2019: More of the Same? The brisk spring/summer market cooled a bit in the fall, with some prices softening and days on market increasing, as is typical. Given recent stock market volatility, higher interest rates, and a little more new inventory in the pipeline, some observers speculate the market may stabilize or soften a bit. Anecdotally, I can say that the only softening I have seen locally is minor and is mainly on properties under $700K. The higher end of the market seems quite active. Given the number of new buyers I encountered viewing properties this fall with the goal of buying in the spring, I think the spring market will be strong again this year, although we may see some flattening out of prices. ~Thalia
Best Real Estate Agency
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New Listings
6 Spring Road, Arlington
494 Medford Street, Somerville
Lovely Arlington Heights bungalow, perched on a hill with views, with 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, large front porch, front/back/side yard, and parking in front on recently paved private way. Walk to the Minute Man bike path, Trader Joe’s, and shops along Massachusetts Avenue.
Well-appointed two-family on a corner lot in Magoun Square. Unit 1 has 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom on 2 levels; Unit 2 has 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom. 2-car driveway. Great, walkable location near restaurants and 2 Red Line subways now—as well as 2 new GLX stops in the near future.
$645,000
4 Olive Square, Somerville $719,900
Attached 2-level single family with 2+ bedrooms, 2 full baths, and 2 parking spaces steps to Union Square. The house offers handicapped accessible baths updated in 2015. Ideal condo alternative.
$849,000
221 Highland Avenue, Unit 2, Somerville Between Davis and Porter Squares, this updated, 2-level Spring Hill condo has 3-bedrooms, 1 1/2 bath, in-unit laundry, private back deck, and two parking spaces. Near the Arts at the Armory (home of the Winter Farmer’s Market), Dulock butcher, Highland Kitchen, 7 Ate 9, and more.
Coming Soon
Thalia Tringo
President, Realtor ® 617.513.1967 cell/text Thalia@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
11 Bailey Street, Somerville West Somerville attached single family on 2 levels with 2+ bedrooms, 1 bathroom, study, enclosed porch, back deck, and fenced yard.
Jennifer Rose
Residential Sales Specialist, Realtor ® 617.943.9581 cell/text Jennifer@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
Lynn C. Graham
95 Orchard Street Unit 2, Somerville On one of Davis Square’s most beloved streets, this charming second floor condo has 3 bedrooms, study, tile full bathroom, and 2 parking spaces. High ceilings, wood floors, large, shared fenced backyard.
Free Classes First Time Home Buyers:
Residential Sales Specialist, Realtor ® 617.216.5244 cell/text Lynn@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
Brendon Edwards
Residential Sales Specialist, Realtor ® 617.895.6267 cell/text Brendon@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
an overview of the buying process Wednesday, January 23RD OR Tuesday, February 12TH 6:30 – 7:45 pm If you’re considering buying your first home and want to understand what’s in store, this is a quick and helpful overview. Led by our agents and a loan officer from a local bank, it includes a 45-min presentation and 1/2 hour Q&A session. Handouts and refreshments provided.
How to Buy and Sell at the Same Time:
Seth Kangley
Residential Sales Specialist, Realtor ® 315.382.2507 cell/text Seth@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
for homeowners contemplating a move
Wednesday, January 30TH OR Thursday, February 21ST 6:30 – 7:45 pm If trying to figure out the logistics of selling your home and buying a new one makes your head spin, this workshop will help make the process & your choices understandable. This workshop, led by our agents and a loan officer from a local bank, includes a 45-min presentation and 1/2 hour Q&A session. Handouts and refreshments provided.
Sarasvati Lynn
Residential Sales Specialist, Realtor ® 617.949.6942 cell/text Sarasvati@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
Basic Home Maintenance:
preparing your home for winter Tuesday, January 15TH 6:30 – 7:45 pm Do you worry about pipes bursting? Ice dams? Clogged gutters? Broken downspouts? Heat loss? Damage from broken tree limbs? Heating system failure? Routine maintenance is the best way to prevent damage to your most important investment: your home. Come to this class to get a checklist and explanation of the things you need to do to maintain your home—and sanity.
How Individuals Can Buy Property Together as a Group Tuesday, February 5TH 6:30 – 8:30 pm When two or more people, whether or not they are related, buy property together, what are their options for taking title? How do you determine each one’s financial contributions, percentage legal interest in the property, and expense allocation? What kind of arrangements can be made in the event one or more parties want to move on but others want to keep the property? What type of financing is available? We will address these and other questions, followed by a Q&A session. Lead by our team and a local real estate attorney. If you are a first time homebuyer, please attend the First Time Home Buyers Workshop (January 23RD) or make an appointment with one of our agents so you’ll have your prerequisites for this class. To reserve space in any class, please email Adaria@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com. Admission is free, but we appreciate donations of canned goods for the Somerville Homeless Coalition.
Adaria Brooks
Executive Assistant to the President, Realtor ® 617.308.0064 cell/text Adaria@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
About our company... We are dedicated to representing our buyer and seller clients with integrity and professionalism. We are also commi ed to giving back to our community. Our agents donate $250 to a non-profit in honor of each transaction and Thalia Tringo & Associates Real Estate Inc. also gives $250 to a pre-selected group of local charities for each transaction. Visit our office, 128 Willow Avenue, on the bike path in Davis Square, Somerville.
MARCH 11 - MAY 12, 2019 ::: VOLUME 37 ::: SCOUTCAMBRIDGE.COM
contents 6 // EDITOR’S NOTE 8 // WINNERS & LOSERS A gender-neutral option may be added to birth certificates, and Mamaleh’s faces a complaint of alleged “sexual harassment, homophobia, sexism, and racism.” 10 // WHAT’S NEW? Mayor Marc McGovern looks into safe injection facilities and arts funding could be on the rise.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE 16 // PLANKS WITH A PAST Longleaf Lumber gives wood a second life. 18 // NATURE IS NURTURE AT CAMBRIDGE NATURALS The story behind the store that grew out of 1960s counterculture. 20 // MIT SPIN-OFFS MAKE WAVES Companies launched at MIT are dreaming up solutions to everything from rainforest destruction to high energy usage for heating and cooling.
26
34 // DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS, AND GAME CHANGERS: TUNEFOOLERY Tunefoolery brings together a vibrant mix of musicians united by their journey through mental health recovery. 35 // MEET THE SCOUT TEAM 36 // CALENDAR 38 // JUST VISITING
22 // LIVING ON THE VEG Nüssli118° creates plant-based treats that defy stereotypes and delight taste buds. 26 // SUSTAINABILITY FROM BARN TO BLOCK At Savenor’s, creating relationships with sustainable farms is top priority. 30 // ALMOST PERFECT GLASS TRAILBLAZES ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM THROUGH ART The couple behind the community glass studio aims to improve the sustainability of their craft by sharing it with others.
Photo, top: A Savenor’s butcher. Photo by Sasha Pedro. Photo, bottom: A Tunefoolery musician. Photo by Sasha Pedro. On the cover: Tktktktk. Photo TKTK. 4 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
14 // NEWS: CITY CRAFTS PLAN TO REACH MAJOR TRASH REDUCTION GOALS The plan aims to cut trash by 80 percent by 2050, compared to a 2008 baseline.
32 // SOMETHING VENTURED: CRAIGIE ON MAIN Craigie On Main celebrates 10 years of ever-evolving dining.
34
People really like that idea that something positive is coming out of the mental health system, because there’s so much focus on the negative.”
