Results tagged “sustainable”

Have you ever gone to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, walked around for hours and then afterwards, go out for dinner, you know, to get sushi? If so, maybe you used the aquarium's handy wallet-sized Seatfood Watch pocket guide.

       

Consider it the "Little Restaurant that Could" in the heart of Hollywood: It's been well over a year since we first started prematurely salivating about a storefront near Sunset and Vine. With the weekly taunting of the abundant, crowded, and colorful Hollywood Farmers' Market not helping matters, the cheerful yellow eatery whose name evokes the core connection between the farm and the dining table, has been "coming soon" for a long, long time.

At a Zocalo food panel focused on defining Los Angeles' cuisine moderated by the Pulitzer Prize winning Jonathan Gold last year, there was no specific dish or item that could be defined as owned by this city. Tacos, burritos, sea food, sushi were all brought up (mind you, this was before Kogi BBQ and the mobile food truck culture ever existed, so much changes in less than a year, right?), but none felt like the quintessential L.A. food. But one consistent theme was apparent with Gold and others: a chef's long-term relationship with farmers and farmer's markets. In other words, what L.A. should be known for is not one specific food or dish, but the locally grown and sustainable food trend, the panel seemed to agree.

You want to eat fresh seasonal produce that's grown by area farmers. You want to help your local economy and not line the coffers of corporate America. You appreciate that an Oxnard-grown strawberry--one that's softer, smaller, redder, riper, and sweeter--is about a thousand times tastier, better for you, better for the environment, and better for your fellow Californians than the one that's bigger, harder, paler, less flavorful and found in a big plastic box inside the store that feels like a big plastic box.

      

Improving a blighted neighborhood could be as simple as a covering up unsightly walls and rusted fences with a vertical garden. For nearly two months, the Nelson brothers have been selling a new concept in this burgeoning field. Their business, the Woolly Pocket Garden Company, began serendipitously when they were looking for a vertical garden solution to their eco-conscious Chinatown event space, Smog Shoppe. But no product existed to meet their needs cost effectively, so they did it themselves and figured it was a product others might want, too.

            

Before a recent trip to Tokyo, the LA Times published Steve Lopez's column entitled "L.A. could learn some lessons from Tokyo". In his piece he praises Tokyo for its clean taxis, beautiful parks, and bike commuters.

With the event a few days away, Sonja took the time to speak to LAist about the importance of conscious consumerism and community building, promoting downtown LA and it's thriving art and fashion scene, volunteering and the amazingness that is LA's taco trucks and fruit stands.

The County Board of Supervisors are set to vote tomorrow on three progressive green ordinances tomorrow that would affect unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, some of which that are the most undeveloped (look northward to the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley areas). The ordinances--green building, drought tolerant landscaping and low-impact development (LID)--would "be the singularly most progressive environmental action ever taken by the county and will set an impressive precedent for the entire region," writes Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay, on his blog. But Gold is reserving excitement warning that the Building Industry Association is mobilizing to kill it.

Eight California cities made it onto the 2008 US City Sustainability Rankings from SustainLane, a media network company based in San Francisco. Of the eight, four made it into the top 25 leaving the other four in the bottom 25. And it's no surprise that the bottom 25 list includes Central and Southern California cities with Northern California cities ranking at the top (full list here):

There's only 120 taxis operating in Burbank, but twenty of them have been hybrids since May. Cities across that nation have already started programs (NYC plans to have all 13,000 taxis to be hybrid in 5 years) but Los Angeles is a little behind with its 2,303 fleet. "We're researching the issue very carefully. We want to do it right," said Tom Drischler, taxicab administrator for Los Angeles, to the LA Times in the Burbank hybrid article. "We really want to get something going this year. We hope to present a program to the Board of Taxi Commissioners this fall." One hurdle for officials to solve is the safety partition, which is hard to put in a hybrid. Before they were mandated, a cabbie was being murdered about every 18 months.

Naturewell will host their grand opening next week, but they're offering free samples this afternoon, they said earlier today as they prepped their signs and storefront.

Not only are there Props 7 and 10, which are environmentally intentioned with heavy opposition from businesses and eco-groups alike, there is also a possible prop being pushed around by Governor Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein. It would be a $9.3 billion water bond, mainly for water surface storage.

Echo Park resident Erik Knutzen of the blog Homegrown Evolution was featured last night on ABC7's news broadcast. Knutzen and his wife Kelly Coyne recently authored "The Urban Homestead" that talks about urban gardening/farming and includes a chapter on sustainable transportation (Damien Newton talked Knutzen up in two separate interviews).

