I had been seduced by a terroirist network known as New Zealand Artisan Honey, made up of passionate beekeepers producing honeys in small, quality batches from specific varietal sources among some of New Zealand’s most spectactular locations.

Sadly, most bees and beekeepers are not having such a romantic experience. I had noticed my previous honey brands losing their organic status as the varroa mite has spread south through New Zealand. There is evidence that CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) has arrived in New Zealand, and it’s likely due to the strong neonicotinoids, a class of systemic insecticides which France, Italy and Switzerland have banned because of its effects on bees.

I had noted I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley as a book I would probably enjoy reading, but without a sense of urgency. Then comes this short film and these diorama diaries. Sloane creates elaborate multi-media dioramas in lucite boxes for a bunch of her stories and brings them to life in these videos. Ha! I am falling in love. And ordering your book. Thanks for making me laugh!

“Like most people I imagine do, I have three sets of magnetic poetry. I don’t know why you wouldn’t. One of them is cat themed, which is in no way pathetic.” (from Diary of a Diorama: Smell This)

My photo of Yuno’s Farm’s salad mix with broccoli raab flowers above is featured in this week’s New York Magazine in an article called “Salad Days” on page 104. The article reveals that Nevia No, “co-owner of South Jersey’s Yuno’s Farm, exotic seed seeker andartful arranger of what might be the most beautiful produce stand in town,” returns to Union Square with “a bevy of tender greenhouse greens, plus overwintered broccoli rabe and spinach.” Yay! Spring’s arrived.

Related posts:

• Abingdon Square Greenmarket Notes
• Happy Eggs
• Golden Purslane
• Sweet Potato Lentil Kale Soup Recipe

Tinfoil hats are so passé. So what should you wear to Faraday’s Cafe?

Check out the latest collection of electromagnetic field blocking and “anti-identity theft” clothing at DDCLAB (427 W 14th St, New York NY 10014 map).

Here’s the text from the windows:

EMF: Electro Magnetic Field Block
Anti•Identity•Theft•Fabric
Electric Resistivity
measure of how strongly a material opposes the flow of electric current and allows the movement of electrical charge.

DDCLAB
Woven of super sheer mesh polyester fibers coated with blackened copper, this high performance ultra thin, light weight and flexible mesh shield has a high ohm/sq resistivity that protects against identity theft by blocking high tech scanners from lifting valuable passport and ID information.

Reporting from New York Criminal Court, 100 Centre St, Jury Duty, Day 2. Wow, the wheels of justice move slowly. At least you can now enjoy wifi while you’re waiting to be called, so bring your laptop (Twitter, Facebook and Meebo blocked). But during voir dire, you are expected to pay attention even while you’re not being interviewed. Not continuous partial attention but laptops, iphones and sketchbooks away total attention. You may observe, meditate, be present, and check in with yourself. You can also suck on hard candies*.

Lucky for you, Papabubble just opened a few blocks away [380 Broome St at Mulberry St, 212.966.2599]. This wondrous candy laboratory with outposts in Barcelona and Tokyo provides the ultimate in jury duty lozenges: fruit candies that look like Venetian millefiore glass, peppermint pebbles and addictive chocolate-filled coffee bites. They also handcraft giant lollies, gold-tipped finger rings and even anatomically correct hearts (which I would definitely not advise sucking on in the courtroom). If you’re feeling thrifty, note they also have bags of aesthetically inferior ‘seconds’ that start at fifty cents.

* Note you can, but you may not… I am not offering legal advice. Don’t follow me. At least be quiet about it.

Technorati Tags: candy, food, jury duty, nyc, restaurants, vegetarian

Other sweet treats nearby:

• Chinatown Ice Cream Company [65 Bayard Street btw Mott and Elizabeth 212.608.4170] I personally recommend the black sesame seed, green tea, red bean and ginger flavors. Love that the Asian flavors are listed as ‘traditional’ and the western standards as ‘exotics.’)
• Longans and rambutans from fruit vendors throughout Chinatown.

Where to eat vegetarian when you’re on jury duty in NYC:

• Wild Ginger [380 Broome St btw Mott & Mulberry 212.966.1883 menu]
• Buddha Boddai [5 Mott St at Worth 212.566.8388 menu]
• Vegetarian Dim Sum House [24 Pell St at Doyers St 212.577.7176 menu]

Loved this jury duty report from Melissa Kirsch, author of the fun and useful book, The Girl’s Guide to Absolutely Everything.

