The ABCs of Eating Seasonally
When it comes to shopping for produce, eating seasonally is not only great for your body but also for your budget. It’s as simple as taking a trip to your local farmers market and picking the freshest, local produce. But remembering what’s in season and what isn’t is the tricky part, and we’re here to help you have the healthiest and most delicious kick start to your Spring diet.
Stay tuned for Cliffton Dry coming to your local NYC and Brooklyn Farmers Markets soon!
A – Artichokes, Asparagus, Apricots
B – Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, Butter Lettuce
C – Carrots, Cliffton Dry, Celery, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Corn
D– Daikon, Dandelion Greens
E– Endive
F – Fava Beans, Fennel
G – Green Beans, Garlic, Grapefruit
H – Honeydew
J – Jackfruit
K – Kumquats, Kale, Kohlrabi
L – Lychee, Leeks, Limes
M – Mango, Morel Mushrooms, Mustard greens
N – Nettles
O – Oranges
P – Potatoes, Peas, Pineapple, Pears
R – Radicchio, Red Leaf Lettuce, Rhubarb
S – Snow Peas, Strawberries, Spring Baby Lettuce, Swiss Chard, Scallions
T – Tangerines
V – Vidalia Onions
W – Watercress, White Asparagus
This article has been featured on the PositiveHealthWellness.com.
PRESS: The Perfect Holiday Pairing: Cliffton Dry Prosecco and Farm to Table Cuisine
Cliffton Dry Restaurant Partner: Crabtree Kittle House
Quoted from Kittle House Blog
“Now that the holiday season is here, it’s simply inevitable that we’ll be surrounded by copious amounts of sugary treats, goodies, and all that rich food full of future regrets! This season, we’re looking to serve up some delicious alternatives to the usual lineup, and we’re excited to introduce a great new Sparkling Wine that happens to be low in sugar, gluten free, low calorie, and absolutely delicious – the perfectly versatile drink for any occasion.
The exceptionally light flavors and body of Cliffton Dry (fermented like a prosecco wine, but using sustainably grown apples rather than grapes) originates with fresh apples selected from sustainably-farmed orchards in New York’s Finger Lakes Region. Crafted in the Charmat method, Cliffton is triple fermented for 2 to 3 months.
Akin to a Prosecco (but with much less sugar) Cliffton Dry embraces wine, spirits, beer and cider drinkers who are looking for a light, refreshing sparkling beverage to perfectly complement holiday hors d’oeuvre, appetizers, and even a main course. With a fresh bouquet and palate pleasing freshness. Its clean, elegant taste has beautiful, refined pear and citrus notes, with a slight, apple finish. Come see for yourself.”
#TASTING & Cook For Your Life at Jonathan Adler, Oct. 1
Join #Clifftondry #Tasting Oct 1st! @CookForYourLife @simondoonan @jonathanadler #healthylifestyle #ClifftonCauses pic.twitter.com/pkh4ll4mDM
— Cliffton Dry (@ClifftonDry) September 30, 2015
The Bodies That Inspire by Siobhan Burke
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Inspiration can come from anywhere, but for choreographers, the body itself is a rich source. Some dancemakers may be drawn to specific physical traits: lanky limbs, an articulate spine, a muscular build. But those features can’t move on their own. There’s always a heart, a mind, a spirit, a psyche—some form of inner life propelling what we see externally, animating what the body can do. Dance Magazine asked four choreographers: What body inspires you?
Bill T. Jones
Artistic director, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company
We’re a company that started out with very eccentric bodies: Larry Goldhuber, Arthur Aviles, people like that. Some of the repertory has such a strong imprint from those dancers that you’re always looking for some version of it, though you don’t want to be shameless about trying to reproduce it. Of course, there aren’t many Larry Goldhubers with 300 pounds, but my company must always have a very large man, somebody with stature. Larry always made me feel small when I danced with him.
For the kind of movement we do, it’s good to have long arms, a supple back, to be able to find stillness in a way that’s hopefully not dead. We talk about the skeleton as rock-and-roll: the bones of the skeleton, the way you let your backbone slip. It’s first got to be strong, like a marionette, so you can articulate from some central point.
Shayla-Vie Jenkins is one example of that. I love her beauty. When Arnie and I started out, we never had a regal black woman with training. They were going to Mr. Ailey or somewhere else. But Shayla was attracted to my movement. Because of the length of her limbs, the way there’s something aloof about her, she can deliver abstract movement convincingly. That’s more about the quality of interpretation than the body, but the two work together in my mind.