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5
EDITOR’S NOTE
T
he Environmental Issue is one that I’ve been excited to put together for some time. It’s a subject that has become increasingly important to me, and as I look around at my neighbors in Cambridge and Somerville, I can tell it is on their minds as well. We want to use this issue as an opportunity to celebrate the work our neighbors and local businesses are doing to hold themselves accountable regarding their treatment of the environment. What we’ve found is quite exciting. Longleaf Lumber helps keep beautiful old wood in our homes and shops rather than in our landfills (p.16). Savenor’s, Nüssli118°, and Cambridge Naturals are each exploring—in Photo by Bernie Birnbaum. very different ways—how we can make an impact on the environment through what we consume (p. 26, 22, and 18). Companies conceived at MIT are getting on their feet and shaping our sustainable future (p.20). Almost Perfect Glass is showing how artwork can be bigger than itself (p.30), and the city has a plan to reduce our trash by 80 percent by 2050 compared to 2008 (p.14). We hope their work inspires you as much as it has inspired us.
PUBLISHER Holli Banks hbanks@scoutmagazines.com
Best,
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Adam Sennott, Eric Francis
Reena Karasin Reena Karasin, Editor-in-Chief rkarasin@scoutmagazines.com
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Reena Karasin rkarasin@scoutmagazines.com ART DIRECTOR Nicolle Renick design@scoutmagazines.com renickdesign.com CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Jerry Allien jallien@scoutmagazines.com SCOUT FELLOW Alyssa Vaughn avaughn@scoutmagazines.com STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Sasha Pedro EDITORIAL INTERN Abbie Gruskin
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Adrianne Mathiowetz, Mark Ostow COPY EDITOR Joe Palandrani BANKS PUBLICATIONS 519 Somerville Ave, #314 Somerville, MA 02143 FIND US ONLINE scoutcambridge.com scoutcambridge
scoutcambridge @scoutmags
Office Phone: 617-996-2283 Advertising inquiries? Please contact hbanks@scoutmagazines.com. GET A COPY Scout Cambridge is available for free at more than 250 drop spots throughout the city (and just beyond its borders). Additionally, thousands of Cambridge homes receive a copy in their mailbox each edition, hitting every neighborhood in the city throughout the year...sometimes twice! You can sign up for home delivery by visiting scoutcambridge.com/shop. 6 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
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Visit remnantsomerville.com for Tickets, available March 15
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” An excerpt from E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered
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7
W&L
WINNERS
LOSERS
INCLUSION City officials are making moves toward allowing a gender-neutral option, Gender X, to be added to city birth certificates, the Boston Globe reports. “Cambridge strives to be a welcoming community to all—including our transgender and gender non-binary friends and neighbors, a goal that the Council can advance by … removing barriers for residents born in this city to amend their birth certificates,” reads the policy order from Mayor Marc McGovern. If the measure becomes law—as similar measures already have in California, Oregon, Washington, and New Jersey— Cambridge will be the first community in Massachusetts to offer this option.
EAST CAMBRIDGE A four-alarm East Cambridge electrical fire displaced 22 residents and shut down two neighborhood restaurants earlier this year, according to the City of Cambridge website. It took 12 fire engines, seven ladders, and numerous area fire departments to contain the blaze. The building in which the fire started, which had to be completely demolished, housed apartment units and The Sunset Cafe, a Portuguese restaurant that had been in operation since 1965. Kimchi Kitchen, located next door to Sunset, was also forced to close due to damages.
GUN CONTROL ACTIVISTS If you’re a gun control activist, you’re about to get some stars of the movement here to protest alongside you. David Hogg and Jaclyn Corin, both survivors of the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Fla., announced on their Twitter accounts that they will be attending Harvard, the Boston Globe reports. “Massachusetts is a great example of why common-sense gun laws work,” Hogg said at HUBweek, according to the Globe. ALANIS MORISSETTE FANS Everything’s better than fine, fine, fine for “Jagged Little Pill,” the musical set to the tune of Alanis Morissette’s best-known album. The show, which debuted at A.R.T. with a sold-out 10-week run last year, is officially heading to Broadway, the New York Times reports. However, if you follow the musical to the Big Apple, expect some changes from what you saw staged in Harvard Square. The producers of the Broadway run told the Times that the show—which uses Morissette’s music to explore a variety of social issues—is being revised before its debut. “The world has continued to change, and that has affected the writing and the direction,” producer Eva Price said.
SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTS If you have Facebook friends who are a little trigger-happy with the “share” button (and we all do), you might have seen some disturbing text message screenshots making the rounds on your timeline. The screenshots, which arose after the high-profile disappearance of Jamaica Plain’s Olivia Ambrose earlier this year, say that a “top investigator” uncovered a plot in which Uber drivers were kidnapping their female passengers and operating a human trafficking ring out of Cambridge. “Cambridge Police Department has no knowledge of any such information or investigation and the information does not appear to have any validity,” the department asserted in a social media post of its own. MAMALEH’S A bombshell report from Eater Boston earlier this year said that a former employee of Kendall Square’s Mamaleh’s Delicatessen has filed a complaint against two of the restaurant’s owners, Alon Munzer and Tyler Sundet. The former employee, Duane Gorey, alleges that members of the ownership and staff engaged in “sexual harassment, homophobia, sexism, and racism,” the Eater report states. Several incidents are listed in the full report, including a “rating system” that Gorey alleges Munzer and Sundet used to rank female customers’ attractiveness, the misgendering of an employee, and multiple alleged instances of sexually explicit and racist language. The complaint also names R.J. Hart LLC, the restaurant group behind Mamaleh’s and two other Kendall Square hotspots, Cafe du Pays and State Park, as a defendant. The restaurant group has denied all allegations.
NEWS FROM THE NORTH Here’s just some of what you’ll find in the The Environmental Issue of our sibling publication, Scout Somerville.
DRINK RESPONSIBLY—BY CHOOSING ECO-FRIENDLY BREWS Local brewers are taking ownership of their environmental impact.
RAISE THE GREEN ROOF Recover Green Roofs squeezes in green space—and the environmental impacts are huge.
BRINGING ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE CLEANING INDUSTRY The founder of Somerville Sustainable Cleaning explains what “sustainability” means to his business.
Someone rustle your jimmies or tickle your fancy?
Let us know at scoutcambridge.com/contact-us, and we just might crown them a winner or loser.
8 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
—BY ALYSSA VAUGHN
& R E E T N U L O V
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Volunteers Needed For: • Social Media, Digital Media & Publicity • Website development & maintenance, IT • Graphic design, Make Flyers & Brochures • Event planning, Fundraising & • Grant Search & Grant Writing • Editing and Proofreading • Video recording & editing and Photography • Communication, Coordination, Office tasks & Research • Accounting, Bookkeeping, and more!
Volunteer Benefits: • Enhance your résumé by receiving volunteer credit hours, a volunteer certificate, President Awards, and letters of recommendation to assist with academic and career goals • Broaden your global perspective, become an effective cross-cultural communicator, and develop leadership and team building skills and receive awards. • Gain valuable first-hand work experience and knowledge of non-profit organizations • Make a difference in the lives of others and more!
DCI, 50 Church St., 5th Fl., Harvard Sq., Cambridge, MA 02138 857-292-9186 , 203-376-6351 | dci@distressedchildren.org | www.distressedchildren.org Distressed Children & Infants International (DCI) is a U.S.-based international non-profit child rights organization established at Yale University in 2003 with the goal of protecting child rights, preventing blindness and ending child labor worldwide by involving, empowering and developing the leadership of local American youth. DCI is currently seeking motivated volunteers/interns of all ages to join our efforts against child labor and blindness. DCI’s volunteer program is designed according to the interests and career goals of each volunteer. DCI strives to create a platform and network for our volunteers’ future leadership and success. DCI’s motto is “Children Helping Children.” DCI empowers local youth to make a difference by helping children in need both locally and worldwide. This experience provides them with a wonderful learning opportunity and further helps to develop their leadership skills at a young age. To learn more about our unique approach to humanitarian work, please visit our website: distressedchildren.org
WHAT’S NEW
BY ALYSSA VAUGHN
CHANGING TASTES
EAST CAMBRIDGE
CURIO COFFEE TO DOUBLE AS NIGHTTIME WINE BAR
F
ans of Cambridge Street’s quirky Curio Coffee know that there’s no better way to start the day than with one of the cafe’s waffles. Now, you’ll also be able to end your day with a savory version of Curio’s signature treat—with a glass of natural wine in place of a latte. Earlier this year, Curio’s beer and wine license was approved, allowing the cafe to operate as a wine bar several evenings a week. “I’m curating a small, by-the-glass wine list from mostly old world, cooler climate wine regions, especially France and Italy, to showcase the grapes and terroir I enjoy drinking,” owner Justin Pronovost told Eater Boston. Curio Wine is set to launch sometime in March, Eater reports.