The newest and hottest trends in new modern design and eco-friendly building are hitting the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend at Dwell on Design. Over 200 exhibitors will display their outdoor, indoor and prefab wares including new products being launched this weekend. Additionally, there will be displays (ex., the Nomad yurt), sixteen private home tours and after hours parties.

In Pasadena, Orean claims to be the first vegetarian fast-food drive-thru (fast it is not). And beginning Saturday, a new restaurant in West Hollywood will be taking claim to being Los Angeles’ first fast food burger house using only certified organic ingredients. O!burger will offer grass fed beef, free range turkey, hot dogs, salads, French fries and shakes. And yes, they have veggie burgers made from their own recipe based on spinach and corn.

Last weekend, the homeowners, docents, and designers who are taking part in today's Green Gardens Tour gathered in the beautiful Santa Monica library to talk with each other and to be honored by the tour organizers at a thank you breakfast.

                     

This upcoming Saturday, April 26th, marks the 4th Annual Green Gardens Tour, which gives attendees a backstage pass to see six home gardens on the Westside that "demonstrate sustainable designs, practices, and technologies." With conservation issues a hot-topic in the Los Angeles area--and all over the world--the tour is a wonderful hands-on opportunity to see what some people have done in their own yards to pitch in to save our precious resources while creating beautiful and inviting landscapes. All of the gardens are professionally designed, but not only will attendees get to take home the Green Sourcebook that's loaded with valuable information (like plant lists!), they can hear lectures and demos on the tour all focused on this year's theme, which is Gardening With Intent.

Last night, approximately 120 Eco-Village neighborhood residents, friends and family gathered at Virgil Middle School for the LAUSD's 4th site selection meeting and to hear the District's final recommendation on the location of the new school.

Sunday's Grammy Awards weren't just about honoring the best in music, they were also about supporting environmental awareness and conservancy. And the The Recording Academy® hoped to set the precedent with getting the Grammys to go green.

There's some great news for pizza fans coming from Pizza Fusion, an all-organic, environmentally friendly pizza franchise: they're setting out to expand throughout California this year, starting with an LEED-certified location in San Diego and moving up through Santa Monica and Thousand Oaks. Why is this cool? Well, the company is setting trends and blazing trails in the sustainability business:

Pizza Fusion, whose motto is 'Saving the Earth, One Pizza at a Time,' practices an eco-friendly approach to their entire existence, including their restaurants' buildout, service and overall operations. Through building only LEED certified restaurants, delivering their food in company owned hybrid vehicles, and offsetting 100% of their power consumption with the purchase of renewable energy certificates (among many other things), Pizza Fusion is setting the standard for sustainable restaurant practices as the most eco-friendly restaurant in America.

1. GOOD Magazine: This locally based do-gooding magazine has been impressing many across the country over the past year. In fact, a subscription to this bi-monthly publication is one of our favorite ideas. If GOOD is not your giftee's style, there are about a million other magazines to gift them.
2. Greendimes: Give the gift no more junk mail. Starting at $15, they will stop up to 90% of junk mail and plant 10 trees. Trust us, it works, we've been with Greendimes for over a year now and we only get one piece of junk mail from one company that won't listen and that's it.
3. Organic Delivery: No one will be delivering organic delivery you order to today, tomorrow, but announcing that they will be getting a box full of beautiful organic fruits and veggies delivered within the next few weeks is a nice gift that extends into the New Year. You can order a one-time delivery or buy a weekly delivery for a month. It's up to you! We do this occasionally for ourselves and we highly recommend Organic Express.
4. CFLs: Gift a few or more Compact Fluorescent Bulbs and you'll be thanked for saving them money. We replaced nine bulbs in our household and now save an average of $80 per bill (DWP bills every two months). So in theory, by giving CFLs away, you'll be giving money on a monthly basis -- it's like a long term investment strategy.
5. Online Donations: In their name, make an online donation to a non-profit. Green Living Magazine has some ideas.

Last year I challenged myself to stop using plastic bags at grocery stores by bringing my own reusable ones. After months of forgetting to bring my own bags and kicking my own arse mentally, it is now a natural habit when heading out the door. Now it's time to challenge myself again with reusables. It may make me look like an old crazy bag lady, but it must be done. I must start to make...

It's not about clad (though haute food on the human body is quite beautiful). The Dressing Room is one of LA's newest sustainable produce restaurants. Owner Don Schaefer and his wife traveled to farm after farm in California to meet and greet with farmers, searching for those that fit the sustainable produce bill and also pay their workers a living wage, not minimum wage. Step one: check. Step two: open a restaurant. The Dressing...