LONG BEACH GROWS™ (www.longbeachgrows.org) is Long Beach's original urban agriculture resource hub for >4 years, since 2010.
LONG BEACH GROWS' mission is to promote green, healthy, environmentally sustainable urban agriculture in Long Beach, California, & other activities that educate, enhance, & grow our communities by ensuring & safeguarding local food security.
Our vision is a city that feeds itself.
The aroma that welcomes patrons upon entering Kabob Curry is warm and spicy with a hint of cinnamon. Noon-time sun spills into the dining area from the store-front window. Service is prompt and courteous.
Today two lunch specials serve three people, two adults and one child. The dishes are more like platters and include a pile of basmati rice pilaf, a simple salad, and a wedge of flat bread called naan. The gyro combo at $6.99 includes a mixture of beef and lamb served atop the rice. The chicken curry and channa combo at $5.99 comes with curry on one side of the rice, channa masala on the other.
The channa, or whole chick peas smothered in a spicy sauce, is just perfect. The basmati rice pilaf is fluffy and exceptional, cooked just until tender, smattered with small brown seeds (perhaps fenugreek) and can be eaten grain by perfect grain if one so chooses.
The lamb and beef gyro surprises the palate with an initial burst of heat of the hot pepper variety but which does not overwhelm all the remaining subtle flavors.
The chicken curry is very tasty as well, with a tomato- and cream-based curry sauce including cinnamon, cardamon, and other flavors. One disappointment is that the four small chicken pieces are mostly bone and include two backs that should be relegated to the stock pot.
The waitress is nice but cannot help describe the difference between Pakistani-style Indian food versus the familiar Indian foods and flavors of U.S. restaurants. Perhaps that is because Pakistan was formerly part of India and did not itself exist as a nation until 1947.
Geographically, Pakistan encompasses 307,374 square miles, just 16,000 square feet less than the combined areas of California, Washington state, and Oregon. India is on Pakistan’s east border. The Arabian Sea is to the south. Pakistan’s north is home to the western portion of the Himalayas mountain range.
Diners at Kabob Curry can grind Himalayan salt on their Pakistani-style Indian food in Long Beach in Southern California. Touted by the restaurant as the “purest” of salts, it is “unprocessed” meaning that it has not been purified but instead has more than 84 minerals and trace elements, straight from the Himalaya mountains.
Four (out of six) thumbs up! (We usually dine in threes.)
Kabob Curry
108 West 3rd Street (3rd & Pine)
Long Beach, CA 90802
562-49-KABOB
Open 7 days a week.
Sunday - Thursday, 11 AM - 9:30 PM
Friday & Saturday, 11 AM - 10 PM www.kabobCurry.com
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The beautiful Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden on the Long Beach CSU campus was the perfect setting for the third in a series of Student Sustainability Task Force (SSTF) green mixers designed to foster dialogue and collaboration to unite the campus and local community on issues of environmental sustainability that affect us all.
Held April 13, this prelude to Earth Week 2011 featured guest speakers spotlighting green efforts on and off campus and representing the city, the university, and other community groups. Jeanette Schelin, Director of the EBM Japanese Garden, and Tracy Gorden, Program Assistant at the Garden, presided over the event and introduced the speakers.
Whole Foods sustains local & ethical healthy food choices!
Adrienne Peters, the marketing supervisor at the Long Beach Whole Foods Market that sponsored this event, spoke about Whole Foods’ green mission and commitment to local healthy food and environmental sustainability. She introduced Whole Foods’ Health Starts Here program to help people make healthier food choices, and the store’s participation in Global Animal Partnership (GAP) which she described as “beyond organic.” GAP is a 5-Step animal welfare rating standard used to rate and certify meat producers based on their animal welfare practices.
Donnie Bessom, the SSTF Project Coordinator, asked Ms. Peters to consider bringing Whole Foods to campus because as he said,
“right now food on campus is pretty bad.”
The snacks Whole Foods shared at the event were pretty good,
Green Long Beach! shines a spotlight on the green community!
Tiffany Chen, recent CSULB alumna, current sustainability assistant in the city’s Office of Sustainability, and co-Catalyst of Green Long Beach!, highlighted the evolution of the Green Long Beach! festival. First held in 2009, the festival attracted >1,000 attendees and 100 participants. The theme of this year’s festival is Ignite Change! and is expected to draw > 5,000 attendees and 400 participants. It will take place Saturday June 11, 2011 from 10 AM - 8 PM at The Promenade between Broadway and 3rd Streets.
City of Long Beach sees a greener future!