Photo of Emily Molnar courtesy Ballet BC.
Emily Molnar
Artistic director, Ballet BC
There’s not one body type that interests me. What interests me is a dancer who is fully engaged inside of their body. There’s no blockage, no insecurity. They’re confident in who they are, and you can sense it in the way they dance. That usually leads, for me, to a body that is strong, agile, vulnerable, expressive and can really move through three-dimensional space.
Ballet BC is reflective of that. Every one of the dancers looks very different. They’re not the same height; some are more muscular. What’s interesting to me is how a group of individuals works as a collective. I think that when everybody is a carbon copy it misses the point of what artistic expression is.
There’s a dancer in Ballet BC, Darren Devaney, who is very slight. One would think on first observation that he wouldn’t be able to partner, but he’s one of the strongest and most supple dancers I’ve seen. Some of the greatest artists I’ve seen are the dancers with more difficult bodies: Maybe they don’t have the greatest arched feet, or the most flexibility, or an enormous amount of rotation or that fabulous arabesque. But it can be more interesting to watch, because they’ve had to create a real understanding of how their body works and what they’re saying with it.
Michelle Dorrance
Artistic director, Dorrance Dance
I like working with a diverse range of individuals. A great example is Ryan Casey, who’s 6′ 8″ and really lanky. He stands out the second he’s onwww. That’s not just another body to me. It’s a body that inspires character work specifically. I centered a lot of scenes around him. I liked playing with the idea that he could look totally gangly, almost absurd, and still execute every sound with utmost precision and clarity and tone and nuance. You’d never think that someone with feet that big and a body that long could wield it with the same efficiency as a smaller, more compact dancer. I love that paradox and the character that comes from it.
I don’t mind if a dancer has some extra weight, some extra meat, a lot of muscle or barely any, as long as they have control. I want dancers who are strong and sharp but also capable of great subtlety. Of course, they have to have incredibly intelligent feet. The music and the integrity of our technique comes first. I want that clarity. But I do ask for more.
Dorrance (left) rehearsing a Petite Suite, with Ryan Casey (right). Photo by Joni Lohr, Courtesy Dorrance.
Andrea Miller
Artistic director, Gallim Dance
I could tell you everything that’s physically beautiful about any of my dancers. But if someone didn’t have the soul or the imagination or the depth to try something new and be bold, I don’t think those physical features would matter.
I see the body in its most inspiring state when a dancer lets their imagination change the makeup of their structure from one moment to the next, like the softness or thickness of their skin. One of my dancers, Dan Walczak, has really transformed in that way. He came from an approach that was more release-based, I think. There was something hesitant in his movement. We really had to get him to engage: engage his fire, his muscles, his focus, his jump. And he completely changed. He has a huge range of expressivity. You can feel his soul, his compassion, his sadness or his silliness. His heart is all over his body.
Miller watching Gallim’s Gwyneth Mackenzie and Matthew Perez. Photo by Carey Kirkella.
Read the original article here.
Your Body: Working out with Julia Erickson
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With five feet eight inches of svelte muscle, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre principal Julia Erickson is celebrated for being quick on her feet and light in her carriage. Outside of Pennsylvania, though, she may be most well-known as the dancer who created Barre–A Real Food Bar with her husband, Aaron Ingley. The pair began selling the vegan whole-food energy bar in 2010 because Erickson got so many requests from colleagues who wanted to buy her homemade snacks. Today, the bars are carried by approximately 400 retailers across the country, including natural food outlets, dance studios and stores.
Erickson chose every ingredient based on snacks she eats in the studio—things like dates, nuts and rolled oats. “It has the perfect combination for me of slow- and fast-burning carbohydrates, protein, fiber and natural electrolyte replacement,” she says. “You’re not going to flame out, but it’s not going to make you feel overly full.” Erickson often snacks on half a Barre before a rehearsal to fuel her dancing and half immediately after to replace nutrients for her muscles.
Just as she is meticulous about what she puts in her body, Erickson also pays attention to how she challenges it. She practices yoga a few times a week to balance out the stress that dance places on her muscles and joints. “I like Bikram because it’s not super-intense on the upper body,” she says. “Mostly you are using your own body strength with calisthenics.” She also attends the less-familiar yin yoga, which focuses on stretching in one position, such as the half pigeon, for as much as five minutes at a time. “It really goes beyond the muscle to the connective tissue,” she says, “and I have found that it has been so helpful for me to even out the imbalances and asymmetries in my body.”