your special events with you,” the owners wrote on Facebook. Brunch service will still be going strong, with hearty dishes like scrambles, egg sandwiches, and French toast available on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. FRESH POND
BRIT BAKERY
An Arlington-based bakery has settled down in Fresh Pond, Eater Boston reports. Brit COMING Bakery brings baked made SOONgoodsMOVED from organic flour, sugar, butter, and milk to the neighborhood, operating out of the former Violette Gluten Free Bakery space. Brit has pastries, cookies, cupcakes, and coffee available, and the team also makes custom cakes, including wedding cakes. HARVARD SQUARE
SALT & OLIVE GETS A NEW SPOT IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Salt & Olive is taking its Mediterranean olive oil taproom on the move. The popular speciality shop isn’t going too far, though—it’s vacating the Mass Ave. storefront in favor of a spot in The Garage that’s due to open in April, according to the store’s Facebook page. So, never fear, Harvard Square foodies: your one-stop shop for olive 10 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
oil, balsamics, salts, and spices will still be in the neighborhood. INMAN SQUARE
CITY GIRL CAFE SHIFTS SERVICE
City Girl Cafe, one of Inman Square’s most beloved brunch spots, has suspended dinner service to let the team focus on catering and private events. “We’re sad that we will see some of you less, but excited to embark on this new adventure and to begin to share
KENDALL SQUARE
MÂE ASIAN EATERY
Chef Yuri Asawasittikit has transformed the former Beijing Tokyo space into a Thai, MOVED Vietnamese, andCOMING Chinese fusion SOON restaurant, Eater Boston reports. In creating the menu for Mâe Asian Eatery, Asawasittikit was inspired by recipes she learned from her mother—in fact, the word “Mâe” is Thai for “mother.” The intimate 20-seat spot is open for both lunch and dinner, with a menu that includes everything from pho to General Tso’s chicken.
HARVARD SQUARE
THE LONGFELLOW BAR
Michael Schlow continues his Harvard Square COMING dining scene MOVED dominance with the SOONopening of The Longfellow Bar, a funky two-story space that was formerly the famous Cafe Algiers, according to the restaurant’s website. While Schlow’s Alden & Harlow and Waypoint are known for their forward-thinking, high-end menus, The Longfellow Bar takes a different approach: The menu is primarily finger food that can be passed around the table, allowing for a more relaxed dining experience. Don’t expect to see your standard pub grub here, however. From pigs in blankets adorned with truffle oil to deviled eggs with salmon caviar, every dish comes with an unexpected twist. HARVARD/PORTER SQUARES
LUCE
You can pronounce it “loose” or “loo-chay,” the restaurant’s COMING MOVED website proclaims. The former is SOON a nod to the nickname of owner René Becker’s daughter, Lucie. The latter is the Italian word for “light,” a fitting moniker for the area’s newest regional Italian eatery. However you decide to say it, Luce is a reinvention of the now-defunct Shephard, taking over the same space, team, and
Photo, top left, courtesy of Curio Coffee. Photo, bottom left, courtesy of Salt & Olive. Photo, bottom right, courtesy of EHChocolatier.
brick oven, but foregoing the French-adjacent menu for pastas, pizzas, and a robust wine list. The space has also been reworked into “a cozy, comfortable dining room and bar” perfect for family dining, Eater Boston reports. HARVARD SQUARE
MILK BAR AND &PIZZA
Noticed some sleek oblong pizzas and Willy Wonka-esque COMING desserts parading around MOVED SOON Harvard Square? The longawaited combination Milk Bar and &pizza has finally opened in the the former Crimson Corner newsstand space, Boston Magazine reports. Milk Bar, Christina Tosi’s colorful, NYCborn bakery, is serving all its famous desserts, from the “cereal milk soft-serve” to the “crack pie.” At an adjacent counter, you can order one of &pizza’s signature pies, like the “American Honey,”
featuring spicy tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, arugula, red pepper flakes, goat cheese, and hot honey. HARVARD SQUARE
SWEET BAKERY
Harvard Square faced a slew of closures at the beginning of the year. Sweet COMING Bakery, a cupcake shop with MOVED SOON additional locations in Boston and Chestnut Hill, is one of the latest as its Brattle Street building prepares to undergo construction, the Harvard Crimson reports. It has not been determined whether the bakery will be able to return, or if the building will be converted into office space or offered to new businesses instead. However, Sweet’s management is hopeful. “We will be looking for a new location hopefully and in the near future we’ll be back soon,” owner Katia Pekar told the Crimson.
OBSERVATORY HILL
EHCHOCOLATIER
R
eady your sweet tooth—the chocolate shop named “Best COMING MOVED Chocolate” by Boston Magazine,SOON a “Best Chocolate Shop in the U.S.” by Food & Wine, a “Top 10 Chocolatier in North America” by Dessert Professional Magazine, and “Best in the Box” by the New York Times has moved to a storefront on Huron Avenue. After the move from an industrial building in Somerville, EHChocolatier’s signature brown butter toffee, caramelized peanut butter cups, and pecan clusters will be much easier to access.
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WHAT’S NEW
AROUND TOWN
MAYOR EVALUATES SAFE INJECTION FACILITIES
M
ayor Marc McGovern, along with Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, led a delegation to Montreal and Toronto to observe their supervised injection facilities (SIFs), WBUR reports. At these clinics, drug users are provided with clean needles, monitored as they consume, and revived in case of overdose. While both mayors were surprised by some of the discoveries they made during the trip (“I was really surprised, pleasantly surprised, at not just the level of professionalism but the way in which the sites were organized and run,” McGovern told WBUR), they were ambiguous about whether or not a SIF program could come to Cambridge or Boston. “This isn’t something that’s going to happen tomorrow, if it happens at all,” McGovern is quoted as saying. “But I think we’re on the right path investigating this.”
2018 TEEN HEALTH SURVEY RESULTS ANNOUNCED
The Cambridge Teen Health Survey, given every other year to Cambridge Rindge and Latin School students, revealed fresh insight into local teens’ wellbeing. This year, 1,400 students responded to questions on topics including nutrition, substance use, and mental health. While the results signaled several positive trends (a decrease in alcohol and cigarette use, an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption), it also made clear that some students are disproportionately disadvantaged. “The survey reveals significant gender and racial disparities in the experiences reported by our 12 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
students,” Damon Smith, principal of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, said in a statement. “We must … develop a supportive climate and culture where all CRLS students can achieve to their potential.”
RETHINKING ELECTRICAL CAR CHARGING
Believe it or not, stringing an extension cord out your window and across a sidewalk to charge your electric car may not be the safest practice. City councilors have thus asked the city manager to confer with the city electrician to think up a new and safer way for people to charge their electric vehicles curbside, Universal Hub reports. “The City has
responsibility for granting access to the public way,” the councilors’ request reads. “There may be a variety of products that would allow an extension cord or other power source to safely cross a sidewalk or reach the curb without creating a tripping or other hazard.”
UBER ENHANCES SAFETY FEATURES
Cambridge is one of the first cities in the Commonwealth to allow Uber passengers to contact 911 directly through the Uber app, the city recently announced. In the Uber Safety Toolkit, available in the app, riders can swipe to call 911 and share their location with Cambridge
Emergency Communications Center officials. A passenger’s live trip details will be shared with officials until the trip ends, as well as the passenger’s and vehicle’s information.
