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Pg 60 - ON THE ORGANIC TRAIL...
San Francisco
By Marlene Goldman
As the rest of the world catches up, San Francisco stands as a pioneer in the burgeoning green craze. A ban on plastic bags in chain stores kicked into effect this past November, and earlier in 2007, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom signed an order banning the use of city funds to purchase single-serving bottled water. In addition, Newsom has pledged to convert 100 percent of San Francisco’s taxi fleet to hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles by 2011.
The statistics are impressive in all facets of green. San Francisco currently has a 67 percent recycling rate, with a goal set at 75 percent by 2010 and zero waste by 2020. The city’s urban compost program is the largest of its kind in the country, with the majority of the compost designated for local vineyards. San Francisco also dedicates nearly 20 percent of its land to parks and open space. With a wealth of organic-minded businesses, in San Francisco it truly is easy being green.
SPAS & SALONS
Kabuki Springs & Spa
Kabuki Springs & Spa adds a touch of serenity to traffic-heavy Geary Boulevard. The spa’s signature feature is its Japanese-style communal baths, designed to promote harmony and relaxation. The public baths, which include the help of an attendant, feature a hot pool, cold plunge, dry sauna, and a steam room. Kabuki is also renowned for its craniosacral therapy, body work, and energy healing, as well as its pampering treatments. The Herbal Renewal features a medicinal poultice massage to energize the body, topped off by warm muslin-wrapped herbs, a lemongrass and ginger compress, and a rejuvenating aromatherapy massage. The Matcha, or green tea wrap, is known for its anti-aging properties, while the Javanese Lulur massage is pure bliss. Acupuncture work can be combined with shiatsu or Swedish massage.
www.kabukisprings.com, 415-922-6000
International Orange and Yoga Lounge
Despite its minimalist décor, International Orange, named for the color paint used on the Golden Gate Bridge, offers a true full-body experience. Facials are the specialty at IO, which was founded by three women from Northern California. Each treatment incorporates herbal and plant extracts, as well as active enzymes and antioxidant vitamins. The Organic Rejuvenation uses organic flowers and herbs to cleanse, rehydrate, and stimulate the lymphatic system, while the Custom Organic Enzyme Boost is more personalized—a fruit enzyme mask is mixed specially for each individual to help peel off layers of dead skin and stimulate the regeneration of new cells. The center caters to all levels of yoga, from restorative to ashtanga flow. Its shop is filled with organic scrubs, lotions, and shampoos, including its own line of body care.
www.internationalorange.com, 888-894-8811
Apotheca Skin Body Wellness
Specializing in customized skin care and body work, Apotheca reflects more its apothecary roots than a trendy day spa. Set in a downtown office building, individual treatments are crafted in the holistic philosophy based on one-on-one consultations. Apotheca’s esthetician offers the gamut of organic, vegan therapies, including deep-pore cleansing, anti-aging vitamin packs, brightening peels, and foot reflexology. The massage therapists also offer customized massage and bodywork, drawing from a repertoire that includes shiatsu, Tui Na Chinese medical massage, Indian head massage, and reiki. The very San Francisco Mission Burrito Massage is a deep-tissue massage with heated towels, hold the cheese.
www.apothecasf.com, 415.573.9077
San Francisco Zen Center
Truly a San Francisco institution, the San Francisco Zen Center was established in 1962 by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. The center comprises one of the largest Buddhist communities outside Asia and has three practice areas: the City Center building in San Francisco; Green Gulch Farm in Marin; and the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, just outside Big Sur. All three, including City Center, also known as the Beginner’s Mind Temple, offer meditation, retreats, practice periods, classes, workshops, and events. Beginners are welcome to a Saturday morning introduction to the City Center and meditation practice, while all levels can attend a number of zazen— sitting meditations—during the day. There are also public lectures most Saturday mornings and Wednesday evenings. Outreach programs of the City Center include distributing food to the homeless and working with families in a transitional shelter.
www.sfzc.org, 415-863-3136
RESTAURANTS & BARS
Café Gratitude
In one of the only cities where daily affirmations can become menu items, Café Gratitude serves up a litany of empowering food and drink, from the I Am Sensational pesto pizza with basil hemp seed pesto sauce and olive tapenade to the I Am Cool mint smoothie with hazel nut milk and raw cacao. Most dishes are raw, save a few warm bowls, and the atmosphere is all-organic and all-embracing. The restaurant, with four Bay Area locations, supports local farmers, sustainable agriculture, and environmentally friendly products. The brainchild of Matthew and Terces Engelhart, Café Gratitude was spawned as much as a live foods outlet as a location for the community to come and play the Engelhart’s Abounding River Board Game, focused on introducing people to the concept of “Being Abundance.” Even if you’re not playing, be prepared for a gratitude check from one of the servers who may just pop the question, “What are you grateful for today?”
www.cafegratitude.com, 415-229-7768
Alive!
