’t UKBA just stop chartering these flights?

Then again, there is clearly a bigger agenda at work here. The only government department (British or Sri Lankan) to report on the fate of the latest Tamil charter flight was the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence – leaving us to ask what is their interest in this process? Their press release boasted that “The British Foreign Office in last March told the BBC that they send people back to Sri Lanka only when the British government and the courts are satisfied that an individual does not need protection. The Foreign Office has said there had been no substantiated allegations of mistreatment of those returned from the UK”. The Sri Lankan Defence Minister, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, faces credible accusations of genocide. So yet again we see how these charter flights provide a fig leaf of international legitimacy for a genocidal regime, (a regime which has the patronage of several senior British conservative politicians like Liam Fox).

Saleh family’s deportation to Egypt

Late in the night of the 23rd October, UKBA again strong-armed the Courts, this time because they had hired an entire aircraft to deport a mother and two of her children to Egypt. Activists from South Wales No Borders report that:

“An injunction had been passed to stop the Saleh family’s deportation but after a phone call from the UKBA explaining that the Border Agency had spent £60,000 on chartering a plane to deport the family, Judge Eady had reversed his decision and cancelled the injunction”.

The Saleh family’s deportation by private jet appears to be the second case since Cedars opened last summer. Medical Justice have warned that “the 7-day limit on [child] detention may mean UKBA resort to use increasingly non-standard methods to remove the family (e.g hiring a private plane)”.

Far from ending the detention of children, the government have now extended the scope of deportation charter flights to target single parents and their children who dare to claim asylum. And the judiciary is powerless to hold them to account because the executive (i.e. UKBA) have squandered a lot of tax payer money on an unnecessary and immoral program. So much for the separation of powers, that supposed cornerstone of liberal democracy.

Need for more documentation to support action

The UKBA are organising deportation charter flights every week to somewhere in the world. This article highlights some of the injustices from just one week of their decade long program. Detainees and their supporters are heroically resisting charter flights, as these videos show [1], [2]. But the UKBA seem determined to carry on. There is a real need for some time and money to go towards a more longer-term analysis of this Home Office policy, which would collate these everyday abuses and dodgy deals to expose the systematic cover-up of torture and genocide which charter flights facilitate. Such a report could be a tool for a diversity of tactics used to stop deportation.

יום ד, 22.08.12   שימלה- סנגלה:

הירידה משמלה

הירידה משימלה בהרים לעמק נהר הסוטלוג’ היה הפרש גובה של 1,500 מטר. יצאנו מ”שימלה” (גובה 2300 מ’) ונסענו במגמת ירידה על הדרך הישנה לאורך נהר סטלוג’ שחיברה בין הודו לטיבט לכיוון עמק “קינאור” (Kinnaur). עמק זה הוא ירוק והשבטים שגרים בו הם הינדים. והגענו לכפר “סנגלה”. יערות האורנים פינו את מקומם ליערות ארזים “קדושים” ענקיים וישרים.

התקנו מכשירי קשר בכל ג’יפ ומוטי המדריך היה יכול לדבר איתנו לאורך כל הדרך. שמענו אודות האלים ההינדיים בגוון וברמהה, שיווה ו-ווישנו שבוראים ומחריבים עולמות.

חייבים לציין שהנהגים הודים משתפים פעולה בצורה יוצאת מן הכלל. הם ערים לסיכונים בכבישים ובאופן טבעי נותנים זכות קדימה. לא ראיתי נהג הודי מקלל נהג אחר. על כל משאית רשום לצפור וסמן באורות:

Use digger at night.

Blow horn.

בעצירות בדרך למדנו אודות חשיבות בדיקת תאריך פג תוקף בהודו. שתינו תה מסאלה עם ג’ינג’ר, כמון והייל. לאורך נהר הסוטלוג’ צומחים עצי אקליפטוס וצפצפה. פרויקט הידרו-אלקטרי וסכר ענק התגלה לעינינו.

לצידי הכביש צומח קנביס חופשי וראינו בני הכפרים משתמשים בו.

Taranda Maa

עצרנו גם פעם אחת לבקש מהאלה קאלי ברכת הדרך במקדש Taranda Maa . הנהגים שלנו הקפידו לצלצל בפעמון ולתרום למקדש. בשלט כתוב “תחי אמא מרנדה”. הגענו למקום הלינה שלנו בחושך.