INTRODUCING SIDE GUARDS
After a cyclist and a pedestrian were killed by trucks at the end of last year, Cambridge officials are pushing forward on ways to improve the city’s truck safety, the Cambridge Chronicle reports. One method in discussion is adding side guards—devices that are designed to sweep pedestrians or cyclists to the side, rather than under, a truck—to trucks that are contracted to work in the city. The devices are already required on all city-owned vehicles.
Photo, left, by Wilford Durbin. Photo, right, courtesy of Harvard Public Affairs and Communications, Harvard University.
ART BEAT
HOUGHTON LIBRARY GETS A FACELIFT
Harvard’s Houghton Library celebrated its 75th birthday last year, but new renovation plans will make sure the library doesn’t show its age. The renovation, scheduled for September 2019 to September 2020, will update the library’s research and teaching facilities, grow its exhibition space, and make it more welcoming and accessible, the Harvard Gazette reports. Library staff say they hope the renovation will inspire greater interest in the library’s collections and staff of experts from scholars worldwide.
ARTS TASK FORCE AIMS TO INCREASE ARTS FUNDING
City Councilor Alanna Mallon has plans to increase the city’s art funding, the Cambridge Day reports. Mallon, who leads the new Mayor’s Arts Task Force, proposed three ideas, all co-sponsored by Mayor Marc McGovern. First, she called for allocating at least 15 percent of the city’s hotel and motel tax revenue and three percent of recreational marijuana tax revenue to the arts.
She also proposed updating the city’s percent-for-art ordinance, which could bring in increased revenue from construction projects. Finally, Mallon suggested setting up a Central Square Improvement Fund, which would supplement the $4,500 in funding that the state contributes to the arts district.
SPACEUS SET TO LEAVE EAST CAMBRIDGE
Spaceus, a “hybrid workspace, event space, and gallery,” opened its fourth pop-up location in East Cambridge earlier this year and is set to move out on March 21, according to press releases. The startup, which previously had stints in vacant spaces in Faneuil Hall, Roslindale, and Harvard Square, offers visitors a chance to interact with local artists, purchase their art, and participate in workshops and events. “We see vacant storefronts as underutilized assets,” Stephanie Lee, co-founder of Spaceus said in a release. “We’ve seen that they can be transformed into places for communities to form and for artists to make within the heart of the city.”
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scoutcambridge.com | The Environmental Issue 13
NEWS
CITY CRAFTS PLAN TO REACH MAJOR TRASH REDUCTION GOALS BY ADAM SENNOTT | PHOTO BY ADRIANNE MATHIOWETZ
T
he city’s Zero Waste Master Plan charts a path to reduce the amount of trash sent to landfills by 30 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, compared to a 2008 baseline. The plan is a guiding document to help the city reach targets it set in conjunction with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s 2008 Solid Waste Master Plan, which set similar trash reduction goals. “Cambridge signed on and said, ‘All right, we want to do that too, we want to kind of set targets so that we can start, instead of just hoping to recycle more and compost more, we actually set targets to do it better,’” Cambridge Recycling Director Michael Orr explains. A draft of the plan was released in February, with public 14 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
comments open through March 15. The final plan is set to be revealed on April 1, according to the city’s website. The Zero Waste Master Plan centers around composting, recycling, and other ways of diverting items from trash. The city’s goals come out to 16 pounds of trash per household per week in 2020 and 4.5 pounds per household per week in 2050. The targets are “not too hard” to reach, Orr says. One reason for confidence is that waste audits of random samples of garbage in the city showed that the majority of materials people were throwing away can be diverted from the trash stream. “What we found was about 40 percent of our trash is compostable, about 15 percent is
recyclable, and then … I think it’s about another 10 to 15 percent were divertable in another way,” Orr says. The materials that could be diverted in other ways included scrap metal, clothing, and electronics, according to Orr, which can be recycled at certain locations. The city aims to start a mattress recycling program in April, he adds. Divertable materials that remained in the trash stream in 2016 included an estimated 4,768 tons of food scraps, 1,190 tons of compostable fibers (meaning paper towels, napkins, and other papers), and 2,608 tons of recyclable materials, according to the plan draft. Orr notes that the city is already taking steps to achieve some of the goals outlined in the
plan, including last year’s curbside compost program launch. Recycling, a large component of the plan, has faced a major new hurdle over the past year. In January 2018, the Chinese government implemented new anti-pollution standards and banned 24 types of solid waste that it previously recycled from western countries, including the United States and the U.K., according to the New York Times. China also set new standards for how much contamination it would accept in the materials it was importing. The new standards have led some recycling companies to haul away materials to landfills or stop accepting items such as certain plastics, glass, and some types of paper, according to the Times. In Cambridge, if the
contamination rate—the amount of non-recyclable items in the recycling stream—isn’t below seven percent, the city’s recycling costs go up. “We had something in our contract where they could charge us double per ton,” Orr says. “So we were paying $35 per ton, and now we’re paying $70 per ton, because we’re above that contamination level.” Still, it’s far cheaper to recycle than it is to have trash hauled away. It costs the city about $100 per ton of trash, while composting costs about $60 per ton. “As landfill space and incineration space dwindles in New England, the market is pushing the cost higher and higher for trash,” Orr explains. “And so recycling and composting, on a per-ton basis, is cheaper than trash.”
a little bit of grease or a little bit of food residue is OK, and the reason for that is pizza boxes are basically cardboard, they’re corrugated paper, and there is such a high value to that type of paper, whereas a lot of other types of paper are lower quality.” There’s a fine line between when a pizza box is recyclable and when it’s too contaminated, though: “What I would say is if you want to go the extra mile and really help us out, cut out that really greasy part of the pizza box,” Orr says. “And when you cut out that little greasy part, you actually could just put that in your compost bin.” As for the composting program, Orr says it’s “doing well” but adds that the city needs “to get more participation.” The city achieved its initial goal of getting a 40-percent
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“As landfill space and incineration space dwindles in New England, the market is pushing the cost higher and higher for trash.” The department is working to better educate the public on what can and can’t be recycled. The city sent out a mailer to every household in December to outline for residents what is and isn’t recyclable. While Orr says that “people really do want to do the right thing,” he acknowledges that misinformation and misconceptions about what people can put in their curbside bins still exist. Common items that people often recycle even though they aren’t recyclable include plastic bags, bubble wrap, clothing hangers, paper towels, paper plates, and electronics. On the flip side, many people don’t realize that pizza boxes are recyclable and often throw them away, Orr says. “They’re recyclable,” Orr says. “That is the one exception when
composting participation rate by April 2018, Orr says. Now, it’s hoping to increase that number, both by getting eligible households on board and by rolling out the program to buildings with at least 13 units starting between fall 2019 and fall 2020. If fully utilized, the composting program could reduce trash disposal by four to five pounds per household per week, according to a draft of the plan. “It takes time and continued outreach to bring new folks into trying a new diversion program such as composting,” Orr told Scout in a follow up email. “It’s not always the most pleasant program to participate in. But, the payback in terms of cost and environmental savings are huge for the city and thus the residents.”