Throughout her day, Erickson works out knots with a small, hard ball for her feet and a large, softer ball on her quads and back. “Sometimes soft is surprisingly more effective than mashing on the muscle with something hard,” she says. Barre is currently seeking to expand its product line to include similar balls, as well as an all-natural dietary supplement and anti-inflammatory cream. The dancer-friendly items will soon be for sale at realfoodbarre.com.
Read the rest of the article here.
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Are You Snacking Smart?
You know that ‘80s song “One Thing Leads to Another”? Well, it applies to more than just romance. I’m talking about the handful of potato chips that leads to another, and another, until the bag is empty.
Here’s the conundrum: If we know that something isn’t a healthy choice, why do our bodies let us eat so much of it? According to new research being presented this week at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior, our gut bacteria may be to blame. Ingesting high-fat foods changes the kinds of bacteria in the gut, which in turn modifies signals sent to the brain. What happens next? The brain doesn’t necessarily register that the body is full. Enter, the snowball effects of overeating and obesity. Though this particular study was conducted on rats, it reveals findings that are likely similar in humans.
Why can’t our miraculous brains always recognize when we’ve had too much to eat? Researchers say it could be related to our change in diet over the last few decades, when artificial and highly processed foods began invading grocery store aisles. What’s a hungry dancer to do? Try sticking to real, whole foods, which our bodies are much more used to digesting and telling us when we’ve had enough.
Next time that bag of chips is calling you name, try to remember: One healthy habit leads to another.
Eat Up: The 5 Best End-of-Summer Food Events to Put on Your Calendar
Between embarking on tropical vacations or steamy weekends at the beach, slurping oysters, barbecuing, and sipping frosty drinks on rooftops, it’s never going to be easy to bid adieu to yet another fleeting summer season. But since there’s nothing you can do to stay September’s inevitable crash back into reality, you might as well thumb your nose at Labor Day with one of these end-of-summer food-focused bashes, from a multi-culti restaurant rally at AfroPunk, to a whole pig feast along the water at The Farm on Kent.
Bites & Beats Food Festival at AfroPunk 2015 (August 21st-23rd): Returning once more to Commodore Berry Park, this action-packed weekend of music, art and activism also places a marked emphasis on food, by coordinating a diverse rally of over 25 food trucks and pop-up restaurants. Sample empanadas from Nuchas, shaved ice from Snowday, and pan-fried Chinese chive cakes from Mamu Thai Noodle, while you kick it to beats courtesy of Lauren Hill, Kelis, CX Kidtronix, and songwriter Sam Dew.
For more info, visit here.
Season’s Harvest Supper Series at Extra Fancy (August 25th and 26th): Extra Fancy is closing out the summer with their second Season’s Harvest Supper Series, welcoming in Eleven Madison Park and Jean-Georges alum, Matthew Gaudet, to cook alongside chef Sean Telo. Priced at $15 each, collaborative dishes will be crafted from ingredients sourced directly from the greenmarket, such as Tristar strawberries, sungold tomatoes, shishito peppers and okra, complimented with Kaipara oysters, live scallops, rabbit, eel and duck hearts.
For more info, visit here.
Food Karma’s Pig & Whiskey with Robbie Richter (August 26th): Food Karma’s summer-long dining series pairs top chefs with New York State farms, to prepare sustainable feasts served on The Farm on Kent’s lush waterfront lawn. Situated snugly under the Williamsburg bridge, with spectacular views of the skyline, the events have been so popular that they just added another to the lineup—a whole hog barbecue blow-out with pitmaster Robbie Richter, accompanied by whiskey, beer, wine, cider, and tunes from a local bluegrass band.
For more info, visit here.
Vinegar Hill House Picnic in the Garden (August 27th): Now that they’ve got a glorious new whiskey garden at their disposal, Kings County Distillery has made great use of the corn and barley-encircled space. And they’re capping off a successful summer season with a prix fixe picnic, catered by Vinegar Hill House’s chef Mike Poiarkoff—expect bourbon-cured lox, watermelon salad, smoked pork shoulder and sweet corn flan, paired with cucumber-dill moonshine and blueberry cobbler cocktails.
For more info, visit here.
