Yesterday we won a green award, and today we had our first garden harvest! well, sort of. I plucked a radish out of the ground and ate it.
photos:
I had no idea that they poked their tops up like that.
radish, fresh from ground.
Beautiful, just before being eaten. This was a French Breakfast Radish, from Seed Savers Exchange. Very tender and buttery.
Overall, lots of exciting garden growth over the last week. For instance, I think we’re actually growing arugula instead of a patch of weeds:
Aaaand we have lettuces!
More pictures, as always, here.
update: here’s a picture!
We were one of the winners!
Please join us and all the other winners (list below) in an Awards Ceremony/Press Conference outside our cafe tomorrow at 10:30am.
Mayor Fenty and Director George Hawkins will both be handing out the awards. We’re so honored to have won and to be in such good company!
List of winners:
Akridge
Big Bear Cafe, LLC
Casey Trees
Circle Yoga, LLC
Clean Currents, LLC and Latino Economic Development Corporation (joint award)
Green Builders Council of DC and Miller & Long Company, Inc. (joint award)
The Fairmont Washington, D.C.
Flow Yoga Center
GreenShape, LLC
Guest Services, Inc.
Live Green
Natural Body Spa & Shoppe - West End
Poste Moderne Brasserie
Restaurant Nora
The Tower Companies
Willard InterContinental Hotel
Zipcar
The most rewarding change has been the radishes (above). They look like real plants.
Other than that, the lettuces have come up:
the nasturtiums:
and the snap peas:
Beets are also coming along, but still look boring:
And the kale is starting to exhibit some leaf distinction:
***
Today I’m planting the onion seedlings I’d started earlier indoors. Unfortunately, the eggplant and peppers I’d started died, so I’ll be getting transplants from Caitlin and trying again next year.
All the other plants (corn, tomatoes, bush beans, etc) will be planted in May, once the weather is consistently warmer.
photos taken about a week and a half ago (4/8). updates soon, but really the only plants that have changed much are the radishes (above) and the nasturtiums. everything else looks pretty much the same.
above: swiss chard. rainbow chard.
below: brussel sprouts (left) & kale (right)
I can never seem to get video to embed here because we’re using Yahoo! Small Business Hosting and some archaic version of wordpress (anyone out there want to help us move it all over to something more up-to-date?).
Here’s the link to the Prince of Petworth PoPtrekker video that they did last week at the cafe and in the neighborhood. It’s really nice. Thanks, Prince of Petworth! And thanks to our great customers and neighbors!
http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2009/04/poptrekker-bloomingdale-and-ledroit-park/
We will be open tomorrow, Easter Sunday, at 8:30am, and will remain open until 6pm unless it’s painfully slow, in which case we’ll close at 3pm. So come around if you’re in town!
All that rain over the weekend, and then yesterday’s and today’s sun and warmth meant some seedlings sprouted! That out-of-focus pic above is a green oakleaf lettuce seedling, if my garden plan is to be believed.
And that above is the first seedling of plants I started indoors. It’s kale. Today some brussel sprouts came up too. Right now all of them are sunning out on my back deck.
Also today I put up a little makeshift fence, in an effort to keep out curious pets. We’ll see if it works. In a week I’m going to plant marigolds and nasturtiums around the border which will hopefully add another barrier to the growing veggies.
The boxes full of dirt & compost, 3/20/09
seeds arrived! 3/25/09. From Seed Savers Exchange.
Lots of planning involved.
Seed starting, 3/25
Starting outdoors, 3/25/09, right before rain! I planted lettuces, radishes, beets, and swiss chard. We’ll see if anything pops up.
Cheryl’s Gone Reading Series - March 26 - 8pm
Rod Smith (poetry)
Willie Davis (fiction)
Erik Gamlem (a little of this and that)
Rod Smith is the author of Deed, Music or Honesty, The Good House, Protective Immediacy, and In Memory of My Theories. He edits the journal Aerial, publishes Edge Books, and manages Bridge Street Books, in Washington, DC. He is currently editing The Selected Letters of Robert Creeley with Peter Baker and Kaplan Harris for The University of California Press.
Originally from Whitesburg, Kentucky, Willie Davis has won the Willesden International Short Story Competition judged by Zadie Smith and the Katherine Ann Porter Prize judged by Amy Hempel. His work has appeared in The Guardian and The Kenyon Review, among other places.
Erik Gamlem Has lived and breathed the Virginia air for the last twenty years. When he’s not going mad, or desperately evaluating his last.fm statistics he finds time to write stories, songs and poems. He enjoys nothing more then a giant feast of Indian cuisine accented by a tall bottle of beer.
@ Big Bear Cafe
1st and R NW
Washington, DC
(free)
www.cherylsgone.com
If interested, please fill out the form on the sidebar and email it to me at lana@bigbearcafe-dc.com or drop it off at the cafe!
Cheryl’s Gone Reading Series
February 26 - 8PM
Ryan Walker (poetry)
Sara Hov (fiction)
Zein El-Amine (poetry)
Spoonboy (music)
Big Bear Cafe
1st & R Streets NW
Washington, DC
**FREE**
Ryan Walker has lived and worked in Washington, DC since 1999. He enjoys latin america, partying, coffee and light. He blogs at www.bathybius.com.