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THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE
LONGLEAF LUMBER GIVES WOOD A SECOND LIFE BY REENA KARASIN PHOTOS COURTESY OF LONGLEAF LUMBER
Planks W I T H A PA S T 16 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
T
he pieces of Douglas fir started their journey in west coast forests. Then, during World War II, they came to the South Shore as timber to build a shipyard in Hingham. But their journey didn’t end there: The building was torn down, and they passed into the hands of Longleaf Lumber, a reclaimed wood company based in Cambridge. Longleaf Lumber prepared the wood for its second life as an outdoor set for Apollinaire Theatre’s run of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Chelsea. The set was knocked down in July,
and the beams await their next adventure. Used wood is not old or imperfect at Longleaf Lumber— it’s antique, it has “a resume.” Nail holes tell a story, knots provide personality. “They’re beautiful, they’re like pieces of art,” Co-owner Alice DeGennaro says, looking at two towers of wood planks. “The old wood has so much more character, and so much more color.” DeGennaro and her husband, Marc Poirier, started an urban mill on Somerville’s Webster Avenue in 1997. Tucked into the city, Longleaf Lumber was an anomaly. “It was the beginning of the green movement,” DeGennaro says. “It was the beginning of when people were thinking about recycling, reclaiming, reuse.” “It wasn’t really such a mainstream product,” Marketing Coordinator Kathy Woodward adds. DeGennaro and Woodward become animated as they talk about wood, pulling out a parade of planks to put faces to the names. There’s white pine, chestnut, maple. Then there’s Heart Pine,
Longleaf Lumber’s biggest focus. Also known as the Longleaf tree, Heart Pine became wildly popular in Boston-area construction during the 1800s. It became a go-to flooring for mills because of its strength: “These factories were carrying lots of weight, big, heavy machinery,” DeGennaro explains. “It was a great tree for that application— super dense, super strong.” The Heart Pine from that era is unmatched by modern lumber, according to Woodward and DeGennaro. Whereas the Heart Pine trees from two centuries ago had grown for 200 or 300 years, today many trees are cut down after 20. This means the wood is less dense, with wider grain and lighter color, DeGennaro says. Global warming also contributes to the loss in density, Woodward explains, because the trees are growing more quickly. This means that if you own a 19th century home or building with Heart Pine wood and need to replace some of the planks, antique wood is your only chance at finding a match. Flooring and paneling are two of Longleaf Lumber’s biggest focuses, but
they do plenty of other projects, including countertops, barn doors, and stair treads. Longleaf Lumber has supplied antique wood touches to many local businesses, from Crema Cafe to Oleana to Elmendorf Baking Supplies to The Red House Restaurant, according to Woodward and DeGennaro. There are also the people who come into Longleaf Lumber looking for just the right piece of wood—the students who want to build their own desktops, the artists seeking inspiration. “People buy wood for a couple different reasons,” Woodward says. “Sometimes they buy it to match, so in that case the really good wood would be wood that came from the same time period, that has the same kind of character. But it could also be totally subjective, ‘I’m looking for something that’s a certain color, I’m looking for a certain character, I want knots.’” Recycling wood has the obvious benefits of cutting down fewer trees and keeping wood out of landfills. But Longleaf Lumber incorporates its environmental mission into
every part of its operations: its mill is heated by wood waste, the sawdust goes to people who will turn it into wood bricks and wood pellets, and the mill uses solar panels for its electricity. “[It’s] just a super low carbon footprint,” DeGennaro says. “You’ve got the product itself, and then you have the byproducts, that to whatever extent are then also recycled, burned for fuel, or put to some other use, as much of it as you can,” Woodward adds. Longleaf Lumber’s customers seem to buy into the company’s recycling focus, both from an environmental standpoint and from an appreciation of the wood’s history. “People definitely like the stories,” Woodward says. “When we take down a building, we try to look it up. It’s just the stories of the wood, and what was happening in the building—it was a mill building, it was a barn. It’s the stories: What’s the history of this wood?” Longleaf Lumber is located at 115 Fawcett St. For more information, call (617) 871-6611 or visit longleaflumber.com. scoutcambridge.com | The Environmental Issue
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THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE
N AT U R E I S N U RT U R E AT CAMBRIDGE N AT U R A L S INSIDE THE STORE THAT GREW OUT OF 1960S COUNTERCULTURE BY ERIC J. FRANCIS PHOTO COURTESY OF CAMBRIDGE NATURALS
J
ust inside the front doors of Cambridge Naturals is a black-and-white photo of two young adults—barely more than kids, really—whose hairstyles and fashion speak eloquently of the 1960s. They are Michael Kanter and Elizabeth Stagl. Now husband and wife, they met at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where they were nextdoor neighbors whose buildings shared a trash area. Like so many great love stories, the beginning of theirs was not particularly auspicious. “She came over one day to say we weren’t taking out our fair share of the garbage,” recalls Kanter, a grin on his face. “I’d gotten really stoned earlier that 18 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
day because I got a birthday card from a girlfriend who had dumped me the year before. So I said, ‘I’m in no condition to take out the trash,’ and slammed the door in her face.” A few weeks later, they ran into each other at a party. This time, things were considerably more friendly. Dating soon commenced, then came love, then came marriage, and the baby in the carriage … and, eventually, Cambridge’s first health food store. Today you can find those two kids kicking around the store in the Porter Square Shopping Center. The hair may be a little grayer, the clothes more contemporary (though still fashionable), but in all
the important ways Kanter and Stagl are still the same young progressives who met at SUNY Buffalo: Social activists who embraced the peace, racial justice, anti-war, and environmental movements. They also happen to be successful entrepreneurs who built a tremendously successful business on those values, which they still live by today. Though for Kanter, the food-related values had a bit of a rough start. “I come from a background where my parents started me on health foods when I was a kid,” he says, adding with a laugh, “I was mortified, embarrassed; nobody was eating that way. They used to take me to hole-in-the-wall health food stores and I’d hope none of my friends would see me.” But this was also the era of the Vietnam War and “Silent Spring,” Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking book on pesticides. And once
Kanter realized “we were spraying fields in Vietnam, destroying their fields so people would go hungry,” he made the connection that healthy, organic food was a worthy product for people to buy and, for that matter, to grow. So after college—he took a degree in history, while Stagl was one of the first women to earn an accounting degree there—they came to Massachusetts, where Stagl worked at a nonprofit and Kanter got involved in his brother’s health food store, located in Arlington. A few years later, in 1974, the trio opened Cambridge Naturals. Stagl and Kanter bought out his brother over a decade ago, and they’ve been running and growing the store ever since. What began in a room of about 600 square feet on Mass Ave. is now a major tenant in the Porter Square Shopping Center, with more than 16,000 natural and organic products on its shelves.
Strolling through the store is like taking an aroma-based walking tour of the world as you inhale the scents of spices, floral scents, chocolate, herbs, essential oils, tea—seriously, you could just stand here all day enjoying the smells, and nobody would blame you. Those well-laden shelves carry a vastly different selection of goods than in ’74, and Kanter says one of the keys to Cambridge Naturals’ longevity has been its adaptability. “My current title is chief visionary officer, and it’s because I saw these trends and I saw the hunger, the destruction of our environment and our soil, and that people were going to want to be part of doing something better for the environment and themselves,” he says. So the food section has shrunk while other offerings have expanded: health and beauty products, CBD, household goods, teas and coffees—all sourced so that they meet the couple’s ethical standards for fair trade, natural ingredients, and supporting farmers, artisans, and workers. “Our customer count is increasing so much due to the fact we have products that can help people with all kinds of issues,” says Kanter, “but the most significant issues of the last several years—particularly since Nov. 8, 2016—are stress and sleep. Those are huge.” The store has also focused on products for women who want “to get away from products they don’t want to use in or on their bodies,” whether those address menstrual issues or skin care or their libidos. “We’re not shy,” notes Kanter while standing next to a display of items dedicated to sexual health and pleasure. In one way, these are the products that best exemplify the philosophy that drives Cambridge Naturals: It’s about feeling good. “People want products from companies they feel good about, that they feel are from good, ethical companies,” Kanter says. “Including, but not limited to, companies run by people of color, by women, and fair or direct trade. The reason people love us [is] we know those products, where they come from, and we need to, because customers are coming in
really looking for deep advice on how to improve their lives.” That requires a well-trained, well-informed staff—and that, Kanter insists, means a staff paid a living wage. He and Stagl have long been advocates of raising the minimum wage at the state and federal level. “I was asked [in February] to be available to testify at a congressional hearing as to why I make the business case for raising the minimum wage,” he says. “I have done it at the Massachusetts State House, on radio, on TV.” Almost five years ago, the couple’s daughter Emily and her husband Caleb Dean moved back to Cambridge from Portland, Ore., and joined the family business as “second-generation co-owners.” They run the dayto-day operations, while Stagl continues to handle the finances and Kanter researches trends and helps with oversight. That kind of hands-on family involvement, he says, has been key to Cambridge Naturals’ success. “I think the one thing local businesses need to do is not just assume people will support them merely because they’re locally owned and independent,” says Kanter. “You still have to run a credible business, do awesome customer service, find products that are really good for your customers, treat your staff kindly, and do creative marketing. You have to run your business in a creative and thoughtful way.” At Cambridge Naturals, that thoughtfulness continues to include the kind of social and environmental consciousness that emerged in the ’60s and which, if anything, has only become more resonant in the 21st century. And for Kanter, that’s a legacy he’s proud to offer his customers and his family. “We’re both 67, almost 68,” he says. “There’s less time for us. We’ve got children, grandchildren, but even if we didn’t, we’re part of something much larger than selling a product. It’s nice to earn a living doing something we believe in.” Cambridge Naturals is located at 23 White St. For more information, visit cambridgenaturals.com or call (617) 492-4452.
