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wecoralcollectivebouquetfan-blog · 6 years ago

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Health Food Restaurants And Cafes In The U.S.

While modern life has been marred by the introduction of unhealthy fast food stands, Kevin Gianni and his wife Anne Marie journeyed across the country to locate raw, organic, vegetarian and vegan restaurants. 9 of them drew their attention in particular.

Chocola Tree is a refreshing cafe in Sedona, Arizona, that offers the freshest of foods, many grown in Joker123 their own organic garden. Some of the locals have even dubbed this shop a “little piece of rawsomeness!”

Bloodroot is a unique feminist vegetarian restaurant in Bridgeport, Connecticut, opened over 30 years ago by Selma Miriam and Noel Furie. While growing their own produce to offer only the best assortment of organic, vegan and raw foods, the owners have also opened a feminist bookstore, only to bring the best of both feminism and healthy dieting.

Karma Road is located in New Paltz, New York and is owned by organic food loving couple, Jenn and Seth, who have managed to blend their appreciation for nature with their passion for cooking. Their menus are made of entirely pesticide-free, all natural dishes that will leave your mouth watering.

Au Lac can be found in Fountain Valley, California and offers an appetizing range of vegetarian dishes. Owner Mai Nguyen teamed up with Chef Ito and coined the term “humanese”, aiming to create an atmosphere that invites to philosophical reflections on how nutrition can benefit both the body and the mind.

Real Food Daily is a vegan restaurant opened both in Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Initially a home catering company Agen joker123 https://joker123tiktok.com opened by Ann Gentry in 1988, Real Food daily now offers delish raw vegan meals that will please any palate.

Help Yourself is a diverse eatery in Key West, Florida, that caters to the tastes of any client. From raw vegan dishes to tasty meals that include meat and animal by-products, their menus all come form 100% organic and safely grown produce.

Cafe Gratitude is managed by environmentalists Matthew and Terces Engelhart who believe that human nutrition should both cleanse the body and protect nature that nourishes us. 5 very popular locations can be found in the state of California.

Manzanita is situated in Oakland, California and provides delicious raw, vegan and organic meals. The owners are health oriented and interested in bringing the best and most natural products available, to your table.

The Living Light Culinary Arts Institute is an amazing cooking school aiming to promote the benefits of natural food preparation that also hosts a raw vegan cafe. Owner Cherie Soria makes use of only natural, unaltered products to prepare each menu item.

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barinacraft · 10 months ago

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NFL Football Team Cocktails - Drinks For Every Roster

Game Day Drinks And Cocktails For All 32 NFL Football Teams

Football season means great tailgate parties away at the stadium for home games and at your in home bar for away games when your team is on road. These NFL football team inspired cocktails* will give you lots of game day party ideas for themed drinks for all 32 NFL teams out on the gridiron.

The cocktails were chosen based on a number of factors including team names, colors, mascots, player and squad nicknames as well as city, regional and state monikers, landmarks, festivals and more. A few were created as signature drinks for specific football teams, but most were added to the roster because they were a good fit for that club.

Whether its pre-season scrimmages, regular season games or the playoffs; Wild Card, Divisional, Conference and the Superbowl, there's a drink listed here that's perfect for your pigskin party. Some of the squads have several symbolic sips which lets you substitute your drink line-up based on the schedule.

So, with one hand waving your favorite team's foam finger shouting you're #1 and the other hand free for a refreshment, the only question is:

Are You Ready For Some NFL Football Team Cocktails?

American Football Conference Team Themed Drinks

AFC East

Buffalo Bills:

Buffalo Bill - equal parts apple cider or juice and bourbon or rye whiskey.

Niagara Falls - a fancy drink named after the natural attraction nearby the city along the Canadian border.

Miami Dolphins:

Mojito - the national drink of Cuba is a favorite in Little Havana as well as one of the most popular cocktails in Florida and throughout the rest of the states.

New England Patriots:

New England Highball - when it comes to cocktails, what's better than a highball while watching football?

Red, White and Blue - a pousse-cafe drink layered in patriotic colors.

New York Jets:

Manhattan - along with Brooklyn has the highest concentration of fans according to a 2013 Facebook study.

Bronx - followed by Queens borough, the former home of Shea stadium, also love the J-E-T-S. This drink is basically an Income Tax cocktail minus the bitters.

AFC North

Baltimore Ravens:

Purple Hooter - black raspberry liqueur colors these tailgate party potations plum perfect.

Cincinnati Bengals:

Bengal Tiger - the namesake is a tawny, red brandy drink while an original recipe adds black licorice stripes to an orange vodka cocktail that could be a spooky sip on Halloween too.

Cincinnati Cocktail - fill your favorite beer glass half full with a bold brew and top off with soda water.

Cleveland Browns:

Brown Cocktail - equal parts gin, light or dark rum and dry vermouth.

Brown Derby Drink - legendary football coach Paul Brown who the NFL team is named after was known for wearing his iconic hat on the gridiron sidelines. It was a fedora, but the (brown) derby is de rigueur.

Brown University Cocktail - their namesake college football team drink would love to be drafted by pros for game day. The “Brunonian” is equal parts bourbon and dry vermouth with a couple dashes of orange bitters.

Pittsburgh Steelers:

Black & Gold - refining iron ore put this steel town on the grid. Their NFL football team inspired gridiron drink adds a precious metal to the mix. Combine black vodka with gold flaked cinnamon schnapps two to one.