המחנה מנוהל על ידי עובד נפאלי מן העיר פוכורה. זכינו לארוחה סינית שבישלו בכלים שהבאנו מהארץ. שביל הגישה למחנה הוא אינו סלול. הוא גם תלול עם פניות חדות מאד. כמעט לא מצאנו את המלון.

לינה Kinner Camps הממוקם בתוך פרדס תפוחי עץ אוטנטי. האוהלים היו נקיים ויפים וכמובן אטומים לגשם ולטל. שרותים צמודים הופרדו בקיר ברזנט עם פתח הנסגר בריצ’רץ’. מי שרצה להתקלח קיבל דלי מים חמים שרפרף נמוך ונטלה לשפוך את המים על הראש. האסלה המערבית התאימה לתיירים אבל המידה התאימה לגמדים. כאו התנסינו לראשונה באחת מהפסקות החשמל הרבות.

קרא גם:

עמק נהר סנגלה  ‪
http://wp.me/pjDSP-115

I went to visit Heather a couple of weeks ago (you can read about some of our shenanigans on her blog) and came home with some amazing new memories created with her, her boyfriend Matty, and her best friend Raquel. But I also came home with far less money (lose) and a crapload of foodie treasures (win). Obviously I decided to share said treasures with you today just so I could use alliteration in this post title.

Of course whenever visiting Heather, we make it a point to visit Wildflour, a vegan bakery, cafe, and juice bar, while blogging in bliss. The vegan eats at this place are incredible and if you are ever in the Providence, RI area, I highly recommend passing on any of the restaurants by the mall and making the short drive to Pawtucket, RI to visit Wildflour (and the vegan restaurant next door, Garden Grille). Whenever I go there I leave with $30-$50 worth of goodies to take home and devour (as slowly as I can because I want it to last). This trip was no different. Here’s my haul:

• a slice of whole wheat cheese-less butternut squash & broccoli flatbread
• pineapple coconut jerky (YES)
• raw garlic tomato kale chips (so far I’ve tried this flavor, garlic, and pizza…must try salt & vinegar and nacho still)
• soba noodles with slaw (bottom left)
• tofu tuna-style salad topped with carrots, served over greens (bottom right)

I threw MANY of these goodies into my lunch salad beasts and am in fact still working through the soba noodles (my first time having them and they are very interesting but it’s taking me awhile to use them since I’m not a huge noodle person). Pictured above is the entire container of the tofu “tuna” salad, thrown into a bowl and amped up with more greens and veggies. It was incredible!

I dreamed of dipping the pineapple coconut jerky into plain Chobani from the moment I purchased it, and that’s just what I did for a nighttime snack. However I was foolish to think the four pieces of jerky above would be enough with all that Chobani. I ended up polishing off the whole bag on that fine evening

The flatbread was a great carby option for me this past Saturday when my stomach wasn’t feeling well, and I enjoyed half the kale chips on the way home from Heather’s (great road trip snack) and half at work one day while at my desk typing away.

I’ve tried the Dino Smoothie (almond butter, banana, almond milk, spinach, kale, blueberry) at Wildflour before and though I ADORE it, I wanted to go for something new and had a mean green craving! So this time while blogging there I snacked on the Sillyantro (spinach, kale, parsley, cucumber, OJ, ginger). The ginger was just what my sensitive stomach  needed and the OJ was the perfect hint of fruit to balance out those greens. I wish a juice bar like this existed near me!

I always get a large black slow-pour coffee and vegan scone to keep me company as I blog with Heather, but they didn’t have my usual (spinach and mushroom) that day. No worries, another savory beauty awaited me…the above broccoli cheddar (vegan of course) scone. Holy moly! I always dip my scone in that heavenly coffee and was happy to try a new flavor.

Wildflour was also bustin’ out the free samples that day. I’m not a huge raspberry fan but the above gluten-free razberry cheesecake brownie sample rocked my world. The real star though was a sample of this beauty…

That seems like a steep price but I’d say it’s worth every penny. The above pumpkin cheesecake is made with tofu and Heather promised it’d make me swoon. My BB never breaks a promise!