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scoutcambridge.com | The Environmental Issue 19
THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE
MAKE WAVES BY REENA KARASIN
hat’s the key to gathering more information about epidemics? Looking at sewage, Biobot Analytics Co-founder and CEO Mariana Matus suggests. Matus first became attuned to the vast data available in sewage while getting her Ph.D. in computational biology at MIT. She and fellow co-founder Newsha Ghaeli made a list of all the things they could track through sewage, from environmental contaminants to infectious disease outbreaks to nutrition. But as the national opioid epidemic gained steam, Biobot Analytic’s first project became clear. “We saw the important need to be the first company to go out of a university with a mission to transform sewers into public health observatories,” Matus says. “The opportunity that we see is that there’s a lot of valuable data about people’s health and behavior in wastewater. Almost any activity that you can imagine has a footprint in the water that we use, and that goes into this public infrastructure, and
W
20 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
nobody’s looking at it.” Public health officials’ current data-gathering approach to the opioid crisis is “reactive,” Matus explains—it’s largely based on overdoses and hospitalizations. “We saw an opportunity to provide this real-time feedback to understand what’s happening in communities, to understand what programs are working, to understand where there’s need, and to stay on top of emerging trends,” says Matus. Since spinning out of MIT, Biobot Analytics has set up shop in Somerville’s Greentown Labs. The company has done research in Cambridge and Boston, and recently was granted permission to study a manhole outside of Greentown Labs. It ran its first full study in Cary, N.C. last year, and in 2019 will work with five to 10 other locations. Ultimately, Biobot Analytics aims to create a platform that public health officials can utilize in many ways, from telling if a particular community has a spike in lead levels to potentially identifying food deserts. “We’re very passionate about making an impact on public health and making public health more efficient, more data-driven, more accountable,” Matus says.
Photo, left, by Adrianne Mathiowetz. Photo, top right, courtesy of Embr. Photo, bottom right, courtesy of C16 Biosciences.
ver sit shivering in your office building? Or dripping sweat in the muggy months? Three MIT scientists did, and they decided to do something about it. The Embr Wave Bracelet helps adjust the wearer’s wrist temperature by sending strategic wave patterns to thermoreceptor nerves. While your core body temperature doesn’t change, Embr Labs Co-founder Sam Shames likens it to going outdoors in the winter with or without a hat. “How hot or cold you feel has far more to do with local temperature sensations than your core body temperature,” the company’s website explains. Embr Labs has evolved to consider not just physical comfort, but the broader realm of “thermal wellness.” “At any given time, how you feel partially depends on temperature,” says Shames. “If you’re too hot or too cold in a room, that has effects on how well you can focus, but also, even more interestingly, what we’ve found is whether you’re hot or cold affects, say, how friendly you are to other people or how you process stress.” University of California-Berkeley found that the Embr Wave could have the effect of a five-degree shift in room temperature, according to Shames, which could reduce somewhere between 15 and 35 percent of a building’s cooling and heating energy usage. The chargeable wristband keeps evolving through software updates to a mobile app. A recent release, for example, is designed to use temperature to help users fall asleep. “We launched a specific wave form for falling asleep, which, over the course of the 35-minute duration, the rhythm, the time between the warming and cooling waves, slows down, the way your breath slows as you’re falling asleep,” Shames explains. “So it kind of helps put your body into that relaxed state.” Embr plans to continue developing ways to make its users more comfortable, as evidenced by a new research partnership with Johnson & Johnson to see how the wristband can be used to make menopausal women more comfortable in the face of hot flashes and sleep problems.
E
ou might not realize how many items you use every day contain palm oil. Shampoo. Lipstick. Nutella. Bread. Ice cream. About half of all items at grocery stores include palm oil, sometimes under a different name, according to C16 Biosciences Co-founder Shara Ticku. The problem? Growing palm oil is a major cause of deforestation. It only grows close
Y
to the equator, and to keep up with demand growers cut down and burn tropical rainforests. This means carbon emissions and threats to biodiversity—tigers, elephants, orangutans, and rhinos have suffered loss of habitat to palm oil plantations, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Essentially, C16 is to palm oil what almond milk is to cow’s milk, Ticku explains. The synthetic substance isn’t palm
oil, but it can function just like it, and serves as a sustainable alternative. “We brew yeast, and we basically use yeast as factories to produce something that looks and functions just like palm oil,” she says. “It’s an oil produced from yeast fermentation that mimics the physical and chemical properties.” Ticku was attending Harvard Business School when she went
to a class at the MIT Media Lab called “Revolutionary Ventures.” The course helped her and her two co-founders conceive of C16. They were inspired by the success of Impossible Foods, which also utilizes synthetic biology in the name of sustainability. C16—named for one of the main components of palm oil—plans to be in items on store shelves within a year and a half, according to Ticku.
scoutcambridge.com | The Environmental Issue 21
THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE
Living On the
Veg NÜSSLI118° CREATES PLANT-BASED TREATS THAT DEFY STEREOTYPES AND DELIGHT TASTE BUDS
22 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
BY ERIC J. FRANCIS PHOTOS COURTESY OF NÜSSLI118°
I
t sits on the plate before you, and you do your best not to simply stuff the whole thing into your mouth. It’s a lemon square. Specifically: A ginger-lemon square with a light maple glaze, on a crust of almonds and cashews, with a creamed cashew center. But, honestly, your eyes and your stomach are ready to pass over such details. No, what’s important to them is, How does it taste? As good as it looks, or…? Spoiler alert: It looks great and tastes even better than great.
