[Pic of a Susina pastry by Alex Berliner]

Jonathan Gold’s put up his list of “99 Essential LA Restaurants” for the LA Weekly — and I’ve been to just 11.

It may actually be a few more than 11, cuz some descriptions sound familiar, but the experience was either unmemorable, or I drank too much to remember. In any case, I’ve definitely been to:

• Border Grill. Yummy drinks –
• Campanile. One of my diss advisors treated me to a delish meal at this place –
• Ciudad. Back when I worked downtown, we’d eat here once in a while, courtesy of The Capital Group. Also great for happy hour piscoritas –
• Cobras & Matadors. The one on 3rd gets way too crowded with hipsters; I prefer the Los Feliz branch — yummy, if not traditional, tapas :)
• Europane. This place has great bread and serves fair trade coffee :) Reviewed here.
• Guelaguetza. Went here for a Fair Trade LA meeting once — Not recommended, as there are no vegetarian options — not even alcohol :(
• JiRaffe. I ate chicken for the first time in a long time here — cuz it was antibiotic and hormone free –
• Mama’s Hot Tamales Cafe. Fair trade coffee, super yum and pretty tamales, right across the street from Mcarthur Park — Review here.
• Pink’s. I got a veggie dog here once while my ex wolfed down chili cheese fries –
• Susina Bakery and Cafe. Yummiest almond croissants EVER!
• Red Corner Asia. Went here for Nicky’s birthday — I rate it a meh –

And 2 places I really wanna visit now:

Angeli Caffe. Gold sez “The pastas of chef Evan Kleiman, KCRW radio host and the local standard-bearer for the Slow Food movement, are beyond remarkable.”

Lucques. I heard about this place from Anna, who said it was green in some way, but I can’t remember how and the website’s down :( Still curious though –

Others in the list of 99 I should add to my list of places to go?

Tags: food, restaurant, losangeles

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Thru various links, I discovered the Carnival of the Godless.

As mos of y’all know, I’m a pretty devout atheist — but I have to say the atheist fervor of many of the contributors to this carnival really puts my irreligiousness in perspective!

Check out Goosing the Antithesis, for ex, a 6-author blog that basically attacks fundie xtians — and defends “rational individualism” — something I put in quotes only cuz I need to find out more about it. The blog even has a somewhat helpful Individualist Morality FAQ.

Fascinating in its atheist ferocity. Even more fascinating, and more intellectually engaging, is this interview with Sam Harris, leading atheist and author of The End of Faith, who suggests that “when it comes to faith-based violence, religious moderates are part of the problem, not the solution”:

In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they’re clearly not certain about. You cannot have presidential aspirations without being willing to pretend to be certain that God exists. You have to pander to the similar convictions of 90% of the American population. 70% of Americans claim to feel that it is important that their president be strongly religious. No aspiring politician can fly in the face of those numbers now, so we are rewarding people for false certainty, false conviction.

Clearly, anyone who claims to be certain that Jesus was literally born of a virgin is lying. He’s either lying to himself or he’s lying to others. There’s no experience you have praying in church that can deliver certainty on that specific point.

Tags: faith, religion, atheism, god

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In an age where Americans are said to be getting lonelier and more disengaged, it was really, really fascinating to see so many people come together for public transportation at the Friends 4 Expo Transit general meeting yesterday.

Around 40-50 people showed up, taking a couple hours out of their weeknight, just to find out and support one light rail line-to-be.

Overall, the meeting was more informative than activist-oriented. First, Jody, the Metro Community Relations Manager, talked about the upcoming initiatives regarding transportation, to be voted on in November.

These are Prop 1A, which’ll close a loophole in Prop 42, thus making it harder for the state to borrow transportation money; 1B, which allocates just under $2 billion for transportation-related projects in California, and 1C, which is primarily a housing related bond but has some information about transit development. I’ll have to look more into those things before voting time.

The 2nd speaker was Roland, a member of the Expo line’s design-build team. He gave a nice powerpoint presentation of what the first portion of the Expo line would look like. Apparently, some of the beginning work — like moving utilities out of the way — begins in just a couple months!