Monongahela Cobbler - named for one of the waterways which flows past Heinz Field (formerly Three Rivers Stadium) that's known for its rye whiskey.

AFC South

Houston Texans:

Black Gold - a nod to the city's former franchise, the Houston Oilers.

Longhorn - another college sports team themed cocktail that would like to be drafted by the NFL, especially from the same great state and mascot. The burnt orange color of the University of Texas at Austin inspired this recipe with lemon rum, orange rum, vodka, orange vodka, orange soda, ice and oranges.

Indianapolis Colts:

Horse's Neck - this drink is named after its garnish.

Jacksonville Jaguars:

Jaguar - a Barina Craft original drink recipe that is spotted with southern sipping favorites.

Tennessee Titans:

Lynchburg Lemonade - Tennessee whiskey, sweet & sour mix, orange liqueur and lemon-lime soda makes a southern sip worth suing the distillery over.

Tennessee Tea - same as above, just substitute cola for lemon-lime soda.

AFC West

Denver Broncos:

Orange Crush - this NFL football team inspired drink celebrates the nickname given to Denver's opponent crushing 3-4 defense and the Broncos bright colored home uniform jerseys in the 1970s.

Kansas City Chiefs:

Arrowhead Cocktails - the Chiefs' logo is carved in stone and one of these drinks is cherry.

Kansas City Ice Water - flows thru the fountains at Arrowhead stadium and in the veins of the players and fans who as of this writing boast the loudest sports crowd roar.

Las Vegas Raiders:

Casino Cocktails - now that the team is located in the Entertainment Capital of the World, famous for gambling and other activities throughout all the city's mega casino-hotels, these drinks are a sure bet for Raiders fans.

Oakland Raider Cocktail - a black rum and cola mixed with a shot of silver tequila over ice. This silver and black drink symbolizes Raider Nation whether they're playing in Oakland, Los Angeles or Las Vegas.

Los Angeles Chargers:

Charger Cocktail - toast the team's moniker to 'charge' when the bugle call sounds with this cherry brandy and rum sour.

San Diego Seabreeze - this legacy drink preserves team history. 1 oz vodka, ½ oz each blackberry brandy and blueberry & raspberry schnapps, plus 2 oz each orange and pineapple juice in a tall collins glass over ice.

National Football Conference Team Themed Drinks

NFC East

Dallas Cowboys:

Cowboy Cocktail - throw the cream away and drink the shot of whiskey straight up.

Fedora Cocktail - in honor of their legendary head coach Tom Landry who wore his heralded headgear on the sidelines for 29 seasons.

Thanksgiving Cocktails - dubbed America's team, they always play football on this holiday.

New York Giants:

The New York Cocktail - the entire state loves the NY Football Giants, except for parts of the city per Facebook 2013. This is an interesting whiskey sour style drink with rye, lime juice, grenadine and an old fashioned sugar cube.

Philadelphia Eagles:

Eagle Cocktail - Philly is the perfect roosting place for this classic drink.

Eagle's Dream - sugar and egg whites substitute for maraschino liqueur in this variation of the Aviation drink recipe.

Washington Commanders:

Cherry Blossom - this national flowering festival held locally is closely associated with the area as is a rumored story of a namesake founding father chopping down a certain tree.

Gin Rickey - “air conditioning in a glass” is the unofficial official drink of D.C.

Political Cocktails - any number of these drinks could be served at a game day party in this city if you want to mix politics with religion, er, football that is.

NFC North (Black and Blue Division)

Chicago Bears:

The Chicago Cocktail - pretty fancy for football but it is the city's namesake drink.

Detroit Lions:

Lion's Tail - Detroit is one of two NFL teams along with Dallas to always play a game on Thanksgiving to start the Xmas holidays so the use of an allspice liqueur, dubbed “Christmas in a glass” by Murray Stenson, in combination with the drink's name make this cocktail a perfect match. 2 oz bourbon, ½ oz each pimento dram and lime juice, ½ tsp simple syrup and 1 dash aromatic bitters.

Green Bay Packers:

Blood and Sand - Johnny ‘Blood’ McNally, who took his nickname from the movie and loved to sing Galway Bay while standing up on bar table tops, was a star player for four championship Packer teams in Green Bay and one of the original members inducted into the Pro Football Hall Of Fame.

Brandy Old Fashioned - to wet your whistle in Wisconsin, just replace the bourbon or rye you normally use in the recipe.

Minnesota Vikings:

Purple People Eater Elixir - raise your Viking drinking horn and toast possibly the best defensive line of any football team in NFL history.

Scandinavian Glogg - this Nordic mulled wine really packs a punch.

NFC South

Atlanta Falcons:

Georgia Peach Cocktails - did you know some suggested the Falcons be christened after the official state fruit?

Scarlett O'Hara & Rhett Butler - these two drinks are both named after characters in Gone With The Wind which was set in and around Atlanta.

Carolina Panthers:

Carolina Iced Tea - spiced rum, vodka and both peach liqueur & schnapps along with some southern style sweet tea in a tall glass or mason jar.

New Orleans Saints:

Sazerac - the official drink of New Orleans often referred to as America's oldest cocktail.

Vieux Carré - the signature drink of the French Quarter named after the “old square” at the center of the Crescent City.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

Bumbo - a pirate's poison.

Filibuster - although its more closely associated with politics these days, the word originally derives from the Dutch term vrijbuiter for pirate, which means "to plunder," where vrij means "free" and buiter means "booty."