The two of us also made a fun little trip to Whole Foods, where I happened upon a gem I’ve been anxiously awaiting to try since I first heard about it a month ago…the limited edition Cedar’s PUMPKIN SPICE HUMMUS! I also purchased two squeeze packs of Justin’s Honey and Vanilla Almond Butters – perfect for sampling these new-to-me flavors. Heather also gifted me with a jar of garlic-stuffed olives she had at her house, because she knows olive garlic (haaaaa).

I have been dipping many-a-vegetable into the hummus. So incredible. I love dipping savory food into a slightly-sweet dip. Last night I was even dipping chicken into it.

I was pretty proud of the below epic snack combo that I came up with at work one day last week. I peeled the banana, put vanilla almond butter on each bite, and topped it off a pretzel stick. Legendary! I just finished the vanilla yesterday and next up will be the honey AB.

Finally, Heather, Matty, and I ventured to Trader Joe’s right before I went home so that she could do some grocery shopping and I could shop for things I didn’t need.

• BBQ Popped Potato Chips – SO MANY CHIPS IN A SERVING #win
• Nacho Kale Chips – Only $4…the Wildflour bag I got was about $8. Just to give you an idea of how crazy this deal is.
• Savory Thin Mini Edamame Crackers – These kinda remind me of rice crackers. We’ll see how they are!
• Balela Middle Eastern Salad - All things Caitlin. Chickpeas, cilantro, tomatoes, black beans, and fabulous flavor. This stuff has made it into all my salads and I’ll be sad when it goes bye-bye.
• Olive Tapenade - WOW I love olives and this has been great in my salads, on bread, on meat, you name it. Another sad face when this guy goes.
• Hot & Sweet Mustard – I’ve heard so much about this gem from many favorite bloggers like Katie! I am a mustard fiend and am gonna bust this open when I finish my current jar.

And okay, I was in Massachusetts in the company of TJ’s wine. So much CHEAP wine. In CT, our grocery stores can’t sell wine (we only just got Sunday sales, talk about behind on the times). So I picked up the above three bottles of Charles Shaw (Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz) for $2.99 each and the Blue Fin 2011 Pinot Noir for $3.99. You may recall that I sampled the Cab recently and was super impressed. Can’t wait to give the Merlot and Shiraz a spin. Also had the Pinot Noir and wow, I sure can see why it was a whole dollar more expensive GREAT stuff and I don’t even usually like Pinot Noir (too light).

Mother-daughter wine glass sizes

FINALLY my last Tuesday treasure in foodie land is the below gem from my town’s farmers’ market. I spontaneously stopped by on Saturday after the 5K (notice my Team #AmazingMe tee!) since it’s right by my usual weekend study spot, Daybreak Coffee Roasters. Can you believe this guy was just $3?! He was in a bucket with a bunch of other smaller butternut squash that were the same price. NO brainer, I picked out the biggest squash in the pile! Just to make my girl Lisa proud of me. And apparently it was the last day of the market so good thing I stopped by! Hello fate.

Oh how I love a vegetable that’s bigger than my head.

My mom is away for the week but once she returns, we have big plans for this big squash. I hear that the skin tastes tres gross so does anyone have any tips on easy squash peeling-and-roasting? Who has some recipes I can try? I already know I want to do quesadillas but need more ideas because this is one big squash!

Which of my Wildflour goodies would you like to munch (or sip) on most?

What was your last gem of a find from Whole Foods and/or TJ’s?

Tell me about your most recent farmers’ market purchase!

The problem with writing in coffee shops is that everyone hates the kind of people who write in coffee shops—especially the kind of people who write in coffee shops. You see the guy in the corner hunched over his laptop and you think (forgetting, for the moment, that you are also hunched over a laptop): “For chrissake, get an office.” As someone who writes in coffee shops for a living, I have wrestled with this paradox for much of my adult life.

One book of essays on writing (I don’t remember exactly which one –  if you know please comment) said that a sure sign of a failure at writing is someone that writes in coffee shops. He took that as a sign of being non-seriousness, of being a hipster doofus, of being twee. I totally understand where he was coming from, but I think he missed an important distinction. I write in coffee shops not because it is cool but because I go to coffee shops sometimes and I write wherever I go. In other words, I go to coffee shops for coffee… well, not really… the coffee I make at home is better than any coffee shop coffee (Fresh ground beans, French Press in the way to go)… I go to coffee shops to get out of the house and I write there because I am there.

