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In the Mix

Coffee and Cake

Deborah Sherman

We Spill the Beans on the Other Half of the Blue Bottle Coffee Success Story

     It was a match made at the Berkeley Farmers Market — and not love at first
site. James Freeman was trying to interest people in his Blue Bottle Coffee, then brand new and unknown, but all he had were bags of beans. Nothing for them to taste. Right next door at the market, Caitlin Williams was selling pastries, which spoke for themselves. She and her pastry business partner had a coffee cart so that they could serve coffee with their pastries. “But the coffee was a disaster. I didn’t know how to make it; how to do it right. I asked James to make the coffee. I begged him to buy the cart.”
    “That was huge for me,” says Freeman. “It meant I could make cappuccino. I could prepare the coffee perfectly. I could show how good the beans could be.”
     Both Freeman and Williams were in relationships at the time, but not with each other. “I admired Caitlin’s ferocious work ethic and her aesthetic,” says Freeman. Biting into one of her imaginative to-die-for pastries has been known to literally raise the hairs on his arms.
     She in those early days was in business-building mode as co-founder of Meitte, the acclaimed patisserie and confiserie in San Francisco’s trendy food-filled Ferry Building. She was passionate about what she was doing, happy that Freeman had taken over the coffee making, but her interest stopped there.
     “I thought he was too old (for me) and persnickety and stuffy,” she says.
    My, how things have changed. Blue Bottle grew from Freeman’s oven (where he would roast coffee beans between clarinet gigs, which was how he earned his living back then); to a small roastery in Oakland’s Temescal district behind Doña Tomás (he had to stop roasting during dining hours because of the aroma, and continue when diners went home); to a larger roastery in Emeryville where you could go buy beans two afternoons a week; to the upstairs-downstairs state-of-the-art facility in a revamped produce warehouse at 300 Webster St. near Jack London Square, headquarters for what has grown to a staff of 100. This is also the location of one of four Blue Bottle Coffee bars (the others are in San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza and the SFMOMA sculpture garden, and Freeman recently opened a roastery and coffee shop in Brooklyn, N.Y.).
    The new Oakland facility also has a pastry kitchen for Williams, who changed her name to Williams-Freeman in October 2008 when the pair married. She was in her wedding dress when she signed the papers selling her half of Miette, formally getting out of
the pastry business and into the business of being married.
     By the time they tied the knot, both had long split with their former partners and been dating each other for four years.
     Now, they can both look back with fondness on those early Berkeley Farmers Market days, so hectic at the time.
      “Back then, we were both keeping crazy hours,” says Williams-Freeman. “We’d each have, like, two hours of spare time every two weeks.”
     “It was comforting to be able to get together and not explain why we were working that hard,” recalls Freeman.
     “We’d compare notes on the single life,” says Williams-Freeman. “It was nice not having someone putting pressure on me to go out.”
     Enjoying the friendship that was develop­ing, she took to hanging out at the Temescal roastery, sleeping on the coffee bags when she got tired. Her opinion of him as a persnickety person changed. They started having fun together. Enjoying each other. “It was someone to hang out with, without having to put a lot of work in.” Along the way, they fell in love.
     How Williams-Freeman got into pastry making in the first place, same as how she got involved with her husband, involved chance and circumstance. She had left high school with dreams of being a photographer. A few months into her course at UC Santa Cruz, she saw a Wayne Thiebaud exhibition. Inspired by the work of the California artist famous for his luscious paintings of mouth-watering pastries and other sweet temptations, Freeman decided she wanted to learn to bake and decorate cakes so that she could photograph them. She found the baking so creative, she gave up on the photography.
     Fast forward to 2009. Blue Bottle is scheduled to open a coffee bar on the SFMOMA roof garden. Williams-Freeman thinks she’ll give her husband a hand; help out and make a few pastries for the business. Little does she imagine that she will once again be inspired by the art of Thiebaud. This time, it leads her to develop her line of art cakes that have become almost as much of a draw at the SFMOMA sculpture garden as the art, giving gallery patrons a chance to see their art and eat it as she creates sweet edibles inspired by the museum’s permanent collection and visiting shows.
     To date, the couple’s journey has been unexpected, delicious, entrepreneurial and successful. And a funny thing is, Williams-Freeman has never developed a taste for coffee. “James makes me tea each morning,” she laughs. Sounds like the match made at the Berkeley Farmers Market has turned into a marriage made in heaven.