Zein El-Amine was born and raised in Lebanon. He came to the US in the Late 80’s and worked for 20 years as a Civil Engineer. He quit engineering to pursue his writing. He is now finishing his MFA in poetry and working as Assistant Director to the Writers’ House where he teaches creative writing and leads Study Abroad literary trips to Egypt. He is a founding member and a frequent contributor to the award winning LEFT TURN magazine where his contributions include lead editorials; articles on the prison industrial complex, gentrification and education; and book and movie reviews. His poems have been published by Beltway Quarterly, DC Poets Against the War Anthology, Penumbra, GYST, and Joybringer. He has won the Tallahassee Writers’ Association Annual Poetry and Haiku Contest.
Sara Hov writes kick-ass fiction and received her MFA from George Mason University in 2008, & she writ es good poetry too. (Perhaps I’ll have a more formal bio for her posted to the website soon…)
Spoonboy plays guitar and sings in the Max Levine Ensemble, a DC-based punk band who play poppy, punky songs with insightful and political lyrics. He’s released a solo CD, “I Love You, This Is a Robbery”, on Plan-It-X records, and is an active force in the local music scene.
www.cherylsgone.com
we now have some new coffees to try out:
pressing:
Cafe San Ramon organic
Matagalpa, Nicaragua
available in chemex:
Tegu
Nyeri, Kenya
Los Luchadores pacamara
El Salvador
Finca Mauritania organic
El Salvador
Kuta
Papua New Guinea
That’s my pour up there on the screen. What a fun time! So great to hang out with coffee friends. Ryan, Jeremy and Juliet from Peregrine were there, as were Katie D and Nick and Trish from murky, and me, Collin, and Lukas from Big Bear. And lots of others!
(photo courtesy Nick Cho’s facebook)
Many congrats to Katie and Allie (murky) and David (Peregrine) who placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Barista competition yesterday. And to Allie from Woodberry Kitchen, who placed in the finals and had a killer signature beverage, made partially with Cascara and pop rocks. DC/Baltimore FTW!
Also, please come out tonight 6-9pm for Hannah’s photo opening!
Next Monday night we’re going host an opening for Hannah Jayanti’s photos from her travels abroad. 6-9pm, Monday February 9th. Come by for some treats and music and, of course, to take a look at the photos and meet the photographer.
We’re so glad to have some colorful, beautiful photos up on our walls — it’s so grey outside I’m about to lose it.
We have a new coffee brewing in our press pots these days, and it is none other than the coffee from the region I visited a few weeks ago. Next year at this time maybe you’ll be lucky to drink coffee made with one of the beans from the half bucket of cherries I picked at Finca Esperanza Verde.
This coffee reminds me a lot of the first time I tried the Zaragoza. In milk it’s very cinnamon-y and chocolate-y, very much like the Mexican hot chocolate flavor I liked so much in the Zaragoza. I think it makes a wonderful morning/all-day coffee, with milk or without, and I’m so proud to be featuring it here at the cafe.
Also, stay tuned for notifications on a slide show from me, Jocelyne from Tryst/OpenCity/The Diner, and Spike from Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore.
Be careful out there! Come in and get some hot coffee. Jo-Elle broke up the ice this morning, so you’ll be safe coming up the path.
These are a few teasers, full set available here.
Origin trip with Counter Culture to Finca Esperanza Verde, outside of San Ramon. What an amazing experience. More thoughts later.
***UPDATE: we will now also be open on Friday the 26th, from 9am-1pm. Come on by!
We’re going to be operating on a Holiday schedule, as most of our customers will be out of town during the next two weeks.
Here’s a link to our new calendar, which is updated with any scheduling changes, or more exciting, EVENTS! If you use gcal you can easily add our events (such as tomorrow’s holiday art market, or the recurring cheryl’s gone poetry series) to your own calendar. oh, and in other tech-related news we also now have our own cafe Twitter. Follow us here for updates on oatmeal, cuppings, coffees, shows, latte art, etc.
Hours for the next 2 weeks are as follows:
22 Monday: 8am-3pm
23 Tuesday: 8am-3pm
24 Wednesday: 9am-1pm, breakfast only
25 Thursday: CLOSED
26 Friday: 9am-1pm, breakfast
27,28 Saturday & Sunday: 9am-6pm29 Monday: 8am-2pm
30 Tuesday: 8am-2pm
31 Wednesday: 8am-2pm, breakfast only
1 Thursday: 10am-2pm, breakfast only
2 Friday: 8am-2pm
regular hours weekend of 3rd and 4th.
Happy Holidays!
**Update: we need to clear the tables at 3pm, to allow the vendors to set up, but the cafe will remain open.
I’m working on tulips, and finally made something this morning that resembled what it’s supposed to. My first tulip, above.
New goodies from PollyStyle! From left to right: Old World Rice Crispie Treats, with dried apricots, Ginger Shortbread Cookies, Ginger Molasses Cookies, amazing Graham Crackers, and the Rugelach. prices range from $2-$3.50, and are perfect along with coffee.
PollyStyle is woman-owned and operated gourmet bakery out of DC.
We have some beautiful and tasty holiday gift baskets available for purchase. Included are a 12oz bag of the special Counter Culture Holiday Blend Dolok Sanggul Vienna Melange and a package of PollyStyle’s amazing gingerbread men. All wrapped in a little basket. $20
For somethng simpler, we don’t know anyone who wouldn’t appreciate a bag of whole bean, fresh-roasted coffee as a hostess gift or stocking stuffer for the holidays. Either the Zaragoza or the Holiday Blend are available for sale.
The Holiday Blend is “carefully roasted and blended to perfection, … to complement pumpkin pie, holiday feasts, and rich desserts.“
