Why bother with shade-grown coffee?
· Shade-grown forests provide habitat to over 200 bird species, as well as mammals and amphibians.
· Sun-grown coffee erodes the soil; shade-grown maintains intact soil and ground cover.
· Less likely to use pesticides and herbicides. Shade-growers often use organic methods.
· Sun-grown coffee bushes only produce for 5 to 10 years; shade-grown provide coffee beans for 50 years.
· Sun-growers are usually large corporations. Over half the shade-grown farms have been overtaken by sun- growers, which edges out local farmers.
Then there's this beauty, the emerald toucanet. This bird lives in the cloud forests from Mexico to Bolivia. They shack up in tree cavities or used woodpecker holes. They're an important seed disperser. And like other toucans, they depend on shade-grown coffee forests.
Finally there's the obvious reason: it saves trees. And rainforests. And it tastes better! Please ask your local cafe to carry shade grown and consider switching for the new year! :)
Those delicious wines I tried in 2009…
There were many wonderful wine tastings this year and terrific producers. Larger than life and ebullient Michel Chapoutier explored 2006 vintage meandering though the Rhone, North and South. The aristocratic Frenchman, Christian Moueix opining on the beauty of Petrus and Trotanoy. And of course, the philosophical musings of Andre Ostertag, charming us about the benefits of “good farming” and the wines of Alsace.
I set a challenge and applied specific criteria to the ranking of these wines. From the regions I had explored this year, I was allowed to select only one wine. I would also record the best vintage, having tasted 1966 Chateau Batailley through to a Torrontes 2009, that’s quite tricky. Then mention the most hedonistic wine tasted this year, that is, the most ridiculously expensive.
It was a fun little exercise. Trawling through my notes, I was heady from the nostalgia, the pungent spices, fruits and vegetal notes that were lifting off the page. Yum.
My favorites, in brief:
1) The region is Alsace and the wine is a Riesling. Trimbach, Cuvee Fredrick Emile, 2001
Pale gold in colour, with a discernible nose of lime, linden, apple, peach, petrol and honey. These flavours are as perceptible on the palate as on the nose. A dry wine with a good level of acidity and no tannins. Medium to full body and a wonderfully long finish. Very good quality, whilst drinking now it can age to develop those extraordinary petrol and honey aromas. I would say it probably goes best with food.
2) The Vintage of 1990.
In particular, Chateau Batailley in Bordeaux. A gloriously balanced wine. Aromas of black fruits and oak-aged smokiness, with hints of chocolate and silky smooth tannins. My two other favorites from this Vintage were from the Rhone area. Chateauneuf du Pape from the Chateau de Beaucastel, which had a vegetal base to it, and notes of toffee emanating from the second, J-L Chave’s Vin de Paille. Outstanding.
3) The most expensive bottle of wine.
1989 vintage of Domaine J-L Chave, Hermitage (rouge). Far from feeling hedonistic, this is my favorite wine region. My notes read: a garnet coloured wine with an orange hue. Menthol, tobacco, spices and vegetal notes. It was a little sherry-like (which was a positive remark). Outstanding.
I was not given the prices per bottle for either the Petrus or Trotanoy, I would imagine these wines of the Pomerol far exceed the prices of Hermitage. If I recall, the wine journalist seated next to me, and Monsieur Moueix who was up on stage, were appropriately drooling and in praise of these two wines of 1998.
Heaven can wait another year!
Just one more post to celebrate the season.
I found the most amazing book, whilst shopping for the Holidays. The book is called Sabbats. I sat and read the Yule chapter over a mocha. The whole spirit of Yule, to the ancients, was to lure the sun back to Earth during this time. Candles are lit for 12 nights beginning on the 21st.
Wreaths represent the wheel of the year - the circular shape represents infinity. So with this new beginning, where the sun returns to Earth, Pagans reflect and in a way it's also a new year. Platitudes aside, I see this as an opportunity to think of how little people had in ancient times. Every loaf of bread must have seemed like gold. I will try to remind myself of this rustic lifestyle as I make my new years eco-resolutions.