At this point, the fire alarm went off, my allergies started kicking in (The Hamilton High library’s dusty!) and I was running late for dinner plans so I took off, missing a presentation and Q and A by Darrell Clarke, co-chair of the Friends 4 Expo Transit.

I’m still a bit confused about what Friends 4 Expo Transit is, exactly. I mean, the website says it’s “an all-volunteer group of citizens joined together to support an alternative to L.A.’s world-record traffic.”

But I’m not sure what its relationship to the MTA is, or its relationship to other neighborhood organizations — or how the org formed to begin with, and what exactly its members are doing to push this project forward, beyond showing up to say yea.

Which is why I really wish I’d stuck around a lil longer to ask questions. But I’m intrigued! And I’m def. planning to attend the next meeting, the deets for which’ll hopefully be emailed to me sometime soon. If you too wanna be added to the Friends 4 Expo Transit email list, email mail@friends4expo.org.

Update, 9/27/06: The groundbreaking ceremony for the Expo’s in just 2 days!

Tags: expo, transportation, lightrail, losangeles, santamonica

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Greenlight Financial Services, an Irvine HQ’d company self-described as “one of the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer mortgage lenders in the country,” is running an eco-friendly contest.

An essay contest, to be more specific. The Greenlight Greenliving Essay Contest wants you to write a 500-word (or less) essay about “how you’d renovate your home to make it environmentally friendly.” Entries are due July 20, 2006.

The winner gets $2,500. Sez the website: “Think as big or small as you want. Be creative and original!”

I dunno much about Greenlight — It says that “Driving awareness to environmental issues is an extension of Greenlight’s ongoing commitment to take a leadership role in corporate citizenship.” Then again, Walmart can say that too. One person’s already calling it a greenwash tactic.

But hey — It looks like essay contestants don’t have to endorse Greenlight in any way…. I hope a deserving reader of green LA girl wins the $2,500 — and pushes Greenlight into a greener direction –

Thanks to David for the tip –

Tags: environment, essay, contest, home

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A series that runs every Tuesday, where I ask questions unrelated to the environment, fair trade, or local politics that I’ve been wondering about but haven’t been able to google the answers to. Any advice is appreciated.

2 days late. Whatev…

I’m looking for eco-friendly bras. Stuff that’s NOT made via prison labor (cough *Victoria’s Secret* cough) or sweatshop labor or Dov Charney. The bras can be made of organic fabrics or reclaimed materials, via fair labor standards –

Ideas? Lemme know –

Update, 7/11/06: Here’s my post on eco-friendly bras. Thanks for your help :)

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If (or maybe when?) NYC’s winters get less cold, I may have to move there. I love that city, and right now, I wish I could check out Trash: What We Value, What We Throw Away, an exhibit going on at the Atlantic Gallery.

Found out about this show via the vlog Rocketboom — and it’s fascinating. Click through to watch an engrossing 3-min video about the show. We’re talking lint-as-art, parrot-ravaged paperbacks, and an umbrella-bird –

I was especially taken with Valeri Larko’s huge, oil paintings of junkyards full of discarded electronics. Valeri says these paintings offer “just a small glimpse of the overwhelming amount of stuff the American society throws out every day to get newer and shinier appliances.” Frightening.

It’s all fascinating to think about: the political implications of trash, the fetishization of trash, the purposeful creation of trash (trash for art’s sake), artistic creation as reclamation and recycling both of ideas and of physical matter, etc –

Thanks to Robin for introducing me to Rocketboom :)

Tags: art, trash, newyork

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I tend to just write about the stuff I like — coffee, chocolate, wine, the like.

[pic from TFUSA] Meaning, I’m not a tea girl. But recently I’ve had a buncha tea-drinking weirdos readers ask about fair trade tea —

So I wanna point you tea peeps to a convo we’ve been having on this post about, among other things, why fair trade tea just hasn’t taken off yet.

I’m not sure if that question will ever be answered definitively, but one of the pieces seems to be the fact that big tea plantations are allowed to get fair trade certified. For most other fair trade products, certification’s limited to small farmer co-ops.