NFC West

Arizona Cardinals:

Cardinal Cocktail - a Kir drink variation also known as Communard which substitutes red wine for white.

Los Angeles Rams:

Greatest Show On Turf - a nickname for the team's record breaking offense during the 1999 through 2001 National Football League seasons when they were the Saint Louis Rams.

Ram Cocktail - seems appropriate that the helmet battering Rams namesake drink is a variation of a Harvey Wallbanger.

San Francisco 49ers:

Barbary Coast Cocktails - a pair of pigskin party picks named after the city's seedy, crime ridden, red-light district during the California gold rush and beyond. One drink has equal parts gin, scotch whisky, white chocolate creme de cacao and light cream or half and half. The other is mixed with dry gin, cherry brandy, lemon juice and grenadine.

Frisco Sour - the tasteless moniker given to this gold drink garnished with a red cherry which matches the football team colors.

Seattle Seahawks:

Emerald City - a signature drink for this city with the blue green nickname whose major league football, baseball and soccer teams all sport these colors.

Share & Compare This List Of NFL Team Drinks For More Ideas

This list of libations is a work in progress. Be sure to check back for updated ideas, more NFL football team inspired cocktails and links to additional information.

Have a suggestion for a game day drink recipe for your favorite NFL team? Contact us or post on our Facebook wall.

Want a generic gridiron geared gulp instead? Check out these pigskin potations penned for plays, points and positions like the Block & Fall, Quarterback and Touchdown.

Please, always drink responsibly.

* - DISCLAIMER: NFL related images, logos, etc. are shown only as a point of reference / commentary for names, mascots, colors and so on as potential drink inspirations and do not represent an affiliation, sponsorship or endorsement by the league, any individual team or associated person or group.

#Cocktails #Drinks #Football #Sports #Party #Themes #Tailgating

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conorreid · 5 years ago

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Melting Ice (Part 1)

Our planet is dying. Nowhere has this been made more obvious to me than in Glacier National Park, “the crown of the continent.” Located in northwestern Montana, right up against the Canadian border, Glacier is a stunning 4,000 square kilometres of Alpine terrain with an impressive array of flora, fauna, and animals. Its namesake glaciers are the source of the Mississippi, Colombia, and Saskatchewan rivers. And like the rest of our world, glacier National Park is collapsing under the weight of the Anthropocene.1

To visit Glacier is to receive a crash course in the devastating climatic changes we—or rather, capital—have wrought upon ourselves. The first, and indeed most obvious, change I noticed was in the glaciers themselves. The signage around the park was unequivocal—by 2030 all the glaciers will be gone.2 There are now just 26 glaciers in the park of the same name, down from 146 in the middle of the 19th century.3 While most of the glaciers in the park have disappeared, the ones remaining have shrank substantially; since 1850 the park’s glaciers have lost 70% of their surface area.4 These few remaining “glaciers” are truly pathetic. A few dozen metres across, nestled in the shadows of a mountainside; to call many of these snow packs “glaciers” is an insult to what they once were. All the same, watching and indeed hearing these sad husks of ice and snow melt in the summertime sun was an eerie sight to behold.

That’s not to say the other changes brought on by the climate crisis are not readily apparent from a quick drive through the park. As the glaciers melt, water table levels reduce and the risk of catastrophic forest fire goes up.5 Fire is of course a natural part of life in the American West, but in recent years climate crisis has brought a series of fires to the Glacier National Park hitherto unseen. The entire Western side of Lake MacDonald--one of the main lakes in the park and a popular tourist spot-- is nothing but burnt, black tree corpses, standing as a warning of our future. They’re from a fire (named Robert Fire) in 2003 that burned down over 50,000 acres. In that year an unprecedented 13% of the park was consumed by flame in the most destructive fire year on record.6 Just last year in 2018, another fire tore through the same region around Lake MacDonald, reburning brush already devastated from the Robert Fire a decade before.7 As the risk of fire goes up and up, the park will see more of its beloved land consumed in the fires of collapse.

Fire is not all bad. As I stated, it’s a way of life in the American West. The flames clear out old trees for new growth—like the wildflowers Glacier is famed for—to sprout up. But as the earth itself gets warmer (and Montana warmer still, as it is seeing temperature increases double that of the average8) the tree line moves even higher, meaning more and more Alpine meadow is conquered each year by trees fleeing the burning valleys.9 The plants are running higher and higher to escape a warming world. They’ll be disappointed to find that they can only run for so long.

I was around all this “change” for the course of a little more than a week. But the park rangers who have been in Glacier for decades have watched the fires, the advancing treeline, the melting glaciers first hand. Understandably, their outlook on the matter was overwhelmingly resigned. They all had a curious manner of talking about the glaciers as if they were already dead.