Alive! sums up the specialty at this intimate spot—raw organic vegan cuisine. No animal products, wheat, or grains ever make it to the plate here. Dishes are made to order, which gives ample time to relax while dining al fresco in the Zen garden. The creations of chef and owner Leland Jung range from raw butternut squash bisque to sun-dried tomato shitake mushroom torte. Locals never leave without ordering one of the desserts, namely the raw vegan candycap mushroom cheesecake, topped off with one of a long list of uniquely flavored loose leaf teas. Alive! now has a concession stand at the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers’ Market every Saturday and Tuesday.
www.aliveveggie.com, 415-923-1052
Millennium
What if vegan went upscale? Millennium Restaurant lifts its earth-friendly credo to the heights of haute cuisine and dedicates itself to supporting organic food production, small farms, sustainable agriculture, recycling, and composting. While seasonality drives the menu, there are a few staples, like the black bean torte, that have helped Millennium earn a laundry list of awards. The restaurant, which has its own cookbook, actively seeks converts. On the second Wednesday of every month, it hosts Bring a Carnivorous Friend night, offering a 25 percent discount on the meal, excluding alcohol. The organic wines are worth the splurge, and throughout the year, Millennium offers wine maker dinners, chili and mushroom dinners, cooking demonstrations, and other events. Every Sunday closest to the full moon, Millennium hosts its Aphrodisiac Dinners, each course including ingredients with aphrodisiac properties. The dinner is completed with Chinese herbal love potions for two. One option is for a package that includes an overnight at the Hotel California, a Best Western property attached to the restaurant.
www.millenniumrestaurant.com, 415-345-3900
Yield Wine Bar
Napa wine culture meets San Francisco environmental consciousness at Yield Wine Bar, touting itself at the city’s first “green” wine bar. All the wines served at Yield stem from sustainable winemaking and agriculture, as well as family-owned and operated wineries. The entire rotating wine list, which spans the globe, features products from organically and biodynamically farmed grapes. A limited menu of small plates is available to pair with the wines. Yield’s environmental commitment reaches beyond the wines and into its interior, which is mostly made from green materials, such as reclaimed wood and salvaged lighting. It also uses eco-friendly materials for day-to-day operations. Making a commitment toward social consciousness, the wine bar pledges to host a fundraising evening for a different charitable organization every three months. Yield’s net proceeds for the evening go to the selected organization.
www.yieldsf.com, 415-401-8984
SHOPPING
Ecologique
Ecologique owner Lela Katz knows that in the past, eco-friendly clothes did not exactly correlate with the height of fashion. Now with everyone racing for the eco star of approval, creative designers are using earth-easy fabrics in their contemporary, cutting -edge clothes. “I worked in a hemp store in college and was drawn to the lifestyle and to the industry,” Katz says from her small shop in trendy Hayes Valley. “Some people hear ‘organic’ and imagine a hemp burlap sack. I am excited to find great designers pushing the envelope with style.” Katz works with 30 companies, including Green Label, Onerary and Satori Movement, which makes clothes out of 100 percent bamboo. The shop carries everything from eco-dresses to organic cotton clothes for kids, as well as hemp bags, locally made jewelry, and an array of organic skin and hair care products. Everything in the store is organic and fair-traded. There is also outdoor space for a future tea garden and an indoor back room that will be turned into a place for massage therapy and healing arts.
415-621-2431
Miranda Caroligne
Miranda Caroligne features the hodgepodge clothing masterpieces of designer Miranda C. Burns, author of the recently released Reconstructing Clothes for Dummies. Burns produces her wearable art in the front of the tiny shop, stitching together one-of-a-kind styles from salvaged textiles. The store features other local designers with a similar reconstructive mindset. Clothing can range from a remade sweatshirt with the top of an old pair of jeans used for a hood to a funky dress with billowing long sleeves. Accessories are not forgotten. Local jewelry artists display their wares, some also from recycled parts like scrap leather.
www.mirandacaroligne.com, 415-355-1900
Ferry Building Farmer’s Market
What started in 1992 as a one-off event is now a ritual as popular with locals as with tourists. On Saturdays, thousands of visitors descend on The Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market, a California certified farmers market operated by the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA). The market offers produce and flowers from small regional farmers and ranchers, many of whom are certified organic. Stretching along the Embarcadero outside the Ferry Building itself, vendors hawk the gamut of produce, from stone fruit and Asian pears to herbs and edible flowers. A variety of other products include regional artisan specialties such as breads, cheeses, chutney, cider, and jams. Though Saturday attracts more vendors and visitors, the market is also held on Tuesdays. Inside the Ferry Building itself, which was restored in 2003, are a number of artisan food shops such as the Cowgirl Creamery’s Artisan Cheese Shop and Recchiuti Confections.
www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com 415-291-3276
HOTELS
Orchard Garden Hotel
San Francisco’s greenest hotel, the Orchard Garden Hotel, was inspired by 83-year-old owner, S.C. Huang, who became passionate about creating clean environments after the untimely cancer-related deaths of three family members. The hotel prides itself on its green initiatives, as well as its creature comforts. “Going green doesn’t mean staff wearing Birkenstocks and hemp shirts,” says Stefan Muhle general manager of the boutique property. “You can be luxurious and green at the same time.” Eco-friendly construction materials include concrete made from fly ash, a byproduct of recycled coal, and wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as harvested in a sustainable manner. All fabrics are made with recycled polyester and other textiles, and guests can view the city from the hotel’s rooftop garden. Orchard Garden’s Roots Restaurant offers locally grown and raised products whenever possible. The hotel features the energy-efficient guest room key card system popular in Europe where a key card is needed to turn and keep the lights on. “We built it manually,” Muhle says. The system cost just under $50,000 but Muhle expects to make the money back in saved energy in two to three years.
www.theorchardgardenhotel.com, 415-399-9807
Marlene Goldman is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and photographer. She is author of the guidebook The Little Black Book of San Francisco (2007) and has contributed to numerous publications, including the San Francisco Chronicle and The Christian Science Monitor travel sections. She is currently writing the Little Black Book of Los Angeles.