The New York Times, of course, has an non-serious, twee, hipster doofus take on the thing… Destination: LAPTOPISTAN

JUST after 4 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, as a dozen people clicked away on their laptops at the Atlas Café in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, half of a tree broke off without warning less than a block away. It crashed into the middle of Havemeyer Street, crushing a parked car, setting off alarms and blocking the street. A deafening chorus of horns rose outside Atlas’s window as traffic halted. An 18-wheeler executed a sketchy 10-point turn in the middle of a crowded intersection before a pair of fire trucks made their way through the traffic jam in a blaze of red. Chain saws roared, sawdust flew and the horns built to a peak. It was New York urban pandemonium at its finest.

Inside the warm confines of Atlas, separated from the chaos by only a thin wall of glass, not a soul stirred.

There are dangers, of course. From Coffee shops are ruining creative writers

Fiction writers are using coffee shops as settings within their works because they’re writing in coffee shops. And that’s why coffee shops ruin creative writers.

I am guilty of this – at the Pearl Cup one afternoon, I wrote a short story about a guy (not me, a mob hitman) sitting in the Pearl Cup. I thought I had put it up here as a Sunday Snippet… but I can’t find it. There was a robbery and people died. Only once though; I can live with that.

I live in Dallas - purportedly the un-hippest city in the world (no longer true) – but there are a few nice independent coffee places here tucked in between the barbeque, strip joints, and Baptist Churches. There was even a list - Get your morning buzz: The top 10 indie coffeehouses in Dallas.

The list, with my notes, starting with the ones I’ve been to:

The Pearl Cup  Been there many times – attended some author readings there too. It’s a great place, but often too crowded to get a table. I’m excited because they are about to open a branch in my neck of the woods.

White Rock Coffee Been there many times. Cool place not too far from where I live.

A cool piece of wall art at White Rock Coffee

Espumoso Caffe - Been there a few times, really great place.

Through the door of the Espumoso Caffe, Bishop Arts District, Dallas

Oddfellows - Never had the coffee there, but love the place and the food. Wrote about it here.

The bar dining spot at Oddfellows – a wooden bench, metal pipe for a backrest, and a log for a footrest. Our waitress has my wheat beer and Candy’s wine.

These are the places I haven’t been:

Oak Lawn Coffee

Opening Bell

Drip Coffee Company

Cultivar Coffee & Tea Co.

Crooked Tree Coffeehouse

Murray Street Coffee House

Antonio Ramblés listed a few too - Anywhere but Starbucks - but only one The Corner Market wasn’t on the other list. It’s on Greenville and McCommas, where I used to live (a long, long, long time ago), so I’ll add them.

The Corner Market

So now I have a list, and I need to work my way through it. Today, Opening Bell. It’s in the Southside building in the Cedars, an area I have been getting familiar with for no particular useful reason. It’s right across the street from the fabulous NYLO hotel with its SODA bar - one of my favorite spots in the Metroplex. It’s been on my list for a while.

So I took the DART train down to the Cedars Station and tried out Opening Bell.

It’s in the basement of Southside on Lamar – an urban living complex built inside an enormous old brick building that used to house the Sears offices and warehouse. It’s not surprising then that it has a local feel to it – catering especially to the thousands of folks living overhead. A lot of folks wander in sleepily, getting a fill of their personal cup or thermos. It’s full-service, selling food (I had a huge and excellent chicken salad sandwich), beer, and wine in addition to coffee, chai and tea. There is a little stage for their evenings of live music (have to check that out some time). The refurbished warehouse space is adequately funky and cavernous, the voyage to the restrooms an industrial adventure (and I mean that in a good way). The coffee is good, both espresso and brewed (refills on the latter – yay!). The proper urban doofus artwork adorns the old industrial brick (local art, posters for Hendrix and Townes Van Zandt, an old accordion perched above the barista).

I did drink too much coffee. I knew it was bad when the barista asked me what kind of coffee I wanted and I replied, “I don’t care.”