I took a boat tour out on the lake, and the guide was a 94 year old park ranger named Doug. He’d been working in Glacier for over half a century, and enjoyable referred to Glacier as “your park.” He implored us to go on hikes, to “make your way up to the glaciers and say goodbye.” On a separate trip, another guide explained that it was best that you saw a glacier or two now “to pay your respects” as you won’t have the chance in just a decade’s time. They also resignedly pointed out that the tiny snow patch just now visible on the mountain was called Gem Glacier, despite it being far below the size threshold for being an active glacier.10 They explained that this small size was actually a gift to the shrinking giant, as its tiny diameter and ample shade meant it would most likely be the last “glacier” left in the park before melting away. A third joyfully explained that they’d already come to a decision regarding the name of the park: a glacier-free Glacier National Park will still be called just that.11

When looking out across the landscape of the park, these rangers did not see just the now. No, they also saw the future—a parched park devoid of glaciers—and began to act as if the future were the now. The glaciers, despite still being here, were already gone. The beauty of the now had been crowded out by visions of a doomed future so striking that one felt as if that, not what could be seen in front of them, were the true now. This time distortion effect and what that means for our understanding of and adaptation to the climate crisis is what I would like to explore in this piece. In examining our aesthetic—that is, our immediate impressions—understanding of this warming world, I hope to make coping—for that is all we can do, really, short of massive global revolt in the next decade or so followed by a coordinated and democratized effort to rapidly decarbonize—with our doom a bit more palatable.

The term itself is under some scrutiny. While I disagree with the implication of “Anthropocene”—ie that the blame for the disastrous climate now destroying our world lies with all of humanity equally rather than a privileged few that have determined the rules and structure of the fossil economy and are responsible for the overwhelming majority of carbon emissions, something I will elaborate upon further in this essay—the name itself is in such general usage and sounds far better than alternatives like Necrocene or Capitalscene that I have defaulted to its use here. For a more robust handling of this topic see Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, Oakland (CA): PM Press, 2016 ↩︎

Myrna H. P. Hall and Daniel B. Fagre, 2003, Modeled Climate-Induced Glacier Change in Glacier National Park, 1850- 2100, BioScience 53: 131-140 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/53/2/131/254976 ↩︎

Erich Peitzsch and Lisa McKeon, “Retreat of Glaciers in Glacier National Park,” https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers-glacier-national-park ↩︎

Fagre, D.B., McKeon, L.A., Dick, K.A., and Fountain, A.G., 2017, Glacier margin time series (1966, 1998, 2005, 2015) of the named glaciers of Glacier National Park, MT, USA: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/F7P26WB1 ↩︎

Climate Change, 2019, https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/climate-change.htm ↩︎

Rolf Larson, “Glacier Park Fires of 2003,” The Fires of 2003: An Anthology, 2004, The Inside Trail Vol. XVIII, No. 1, http://www.glacierparkfoundation.org/InsideTrail/IT_2004Win.pdf ↩︎

Howe Ridge Fire Incident Overview, 2018, National Park Service Incident Information System, https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6135/ ↩︎

Thomas Michael Power and Donovan S. Power, The Impact of Climate Change on Montana’s Outdoor Economy, 2015, Montana Wildlife Federation, http://montanawildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Impact-of-Climate-Change-on-the-Montana-Outdoor-Economy-Dec-2015-Final-Report.pdf ↩︎

Climate Change, 2019, https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/climate-change.htm ↩︎

Doug Struck, “Glacier National Park’s name will outlive its glaciers,” 2019, The Christian Science Monitor, https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2019/0618/Glacier-National-Park-s-name-will-outlive-its-glaciers ↩︎

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180abroad · 5 years ago

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Day 189: All Good Things

Finally, after more than six months abroad, the end of our adventure was upon us. Jessica and I had spent 189 nights in 48 different rooms, but after rising from our beds this morning, we would not lay our heads to rest until they were reunited with the long longed-for pillows of our own beds back home.

But we still had half a day to kill before our flight, so we figured we might as well explore some more of Reykjavik while we had the chance.

The Church of Hallgrimur proved just as stunning in the light of morning as it had in the evening two nights earlier.

Just downhill from the church is an area known as the Neighborhood of the Gods---so called because all of the streets are named for Norse mythological figures like Odin, Loki, and Thor.

(The Icelandic letter “Þ” is equivalent to the English “th,” so Þorsgata means Thor’s Street.)

Like I said, we had time to kill.

We saw some of the older buildings in the center of Reykjavik dating back to the late 1800s. (When it comes to architecture, at least, Iceland is on the same time scale as California.) But what really stood out to us were the statues---some more explicable than others.

Behind the memorial to the Unknown Bureaucrat, we came upon the Tjornin---a serene, glassy pond in the middle of the city.

The Tjornin is famously full of birds well fed with tourist bread (though still no match for the swans of Stratford-upon-Avon). Jessica and I laughed to see Nic receive a small measure of the avian intimidation tactics we were faced with back on our way to Liverpool from Wales.

Truly, when you stare into the eyes of a waiting duck, it is the void that stares back.

Next, we took a nice stroll along the Reykjavik harbor before stumbling onto an indoor flea market that's only open on the weekend.

Wandering back into town, we spotted another statue at the top of a hill, so naturally we climbed up to see it. It turned out to be a statue of Ingolfur Arnarson, the Viking captain who first colonized Iceland and gave Reykjavik its name, which means "Smoky Bay."

From the top of the hill, we had a decent view of the surrounding cityscape. Reykjavik is definitely a city on the rise. Construction and renovation projects were underway everywhere we went.

We still had a couple hours left to kill, so we went back to the main tourist street and did some window shopping.

There was one incredibly cheesy but impressively committed Viking-themed souvenir shop, as well as a smaller but more interesting shop selling trinkets inspired by Viking culture and mythology. I bought a pack of Norse god themed playing cards, and Jessica got a pack of cards featuring the Yule Lads.

You see, Iceland doesn't just have one Santa Claus, it has 13. The catch? They're a band of impish degenerates with self-explanatory names like Bowl-Licker, Sausage-Swiper, and Window-Peeper.