Map of places noted in this article:

View Larger Map

Thanks,
Serious Businessman

A. Hi Serious Darling,

My favorite welcome home gift for new mommies and babies is Manhattan Fruitier’s beautiful organic fresh fruit basket with a teddy bear, rubber ducky and crocheted booties. Feel free to add in flowers and chocolate as you wish.

Manhattan Fruitier
manhattanfruitier.com
105 E 29th St, New York NY
212.686.0404 and 800.841.5718

Best flowers for Manhattan delivery:

Banchet Flowers
banchetflowers.com
809 Washington St, New York NY 10014
212-989-1088

Also worth checking out:
Belle Fleur
134 5th Ave
212.254.8703
bellefleurny.com

Bloom Flowers
541 Lexington Ave Mass
New York, NY 10022 (212) 832-8094
www.bloomflowers.com

Lenox Hill Florists
1140 Lexington Ave New York, NY 10021
(212) 861-2787
lenoxhillflorist.com
Note on Apartment Therapy

Jane Packer (in the Conran Shop)
328 East 59th Street New York, NY10022
janepacker.com

Utowa Floral Gallery
17 W. 18th St., near Fifth Ave.; 212-366-0891
http://www.utowa.com/flowers/index.php

In Brooklyn:
Outside NY
99 N 10th St 11211 Brooklyn NY
718.782.4800
http://www.outsideny.com/flowers.html

HauteGreen’s 2nd exhibition of sustainable design that’s both aesthetically pleasing and friendly to the environment offered many delights. I’m not sure how I’ve lived so long without The Green Light, by xDesign (Natlie Jeremijenko, Amelia Anon, Will Kavesh), a botanical lamp, terrarium, and airfilter all-in-one. I also loved My Secret Garden, a rug made from discarded blanket scraps by Studio Jo Meesters, and Our Flesh and Blood, a chest of drawers made from reclaimed intricately carved furniture, an FSC-certified plywood base and drawer fronts screened with images by Art With Function. More photos from Haute Green.

ICFF

• The Corona solar light, designed by Shane Kohatu and Emi Fujita, is a solar powered outdoor LED lighting system that can be staked to the ground, attached to a wall or placed on a tabletop. It uses no glues or fasteners, and is easy to diassemble for recycling.

• AfterGlow, a glow-in-the-dark recycled plastic adirondack chair made from 100% post-consumer recycled high density polyethylene (HDPE), a number two recyclable plastic (i.e., milk jugs), developed as a collaboration between Loll Designs and Douglas Homer.

• May all your days unfold as delightfully as Molo design‘s paper and textile seating and textile softwall (used as a bar setup at ICFF). Their felt rocks rock, naturally.

• Amaridian offers modern, sexy, tribal furniture and accessories from South African designers, including rocking bench and bug screen.

• MIO’s cork ModuTiles and cardboard Nomad architectural system. Also their softbowls, featured also at Haute Green. Ok, we love everything they make, especially the recycled cardboard PaperForms acoustic weave tiles/3d wallpaper. Appreciate how their catalog lists the materials, design and origin positive aspects of each item (renewable, recyclable, compostable, recycled, closed-loop manufacturing).

• Fernando & Humberto Campana’s TransNeomatic container made of re-used scooter tire and natural wicker for Artecnica’s Design With Conscience project that pairs designers with artisans around the world. Transneomatic bowls are produced in Vietnam using scooter tires rescued from landfills.

• PIE’s undulating furniture handcrafted from natural materials such as water hyacinth, liana, bamboo and rattan. Furniture collection is available at Vivavi. Founders Bannavis and Michelle Sribyatta founded PIE (Project Import Export) in Spring 2005, the same season they welcomed the birth of their son, π (~3.14).

• Amenity Home’s adorable non-gender-specific Home Nursery collection made from 200 thread count organic cotton with non-toxic dyes with a foresty theme.

• YiAhn’s Bassinet that converts to a toy bin and bookshelf, then a chair and table as your child grows.

• Valentin Vodev’s roller buggy stroller/scooter goes straight to my skating heart.

• I’ve loved Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec’s Cloud Shelving System since it was introduced. In fact, the only reason my walls aren’t lined with them is that they’re made from polystyrene, and I can visualize them offgassing just like the vaporous body they resemble. NeotericHome offers an eco-friendly version made from bamboo. Alas, the main reason my walls won’t be lined with these is that they’re 5.7 times the price of the original. (Disclosure: I don’t actually remember seeing this at the show, but it’s on their postcard.)