The music they play is excellent (among the Dallas coffee spots second only to Espumoso… so far, and so, so much better than the crap they spew out over the speakers at Starbucks). Wifi is fast and reliable, service is friendly, and customers are interesting.

So no complaints – another great spot to move from the “going to visit” list to he “got to go back to” list.

After walking about for half an hour, we came to a small bowl on the hillside. It was ringed with aspen trees. The late-afternoon light (which is fading earlier and earlier as winter approaches) filtered through the trees. No glow, just quiet. A bit dim. And boy did that place feel holy. The trees creaked a bit in the wind. Our friend’s son went tearing off into the bowl to climb stumps and launch himself off their rotting backsides into the air. He yelled and whooped. I listened and watched, gazing beyond his small body on its short journeys into space. There was something special about that place, something reverent. We didn’t linger long, but it’s a place I would love to return to, to sit myself down in the piles of leaves and just be. To inhabit that space for a little while, to fill it with the sound of my breath leaving my lungs. To be alive as the trees are alive. Fully present in a moment. A part of something bigger and older than my small human mind can comprehend. Too many people believe they exist outside of nature. We are just as much a part of nature and the world as the deer and the butterflies and the aspens. It is our silly belief that we are on some different plane than these creatures that truly separates us from nature.

We walked up and up and up. We came to a slight clearing where the trees parted on the edge of the hillside. Out and beyond lay the valley, blue in hue, in distance. Miles distant, the lake was a bright shimmer against the mountains that ring the other side of the valley. Not so distant stood the mountains just across the dirt highway, splattered with the autumnal gold of the larches. There’s something vaguely erotic about autumn: all of the trees except the prudish evergreens throw on their showiest colors before stripping in winter’s frosty embrace.

And then back down the hill we went, nearly tumbling forward in our momentum (OK, that was just me). I stopped to pick up a few pine cones on the way, mementos of our stomp in the woods. But we made one last stop before we departed. We walked through the almost tropical air of a cedar grove. Like the bowl above it, the cedar grove was a hallowed ground. Darker there than in the bowl, the cedar grove was also hushed. Our shoulders brushed against the soft needles of those grizzled trees capable of near millennial lifetimes. Like other creatures before us, we left only footprints and wonder. Will that ancient, sacred place remember our passing? Or in the darkening hush will we be forgotten?

Feast in the Time of Famine

Look what the Lord has done

Feast in the time of Famine

Rivers in the desert

Way in the wilderness.

What a picture of His works!

For the redeemed of the Lord

For the ransomed, blood-bought

Restoration from the Lord.

I will do something new

Forget the former things

It shall soon spring forth

Rejoice even before you see.

See with the eyes of faith

Prepare for the harvest

The Fields of the Lord are white

But the labourers are few.

¹⁸   Then the LORD will be zealous for His land, And pity His people.

¹⁹   The LORD will answer and say to His people, ” Behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil, And you will be satisfied by them; I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations.

²⁰   ” But I will remove far from you the northern army, And will drive him away into a barren and desolate land, With his face toward the eastern sea And his back toward the western sea; His stench will come up, And his foul odor will rise, Because he has done monstrous things.”

²¹   Fear not, O land; Be glad and rejoice, For the LORD has done marvelous things!

²²   Do not be afraid, you beasts of the field; For the open pastures are springing up, And the tree bears its fruit; The fig tree and the vine yield their strength.

²³   Be glad then, you children of Zion, And rejoice in the LORD your God; For He has given you the former rain faithfully, And He will cause the rain to come down for you — The former rain, And the latter rain in the first month.

²⁴   The threshing floors shall be full of wheat, And the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil.

²⁵   ” So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, The crawling locust, The consuming locust, And the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you.

²⁶   You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, And praise the name of the LORD your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you; And My people shall never be put to shame.

²⁷   Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel: I am the LORD your God And there is no other. My people shall never be put to shame.

²⁸   ” And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions.

²⁹   And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

³⁰   ” And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and fire and pillars of smoke.

³¹   The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.

³²   And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, As the LORD has said, Among the remnant whom the LORD calls.

http://inspiration4generations.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/olympic-series-the-race-of-grace-1-preparation/
©Fenny West2012