THE GREEN BIN

Urban Ore: King of Reuse

     “There’s so many things here!” says a twenty-something woman to her friend as they pore through stacks of cookbooks. We’re at Urban Ore Ecopark, a 3-acre reuse and recycling facility in Berkeley, where indeed the number of items for sale is staggering. Here you can find everything from wedding dresses (displayed next to life-size papier mâché giraffes) to surfboards, eyeglass frames, electronics and vintage toys. And of course there are building supplies: old doors, windows, sinks, everything you need for a DIY construction project. “We’re a construction-related business,” explains Dan Knapp, Ph.D., founder of Urban Ore. “About 50 to 60 percent of our sales are building materials, including cabinets and hardware.”
     Knapp started out as a sociologist but quit university teaching to “do something more active in the community.” Partly by necessity he became a scavenger, salvaging at the Berkeley landfill and selling items right at the dump. He founded Urban Ore to end the age of waste with two partners (who later moved on), and 30 years later, Urban Ore still scavenges daily at the dump under license to the city of Berkeley, removing a few tons every day, which they’ll later clean, sort and sell at the store. “We essentially legitimized the scavenging business,” says Knapp.
    Only 10 percent of their items come from the landfill; the other 90 percent come from truckloads picked up from homes and businesses throughout the Bay Area, and the hundreds of loads dropped
off daily by trash haulers, junk dealers and
average citizens.
     Of all the things they’ve salvaged, Knapp is most proud of 20 boxes of old papers rescued from the dump that turned out to be priceless records from the first NAACP chapter west of the Mississippi. To Knapp, this save “demonstrates the value of reuse over recycling. Because that same set of boxes would have brought $2 to $5 as scrap but is this priceless resource now in the University of California library system.”
     There are more treasures to be had at the store. This writer picked up a three-ring binder for 10 cents and a Filofax Organizer (retail $35) for $2. Another woman had come in to find a replacement cap for
a 1950s Coleman thermos and not surprisingly
found exactly what she needed. Knapp says that kind of thing happens all the time. “I buy everything here,” the woman said. “There are bargains, bargains, bargains.”       

Urban Ore, 900 Murray St., Berkeley, (510) 841-SAVE

— Christina Boufis

Loved Twice

     When Lisa Klein, an Oakland mother of two, saw the devastation Hurricane Katrina left, she took action by calling friends, asking for gently used baby clothing and mailing these donations to a New Orleans church that was helping displaced families.
    “Taking this concept further, I wanted to help disadvantaged new mothers care for their babies right here in Oakland,” says Klein. “Word spread I was collecting baby clothing, and every week several bags appeared on my doorstep.”
     Realizing she was filling a need by collecting clothing and donating it through area hospitals and shelters to families in need, she founded the nonprofit, Loved Twice (www.lovedtwice.org).
     To date, more than 20,000 pounds of clothing have been delivered to 1,500 newborns. Each baby receives a box, marked “Baby Boy” or “Baby Girl,” containing clothing (sizes 0-12 months), hats, bibs, blankets and socks — enough to outfit them for their first year.
     Klein credits the community for her organization’s success. You can help her help more families by donating clean baby clothing (sizes 0-12 months), volunteering to sort the collected clothing, providing boxes to hold the clothing, making a monetary donation or organizing your own clothes drive (directions on the Twice Loved Web site).
     Drop off clothes at the Cool Tops at 5697 Miles Ave. in Oakland or take them to Cool Tops outlets in Lafayette or San Ramon. Marin Kids in San Rafael. also accepts donations.