Just like everything else served up by Angela Hofmann in her boutique shop Nüssli118° on Mass Ave., where for the past five years she’s been evangelizing the benefits—to people and planet— of a plant-based diet. And she’s been doing it in the most effective way possible: making ridiculously delicious things. The lemon square and its chocolate counterpart; truffles sweetened with coconut nectar and covered in almonds and cacao nibs; granola sweetened with pear; coconut rounds made
from dates; a thick, rich vanilla chai smoothie. We’d go on, but you’re probably out the door and heading to her shop already. There you will find Hofmann, with a smile that goes all the way up to her bright eyes. Fifteen years ago, she was a “pretty standard American diet eater” who was pre-diabetic and confounded by the onset of food sensitivities. “I started having digestive issues and went on an elimination diet,” she says. “When I started adding back in all the food allergens, like dairy and gluten, I really had a reaction to it.” Determined to find a way to replace things she loved, like crackers and sweets, she dove into research and determined that a plant-based diet was the best way to go. And because she didn’t want to put the burden on her friends and family to make sure she could eat at gatherings, Hofmann started experimenting with recipes for food she could bring and share that everyone would enjoy. “That’s sort of how I started creating all these foods,” she says. “I’d ask, ‘What do I have a craving for? I want a cracker.’ But I can’t have a Ritz cracker, that’s like death for me, so what can I make?” What she ultimately made was a cauliflower and sproutedseed cracker. It looks artisanal, like something that comes from a restaurant kitchen rather than a box, and if it lacks the crisp snap of a flour-based baked good, it has a pleasingly robust flavor that definitely says “cracker.” Her experiments were a
success with her family, including her Swiss husband, Werner, whom she met at the firm where they both worked as architects. When she decided to take her plant-based recipes to the people five years ago, his heritage was part of the inspiration for the name: Nüssli is Swiss-German for “little nut,” as well as a nod to Dr. Maximilian Bircher-Benner, the Swiss nutritionist and physician who studied the link between diet and health and who popularized muesli. And 118 degrees is the temperature at which she sprouts her seeds and nuts. “We sprout all our nuts and seeds,” Hofmann explains. “It activates enzymes, makes foods easier to digest. If you heat them above 118 degrees, you destroy the enzymes and heat-sensitive vitamins.” Today, her small shop is packed with the results of her culinary experiments, which are especially noteworthy for the things they don’t contain. “There’s no refined sugar,” says Hofmann. “No dairy, no grains, all gluten-free, no GMOs, there’s no animal products. We have soy-free and nut-free options.” And, she adds, they represent a lighter impact on the earth than more processed foods. “It’s huge,” she says of how a plant-based, organically sourced diet can impact the environment. “People think that if they take a shorter shower or recycle or compost, they’re making an impact that is helping the environment. But the most helpful thing people can do is not eat as much meat, not drink as much milk. It’s the factory farming of animals that really
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THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE
“Take a long shower, just don’t eat a hamburger.” depletes our water, pollutes our air. Take a long shower, just don’t eat a hamburger.” Or, if you must eat meat, she says, make sure it comes from a local farm that pasture-raises their animals. That’s healthier for the environment, the animals, and you. Which raises another fact: While everything Hofmann produces in her shop is vegan, she isn’t. “I believe in a plant-based diet, which often gets confused with veganism,” she explains. “Most of the time I am vegan, but if I go to a friend’s house and they spent the time making a beautiful meal with meat, I’m not going to not eat it. My friends call it being a flexitarian.” 24 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
The key, she says, is to emphasize the “based” part of plant-based—make it the foundation of your diet, what you eat when you’re on your own, or when you have vegetarian and vegan options while eating out. And if you find that thought intimidating, as change can often be, she points out that cooking, whether for a vegan or vegetarian or omnivorous diet, takes time, and the more you use plant-based ingredients the more quickly you can put a meal together. “I can make a soup in five minutes if I have the right ingredients in the fridge,” she says. If you’re still a little hesitant to take the dive, Hofmann
holds monthly showcase meals that highlight seasonal fruits, vegetables, and mushrooms. “It’s a really great way to help people understand that, eating a plantbased diet, you can actually have a really beautiful gourmet dinner with plants.” Asked if she has resources to recommend to the aspiring flexitarian, Hofmann steps over to her desk and returns, laughing, carrying a hefty stack of books. “These aren’t even all the books—I have a whole library,” she says. “My husband thought I was crazy, he said, ‘What are you doing, getting a Ph.D. in food science?’” Top of the stack are “Healthy Healing” by Linda Rector Page, one of the places Hofmann started her research, and “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon Morell, founding president of the Weston
A. Price Foundation, a nutrition non-profit. “These books really talked about the benefits of plants and the actual science and what they provide,” she says. “The overlapping thing about them both was the benefits of what a plant-based diet can give you. That’s really sort of the foundation of my understanding of food.” That, she says, and what her body tells her when she eats this way. “I feel great when I eat mostly vegan,” says Hofmann. “And I know it’s great for the environment, sustainability, and all of these great things.” Nüssli118° is located at 2259 Massachusetts Ave. For more information, visit nussli118.com or call (857) 242-4188.
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Her patient-centered treatment philosophy focuses on prevention and conservative treatment modalities. She is a member of the American Dental Association and the Massachusetts Dental Society and is a fellow of the International College of Dentists. She is engaged in the community, serving as the Advisory Committee Chair to Somerville High School’s Dental Assisting Program. Dr. Talmo also travels to the Dominican Republic to provide dental care as part of a global outreach mission project. Schedule an appointment to visit Dr. Talmo in her newly renovated office space.
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THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE
a b n i i a l t i t s y u S from
BAR N
to
BLOCK
BY ALYSSA VAUGHN | PHOTOS BY SASHA PEDRO
I
’m not sure what left a stronger impression: the sight of all the red-aproned butchers gathered around their block, or the stark hush of the place. It’s quiet. Like a morgue, which feels fitting. There’s only the hum of the refrigerator and steady scraping sounds—careful hands wielding plastic tools, brushing bone dust from the surface of a crimson mass that I will later
26 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
learn is 300 pounds of fresh cow hindquarter. To work at Savenor’s Butcher & Market is to dedicate oneself to breaking down animals from snout to tail, and to have the confidence to do it on this very public butcher block, like a doctor in an old-timey operating theater. Savenor’s proudly declares itself a “whole-animal butcher,” but it’s impossible to
understand what exactly this moniker promises until you drop in on a Friday afternoon to see teams of two carrying a menagerie of lambs and pigs from the refrigerator to the block. It’s work that requires physical fortitude—300 pounds of beef, remember—and a strong stomach to boot. “But the passion’s what really keeps you going,” Savenor’s lead
butcher Christopher Walker says. “And I have the passion to make sure that whatever walks through that door is utilized.”
A
mericans still love meat. While we live in an era where vegetarian and vegan ingredients are widely available in grocery stores, plantbased meat substitutes like the Impossible burger are appearing
on menus, and fast-casual salad chains are multiplying, the number of non-meat eaters in the United States has basically stayed the same for the past 10 years. In fact, a poll conducted by Gallup last year revealed that only five percent of Americans consider themselves vegetarian, and three percent identify as vegan. Plus, those who are eating meat are actually ramping up their consumption—it was projected last January that Americans would consume 222 pounds of meat and poultry per person over the course of the year, more than ever before. It’s no secret that the meat industry has a serious dark side, however. Over 95 percent of farm animals in this country are raised through factory farming, or large-scale livestock
of the myths is that it’s an efficient way of producing food when actually it is highly inefficient and wasteful.” Even outside of the factory farm context, animals are environmentally taxing. Livestock are actually responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Association. Yes, you read that right—cows are actually contributing to climate change with the sheer amount of gas they pass (30 to 50 gallons a day, reportedly). So, if we are unwilling to give up meat entirely, how can we work to mitigate the impact our diets have on the environment? Supporting meat produced by small, family-owned farms,
production, a practice that often prioritizes profit and efficiency over animal wellbeing, according to the ASPCA. There are plentiful gasp-worthy stories out there— chickens bred to be so large that their legs give out, female pigs trapped in gestation crates nearly their whole lives—that highlight the abuse animals can suffer at these crowded industrial complexes. Factory farms can also produce devastating amounts of pollution. Confined farm animals, according to the Humane Society, produce almost 500 million tons of manure annually, three times more than humans in the United States generate. This manure waste can contaminate lakes and streams, and it also emits gases and ammonia that are irritating when inhaled. “Factory farming is shrouded in mythology,” Compassion in World Farming Chief Executive Philip Lymbery told the Guardian in an October 2017 article. “One