If for some reason you still want to send these lovely lads your Christmas wishes, you can deposit them in a specially designated mailbox outside the shop.

Finally, after a perfunctory lunch at Subway, we picked up our bags from our host Ingi, then made our way to the pickup spot for the airport shuttle. Somewhat unfortunately, there weren't nearly as many pickup spots as drop-off spots, so we had to walk about a mile across town to the nearest one. Still, it gave us a chance to enjoy the minimalist architecture and brisk subarctic air.

We also discovered that Reykjavik has a Brewdog, the TV-famous Scottish craft brewery that we'd visited with my Dad in Edinburgh.

Keflavik is a pretty small airport, and we'd arrived a couple hours early like we were supposed to. Still, we barely made it through security before our plane started boarding. Icelandair has done a great job of attracting people to Iceland with budget prices and easy stopovers, but it seems like the airport hasn't quite caught up. The people there were perfectly nice and respectably fast, but there were just too many people in line.

In fact, it was so crowded that we barely had time to fill up our water bottles---the line for the fountains was a good five minutes long.

The gates opened on schedule, but it was well past the flight time before they’d finally gotten everyone on board. Icelandair is a good value for the price, and I'd happily fly with them again, but they don't quite seem to have their act together when it comes to scheduling.

Oh well. No harm, no foul.

We walked out onto the tarmac to meet our plane, and I stooped to touch the ground one last time before we left for good. As we buckled up in our seats, it really started to hit us that the trip was really over and we were finally heading home. We didn't know whether to be happy or sad.

The flight was long and uneventful. A nice additional perk of our stopover in Iceland meant that the return flight was a couple hours shorter than our original flight from Oakland to Barcelona. It was still a long flight---9 hours---but when every hour in the air feels longer than the last, the difference between a 9-hour flight and an 11-hour flight is huge.

Of course, it may have helped knowing that we didn't have a full day in a foreign country ahead of us once we landed.

The one somewhat unpleasant surprise was that there was no food service unless you paid. And I'm the sort of cheap jerk who would rather go hungry than pay for mediocre, extortionately priced food.

Finally, we landed in San Francisco, just a few hours after we'd left Iceland, thanks to the time zones. Surprisingly, getting back into the US proved far easier than getting out of it, and we were soon reunited with our parents at the curbside pickup. My uncle Steve---Nic and Jessica's dad---had rented a preposterously large SUV to pick us all up together with my aunt and both my parents.

There were happy tears all around, but by this point the three of us were delirious with hunger and fatigue. At least, I was. And I was too far gone to notice how anyone else was doing.

We were swept away in our big black four-wheel-drive chariot.

We were at Super Taqueria enjoying the burritos we'd been waiting six months for and barely tasting them.

We were at Nic and Jessica's house saying goodbye.

I was home, simultaneously reunited and separated in ways that were perfectly natural and yet somehow strangely new.

I was in bed---in my own bed, with my own sheets and my own pillows---drifting off to sleep, no different than any other night, as if nothing had happened at all.

But it had happened. It had all happened. We have the stories and the pictures and souvenirs to prove it.

Epilogue

It's strange to be back home after all this time, which I guess isn't all that strange. But at the same time, one of the eeriest things is just how easy it was to slip back into all the old routines.

For a while, I felt a bit like Tom Hanks at the end of Cast Away as he looked at all the untouched food on that buffet table at the airport. Only instead of food, it was stuff.

That first night back, as I was getting ready for bed, I had a groaning realization that all my stuff was still packed away in my backpack downstairs. Just as I'd resigned myself to getting it, I realized that I had a drawer full of sleep clothes and a bathroom cabinet with toothbrushes and toothpaste to spare.

Having my desktop again was nice---though it was less nice when I booted it up on my first morning back and remembered that it was perilously near death when I had left it. It would be a frustrating, hours-long process just to get it back into shape, and what I really needed to do was buy a bunch of new parts and rebuild it from the case up.

Why put so much time, effort, and money into a desktop when I'd been perfectly happy with my laptop for the past six months?

Easy: games. And laptops cost more in the long run if you use them all the time. And, and, and…

Still, one of the biggest lessons of the trip for me---apart from opening my mind to other places and cultures---was the realization of just how little stuff we really need to get by. Which is a bit ironic, considering all the cool things I wanted so badly to buy in so many places but didn't have room to carry.

Looking back on the trip, I think we did an impressive job for two introverts who'd never really done anything like this before. I'm glad we got to see so many different places, and Airbnb made an incredible difference in the cost and quality of the trip.

Our parents being able to join us one by one over the course of the trip was also a brilliant idea and an absolute blessing.

If we were to do it again, though, we'd probably do a few things differently. We'd spend more time in fewer cities. Maybe take a weekend here and there. As much as we enjoyed seeing so many different places, it was exhausting and wore on our nerves. I'd also like to try and put myself out there more when it comes to interacting with locals---though that's far outside my comfort zone. And it would be nice to see what some places look like after dark.

And we'd probably skip Lausanne.

But besides that, I'm satisfied with everything we did, even the not-so-good bits. Getting sick in the Sahara and finding ourselves homeless in Rome were terrible experiences, but they're also some of the most vivid and interesting memories of the trip.

Anyway, I guess I'm just rambling now. This story may be over, but I'm sure there will be others to tell soon enough. One thing about living out of a backpack for six months and getting by on hardly any money: it kind of changes your perceptions of what is and isn't possible.