Larry Rich, who has worked for the city in various positions for 20 years, became one of the city’s sustainability commissioners in 2008 the year the Office of Sustainability was formed to develop and implement green initiatives throughout Long Beach. He describes himself as the most sustainable of the sustainability commissioners, since he is the only one of three remaining. His office currently oversees 10 part time interns (8 who are paid) and 17 youth workers from the Workforce Development Bureau’s green jobs program.
In what Larry describes as a soft sell (of green awareness) some of the interns act as one-on-one field supervisors of the youth workers, working on projects such as planting native drought tolerant plants at city installations, and delivering mulch to vacant city lots as part of Project Mulch-A-Lot and to residential applicants as part of a new Mulch Delivery Program. In collaboration with West Coast Arborists, the Office of Sustainability diverts ~6,000 tons of green waste per year from the waste stream.
Larry explained that the city’s solid waste reduction program does not include green bins (such as are offered in neighboring San Pedro) because Long Beach has the largest of the only three California Southeast Resource Recovery Facilities (SERRF) where solid waste is burned for energy. This is considered diversion, not incineration.
CSULB facilities are green behind the scenes!
Jon Root, the campus manager of integrated waste management and waste services, spoke about the university’s recycling efforts that mostly go unseen. The mulching mowers used on 60 acres of campus turf divert ~400 tons a year of grass from the waste stream, The tree trimmings from the 7,200 trees on campus are saved and re-used in the landscape. The university’s recycling efforts include not only paper and plastic recycling (see these images from last year’s CSULB Earth Week fair) but also a scrap metal program and an Associated Students Recycling Center that is operated by student employees.
Long Beach Grows plans for local food security! Grow Beach!
Long Beach Grows promotes food security through urban agriculture. Donna Marykwas, the Executive Director of Long Beach Grows, spoke about her plans and vision for a Long Beach with at least one community farm co-operative per city wide district, where people can grow and harvest real food together while building community. Donna has gardened at various community gardens throughout the country since 1985, first at Cornell in upstate NY, then in Cambridge, MA, Lincoln, MA, and Long Beach, CA. Describing the major differences between typical community gardens versus community farm co-ops, she envisions truly cooperative sites where people share in the work, share the rewards of their efforts, and share the bounty with the community. There are over 100 families on a waiting list to grow food with Long Beach Grows. Donna expressed serious interest in growing food security through urban agriculture on the CSULB campus, preferably at the site where there once was a community garden in the past. She thinks that growing food for the present on the Native American Indian ancestors of the past is a way to honor, respect and preserve their connection to the land.
CSULB faculty designs green phones!
Department of Design Professor Wesley Woelfel spoke about design methods to divert cell phones from the e-waste stream, citing statistics that with 1.2 billion cell phones sold globally per year, only 10% of obsolete cell phones are e-cycled. This is the motivation for his life cycle analysis of ways to design sustainable cell phones. Some ideas that he and his students have come up with are to encourage the design of new phones that are modular, easier to repair, upgradable, and did I hear him say biodegradable? We’ll see.
Industrial designer dreams green transportation!
Max Beach, a founding partner of Impact Design Associates in Culver City, teaches part time at CSULB. He wowed the audience with a futuristic animated video that brought to life his dream of an alternative transportation system based on inductively charged solar-powered CSULB streetcars.
Go green!
Connect with the green community at the next mixer to be held Wednesday, May 4th, 4:30- 6:30 PM, also at the Japanese Garden.
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Earth Week 2011 officially starts tomorrow April 16 and runs through April 22, ending on Mother Earth Day. There is no shortage of green activities to keep you busy in Long Beach. Here is a summary of the most notable green happenings in Long Beach.
Saturday, April 16
9 AM Produce Exchange Long Beach @ Bluff Park
Location: Bluff park @ Ocean Blvd and Junipero
Sunday, April 17
10AM - 1PM Mosaic Workshop at 2CC Art Gallery
FREE, kid-friendly environment-themed workshops
Most Sundays, April through July
Location: 2nd City Council Art gallery & Performance Space, 435 Alamitos Ave.
Share your excess fruits and veggies this Saturday 9AM at beautiful Bluff Park at Junipero and Ocean Boulevard, overlooking the beach from the park’s high grassy vantage point. Bring a blanket to stay awhile and enjoy meeting other Long Beach gardeners willing to share their fresh and seasonal harvest.
The Produce Exchange is scheduled to continue the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of each month until the growing season wanes, beginning at 9 AM. Although it is called an exchange, you are welcome to participate whether or not you are able to contribute to the offerings.