So glad to be indoors today. Wind gusts of 45 to 50 mph. The cats are snoozing away on fleece blankets.I'm reviewing a few soon to be read books (but I'm saving the Vox authors for a more exclusive, special post). Here are the new books I'll be reading over a snowman mug of hot chocolate:
Cook's Tour: The sexy author Bourdain wrote this a while ago. Travel, hot food and adventure. What more could a woman want?
Wind-up Bird Chronicles: (Thanks, Steve)! A Japanese man goes searching for his wife's cat and winds up in an underworld with strange characters. That's all I know about the plot. Sounds fun.
The Villain's Guide to Better Living: Funny story, I actually bought this for my sister but my bf thought it was too dark and weird to give to a family member. Now I'm stuck with it. Maybe I can give it to my friend Bones, she has the same humor noir that I do.
Princeton Encyclopedia of Birds: Yaaaaaaaaaaay!! I mean, that's nice. I now have both editions (mammal and bird). I can't say enough about this series. Buy them.
As the year draws to a close, I thought it would be fun to look back at the books I read in 2009 and share a list of my favorites. (Read, but not necessarily published in 2009.) I've finished 110 books to date and will probably read at least one more before New Year's Day. It was tough narrowing the list, but here they are:
FICTION - 5 STARS
City of Thieves by David Benioff
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Serena by Ron Rash
FICTION - 4 STARS
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
The Sparrow by Mary Russell Doria
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (sequel to The Hunger Games)
Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
The Outlander by Gil Adamson
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
NONFICTION
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life by Carl Zimmer
Summers With Juliet by Bill Roorbach
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
What were your favorites this year? I hope you'll share a few in comments.
Horray, we got a lovely dusting of snow! We actually got more than the day they were predicting a Nor'easter. It's a nice treat because I adore December and I miss it when it's gone. I have whole new ways to celebrate the winter now. I'm thinking about buying some snowshoes. I usually just use my heavy winter boots for the snow.
J got me a Panasonic camera, it's super lightweight and takes lovely photos. Almost everyone at the family gathering was trying to fight clutter - so most of the presents were pure necessity. Gloves. Winter boots and blankets. Datebooks. A few packages of hot chocolate and spices.
The one luxury item was books. Sweet cookbooks, fiction, bird books and art museums. Ah, I love books!! They're borderline necessity, in my mind - but I bought many new books - not good for the forests. I should be using the library or our used book store more often. I won't bore anyone with Resolutions (yet) but in past years I've focused on replacing plastic and meat, and wasteful packaging. This year I must focus on my passion: preserving habitat. Deforestation and cropland will be my focus.
I have the feeling that in the year 2010, we're going to see more Greenwashing than ever before. Businesses and product makers are getting saavy about how they present themselves. They are following the science and keeping up with terms that will impress the public.
Eco-friendly is not just a trend these days, it's a real concern that people have. I'm convinced that commercials will bombard us more than ever with messages that are designed to conceal and confuse. This drives me batty and I hope to debunk these dirty tricks and write (in a fun way) about the truth. So we can all benefit.
And hopefully, I'm going to keep this year light and cheerful, and rustic as well. :D
Long ago, when I lived in Boston, my roommates and I had a problem with mice. Now, we were clean people, so it frustrated us that half a dozen mice had taken up residence in our house.
We set out traps and one morning my roommate Julia and I found a poor little mouse stuck to an icky sticky trap. Neither of us had the stomach to deal with it right after waking up, so we walked to Dunkin Donuts and had breakfast.
While we were gone, Kate and Hillary cleaned up the mouse.
Now, living back in California, I have no roommates. So if I go out for donuts, no one will be around to catch and clean up the mouse that is living somewhere downstairs.
I have GOT to get a roommate.
And I need a donut.
Hey everyone! I hope you all had an amazing Holiday!! :)
For the New Year, I just thought I'd post links to 3 of my favorite charites. I'll go into more detail on each one later, but for now check out their websites. All are real players working for our planet.
The New England Wildflower Society
See you in 2010!