#180abroad #reykjavik #iceland #travel #strange statuary #homecoming #all good things

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spherewine28-blog · 6 years ago

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Apartment Profile: Jefferson Mount Laurel

Apartment Buildings

The upscale garden apartment community is the Virginia-based apartment developer/manager's first foray into South Jersey.

The first completed building at Jefferson Mount Laurel welcomed its first residents at the end of February. | Photos: Jefferson Apartment Group

Jefferson Mount Laurel, Jefferson Apartment Group’s newest Philadelphia-area community, may not have a grand old Victorian mansion for its clubhouse.

But, says JAG Senior Vice President and Development Partner Drew Chapman, what it does have is a level of luxury that’s new to the South Jersey rental market: “We offer our residents a number of things other communities in New Jersey haven’t offered.��

Those things include amenities now standard in upscale apartment communities on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware, including Jefferson’s own Maybrook apartment complex in Wynnewood. That’s the one that was built around the historic Maybrook mansion, built in 1881 as the summer home of liquor magnate and developer Henry C. Gibson.

The 7,100-square-foot Jefferson Mount Laurel clubhouse will be new from the ground up — it’s rising as you read this — and what it may lack in history and originality (no 60-foot-long, 50-foot-high ballroom here) it makes up for in quality and variety of amenities.

The interior of one of the finished units

First-class amenities for South Jersey renters

Those include a residents’ lounge with shuffleboard, foosball and billiard tables and a double-sided fireplace, a media lounge, an up-to-the-minute fitness center and a business center. Outdoor amenities include a resort-style swimming pool, a sports court, a putting green, an outdoor living room with fire pit, grills and a movie screen, a courtyard with fountain and lawn games, a pet spa and two dog parks (one for large dogs, another for small ones), a playground for the kids, garden plots and more than a mile of walking trails. The parking lot includes electric vehicle charging stations to boot.

When complete, the complex will have 490 apartments in 21 three-story buildings with controlled access. Most will also have elevators. As of now, 70 units have been completed, with more coming on line as work progresses over the course of this year.

The apartments themselves boast nine-foot-high ceilings, high-end kitchens with quartz countertops and stainless steel appliances, wide plank floors, in-unit washers and dryers, and private balconies and patios. Apartments with private entrances and garages with remote control access are also available.

Closeup of the apartment kitchen

More like this to come?

Chapman says “the response has been fantastic” to the first units. He also sees plenty of opportunity to provide more apartment communities like this one in Jersey: “There aren’t a lot of Class A apartments there, not as many as in the city or the Pennsylvania suburbs.”

In addition to the Mount Laurel and Maybrook communities, McLean, Va.-based Jefferson is developing a third garden apartment community in Exton called Parkview at Oaklands. It entered the Philadelphia market with the Jefferson Pointe complex in West Chester, which it completed in 2012 and sold in 2014. This entire complex should be finished by the start of 2020.

Jefferson Mount Laurel by the Numbers

Address: 3101 Knox Way, Mt. Laurel, N.J. 08054

Number of units: 290 1-bedroom, 1-bath and 2-bedroom, 2-bath units, some with dens, some with private garages, ranging in size from 688 to 1,305 square feet. One-bedroom units range in size from 688 to 866 square feet; one-bedroom units with garages have 841 square feet of space; one-bedroom units with dens range from 888 to 952 square feet. Two-bedroom units range in size from 908 to 1,259 square feet; two-bedroom units with garages have 1,259 square feet of space, and two-bedroom units with dens have 1,305 square feet of space.

Number of parking spaces: Not available. Contact leasing office for parking information.

Rents: One-bedroom units, $1,560 to $1,720 per month; one-bedrooms with dens, $1,715 to $1,730 per month; one-bedrooms with garages, $1.875 per month. Two-bedroom units, $1,760 to $2,055 per month; two-bedrooms with dens, $2,200 per month; two-bedrooms with garages, $2,255 per month.

More information: Jefferson Mount Laurel website; 856-347-5625

Source: https://www.phillymag.com/property/2019/03/20/jefferson-mount-laurel-profile/

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petebuonocore · 7 years ago

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The Best L.A. Coffee Shops to Do Work In

FROM LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE: this is what we’ve all been searching for: A guide to the greatest L.A. coffee shops in which to do work.

This list is by no means comprehensive, but it is the best one of its kind. Each coffee shop on it was subjected to a criteria included type and quality of coffee served, amount of seating, number of power outlets, parking, aesthetic ambiance, wifi availability, and food offerings, if applicable. You’ll notice that some of the places on this list offer internet access while others do not; some have snacks, others full-on meals. Some places didn’t make it because their wifi gets spotty if too many people are using it. Others were cut because of their dumb “no laptops” rules. Others still, while purveyors of the finest caffeinated beverages, were left off the list due to lack of seating, or maybe music that makes it hard to concentrate. What it really came down to was this: Can you spend anywhere from three to eight hours in one of these shops and get some stuff done without wanting murder yourself or someone in your general vicinity, as is often the case at Starbucks/Peete’s/the Coffee Bean? We can confidently say yes.

( and by the way: This is in no way a ranking).

Dinosaur Coffee 4334 W. Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake

Coffee served: Four Barrel (San Francisco) WiFi: No Seating: Some nice communal tables, some nice outdoor seating, some nice two-person tables. Nice, on the whole. Power outlet situation: Satisfactory. Parking situation: It’s Silver Lake. Prepare accordingly. (But srsly, there are meters along Sunset and Fountain). Aesthetic ambiance: Light, bright, airy—lots of blonde wood and windows. Food offerings: Pastries, with a Maury’s Los Angeles pop-up on Saturdays. Other: Vanity points for the highly Instagrammable neon sign, unless someone unplugs it to use the outlet for their own computer at the cost of public joy and happiness.

