viva verde

spent my Tuesday night traveling (carpool!) to LA where the great people who created Sustainable Works hosted a lecture on the Low Carbon Diet.

Held in the Southern CA version of San Fran, Santa Monica we decided to beat the crazy traffic by going up a few hours early and visit some of the places that reflect the topic of the evening.

First up: Urth Cafe, where you can get organic elixirs and locally raised delights in a wonderful patio, this place is a local fave and a hot spot for the eco-celebs.

(me having a organic, local salad of feta, roma tomatoes, fresh bread and fruits)

after the meal, we decided to venture across the street to their local community garden, a small patch of land in the middle of a busy area.

(a sunflower up-close and the gardens bounty!)

This 2 hour lecture was presented by Helen York of Bon Appetit (no not the mag), a consulting, education and food service company transforming American eating institutions in sustainable and responsible business and food practices. York in this SUPER informative presentation discussed “food miles” way beyond the 1,500 from farm to table speech that i think we have heard a number of times (and according to them, that figure that only consisted of strawberries, milk and sugar..basically yogurt).

(parts of the presentation)

I have been preparing for a presentation next week at Fullerton’s Belly Sprout and this was a perfect time to gain some added knowledge. Some of the things i learned:

• Maine lobster is the worst thing for us in So Cal to eat (carbon-wise)
• 1/3 of all greenhouse gases are from the agriculture industry
• beef, lamb (like we know!), cheese (yikes!) and rice are also big carbon emitters
• a ton of the contributions to Global Warming come from the methane as a result of food waste (up to 30% is wasted!) this in addition to bioplastics are turned into methane in the landfill…therefore, eat all of you food!!
• local may not mean local: they should be growing in season in a method that that uses the least amount of energy.

if you are interested in hearing more from that presentation, you will have to see my version of it at Belly Sprout.

I guess there is a new channel out now put on but those at the Discovery Channel called “Planet Green“. You would think that i would be watching this thing the moment that it was live, but i was still in my heavy Bravo/HGTV coma and have only in the past couple of days had the strength to change the channel.

Planet Green seems to be in its infancy, i noticed lots of the same programs repeated, but hey at least there is something! One thing however made my face do one of those contortions similar to eating wilted lettuce when i thought it was fresh:

GREEN EMERIL

Is it just me or does this seem lame? I watched a few segments of this show featuring the Food Network celeb as he cooks items from Whole Foods. What’s funny is that if you didn’t know you were watching Planet Green, you would have thought that you were on Food Network-there is NOTHING different or “green” about this show. It is just Emeril cooking except you get to see him at the WF before he gets in the kitchen.

Don’t call me pessimistic, I honestly was giving this show a chance, i mean they must believe in it somehow because it is on virtually all the time. But i must admit I had my fill of this “green cooking show” & Emeril yesterday when I saw a advert for it. This is how it went:

(background voice) “Let’s ask Emeril, from Green Emeril what organic means.”

(Emeril) “organic means fresh and natural!”

You are better off reading Slow Food Nation or one of the great cookbooks from Alice Waters.

When our store expanded in early 2007, we joined forces with local interior design firm Path Design in a collaboration to provide services, furniture and awesome displays that highlighted the talent of principle, Rachel Hulan.

Now, after 1 1/2 years, Path has outgrown their office space and must relocate in order to accommodate their ever expanding clientele. NOW WHAT??

(what will be empty soon-what will happen next??)

I have been a little worried, not because of what i could do with the extra space, but the problem of how to display, organize and FIT what i would like to do.

Based on what customers and the industry have been telling me as well as my gut instinct, i really think that i should move into the home improvement/green building area as we are selling paint at an alarming rate. We also have a LARGE number of people coming in everyday wanting to buy and look at materials. Path had a “Design Bar” in the store that was open t0 the public about one a day month…this is giving me ideas…

(the Design Bar: was a good idea, but was only open 1 day a month)

I have also decided to reorganize the “original” part of the store. Not that i do not love eco-fashion, but over the past couple years, i most definitely have a better perspective on what people want out of eco-clothing.

Nicole, from Random Nicole (yes my niece) is now coming into RLT and will be setting up her ever growing Craft Kitchen DIY classes from the smaller space.

Keep reading over the next month & 1/2 to find out what the h-e-double toothpicks i do and how it is accomplished…lots going on…

there goes my summer vacation.

Love the butterfly garden! But I really want to add something to it that reflects the themes of the store: the combination of nature and human creations.

Remember i went to the Tree Huggers Ball a month ago? Well i happened to meet these great ladies from the Orange Circle who have a kick a** garden and garden art store….one of the things where these AMAZING metal flowers: check-check

I am obsessed with the large obnoxious ones, it makes me fell like i am an insect in the grass or hanging out out on a leaf. I met the creator, Richelle (of The Elegant Garden in Orange) at the store and this is what i bought, what do you think?

i have been watching cars stopping at the light next to the garden, people can’t help but look…a customer’s little girl even pretended like they smelled like roses…AWESOME!

Will be carrying these soon…LOVE THEM!

I am very very fortunate to know the fabulous people that run Back to Natives: a local non-profit that encourages and educates on local conservation and restoration. Well these fantastic people held a seminar at the store and focused on this nasty excuse of ivy as an area to build a native CA butterfly garden YES!

(before: yes i know, boring and ugly…you dont want to know what we found in there!)

(Reggie and Lori to the rescue!!!)

(it was not that easy. ivy was growing there for over 30 years probably, took several days of work to get them out-and there are still some roots!)

Remember: ivy does NOT go into green waster, it is evasive and will take over everything, it must go in the trash. Reggie, in addition to making a stellar plan (i will show it off later, it is framed in the store), designed this awesome path made from decomposed granite (aka “the road less traveled”) in the middle of the garden with a collection of native, butterfly attracting plants like yucca, 3 different types of sage, blue-eyed grass, deerweed and others (Reg, don’t hate me for forgetting!)

(2 months later)

this was only after watering the garden every few days for the first 2 weeks and then removing weeds/ivy every so often. So beautiful and EASY to care for…we get a ton of compliments all the time, it smells good and people stop littering around it

If you are interested in getting a consultation with the amazing Reggie to have your own garden, contact him at Back to Natives or..

we also sell the seeds at the store!

Monday is my day-off (basically meaning i do work outside of the store rather than in the store), and i decided to head over to my friend Gretchen’s new store : Live ‘n Nature.
(this is one of Gretchen’s original designs)

Live ‘n Nature is Gretchen and her mother’s brainchild of providing natural, fair trade toys and products for kids  from all over the world.  A breath of fresh air and safety since the recalls and warnings we have been getting from toy makers over the past couple of years.

(that’s Gretchen in the corner trying to avoid the camera-got you!)

I love their cute and quaint space filled with natural, solid wood shelves, and warm earth tones on the walls…they really make the bright colored stuffed animals and toys jump like the one below, an instrument that is played with marbles!

(awesome colors right!)

(natural building blocks made from logs!)

Give them a visit in Mission Viejo, you can also see some of their goods here at the store soon!

my friend Brett just stopped by and showed me this AWESOME company Blik Surface Graphics that do these super creative and and fresh decals for walls and windows. Check-check!

(the words are a MUST!)

already have a ton of ideas! i will be posting about future displays using these decals soon.