Mar Vista Weekend Plans

Friday and Saturday nights celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Ocean View Haunted House, courtesy of Insane House Of Pain. Free and open to the public 2 nights this year, from 7 -10pm. Scary!

Sunday at the Farmer’s Market is their annual Day of The Dead celebration, with music, theater and great food. See you there!Day of the Dead Spanish
day of the Dead English

Chrysalis Volunteers Help Clean Up Mar Vista

You may have seen them as you drove by last week, volunteers in orange vests, working along Venice Blvd. and Grand View, and in the alley behind the Venice shops. They were there as part of a program run by Chrysalis, sweeping up trash and leaves, weeding along sidewalks, emptying and relining trash cans, removing small graffiti stickers and posters, and generally making the area shine.

Chrysalis is a non-profit agency dedicated to helping people out of homelessness and poverty to make changes in their lives through employment. Rick Stoff, Director of Business Partnerships for Chrysalis, initiated the clean-up effort with local business owners. “The clean-up jobs we provide not only keep our neighborhoods looking beautiful, they also allow the workers to gain valuable work experience and become self-sufficient,” said Stoff. chrysalis 1I saw Michael Dotson and Edward Gonzales working near the post office. Chrysalis 2Byron Ellison, Joann Anderson and Bessie Lucas were working near the Yum Yum Donut shop. I’m so grateful to them for the work they did. It made a difference here and Mar Vista’s lucky they came.

Announcing The Winners Of The No-Waste Lunch Box Giveaway!

The envelopes, please:

The GoodByn Lunch Box goes to: Xaolinmama!

The LapTop Lunch Box goes to: ALAMB!

One SnackTaxi set each to: Sasha, Elise and Nicole!

The Tasty lunch tote by Built goes to: Yvonne!

The ScrappyNap goes to: Reeba!

The 12-oz. Klean Kanteen goes to: Stimey! And finally,

the 18-os Klean Kanteen goes to: Kim Tracy Prince!

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone who entered the contest! Winners, I’ll be contacting you for mailing/delivering details, so stay tuned and stay Green.

Mar Vista Farmer’s Market Wrap-Up 10/25/09

Today’s shopper is Pat Karasick and she’s going to make her famous Nut Lovers’ Trail Mix. She gets all her supplies at Avila & Sons Farm stand. Edgar Diaz and Pat KarasickShe takes peanuts, fresh roasted peanutspecans,pecanswalnuts walnutsand chops them all, adds raisins raisinsand calls it done. It’s full of protein and just a little bit sweet. If you felt like it, you could add chocolate chips, or cheerios, or substitute cranberries for the raisins. But it sounds great as is to me. Thanks, Pat!

The Green Booth hosted California Green Designs, discussing the solar power designs available for homeowners. CA Green DesignsAnd the market was alive with kids in costumes today, celebrating Halloween. The Kinetic Theory Circus Arts performed and it was a beautiful day!circus
the big showNext weekend is the Day of the Dead celebration at the market — don’t miss it!

Weekend Plans: October 24th and 25th

All your pre-Halloween excitement in one neighborhood!

Saturday there’s The Big Boo, Halloween Carnival at Mar Vista Elementary school, 3300 Granville Ave. 90066 10am – 3pm. and Richland Ave. Elementary is having their Halloween Scare Fair, 11562 Richland Ave. 90064 1pm – 5pm.

Sunday is the last chance to sign up for Mar Vista’s GoSolar initiative — sign up ends 10/25! Click on the link for more info,  and Sunday is also the  Mar Vista Farmer’s Market ‘s Annual Halloween Festival, Grand View at Venice Blvd. 9am – 2pm.

MVFMHalloween

The No-Waste Lunch Box Giveaway!