Found Coffee 1355 Colorado Blvd., Eagle Rock

Coffee served: Demitasse Coffee Roasters (Koreatown) and Peri Coffee (Altadena) are the standards, but there’s a slew of rotating roasters on tap, too. WiFi: Yes Seating: Communal tables, bar seating, two-person tables. Power outlet situation: Not many. You may have to fight someone. Parking situation: Lot and street. Aesthetic ambiance: White walls, exposed ducts, floor to ceiling windows. Food offerings: They’ve got a selection of pastries from Sherman Oaks’ Crème Caramel LA on the reg, but they also host pop-ups from delicious local vendors like AvocaToast. Other: Sometimes the Ridges Churro Bar truck parks out front on Sundays, which is pretty dreamy. Follow them on Instagram for updates.

Stamp Proper Foods 4500 Los Feliz Blvd., Los Feliz

Coffee served: Equator Coffee (San Rafael); Stumptown (L.A.) WiFi: Yes Seating: Communal tables and normal tables. There are a handful of tables outside, too. Power outlet situation: Two, but it’s rarely uber-busy with workers, even on weekends. If you need a plug, you should be able to snag one at some point. Parking situation: There are two spots in the lot dedicated to Stamp, but most of them are reserved for Messhall (next door). Try your luck at meters along Hillhurst or in free spots on the side streets. Aesthetic ambiance: There are plenty of windows for natural light, so super pleasant on the whole. Food offerings: Everything from house-made smoothies to buckwheat pancakes to zucchini pasta. Take over a plug and you could be at this place all day if need be.

Copa Vida 70 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena

Coffee served: Copa Vida (Pasadena) WiFi: Yes. Unless you go during a crucial work window on Saturday or Sunday (between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.), in which case no. Seating: Ample across two different rooms. Power outlet situation: You shouldn’t have a problem finding one. Parking situation: There’s a structure just north of the shop on Green St. Aesthetic ambiance: The place is spacious with lots of windows but can feel cramped and loud when filled with gabbing Caltech students. Bring headphones. Food offerings: Full service breakfast and lunch, plus brunch on weekends (a limited menu is available after 3 p.m.)

Bru Coffeebar 1866 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz

Coffee served: Ritual Coffee Roaster (San Francisco) WiFi: Yes Seating: There’s a lot of it, but on weekends, you might have a hard time staking your claim. Power outlet situation: There are maybe two, so bring a fully charged computer. Parking situation: Find a spot on surrounding residential streets—Vermont’s a toughie. Aesthetic ambiance: Wooden and white and mod—the lighting is a touch harsh, if I’m being nitpicky. Food offerings: Sub-par, but if you get hungry, venture out onto Vermont—I’d recommend grabbing a breakfast burrito from Tacos Tu Madre. Other: If you forget headphones you’ll be subject to some pretty experimental jams (but in an interesting more than obnoxious way). And the baristas behind the bar will tell you all about it if you hear something you like.

Go Get ‘Em Tiger (Los Feliz) 4630 Hollywood Blvd., Los Feliz

Coffee served: Go Get ‘Em Tiger (L.A.); Heart Coffee (Portland); Camber Coffee (Bellingham, WA); Methodical Coffee (Greenville, SC); Saint Frank (San Francisco); 49th Parallel (Vancouver, BC) WiFi: No Seating: There are a bunch of tables and chairs on an outdoor patio, but nothing indoors, so dress accordingly. Power outlet situation: N/A (see: seating). Parking situation: Street parking along Hollywood Blvd. and surrounding residential streets. Aesthetic ambiance: Lovely bleached wood inside; wooden bench and wire chair seating outside. Food offerings: A full service brunch that has some pretty impressive offerings for a walk-up coffee bar operation. Other: You’ll be sharing the patio seating with patrons of the McConnell’s ice cream next door, which may be a con in terms of securing a long-term spot. In the pro column, though, you’ll get to smell waffle cones all day, so. Also, if you get super hungry later on, you can walk down the street to Kismet for a plate of their Jeweled Crispy Rice (which we named L.A.’s best dish of 2017).

Eightfold Coffee 1294 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park

Coffee served: Heart Coffee (Portland) WiFi: Yes Seating: Marble tables with communal wooden benches. Power outlet situation: Sufficient. Parking situation: Free on the street. Aesthetic ambiance: All white errthang (brick, tile, marble). Minimalist vibes, maximum vibe, you know? Food offerings: Barely any, but you will find a wayward cookie or almond croissant in their tiny pastry case. Other: Procrastinate on your own work by reading the work of other people: They’ve curated a neat selection of books and zines, all of which are displayed on two tall wood bookshelves. Also, the music is loud AF, but it’s good, so it feels less offensive. Not great if you’re trying to have a conversation, though. Double also, there’s only one bathroom, but the place isn’t super crowded so it’s not usually an issue.