If you garden and are lucky enough to have more than your family and friends can eat, think about sharing your excess here. If your fruit trees bear more than you need, you can prevent waste and protect your trees from being damaged from overly burdened limbs, share your bounty here.
Sarah Rosenberger says “This is a place to connect with your community.” She is a member of Foodscape Long Beach. Sarah organizes their Produce Exchange, something she says “I have dreamed of forever.”
Foodscape Long Beach, founded by Ryan Serrano, is a community group recently adopted, or fiscally sponsored, by the Catalyst Network of Communities. Ryan has 9 years of experience as a landscaper/general contractor replacing lawns with California native plants. He started Foodscape, a not-for-profit gardening service, to build and maintain food gardens on peoples’ private property. The Foodscape mission is to “foster the culture of local growing, increase community interconnection, and to aid the poor and impoverished.”
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Two full grown Nigerian dwarf goats and one 8 year old girl.
April 6, 2011
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
FAX: 202-456-2461
Dear First Lady Michelle Obama:
It has been over a year since I first wrote to you about how you can help people throughout our great nation advance their local food security efforts. My original letter can be viewed here. I am writing to you once again in light of the upcoming Earth Week celebration (April 16 - April 22) to ask for your action.
I am a mother, a wife, an educator, a scientist, a community gardener, and a practitioner of nourishing traditions that include urban agriculture as part of my back to the basics philosophy of feeding and nurturing my family. I am trying to teach my daughter about healthy food choices, local and sustainable food security, and self-sufficiency while respecting the animals and the earth that provide for us. I no longer allow my daughter to eat the food provided at school because it is overloaded with fat and carbohydrates and contains minimal fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet she begs me to allow her to eat the school "food" because she sees her friends eating it and this is what the Long Beach Unified School District offers; what kind of nutritional message is this teaching our children? In addition, it is amazing to see how many children have no idea where their food comes from. Every school (not just a handful, and particularly in the city) should have an organic vegetable garden that is incorporated into the K-12 curriculum to teach our children about real food, nutrition, healthy lifestyle choices, sustainable agriculture, and even science. Moreover every urban center should develop a demonstration urban farm to serve as a positive example that educates the children and adults of our community while providing them with another source of local real food and life skill training opportunities. I believe this is our only hope for a sustainable future.
I applaud you for setting a positive example by planting a food garden at the White House. I am writing to ask that you please take the next step in educating the public about the benefits and suitability of urban agriculture by adding egg-laying poultry but especially miniature dairy goats to your White House urban yard. Other great cities allow this type of urban agriculture, including San Francisco, Seattle, Portland OR, Pasadena, Oakland, and even NYC (which allows poultry and recently honey bees). Small scale urban agriculture is beneficial in so many ways, not the least of which is in allowing us to reconnect with the earth that provides us sustenance.
I wish to legalize miniature goats in the city of Long Beach, CA. Two or three female Nigerian dwarf goats can provide a year round supply of milk to a family, perhaps with enough to spare to make yogurt and cheese. Goat milk is more nutritious and less allergenic than cow milk, more people in the word drink goat milk versus cow milk, and since goats were domesticated about 10,000 years ago (about the same time as dogs) many cultures throughout the world including immigrants to the US are quite familiar with raising goats. Not only could goats provide a renewable source of food to nourish a family, they could also provide a renewable source of fiber and fertilizer. They can be put to use to clear brush, to mow pesticide-free lawns, and to compost kitchen waste. On top of all these “uses,” they make great pets; they are friendly, quiet, relatively docile animals that are great fun, providing hours of wholesome education and entertainment for the family and neighborhood children. Contrary to popular belief, they do not stink (except for in-tact males), they do not attract flies and vermin, and they do not pose a significant health threat to the public, certainly compared to dogs that can transmit rabies or compared to cats that can transmit toxoplasmosis, to name just a few.
To celebrate this year’s Earth Week, I urge you to add 3 or more miniature goats to your White House urban yard, breed them, and make the birthday a public event and celebration for a sustainable future. Once the mothers give birth, they will provide milk (and public education) long after the babies are weaned.
For more information about urban agriculture and its many benefits to your personal well-being and to the well-being of our local and global communities, please visit my website at www.longbeachgrows.org. In addition, I urge you to show your support by signing my online petition in favor of urban agriculture in Long Beach, California (www.longbeachgrows.org/LongBeachGrows/Please_sign_my_petition.html). It would mean a great deal to me.
Yours sincerely,
Donna L. Marykwas, Ph.D.
Founder and Executive Director
LONG BEACH GROWS
Growing a more sustainable future
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