The Green Booth at the Mar Vista Farmer’s Market was all about lunches last Sunday! Annie Barnes of InspireTheChange.com and I co-hosted the booth and were joined by Jennifer Taggert of TheSmartMama.com, Elizabeth Rietz of WhiningNDining.com, Emily Carey of ScrappyNaps, and Melissa Davis of Melissa’s Food Blog. lunch box displayWe had the following products donated by their wonderful manufacturers and distributers so we could show them off to all of you who came to the market. And now I’m giving them away! Check it all out:

The GoodByn lunch box: GoodByn lunch boxThe Laptop lunch box Bento system: Laptop lunch boxSnack Taxis platsic bag alternatives (3 sets of 1 sandwich size and 1 snack size): snack taxi setsThe Tasty Lunch Tote by Built: tasty lunch tote by BuiltA ScrappyNap placemat and napkin set: (Donated by Emily Carey) scrappynap openscrappynap rolled upA bottle of Rebel Green Fruit and Veggie Clean spray: (Donated by Jennifer Taggert, who also sells it on her website.) Rebel Green Fruit and Veggie CleanAnd 2 Klean Kanteens (an 18-oz. and a 12-oz.): (Donated by BuyGreen.com, where you can buy them any time.)18-oz. Klean Kanteen12-oz. Klean KanteenAnd now for the RULES:

Just leave a comment below letting me know which item you want to win. If you want to win several of them, list them all in the same comment, please. The contest will run through next Monday, October 26th at 11:59pm Pacific Time. Winners will be chosen at random and announced next Tuesday, October 27th right here. Be sure to leave me an email address so I can contact you for shipping details when you win.

Disclosure Statement: I do not work for any of the companies that donated products. They have not given me anything in return for mentioning their products. I simply wrote to them, asked if they would send me something to show off and then giveaway, and they said yes. (Those who said no are not being mentioned here.) I’m grateful to those who donated these cool products! Now, LET THE CONTEST BEGIN!

UPDATE: The contest is now closed. Thank you for entering!

Mar Vista Farmer’s Market Wrap-Up 10/18/09

Today’s shopper is Dr. Susanne Bennett, a holistic chiropractor who also founded a line of skin care products called Purigenex. She’s going to make her organic heirloom tomato bolognese sauce.  Dr. Susanne BennettShe starts with 6 – 7 cloves of garlic, minced, garlicand about 2/3 of a yellow onion, chopped organic yellow onionsand sautes them in grape seed oil in a big iron wok. As they start to soften, she adds ground organic, free range sirloin beef she gets from Whole Foods. (Note: if you’d prefer to make this a vegetarian meal then just skip the meat — the rest of the recipe is the same.)  Once the meat is browned, she adds 5 – 6 tomatoes, which she’s chopped and removed most of the seeds. tomatoes!She cooks this for about 30 minutes and then adds about 1/3 cup of this amazing organic tomato paste from Italy called Bionaturae (which by the way comes in a glass jar). The she adds salt and pepper to taste, then some chopped italian parsley, oregano and rosemary, and at this point she adds about 1/2 cup of olive oil. Dr. Bennett says the grapeseed oil is better for the initial cooking because it can go to a higher temperature; the olive oil is great to add at this point because it helps thicken the sauce and it’s being used at a point that won’t expose it to high heat. Basil goes in at the very end, chopped slightly, and then again for a garnish as you serve it. basilShe serves it over brown rice pasta. It sounds fantastic and I wish I had some right now!

Today in the Green Booth I co-hosted (along with Annie Barnes of Inspire The Change) a group of Mom Bloggers presenting ideas for No-Waste lunches. Mom bloggers at the Green BoothThis is us: Me (Mar Vista Mom), Emily Carey of ScrappyNaps, Jennifer Taggert of The Smart Mama, Melissa Davis of Melissa’s Food Blog, and Annie Barnes of Inspire The Change.) Elizabeth Rietz of Whining N Dining joined us later as well. We had many donated products on display (which we’ll be giving away next week — check back on both our blogs), as well as products we currently use in our own kids’ lunches. no-waste lunch boxesCheck back Tuesday for the contest to begin! We’ll be giving away a GoodByn lunch box, a GoGreen Lunch box, a Laptop Lunch box, 3 sets of Snack Taxis, a ScrappyNaps placemat and napkin set, 2 Kleen Kanteen drink bottles (courtesy of BuyGreen), a bottle of Fruit and Veggie Clean spray from Rebel Green, a Tasty Lunch Tote by Built and 2 Rubbermaid Litterless drink bottles.

Save The Dates: The Farmer’s Market will be holding TWO festivals on the next TWO Sundays. Next Sunday (10/25) is their annual Halloween celebration and November 1st is their Day Of The Dead extravaganza. Don’t miss either one!