• Design Boom’s DesignMart featured fun cash-and-carry accessories: “Chicken in space” theme embroidered laptop bags, clutch purses and accessories by Mandarin Orange. After washing drip-dry-dishes from giffin’termeer, each piece can stand upright, so the water runs off with no need to towel dry. Mixko’s “English Summer Pendant” with a cottony cloud and glass rain drops.

• More photos from ICFF

Today the ASPCA issued an urgent alert stating that the pet food crisis isn’t over and nobody knows anything, including what’s actually poisoning pets. This follows on the heels of yesterday’s recall of Natural Balance pet foods due to rice protein concentrate contaminated with melamine, the same chemical that led to a nationwide recall of more than 100 brands of cat and dog food produced by Menu Foods last month. In between, Nestle Purina Pet Care pulled a selection of Alpo products off the shelves, and Del Monte recalled several brands of pet treats. The FDA blocked imports of wheat gluten from one company in China as a result, but clearly the problem goes far beyond this incident or ingredient.

If the common conventional foods humans eat are full of pesticides, drugs and hormones, what can we possibly expect from ingredients deemed “unfit for human consumption” that regularly go into commercial dog foods, even when they’re not tainted? Sabine Contreras has created an excellent resource in The Dog Food Project, offering label information 101 and specific ingredients to avoid. I’ve been reading a lot of suggestions for making your own dog food at home, but who has the time or inclination to cook every meal for themselves, much less their pets?

When Cosmo was a pup, he ate Iams and Eukanuba, two of the “premium” Proctor & Gamble brands by Menu Foods. He had all sorts of health issues, and thinking diet might have something to do with it, we went on a search to find something better.

The quest was fulfilled when we discovered The Honest Kitchen, which offers several formulations of 100% human-food-grade dehydrated raw pet food. Before it was available in New York stores, Lucy Postins, the lovely founder, used to pack each Internet order with a handwritten thank you. Now the products are widely available nationwide.

What a thrill to open the first pack of Force — rather than the usual unidentifiable glop or pellets, I could actually recognize individual ingredients: USDA chicken, organic sweet potatoes, organic celery, organic flax seed, and more. When you add water, it looks and smells like a hearty chicken stew. After a while on the new food, his weight normalized, his coat went from flaky to glossy, his health problems (and copious gas) disappeared. He’s more healthy and energetic now at nine years old than he was at four.

One advantage of dehydrated food is that you can give your dog the benefits of a minimally processed raw diet without having to deal with the safety concerns of storing and handling raw meat. (There are no bones in The Honest Kitchen’s recipes, only muscle meat, so you don’t have to worry about that either.) Another advantage is that it takes up little space or weight, making it ideal for travel and resulting in less packaging waste.

Ideal Bite points out other ways The Honest Kitchen shows they care about conserving energy and championing animal rights. To be sure, I would prefer no animals were killed to feed mine, and at the very least I could certify that any who were had humane treatment and a happy life. But this is the very best dog food I’ve found yet.

The Honest Kitchen Dog Food is wholeheartedly Emily (and Cosmo) approved.

Bonus: What do we know is toxic for dogs?

Cosmo the Welsh Corgi outside The Chocolate Bar of NYC’s West Village, where he’s been spotted trying to get in before.

Chocolate. Yes, chocolate. Although chocolate’s now known to be healthy for humans (hooray!), dogs lack the enzyme to digest theobromine, a compound that naturally occurs in the cocoa bean. No, it’s not a hoax.

The dose is the determinant of toxicity here… the darker the chocolate, the greater the amount of theobromine. Just one ounce of baker’s chocolate is considered deadly for a 10-pound dog. Hershey’s provides a list of theobromine content in their various chocolate products for reference.

The bottom line: while stealthily scarfing half a bag of Paul Newman’s Champion Chocolate Chip Cookies probably won’t knock your dog out (at least it didn’t seem to affect Cosmo), better to keep your cases of Green & Black’s Maya Gold far, far away from Fido. (…and scoot a little closer to me!)

Trivia Important Question: What is the plural of Corgi?

Corgwyn.

Healthy, well wishes to all pets and humans! Plants too. And sea turtles. Oh! I want to send a special shout out to all you beautiful species in the Galapagos Islands. Ok, ok, all sentient beings. But especially the bees. This one’s going out just for you tonight:

Bee! I’m expecting you!
Was saying yesterday
To someone you know
That you were due.

The frogs got home last week,
Are settled, and at work;
Birds, mostly back,
The clover warm and thick.

You’ll get my letter by
The seventeenth; reply
Or better, be with me,
Yours, Fly.

– Emily Dickinson