Intelligentsia (Venice) 1331 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice

Coffee served: Intelligentsia (Chicago) WiFi: Yes Seating: Counter seating around the coffee bar, booths in the corners. There are some cool wooden risers/tables on the way in, too. Power outlet situation: Atrosh. There are none. Parking situation: Parking on Abbot Kinney is always a doozie; best to stick to the residential streets, which usually have a slew of open spaces on weekdays and enough to get by on weekends. Aesthetic ambiance: Light, bright, airy, and lofty—there’s some pretty cool metalwork for you to stare at when you inevitably zone out from your work. Food offerings: Wacky croissants (Churro Croissant, Elderberry Croissant, etc.), tea cakes, cookies, and other pastries. Other: Like Eightfold, there’s only one bathroom. Unlike Eightfold, I think we can all agree that it’s annoying in a shop with as much foot traffic as this one.

Caffe Luxxe (Malibu) 22333 Pacific Coast Highway, Suite 160, Malibu

Coffee served: Caffe Luxxe (L.A.) WiFi: No Seating: Indoor/outdoor, but the real standouts here are the precious sunshine-yellow tables on the back patio. Power outlet situation: No bueno. Parking situation: Free in a lot in front of the shop. Aesthetic ambiance: Lots of white and gray, two walls of windows. Serenity. Food offerings: Fresh-baked pastries; sandwiches; pre-packaged treats. Other: If Malibu is a hike for you, consider the Brentwood location instead. I’m loathe to recommend it because it’s my own neighborhood spot, but the new-and-improved outpost is too great to keep to myself. Half of its awesomeness comes from the excellent managerial staff and army of pleasant baristi. They are the best, and you can tell them I said so.

Deus Ex Machina 1001 Venice Blvd., Venice

Coffee served: Blue Bottle (Oakland) WiFi: Yes Seating: Indoor/outdoor community tables and high-top seating, plus one super dope couch made by local furniture designer Stephen Kenn. Power outlet situation: A solitary plug under a bench near the kitchen. Which is to say, not ideal. Parking situation: The lot in the back is often occupied by motorcycles (the coffee shop is connected to a motorcycle, surf, and clothing shop—the brand’s flagship location), but there are a good number of spaces for cars. If all else fails, find a spot on Lincoln or a side street. Aesthetic ambiance: Cool without making you feel like you’re not cool. Food offerings: Juices, salads, sandwiches, pastries, and lots of pre-packaged goodies. Other: It’s almost guaranteed you’ll see many dogs because of the cafe’s breezy digs, which all but negates the whole one-outlet thing.

Verve (3rd Street) 8051 W. 3rd St., Beverly Grove

Coffee served: Verve (Santa Cruz) WiFi: Yes Seating: A melange of two-person tables, a community table, and some bartop seating, plus a few smaller wooden tables and chairs out front and out back. Power outlet situation: Abominable, as there is only one. That’s still better than the Verve on Melrose, which has zero. (FWIW, though, that’s a nice Verve outpost as well.) Parking situation: A tiny lot out front (stay as long as you want); two hour parking in a communal lot in the back; meters; free parking on residential streets. Even so, it’s still kind of hard to find a spot. Aesthetic ambiance: Concrete floors, light wood tables, lots of natural light. Food offerings: Heavier snacks (avocado toast, chia pudding); pastries and treats. Other: It’s in the same little complex as Bel Campo Meat Co. and Sweetgreen, not to mention just up the street from Sweetfin Poke. If you get mega-hungry, you’re set. Also, the DTLA location deserves an honorable mention here, with its blonde wood tables and outdoor seating nestled among two plant walls. A little sceney, but if that’s you’re scene, then cool.

Bricks and Scones 403 N. Larchmont Blvd., Larchmont Village

Coffee served: LAMILL Coffee (Alhambra) WiFi: Yes

Seating: Inside, there’s a lot of it, from chairs to chez lounges to couches to a communal table. Outside on the patio is your standard smattering of tables and chairs. Power outlet situation: No qualms here. Parking situation: May the odds be ever in your favor of finding a meter on Larchmont Blvd. or a spot in the tiny lot out back. Try your luck on Rosewood, half a block away, for free two hour street parking. Aesthetic ambiance: This definitely isn’t your run-of-the-mill craft coffee house. The building itself is architecturally intriguing with an interior to match, but dark brick walls and its purple-and-yellow color scheme make the inside a touch too moody to be pleasant, IMHO. The patio, on the other hand, is sunny in all senses of the word. Food offerings: Full service breakfast, salads, and sandwiches, plus a bevy of pastries baked on-site, including—duh—warm scones of the matcha, lavender white chocolate, blueberry, etc, etc. variety.

Coffee Commissary 3121 W. Olive Ave., Burbank

Coffee served: Chromatic Coffee Co. (San Jose); Temple Coffee Roasters (Sacramento); Madcap Coffee (Grand Rapids, MI); Coava Coffee Roasters (San Diego); Victrola Coffee Roasters (Seattle, WA) WiFi: Yes Seating: Indoor/outdoor tables and counters. Power outlet situation: V good. Parking situation: Street, but be sure to read the signs—residents get I’m-going-to-leave-a-strongly-worded-note-on-your-windshield levels of hyphy if you park errantly on their block. Aesthetic ambiance: The space is bright and non-claustrophobic thanks to ample windows and an open-ish floor plan. Food offerings: Daaaang, their menu is stacked. Breakfast, lunch, and weekend brunch, from brisket burritos to pork belly brown rice bowls. Other: Commissary’s other outposts (WeHo, Hollywood, and Culver) are worth a mention, too, but the Burbank spot feels like the crown jewel.

WRITTEN BY MARIELLE WAKIM FOR LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE

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