—Heather Larson

How Sweet Tweets Take the Cake to the People

     When Kate McEachern gave up her job as an editor to follow her passion and bake, she imagined she would have a brick and mortar store. But then the Cal journalism graduate, using her budgeting experience from her media jobs, spun the numbers — and didn’t like what she saw.
     How Cupkates (a play on her name) became the first mobile cupcake truck in the Bay Area is, to quote her, “a funny story.”
     She’d decided to make cupcakes because of “the portability, and the fact that you can do so much with them. Also, buying a cupcake requires a small commitment from the customer.”
     She was scratching her head, pondering the financial implications and wondering what to do when, “My husband suggested I get a cart.”
     Her response? “I said, ‘That’s ridiculous. Get out of here.’ ”
     But then a former colleague from Dwell magazine, where she’d worked, told her how huge street food is in New York City and suggested a truck.
     “I said, ‘Oh, that’s brilliant. I can take it mobile.” She told her husband she’d found the solution. His response, naturally: “That’s just what I’ve been saying.”
     While starting the business from a truck still involved a significant capital outlay, says McEachern, it made for a softer launch.
     Having been involved in web publishing meant she could build her own website. And her former colleague, the senior designer at Dwell, “designed everything for me. The logo for the truck; the cards; all the way down to the sticker on the cupcake box.”
     McEachern’s day now starts around 7 a.m. in a commercial kitchen in Richmond where the number of cupcakes she bakes each day can range from “a couple of hundred to several hundred, depending on orders.” She then loads the truck and sets off on her route of the day, using Facebook and Twitter to tell her followers where she will be, advising them on what she’s baked; answering questions; and finally, letting them know when she’s about to sell out.
     “I do all my marketing online. I even get votes this way for new cupcake flavors.”
     McEachern opened her business in August 2009 and when we spoke, had been up and running for just four months. “There’s still a lot to be determined.” But business was brisk and growing fast and, she said, “I think my ultimate goal is
to have another mobile unit, plus a brick and mortar shop.”
     Oh, and McEachern is still married. “We’ve just celebrated our first anniversary,” she laughs, then sells her last cupcake, today on Berkeley’s Fourth Street, then it’s back to the Richmond kitchen to clean and clear.                        

Call “CupKate” McEachern at (510) 384-6544; follow her on Twitter at #cupkatestruck; to find her on Facebook and become a fan, search for “cupkatestruck”; or visit the website www.cupkatesbakery.com.  

— Wanda Hennig

SECRET EATS

Bryant Terry, Eco-Chef

Who’s putting the soul into vegan cooking? Oakland writer, “eco-chef” and activist Bryant Terry (www.bryant-terry.com).
     The author of 2009’s Vegan Soul Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy and Creative African-American Cuisine and 2006’s Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen (which he co-authored with Anna Lappé) has been doing his part to spread the word about cooking with — and eating — fresh, local, seasonal and sustainably-grown food. He brings together the healthy and soulful with recipes like black-eyed pea fritters with hot pepper sauce, cold and creamy cucumber-watermelon soup with pickled watermelon rind salsa and fried green tomatoes with creamy celeriac sauce. He proves that “vegan” doesn’t have to translate as “meek.”
    Presently putting the final touches on his third book and toiling on a television project, Terry lives with his fiancée in the Laurel District and gets out regularly to a few foodie favorites.

Champa Garden
Since it is tucked away in a residential neighborhood, San Antonio, near Lake Merritt, you might miss this restaurant if you blink. Tasty, unpretentious Thai, Laotian and Vietnamese food.  2102 Eighth Ave., (510) 238-8819

The Food Mill
Forget about W**** F****. Go support this independently owned natural foods market — located in the Laurel District — that has been open since 1933. They have an extensive bulk food section, ample supplements and knowledgeable (plus friendly) staff. 3033 MacArthur Blvd., (510) 482-3848, www.foodmillonline.com

Korean barbecue/taco truck on High Street and Foothill Boulevard
Opened by the owners of Cock-a-Doodle Cafe, this is some good and inexpensive eatin’. Chevron parking lot

Cock-a-Doodle Cafe
Located in Old Oakland, this is one of my favorite breakfast-brunch spots. The portions are generous, the food is tasty and it is women-owned and operated. Go when it is sunny outside and enjoy the back patio. 719 Washington St., (510) 465-5400,  www.cockadoodlecafe.com

East Bay Restaurant Supply
Great place to grab kitchen supplies at a fair price. 49 Fourth St., (800) 743-2526, www.eastbayrestaurantsupply.com
 

—KImberly Chun

The Six Questions

Who: Daphne Mejia of Oakland

What: Founder of Funk Town Farm, a church-sponsored community garden and farm that provides neighbors and indigents the opportunity to grow their own produce.
 
