So excited to share wonderful news that I will be a new vendor at the Ramsey, NJ Farmers' Market starting this Sunday, September 11th. As a New Yorker living in the City on 9/11/01 this date 10 years later seems fitting for a new beginning. I am thrilled to be bringing herbs and herbalism to the quaint town of Ramsey. I will be offering over 100 Organic, Veganic, Wildcrafted, Koser, and Fair-Trade herbs for sale by the ounce and of course doing what I do best, mixing up custom blends. 

BIG thanks to Market director Nancy and Market committee members Ellen and Bobby for welcoming me to the vendor community. 

For more information about the Market, please visit the Market's website at: http://www.ramseyfarmersmarket.org. Sign up for their newsletter and join us on their Facebook page too! 

Hope to see you there! Whoo Hoo!

Last weekend I followed up on a friendly invite from an awesome couple, Ellen and Bobby, who I met at the Cupcakefest and went to the Ramsey, NJ Farmers' Market. I wish I would have taken more photos of both the town of Ramsey and the Market so I'll do my best to paint a picture. 

The Town of Ramsey is quaint with a really nice energy flow through the main street. When driving there it seemed kind of quiet (not that I am complaining about lack of traffic), little did I know Bergen county follows Blue Law so most businesses are closed on Sundays. 

The Farmers' Market is a nice size, conveniently located in a parking lot next to the train station. There is a good variety of vendors and market goers are offered a covered seating space in the center of the market which came in handy on what was a bright sunny day.

My favorite vendors were Grammy's Garden and Dr. Pickle. Grammy's Garden had a beautiful array of fresh cut flowers and herbs (5 of their herb plants are now growing in my potted patio garden) and Dr. Pickle's 'new' pickles are delicious, I think two are left in my fridge. 

It was obvious that the Market committee has worked to bring together a market their community can be proud of. There is even a knife sharpener vendor. Now that's attention to detail! 

Despite being filled up on pickles, I was seeking some vegan food for lunch. Ellen recommended Pizza Fusion in Ridgewood because they serve vegan pizza with Daiya cheese. Enough said, off I went. 

On my way into Ridgewood I came across Graydon Pool, which at first glance looks like a beach. On second and third glance it looks like a lot of fun for kids and adults alike. 

I arrived at Pizza Fusion with quite the appetite and was happy to see that they offered Boylan's soda not only in bottle but also as a fountain drink. Root beer it was, but darn it I didn't know they had grape in the bottle! Pizza Fusion appears to be a business that wants to promote itself as a progressive. On their menu the tag line reads, 'Saving the Earth One Pizza at a Time!". For the general public it would appear that way but to a vegan, serving meat and dairy is not exactly an action that protects the environment considering the true cost of animal agriculture to Earth and her inhabitants. With that aside, let's move on to the vegan pizza.

I ordered the 'Very Vegan' personal pizza minus mushrooms plus black olives and zucchini. Pizza crusts available are organic white, multigrain and gluten-free. On first glance the pizza looked good enough to eat however after a few bites it wasn't. The tomato sauce ruined the pizza. With a better sauce the pizza would have probably been delicious, thin crispy crust and all. The sauce tasted generic, like it was dumped out straight from a supermarket can which seemed opposite of the '"super-secret" Romano family recipe' that was promoted on the menu. I tried two slices thinking my taste buds could have been wrong the first few bites but two slices was all I could eat, even after trying to spiff up the pizza with provided spices like garlic and pepper. Arriving back at the counter to bring what was left of pizza and root beer the counter person (who was very lovely) asked me what I thought of the pizza. After telling her honestly what I thought, she informed me that the pizzeria had received the wrong pizza sauce and that they were stuck with it for a month. W-H-A-T?? If this is true then shame on you Pizza Fusion. Asking your customers to endure bland, runny pizza sauce is not acceptable. If after reading this you are considering trying their pizza in Ridgewood, you might want to call ahead and ask if they are using their usual pizza sauce. Jury is out if I will return to give their pizza another try. Yes the pizza sauce was that awful and even more disappointing was a business expecting customers to endure it rather than correcting the mistake.

Lucky for me and my appetite, what was left of it, there was a Whole Foods directly across the street...like an oasis in a desert. Not only did I find vegan food-stuffs good enough to eat but I also found my new most favorite item...

I am a huge fan of glass and try and use it everywhere I can from cooking to storing herbs, actually ALL Chrissannthemum herbs are stored in glass mason jars and most all handmade items are packaged in glass. Plastic water bottles never sat well with me and now I have this great option that finally offers a protective, non-toxic silicon cover for the bottle. As an added bonus, the company allows customers to buy replacement parts for the bottle which puts the bottle and company on my A-list. 

With Rosemary bread and glass bottle in hand I took a scenic drive through Ridgewood, another quaint town with a lovely 'Main Street' and then headed back to the City. 

It was probably a good thing the IKEA on the way home was closed, Blue Law to the wallet rescue...I think.  

Nature is fascinating! Yesterday morning I came out to find my Hyacinth Beans were beginning to sprout 1-2' through the dirt. I meant to take a picture but the day flew by and then it was nighttime. Before going to bed I came back out on the patio with my dog Maddy and took another look at the planter and POOF!! they grew inches in one day. A confetti moment indeed! 