Why’s this important? I thought you might wanna know about an issue Rodney of Equal Exchange brought up:

In particular we’re astounded that large-scale white-owned rooibos plantations, whose market domination is a vestige of the Apartheid era, are currently allowed to sell into the Fair Trade rooibos market, in direct competition with struggling black african small-farmer co-ops. And that is even though the plantations already control 98% of the world’s rooibos market.

I’m actually not against plantations joining the fair trade movement in principle, because that leads to better treatment of workers working on those plantations, and because often, the big corps that don’t do much (or any) fair trade coffee use the current exclusion of plantations from the fair trade model as an excuse for not improving their labor practices.

However, I think that these types of decisions need to take into account current situations and realities.

According to Equal Exchange, FLO, the org that certifies fair trade farms and plantations, “decided that due to the scarcity of small farmers in the major tea producing countries such as India and Sri Lanka, the model would revolve around plantations rather than small farms.” Which meant that “small farmers already weak in the tea economy, were further marginalized.”

Again, I’m not against plantations getting certified. But the move does seem to have been a little premature, especially considering the fact that many fans of fair trade think that certified products have all been produced by small farmer co-ops.

For tea drinkers who wanna make sure their beverage comes from co-ops, consider Equal Exchange’s 3 new teas, coming out this fall. The Organic Green Magic Tea and Organic Rooibos Tea are 100% small farmer co-op, and the Organic Irish Breakfast Tea’s 75%.

And just $4 to $4.25 bucks for 25 bags! Dude! Is all tea this cheap? Almost makes a coffee drinker wanna switch. Not.

Ok tea drinkers — I really was kidding about the weirdos bit, sorta. Please let us know about your fave co-op friendly tea in the comments –

Tags: fairtrade, tea

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Steve White, a former Starbucks manager, is suing Starbucks; he says he and other managers who worked in California stores are owed “unpaid wages plus interest and compensation for working “off the clock” and missing meal and rest periods.”

This suit comes after another lawsuit — settled in April 2002 — that accused Starbucks of “wrongly classifying its managers [in California] as being exempt from overtime.” More than 1,000 managers in Starbucks’ Californias joined in the suit; Starbucks agreed to pay as much as $18 million — and Starbucks’ managers are now paid hourly.

Now, the current suit — which seeks class action status — alleges that “supervisors weren’t paid overtime and were forced to work through meal breaks,” violating state and federal law. In California, employees who work more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week should be paid overtime.

In other recent labor disputes, Starbucks settled with NYC baristas for alleged union busting, and faced strikes in New Zealand from baristas asking for better wages. BTW — The Starbucks Barista Union in NYC backs an increase in Starbucks’ commitment to fair trade.

[Thanks to Larry for the tip]

Update, 8/15/06: Starbucks fires another union organizer.

Tags: starbucks, labor, california, overtime

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For some reason I thought this was a ways away, but NO! It’s opening tomorrow! At least for the happy people living in LA and NYC…

So unless, like Macrogal, you’re ahead of the curve and went to see it at the LA Film Festival already, line up to watch Who Killed the Electric Car at the Nuwilshire tomorrow.

For now, I’m planning on the 9:50 pm show. Who’s with me?

Update, 7/3/06: Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, says he regrets killing the electric car. Also, Joel Mackower says GM’s coming out with some better-than EV-1 options –

Update, 7/8/06: I watched it, and you should too — A review here.

Tags: losangeles, electric, car, environment

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Partly, I’m curious, and partly, I got an invite to try out a beta version of this Plugaid thing and wanna see how it works.

So I’m doin’ a lil freefloating meme — with just 1 question and 1 tag: What coffee are you drinking now? Now meaning these days, not necessarily at this exact moment –

I’m drinking Just Coffee’s Revolution Roast. I even have my roommate addicted to it!

Apparently, it’s the official coffee of the Madison’s Revolution Cycles bike shop. Make that my pink bike’s official coffee, until I finish that bag and move on to the Bike Fuel blend –

And I’m tagging Jasmin, The Worsted Witch: Hit “participate” below, make yrself a password, then copy the resulting code into your post about yr fave coffee — and let’s see how this plugaid thing works –

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