When: Mejia got the idea in 2008 when she and her husband moved into an apartment above their East Oakland church and noticed the empty lot behind the gym. “It was full of cement and weeds,” she says, “and I cried from sheer joy when I saw it.”
 
Where: The farm is behind Regeneration Church at 238 E. 15th St., two blocks from Lake Merritt.
 
Why: “My parents were in the ‘back-to-the-land’ movement in the ’60s up in Mendocino, so it was inevitable that I would end up finding a way to bring a bit of that lifestyle here to Oakland.”

How: She and her husband got church volunteers to help them remove the concrete, build raised beds and a chicken coop. They also pray for their plants and animals. “I know from experience that plants that are prayed for make more flowers and fruit — it has been scientifically proven,” Mejia says. Funk Town Farm is not only feeding its volunteers, but the farm provides produce for a free Sunday morning breakfast for the homeless. Plans to add goats, bees and a pizza oven are in the works.
For more information, see www.funktownfarm.wordpress.com.

—KImberly Chun

MEDIA SHELF
Books and Maps from Bay Area Authors

California Bestiary by Rebecca Solnit and illustrated by Mona Caron
(Heyday Books, 2010, 47 pp., $12.95)
     If you love animals, this is a book for you. It’s a modern day beastiary on
12 California critters, among them the mighty California condor, the disappeared California grizzly, the fluttering monarch butterfly and the elusive mountain lion. Solnit weaves history, fact and fiction and reverent tone to share interesting nuggets about California wildlife. Caron’s illustrations reflect perfectly the wondrous nature of Solnit’s essays about the animals that were selected to represent the state’s diverse ecology. The volume was published in collaboration with the Oakland Zoo to dovetail with a new native California animal exhibit.

The Laws Pocket Guide Set, San Francisco Bay Area by John Muir Laws
(Heyday Books, 2010, $21.95)
     Want to know what plants and animals you’re seeing at the beach, in the woods, along the creek and in the fields? John Muir Laws’ latest pocket guide can help. The naturalist, educator and artist has created a four-map set compact enough to slip in your jacket pocket but sturdy enough to withstand the elements. It’s an instant biology lesson in a box with careful illustrations of San Francisco Bay flora and fauna. You’ll be able to tell a snowy plover from a semipalmated plover, a rough-skinned newt from a California newt and a painted lady from a West Coast lady in no time.

Back Lane Wineries of Napa by Tilar Mazzeo with photography by Paul Hawley
(The Little Bookroom, 2010, 272 pp., $19.95)
     Get off the beaten track and explore lesser-known Napa wineries with hints contained in this handy guidebook. It takes a look at the vintners who are producing high-quality varietals in small quantities, as least when compared with the Napa Valley giants along the Silverado Trail and the St. Helena Highway. Mazzeo picks some favs in downtown Napa, Calistoga and St. Helena and tosses in some from Howell Mountain, Spring Mountain, Chiles Valley, Pope Valley and Los Carneros as well. She’s got every varietal covered.

—Judith M. Gallman

The Crucible’s Cathedral Gallery

     The Crucible has long been Oakland’s most fiery of art conglomerates. Primarily a school focusing on the fire-based arts, the Crucible has been teaching Oakland residents how to smelt, blow and fire artwork of all sorts for just over 10 years now. Last year, the Crucible’s Cathedral Gallery opened in downtown Oakland as a venue to show off the pottery, glass works and sculptures created by crucible students and artists. As Oakland Art Murmur galleries go, this is definitely the finest real estate. But as art works go, the Cathedral Gallery stands apart, as well, with its concentration on physical works rendered in three dimensions. From the artistic minds of James Austin, Tory Fink and other local artists come the stuff of dreams, all on display here every weekday. And you won’t even need to put on a smelters bib to see them.                                                                                                      
11 a.m. to 2 p.m. 
 Monday through Friday and 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. First Fridays, 1603 Broadway, (510) 444-0919, www.thecrucible.org/gallery