With some TLC I hope my Hyacinth Beans will look as lush as they do on the seed package from Botanical Interests where I bought the seeds from. This plant is recommended for pots and I'm glad because they are also toxic so planting them where my Maddy can't get to them was key. What I need to find out is this...when the plant does grow and either the beans or other parts possibly dry out and shed and fall to the ground are they toxic like they are fresh. I'll be back with the information once I do a little research. Hyacinth Bean also creeps so I'm going to try and get it to creep up the hanging chain and see where it goes from there. 

Today I will be planting Black Cohosh, Orange Mint, Rosemary, Passion Flower, Eucalyptus and Lemon Balm. I'll also be checking some of the herbs to see if there is enough to trim and dry for future use in oils and tinctures. 
Drying herbs usually involves rubber banding the herbs, placing in paper bag (which is optional) and hanging in a dark, dry space inside. With some herbs you can use a window screen to spread out herbs or flowers to dry. The reason it is best to use a rubber band when hanging herbs is that as they dry they constrict and if you use a string there is a good chance the herbs will fall down once they shrink. 

In the near future I will create an album of my urban garden which will provide more information about each plant and document the awesome process it is to dig in the dirt as my urban garden grows and is utilized for so many health reasons. It's amazing what one plant can do alone, imagine a whole garden! 

Do you know that expression, I was full for days? Well that's how my mom and I felt after attending CARE's Annual Veggie Fest on June 25th. Every aspect of the Fest was fabulous, from the cause to the vendors to the music to the incredible amount of vegan food! For a meager donation (CARE is a 501.c3 not-for-profit) of $12 attendees were offered an endless vegan buffet including franks, beans, various veggie burgers, potato salad, veggie kabobs, egg rolls, veggie lo mien, pies, cupcakes, Soy Delicious vanilla ice cream sandwiches and more food than I can remember actually but my list is probably close to the list of what I ate. :) 

It was great to meet new people, especially Natalie who is a fellow peep on Twitter and Marianne from CARE who had been so welcoming of me to participate in the Fest. My favorite part beyond eating all that vegan food was finally picking up my friend Lee Hall's animal advocacy book 'On Their Own Terms'. That same night it appeared my kitty Tobiwankenobi gave Lee 2 paws up for her dedication and contribution to this movement.

CARE is already working on Veggie Fest 2012, no doubt we will be there! 

Today I went out to water my potted garden and found this little birdie hanging out on the patio. S/he seemed to be in that awkward stage of learning how to fly, looking so cute waddling around. After a couple of hours baby birdie flew up to the backyard. I went out to look for birdie, didn't find her/him but saw two adult morning doves sitting on backyard wall so it appeared that mom and dad were watching over their baby. Most times parent birds will stay close and fly to their kid to feed them until baby can fly steadily. I'll still keep an bird's eye (haha) out for baby birdie and hope s/he makes it safely to full flight. 

Speaking of 'babies' check out baby sprouts of sunflowers coming up! I don't know about other gardeners but as soon as I wake up I boogie on outside to see what has sprouted. Looking forward to sharing what grows in my urban garden, a mixture of herbs, veggies and flowers. 

I am going to plant this array of herbs and veggies later today in my potted garden. Sage, onion, rainbow peppers, tomato, eggplant, strawberries, camomile.... and I have some seeds to plant. I raise my potted garden the veganic way, meaning using no animal products or by products to fertilize etc... Can't wait to dig in the dirt! 

On June 18th Chrissannthemum kicked off our summer events with the 2011 Cupcakefest in Rutherford, NJ. What a beautiful day and what a wonderful event that raised thousands of dollars to benefit the John A. Bukowski Shelter for Animals in Bloomfield, New Jersey. And the icing on the vegan cupcake?...no NYC traffic getting to and fro! Pictures from the Cupcakefest can be found on our Facebook page photo album. A special hello to all the wonderful people I met at the Fest. 

Customer requests are always heard and made a priority so I am pleased to announce Chrissannthemum now carries a selection of glassware for your herbal, tea and well being needs. I am a huge fan of glass for storing herbs and primarily cook using glassware. I'll continue to look out for useful, earth friendly, and interesting glassware to add to our inventory. ~Christine 

Chrissannthemum will be supporting our friends at CARE and joining in on the fun at the Veggie Fest! There will be lots of vegan food to eat, exhibits, vendors, live music and much much more! We'll have our usual array of fabulous herbs and some new homemade herbal goodies at our vendor table. 

If you are not able to join us at the Fest, please consider making a tax deductible donation to the mission of CARE, an all volunteer charity organization working to protect the rights of animals and the health of our environment through education and advocacy. 

Thank you to CARE for hosting this event and welcoming Chrissannthemum to the festivities! 

Last Friday night I had fun leading a Mandala art therapy workshop through Main Line School Night (MLSN) at the Creutzburg Center, located in Radnor's Harford Park. The Center is a beautiful place, such welcoming energy and a relaxing studio/classroom space for the workshop.  

I have been to this park a few times with my dog Maddy because across from the Center is a wide open space for dogs to run around. It's wonderful! 

Workshop participants were asked to create art work as a group, like the tree above and then create their own healing Mandala which represented their core 'pilot light' that never goes out regardless of what challenges each person has experienced in the past or present. 

On the way out of the park I came across about 8 deer and as always, sat there mesmerized by their beauty and grace. A special ending to a wonderful night. 

Thanks to all who attended the workshop and a big thank you to Hillary from MLSN! More workshops to come in the Fall. :)