Good morning, Oakland! BART has reached a $1.5 million settlement with the mother of Oscar Grant’s daughter Tatiana. The woman filed a $50 million lawsuit against the transit agency after Grant was shot on a station platform on Jan. 1, 2009. An East Bay man who objects to the devilish connotations of the name “Mt. Diablo” is petitioning a federal agency to change the peak’s name to “Mt. Ronald Reagan.” The Contra Costa Board of Supervisors will discuss their options…
On Friday, I headed to Palo Alto to meet up with Charlie Ayers, restaurateur and former head chef at Google, for a story I was working on. I ended up sticking around for breakfast at his newly open Calafia Cafe and Market-a-Go-Go, and it was a good move. With a motto of “slow food fast” and a menu stocked with comfort foods, there are plenty of options, even for the committed vegetarian. My smoked salmon scramble with hash browns and…
Go on a visual tour of one of Oakland’s most beautiful landmarks.
I spent this afternoon in Mountain View Cemetery working on a project with a classmate, and it was breathtaking. It may seem a little weird to think about a leisurely stroll through a cemetery, but this one–designed by none other than Frederick Law Olmstead–is like nothing I’ve ever seen, and there are people biking, strolling, dog-walking and even having picnics all over the place. Now a cemetery would not necessarily be my first idea for a picnic spot, but it…
Over the weekend, I headed home to celebrate Easter with the fam over the mother of all brunches. While this one was crazy and chaotic–63 people, one life-sized rabbit–it got me thinking that for all the time I’ve spent in the East Bay, I think I’ve only been to brunch twice, and I haven’t yet found a regular spot. I’m a big fan of the neighborhood-y Fat Apples in North Berkeley and the hippy dippy All You Knead on Haight…
That’s the tag line for Three Twins organic ice cream, and it pretty much hits the mark. With flavors like Madagascar Vanilla, Strawberry Je Ne Sais Quoi (the quoi being a splash of balsamic vinegar) and Peanut Butter Cookie Confetti Crunch, each taste is a bit of an adventure and even classic flavors like Mint Confetti (your typical mint chip) taste way better than their grocery store counterparts. Yesterday at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, the parents of two of the…
While I do care about what I eat, I’m no stranger to the cheeseburger. Or french fries, or cookies or a million other things that are bad for me. I mean, I’m not eating Twinkies for breakfast or anything (I’ve actually never had one), but I’m not averse to a little junk food in my diet. Which is why I was so surprised at my reaction to thisiswhyyourefat.com. A friend of mine had it as her away message, and as…
I was really, really excited for a box of produce to start showing up at my door every week, particularly after the vortex of grad school kept me from going to the grocery store for two weeks. (I know. Gross.) After looking into some great suggestions from commenters Art and Raphael, I was ready to go. But after trying to fill out two, count ’em two, order forms at two CSAs, I found out that I am not the only…
Please forgive yet another news blog/article/tidbit about how ____ is doing in the current economy by reading to the bottom of this paragraph. It’s all I read about too, but while traveling this past week, I’ve been involved in debates with friends about the slow food movement in San Francisco, New York and DC. Between the recent Times article on the food revolution’s day in the sun (please see White House Victory Garden, etc), and Alice Waters’s appearance on 60…
After a couple of hearty endorsements in the comments section, I’m ready to sign on for the CSA experiment. I’m heading to New York and D.C. next week for a business trip (okay, okay field trip–I like to pretend I have a job) but will sign up as soon as I’m back. If you have creative suggestions for ways to make a CSA membership work–recipes or whatever–I’m all ears, and pretty excited. Also, hooray for the White House victory garden.
A friend of mine was recently telling me how her CSA (community supported agriculture) membership had changed her life. Even if she can’t make it to the store or the Farmer’s Market, she always has a fridge full of fresh fruits and veggies. Given that my fridge is basically down to Tobasco and wine, I’m thinking it’s about time I get my own membership. And, according to my friend, my fears of signing up for a box of just kale…
A burger-loving friend of mine came to town over the weekend, and I struggled for a little while with where to take her. She’s an East Coaster who likes her burgers so rare she asks the waiters to “just walk them through a warm kitchen,” and I wasn’t sure I could find a burger joint in the East Bay that would accommodate her. When I first moved to the East Coast from California, I had to adjust the way I…
In Alameda County, and across the country, falling home values will likely translate to falling tax revenues. Officials are preparing for a drop in property taxes for the first time in decades–and current estimates fall around 2 percent, or $4.1 billion county-wide. On Wednesday, a crowd gathered in front of the OUSD administration building to protest proposed cuts to adult education. State funding for adult education could be cut by up to 20 percent, and every adult education instructor in…
Good morning, North Oakland. Despite the economic downturn, the Chron is reporting that some parts of the Bay Area are “a comparative bastion of contentment and well-being.” A recent Gallup poll shows that the 8th, 11th, 12th and 14th congressional districts all rank well. Oakland City Councilwomen settle parking-space spat with a coin toss. A reduced budget for the University of California means higher tuition for its students. Tuition for the summer session will go up by nearly 10 percent,…
Good Morning, North Oakland. The Housing Authority is set to receive $10.6 million from the Obama administration’s stimulus package for improvements on roofs, windows, gutters, and plumbing. The Housing Authority already receives about $8 million from the federal government every year, but officials say it’s not enough to maintain their roughly 3000 properties. Officials expect improvements to begin in April and continue through the summer. Stock is on the rise for Bay Area biotech companies after President Obama lifted the…
Some Bay Area college students are saying goodbye to their burgers. In an effort to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions, the food service company that runs USF’s cafeteria is trying to reduce their use meat and cheese by 25 percent. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, this means that the USF caf and 400 additional food service cafes are losing cheese from their turkey burgers and their pizza. Hospital service providers are also cutting foods to reduce their carbon footprint. When…
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