— Alex Handy

Changing Lives, One Roll at a Time

     Give a person a roll and you feed him for a day. Teach a person to bake a roll and you feed him for
a lifetime.
     Although not the official motto of the Bread Project, a Berkeley nonprofit started in 2000, it could be. During the last era of widespread unemployment, local community activists Susan Phillips and Lucie Buchbinder were approached to start a job-training program. After looking into possible career paths, it was decided that baking was a fast-growing industry and a skill that could be learned quickly. Determined to help low-income people improve their lives, they turned on the ovens and set to work.
     A decade later, the Bread Project has a bakery café and a catering business. Its mission has been to promote economic self-sufficiency by providing culinary training and job referral assistance to low-income people, and it’s doing that well.
Check out the Bread Project online (www.breadproject.org) and consider ordering a party platter or dessert cake by calling (510) 644-4575.

— Kathleen Malloy

OAKLAND MADE

Urban Legend Cellars

     Grapes don’t mind where they’re turned into wine. This realization hit Steve Shaffer about the same time he and his wife, Marilee, saw that the dream they were holding — and that was holding them up — didn’t gel with their reality. They’d been making wine in the garage of their Alameda home for years, always thinking that what they really wanted was to plant vines in the Sierra foothills or somewhere and build a winery. But when they sat down to realistically contemplate their future, “We realized that we’d both lived in the country, and while it can be wonderful, quiet and bucolic, it can also be boring. We like the city.”
     If they weren’t going to move to the country, there was no need to wait any longer on their dream. And, says Steve, that is how the pair ended up building a commercial winery, Urban Legend Cellars, near Jack London Square, in a warehouse with a classic arched roof and brick walls that had been empty more then 12 years. They processed 34 tons of grapes there in fall 2009. At this point, from earlier harvests, wines they have include a Lake County Sauvignon Blanc, a Clarksburg Rosato de Barbera (rosé), a Clarksburg Teroldego
(deep and dark) and a Barbera. “We think it’s time that this Cinderella of a grape gets its due, particularly when it comes to selecting a wine that makes good food better,” says Steve of the Barbera. They call their winery Urban Legend, which incorporates Oakland’s iconic cranes into the logo, because it’s urban and because they want to dispel old legends and create new ones around wine and winemaking. They opened their tasting room on April 1.
     “If you’re going to start an urban legend, you may as well start it on April Fool’s Day,” laughs Steve.
They get their grapes from Lake County, Clarksburg, Mendocino and elsewhere. The wine is available locally at Encuentro, Chop Bar and the Alameda Wine Co. Marilee’s background is in molecular biology, so she takes the lead in the winemaking. Steve, a former telecommunications consultant, heads up the marketing effort. “It’s a real collaboration,” he says, adding that, “We’re aiming to make food-friendly wine, and this is a great place to come and find wine that pairs well with food.”                 

The tasting room at Urban Legend Cellars (621 Fourth St., 510-545-4356, www.urbanlegendwine.com) is open 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday.

— Wanda Hennig

WHERE IT'S AT

MC Zumbi’s Haunts

     The big takeover continues for MC Zumbi of the Oakland hip-hop duo Zion-I. Since the 2009 release of the Zumbi and DJ AmpLive’s last acclaimed long-player, The Takeover (Gold Dust), the twosome has been keeping the momentum going, working with its new banger: a collaboration with the Grouch, due out February 2011. And while AmpLive has gained renown for his remixes of rockers like Radiohead (witness his Rainydayz Remixes of the band’s In Rainbows) and MGMT, Zumbi hasn’t been slacking: The rapper is about to put out a full-length titled Zumbi and the Are Present The Burnerz, a team-up with Houston producer the Are, which Zumbi describes as an “exercise in rugged production and gritty lyricism.” His haunts in Oakland are just as rugged — and intriguing.

