The Crazy Wisdom Community Journal • September - December 2014 • Page 42
CONSCIOUS & TASTY EATING AND NUTRITION
Great Local Food and Restaurants By Crysta Coburn
A Town Favorite — Café Verde Next to the main entrance of the Ann Arbor Food Co-op, on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Ann Street, is the door to Café Verde, a fun little café attached to the Coop that serves coffee (including lattes, cappuccinos, espressos, and more), tea (they make an excellent chai latte), as well as juices and smoothies, and everything is fair trade.
steamed kale or spinach, and their food is nicely prepared and scrumptious. The Food Co-op’s salad bar is, simply speaking, the very best salad bar in town – beautiful and fresh and organic vegetables, and other delicious ingredients. Celery, carrots, cucumbers, green and black olives, soybeans, peas, corn, radishes, parsley, spinach, mixed greens, feta cheese, tofu, lentils, beets, hard-boiled eggs, raisins, sesame sticks, croutons, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, peanuts, other shredded cheeses, and other daily treats. There is no other salad bar in town that compares with this one, and the steady flow of customers all day, every day, eating Café Verde’s salads is a testament to just how great it is, and how appreciated it is. Well done, Food Coop!! If you are super short on time, as I often am, there is an extensive selection of on-site, pre-made salads and sandwiches, as well as a wide range of snacks. I picked up a fresh chopped chicken and cranberry salad sandwich, a bag of gluten and trans fat free Pirate’s Booty (puffed rice and corn), and a bottle of Honest Tea for under 10 dollars. Not only did I come away with a delicious lunch that I felt good about eating, but because I retrieved it so quickly, I had plenty of time to eat and enjoy it before heading back to work. The central location, sandwiched between Kerrytown and Downtown, makes this café very convenient for local businesspeople who are looking for a more healthful and satisfying lunch that is both quick and inexpensive. The café counter offers a lovely sampling of paninis, pastries (with vegan options, of course), as well as coffees and teas. They also serve Choffy — a coffee-like beverage that is made by dripping hot water through ground cacao beans (rather than coffee beans). Choffy is not chocolate coffee, as the name may imply, and is definitely not hot chocolate. It looks like black tea and smells deliciously like dark chocolate. The barista described Choffy to me as bitter like tea. I have never found tea to be bitter (and that’s not because I add cream and sugar — I never do), so this was not an apt analogy for me.
It’s worth trying the Brinery’s products (like the Heart Beet Kvass, pictured above), if not for the taste, for your health! As explained on their website, the Brinery team “maintains ... a commitment to lactobacillus as a direct path to digestive enlightenment and great health.”
Choffy tastes like dark chocolate, though it has the watery consistency of tea and coffee. Since milk chocolate is more my game, I added a few tablespoons of half and half, and I found it went down more smoothly. I would think that anyone who drinks her coffee black probably wouldn’t need to add cream or sugar. My boyfriend, an avid coffee drinker of longstanding, found the Choffy to be far too bitter, even with the cream, so I added two spoonfuls of sugar to his mug. Perhaps it really is the tea fanatics, then, who won’t find Choffy to be bitter. (Or people who really love dark chocolate. Remember, this is water dripped through pure cacao.) If you are in the area, and don’t already eat there, do stop into Café Verde and check it out. Enjoy your meal cozily inside or outdoors to enjoy the sunshine at one of the many open seating tables and benches for public use. There is something for everyone. Located at 214 N. Fourth Avenue, Café Verde is open Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. The salad bar and soups are available from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. The hot bar is maintained from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. during the weekend.
The Brinery: Mastering the Art of Fermentation A favorite of Ann Arborites, Cafe Verde undoubtedly has the best salad bar in town! The Cafe now also serves “Choffy,” a coffee-like beverage that is made by dripping hot water through ground cacao beans (rather than coffee beans). A cup of this unique brew provides you with the energy of coffee, as well as the superfood benefits of antixoidant-rich cacao. In the back is the food bar and deli where you can design your own salad and pick up a changing array of hot food items, like pancakes, frittatas, grits or polenta for breakfast, chicken and pasta and vegetable stir-fry for lunch and dinner, and a choice of two or three very tasty soups. (The soup menu also changes regularly, so check the website if you’d like to plan ahead and snag your favorite.) They always have freshly
There is no doubt that the Kerrytown Farmers’ Market in Ann Arbor is busy and bustling. Each row is packed with farm-fresh meat and produce, newly baked bread, flowers, and more! If you walk around the outside edge of the crowds, however, you may see something new. Ever tried a cool, refreshing bottle of kvass? Made up of fermented beet juice, water, and sea salt, the Brinery’s Heart Beet Kvass is similar to kombucha. Traditionally, most kvass is made from dark breads like rye. By making it with superfood beets, a less common traditional variety, the Brinery adds that vegetable’s unique health benefits. Beets have long been prized by folk healers as liver cleaners and cancer fighters. It’s true that beets are high in manganese, folate, and many more vitamins and minerals. The health benefits of fermentation are also often bandied about, making the Heart Beet Kvass a two-forone healthful beverage. Personally, I find Heart Beet to be a pleasant sipping beverage, like drinking vinegars, but my boyfriend, who tried it with me, did not agree. “It tastes like drinking a pickle!” he exclaimed. Yes, actually, it does. It is made from fermented beets, after all. I have friends who drink pickle juice from the jar (sometimes leaving the pickles high and dry), so I imagine they would like this kvass very much. Beets are sweeter than dill pickles, though, so Heart Beet is not really tart.