Waku Waku NYC (August 29th-30th): The Japanese pop culture extravaganza, Waku Waku, is making its Brooklyn debut at the end of the month, uniting Japan and NYC-based tastemakers and leaders, in the worlds of anime, video games, fashion, cosplay, music, art and education. And in addition to two days of performances, screenings, conferences and contests, held at venues like Brooklyn Bowl, Verboten, and Transmitter Park, the festival is anchored by a sprawling food pavilion dubbed “Savory Square.” Located in the brand new Brooklyn Expo Center, eats include ramen from Ippudo, green tea from MatchaBar, cream puffs from Beard Papa’s, and octopus balls prepared by master chefs from Osaka, the birthplace of takoyaki.
For more info, visit here.
Read More here.
BIOPHILIA – A Conversation With E.O. Wilson
BIOPHILIA film
Via soitgoesmag.com
The Biophilia Hypothesis
Excerpted from Peter H. Kahn, Jr.’s Developmental Psychology and the Biophilia Hypothesis: Children’s Affiliation with Nature
The Biophilia hypothesis asserts the existence of a fundamental, genetically based, human need and propensity to affiliate with life and lifelike processes. Consider, for example, that recent studies have shown that even minimal connection with nature—such as looking at it through a window—increases productivity and health in the workplace, promotes healing of patients in hospitals, and reduces the frequency of sickness in prisons. Other studies have begun to show that when given the option, humans choose landscapes such as prominences near water from which parkland can be viewed that fit patterns laid down deep in human history on the savannas of East Africa. Wilson (1992) points out that people crowd national parks to experience natural landscapes, and ‘‘travel long distances to stroll along the seashore, for reasons they can’t put into words’’ (p. 350). According to Wilson (1984), the biophilic instinct emerges, often unconsciously, in our cognition, emotions, art, and ethics, and unfolds ‘‘in the predictable fantasies and responses of individuals from early childhood onward. It cascades into repetitive patterns of culture across most or all societies’’ (p. 85). Thus, what makes the hypothesis particularly important is that it provides an overarching framework by which new scientific ground across many disciplines can be charted that bear on understanding the human relationship with nature. Written by Peter H. Kahn, Jr. Read the full thesis Here.
An Interview with E.O. Wilson and Peter Tyson, Editor in Chief of NOVA Online
I found that book incredibly rich. You get all these essays from heavy thinkers, people who’ve really thought about it.
That’s very true. In fact, there are specialists in aspects of this. For example, those who study the biology and the psychology of phobias quickly arrive at the flip side of biophilia. But I always wanted biophobias to be part of biophilia, because the evidence is that the response to predators and to poisonous snakes (which spreads out to snakes generally) generate so much of our culture: our symbolism, the traits we give gods, the symbols of power, the symbols of fear, and so on. They are so pervasive that we need to include biophobia under the broad umbrella of biophilia, as part of the ensemble that I mentioned.
What could happen to people, to society, if, despite your optimism, we continue to distance ourselves from nature and let our biophilia atrophy?
I don’t know. There’s now a lot of concern, even consternation, among not just naturalists and poets and outdoors professionals but spreading through I think a better part of the educated public, that we’ve cut ourselves off from something vital to full human psychological and emotional development. I think that the author of Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv, hit on something, because it became such a popular theme to talk about that book [which posits that children today suffer from what Louv calls “nature-deficit disorder”] that people woke up and said, “Yeah, something’s wrong.”
To what degree do you think that emotional problems that many people today, particularly in cities, suffer from, like depression and anxiety, might be due to a lack of contact with nature?
I think it may have a lot to do with it. Psychologists and psychiatrists themselves seem in agreement on the benefits of what’s called “the wilderness experience.” To be able to [give this to] young people who may have gotten themselves all tangled up with their concerns about ego and peer relationships and their future and are falling into that frame of mind and becoming very depressed because they have such a narrow conception of the world. The wilderness experience is being able to get into a world that’s just filled with life, that’s fascinating to watch in every aspect, and that does not depend on you. It tells them that there’s so much more to the world.
I’ve never seen a test made of it, but I’d be willing to place a bet that among full-blown outdoorsmen, the birders and the fishermen, people who get out into the outdoors early and really love it, I bet there are fewer depressed people. That’s an interesting proposition to check out.
Read the full interview edited by Peter Tyson here.
Associated Causes: biophiliaeducational.org