Souley Vegan
It’s a rare treat to find vegan food that actually taste “soulful” ...  no fa real.
301 Broadway. (510) 922-1615, www.souleyvegan.com

Grand Lake Farmers Market
This is a very chill place, and on a nice day, it’s a great place to bring the family.
Grand and Lake Park avenues, (415) 472-6100

Station 33 Barber Shop
This is the spot to get lined up, play pool, ink a tattoo or just talk s***.
440 Grand Ave., Suite 100, (510) 922-1251

Coffeeshop Blue Sky
(aka SR-71)  The low-key “club” in the Uptown area — quick service, in and out.
 377 17th St., (510) 251-0690, www.coffeeshopbluesky.com

Verse Oakland
Located in Old Oakland, the homey [owner Tyranny Allen of Digital Underground] always carries a nice selection of kicks and hats.
 481 Ninth St., (510) 663-4400, www.verseoakland.com

—KImberly Chun

BLOCK PARTY

On the Way  Don’t Miss Out on San Pablo Avenue

     Whizzing down San Pablo, drivers are likely to miss this cluster of storefronts on the way to some other point in Berkeley or Emeryville. But missing this little section means missing out. San Pablo Avenue doesn’t have to be just “on the way.” It can be a final destination.

Where to Eat

Caffe Trieste Berkeley
     If you’re looking for more in an atmosphere than just Wifi, your search is over. This little piece of Italy
is a great place to sit and enjoy a rich cup of coffee, a freshly-made pastry and a good conversation. The motto “brew each cup like it’s for you” is Caffe Trieste’s recipe for the best cappuccino around. Go with the vegetarian panini, and you just might swear off meat for the rest of your life. The evening scene brings on a variety of live music, including rock, jazz and even opera and traditional Italian music performed by 90-year-old Papa Gianni himself. Now that’s Italian!
2500 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, (510) 548-5198, www.caffetriestberkeley.com

Sea Salt
     If you have been waiting for a special occasion to eat at this 5-year-old gem, it is time to fake a holiday and treat yourself. The menu is based on superbly flavored food and sustainable practices. “We have had to remove some items on our menu to ensure that we stay away from depleting stocks,” says chef Anthony Paone. My personal favorites are the B.L.T. (bacon, lettuce and trout) sandwich ($15), the unforgettable tombo tuna sliders ($13) and grilled Hawaiian swordfish ($22). Raw bar lovers should hit happy hour, when the oyster of the day is just $1. If you cannot decide what to order, don’t worry: You will likely make up a holiday again very soon.
2512 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, (510) 883-1720, www.seasaltrestaurant.com

What to Do

Ecology Center
     With all the commercialized “greenness” going on out there, why not head to a place that was at the heart of this movement before it was a movement? Founded in 1969, the Ecology Center’s programs are all designed to make sustainable living mainstream. In addition to heading up three Berkeley farmers markets as well as the very first comprehensive curbside recycling system in the United States, the center runs workshops out of its EcoHouse, teaching people how to affordably make their living spaces more energy and water efficient and carbon neutral. Becoming a member comes with a wide range of perks from discounts on products in the Ecology Center store to reduced tuition to classes and events that teach practical and proven ways of going green.
2530 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, (510) 548-2220, www.ecologycenter.org

The Yoga Room
     The brand new facility, with its high ceilings and crisp, white walls, belies the fact that you are
ohm-ing with the East Bay’s oldest yoga studio. Recently relocated from the East Side of Berkeley, the Yoga Room has been practicing hatha-yoga as taught by B. K. S. Iyengar since 1978. While instructors have all been through a very specific training program each has his or her own voice within the style, thereby bringing variety to the many classes offered, including yoga for lower back pain, restorative yoga and zen meditation. Not a Yogi? Never say never! The Yoga Room welcomes those over 55 in a special workout for maintaining strength and agility. And with classes starting at 7 a.m. on some days and 7:30 p.m. on others, there is no excuse not to get centered.
2530 San Pablo Ave., Suite D, Berkeley, (510) 273-9273, www.yogaroomberkeley.com

Where to Shop

Juniper Tree Supplies
     If you’re walking along San Pablo and it suddenly smells like you’re twirling in a field of lavender by the seaside, you’re probably standing in front of Juniper Tree. What began as a soap- and candle-making supply business has expanded into a shop for all things beautifully whimsical. Whether you want to turn your kitchen into a soap factory or simply want to spend the rest of the day in a bathrobe with cucumbers over your eyes, Juniper Tree has the products for you. But the inventory goes far beyond skin products. From unique gifts to jewelry to chandeliers, the entire store has the makings of a fairy forest. Why not treat yourself like a queen?
2520 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, (510) 647-3697, www.junipertreesupplies.com

Mignonne
      Welcome to the future of furniture buying. Owner Johnelle Mancha has an eye for not only what is beautiful, but also what could be beautiful. Sure, that table or chair that you snagged from Grandma or a yard sale could be cool if only you had the time, supplies and skills to bring it into the 21st century. Just bring it down to this charming little shop. Johnelle will meet with you to come up with a design plan that suits your taste and your budget. She will do the work and magically turn it into a piece that will make your neighbors jealous. The store is filled with things that are waiting to be taken home. The most beautiful part: Everything is more affordable than you or Crate & Barrel would ever imagine.
2447 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, (510) 388-5830, www.jesuismignonne.blogspot.com

Twisters
     Tired of diving into racks and racks of Gap-esque fashion? This place compiles clothing from just about any era you can think of, with pieces like the ones that put the “cool” in Madmen and the “kooky” in Dick Tracy. You may very well find a dazzling Dior or Gucci, but do not be surprised if your favorite is a random goodie that makes you want to recite lines from Casablanca. The well-stocked store serves men, too, and has many of the details often forgotten in current, everyday-wear, like cufflinks and suspenders. So stop building that time machine – shopping here is a lot more fun!
2445 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, (510) 548-9478, www.twistersvintage.com

—Karen T. Hartline

Cultural Crossroads

     Is hyper-local reporting, where journalists cover a small geographic region, being replaced with micro-local reporting? This past summer four journalists (including this one) took a theoretical microscope to the intersection of 51st Street and Telegraph Avenue. “One tiny spot. Lots of big stories” is the project’s tagline, and the result of the experiment lives online (http://berkeley.news21.com/51) as multimedia reports on topics like immigration, history and business.
     Website visitors navigate through a 360-degree panoramic photo to find, for example, audio slideshows about the Eritrean community. Thanks to Oakland arborist Martin Arnest, viewers can learn the history of a single tree at the intersection, which surprisingly reveals more about the area’s human inhabitants than its flora. Profiles of can collector Terry Burrell and greeting card artist Lauren Wilson illustrate the intersection’s informal economy, and info-laced photo essays give a peek behind the counter of three traditional businesses, including Bakesale Betty.
     As part of the project, the reporters handed out flyers asking passersby to text their reasons for being at the intersection. The messages, such as, “returning a tool to the tool library,” sketch a collective impression of the street corners.
     The reporters hope others will replicate the project at more Oakland intersections. “We figured the aggregate of these intersections and their stories could illuminate a detailed, if quirky, picture of Oakland,” says the group.

— Sierra Filucci

Oakland Online
From the Blog-Oak-Sphere

BLOG URL: www.oaklandlocal.com/blog
     While other Oakland blogs focus in like a beam of light on one narrow topic or another, Oakland Local is dedicated to investigative journalism for all of Oakland. From interviewing local artists to covering tear-filled city hall meetings, this is a blog built out of love. Editor, publisher and founder Susan Mernit keeps her stable of bloggers busy chasing down the stories that newspapers and television news just don’t have the time to cover anymore. But that’s not to say that this blog doesn’t know how to have fun. There are new articles on Oakland restaurants, farmers markets and food cooperatives almost daily, and a great deal of attention is also paid to art and culture. If you’re aching for a blog to keep you up to date with everything happening in Oakland, this is definitely the spot.                                                                      

— Alex Handy