where animals are allowed to roam, given natural, nutritious food to eat, and slaughtered humanely, certainly solves part of the problem. But to further help justify the impact that livestock has on the environment by simply existing, it’s necessary to make sure as much of that animal as possible is consumed. This is where whole-animal butcheries like Savenor’s come in. The team at Savenor’s works on both of these levels: They seek out and build relationships with small, ethical farms, and they purchase entire animals from them, making as much of the animal available for purchase as possible. The challenge of minimal waste requires butchers to be creative. For Walker, this is second nature. “I’d use all the skin to make chicharrones,” says Walker, thinking through all the pieces of a pig. “I’d [use] the fat to make sausages. I’d make pâtés, I’d make terrines, I’d make salamis,
s Come in a a customer,
. leave as a friend
“Within two days, John set me up with three pre-owned vans to choose among, all in my price range. The van I chose has been fantastic. The way it’s handling, I expect it to last quite a few years. I’ve told my friends and family that I’ll never buy “brand new” again. I’d buy another car from John tomorrow, and I’d tell all my friends to go there too.” – Suzanne Fontano “My wife’s beloved old car finally died after 150,000 miles. With a limited budget, my wife and I headed to John’s Auto Sales. Our son had purchased his first car at John’s and was impressed with the selection, service and price. After discussing our needs and price range with John, we looked around the lot. We had already checked the extensive inventory on the website and had a few options in mind. Knowing we were looking for a dependable vehicle, John suggested a car that had just come in. In one look, my wife was set. The car was exactly what she had been thinking about but never expected to find. But there it was. We test-drove it and we were sold. John and his team handled everything from finance to plates, and they did it all right there at the office. Though it was very busy that day, the people at John’s delivered professional, courteous and personal service. Our experience was just like the one our son had described. Both experiences fit with John’s Auto Sales’ reputation for safety and quality in every vehicle. Now my only problem is getting my wife to let me drive the car once in a while.” – Stephen Mackey “My first encounter with John’s Auto was about 15 years ago. My son was 17 and looking to buy his first car. Driving past John’s Auto one day he saw a silver Chrysler convertible and without even taking it for a test drive decided that was the car he wanted. When we went down to look at it John spent an hour trying to convince my son not to buy it. He told us that the timing chains of these particular cars had a reputation of breaking after a few yars and that it was a very expensive item to fix. Although my son had saved the money needed to buy the car, John knew he wouldn’t have the money necessary to make a repair of that magnintude. In all my years of buying used cars and dealing with used car salesmen, this was a first – the salesman actually trying to persuade a customer not to buy a car. He bought the car in spite of John’s many warnings and pleadings and sure enough a little over a year later the timing chain snapped. Fortunately, John is the kind of man who cares about his customers even after it’s no longer his legal responsibility. He had his mechanics fix the car and set up a payment plan my son could afford. In a world where car dealers have terrible reputations, John’s Auto is the exception to the rule.” – Bruce Desmond
181 Somerville Ave (across from Target) johnsautosales.com QUALITY USED CARS BOUGHT AND SOLD FOR 40 YEARS
scoutcambridge.com | The Environmental Issue 27
THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE
I’d make pork broth out of the bones. So, by the time I was done, there was nothing left.” To Walker, using every piece of an animal like this is the way to show it the utmost respect, to honor the animal that gave its life for your barbecue. This philosophy aligns neatly with Savenor’s mission. The practice of whole-animal butchery, the shop’s website says, is about more than cutting up meat; it’s about “learning about how the animals are raised, slaughtered, and broken down.” This isn’t just pretty marketing talk. Just ask, and Walker will tell you all about the first day he spent helping out on a livestock farm: “I slept for two days afterward.” Or when he and his team tried their hands at herding lambs: “That dog we had helping us,” he snorts. “I was like, ‘Could you please get up and help?’” Or when he watched pigs get stunned in a slaughterhouse: “It’s a quick POP,” he says, snapping his fingers for emphasis, “and then they’re unconscious … it is the most impressive thing you’ll ever see.” Every employee of Savenor’s takes about six trips to cow, pig, lamb, or poultry farms each year, leaving before the sun comes 28 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
up and spending the day taking photos and videos, talking to the farmer hosting them, and, as Walker described, working hands-on with the animals. Everyone who works at the shop—from the cashiers to the butchers—is an ambassador for Savenor’s partner farms, Walker says, and that means it is critical for every member of the team to understand each farmer’s philosophy. Walker could tell you the story behind every steak, shank, and drumstick in the shop. The Berkshire pork, he says, grew up precisely four hours and 27 minutes from here in Bridport, Vt. The pigs drank whey from local cheesemakers, and never consumed feed that contained GMOs. Their home was called Heritage Grazers, and they were raised by a farmer named Alethea Bahnck. She cared for them, took them to the slaughterhouse, and drove them to Savenor’s, and Walker firmly believes she should make at least a million dollars a year. “I’ve seen a lot of pork,” he says. “She does not mess around.” When Walker talks about farmers, he’s often shaking his head in disbelief. Even after so
“A B CO N O O K W TO H V E Y W H I L L N E V A A E FA R V E A S U T I T TA K R TO B M , W H A S TA I N A E S TI BL E A B US U S TA I N T TA K E S E A TC H ER S BLE AS HOP .” many farm visits, he is in awe of the amount of work it takes to raise livestock, and of the passion and vitality of the farmers he works with. To him, Walker says, farmers always seem to glow. “There’s something magical about them,” he says. So it’s crucial to Walker that his staff communicate to customers the hours of labor and care that go into every hamburger and pork chop they purchase. It feels appropriate, therefore, that Savenor’s butcher block is at center stage in the shop. You can’t help but watch as an apprentice leans in to make a precise cut with a sharp knife, or when a butcher scrapes the surface of a beef quarter as gently as if she were brushing a child’s hair. Seeing this nearly reverent breakdown in action makes it impossible to ignore that the cuts of meat that fill the store’s
refrigerators once built an animal— that one cow’s sacrifice yielded brisket, flank steak, tenderloin, top roast, beef stock, and soap. Some might find that unsettling. It’s easier, perhaps, to think of meat as meat, and cows as cows. But Walker’s mission is to ensure that everyone who walks into Savenor’s learns to care about the farm life, the slaughtering, and the butchering that connect the two. “A book will never convey what it takes to have a sustainable farm, what it takes to be sustainable as a butcher shop,” Walker says. “It can’t explain the magnitude of what it takes to raise an animal.” Savenor’s is located at 92 Kirkland St. For more information, visit savenorsmarket.com or call (617) 576-6328.
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scoutcambridge.com | The Environmental Issue 29
THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE
BY ABBIE GRUSKIN | PHOTOS COURTESY OF ALMOST PERFECT GLASS
V
ases showcasing the fuzzy white faces of polar bears and the glimmering navy bodies of whales adorn the shelves of Almost Perfect Glass, begging to spark conversation. “Anyone who comes through the studio, if they see the pieces we have that are about environmental situations, you can say they’re cool and important because they’re a documentation of the habitat destruction,” Susan Shapiro says. “[Glass] is a vehicle for promoting awareness about critically endangered species.” Andrew Magdanz and Shapiro, the husband-and-wife duo behind the glass studio, have dedicated their lives to supporting the environment by creating meaningful art. “At one point, I was like, ‘I’m not going to make glass anymore, I need to go volunteer, I need to go be an activist,’ and somebody said to me, and it also occurred to me, that one way we could do that is to educate by making pieces that speak to that issue,” she adds. Activism through art has turned out to extend far beyond the art itself for Magdanz and Shapiro. They opened Almost 30 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
Perfect Glass in 1983 as a community studio for glass artists to work side-by-side, with the goal of improving the sustainability of their craft by sharing it with others. “If you live in a big house all by yourself, you’re really heating or lighting or cooling the house, a huge amount of space, for one or two people,” Shapiro says. “The same thing might be true of a glass studio, so one of the things that we have worked really hard to do is to build the glass community and optimize our facility. The environmental cost of running the facility is across many people—the furnace is running, but there’s always someone working.” Almost Perfect Glass is home to three workstations that accommodate multiple teams of glassmakers at a time, with up to 65 different people working in the space over the course of a week. Magdanz and Shapiro welcome local artists tired of running their own studios, host classes designed for curious beginners, and instruct scientists and engineers looking to learn a hands-on skill. In an effort to create a more
sustainable glass making process, Magdanz and Shapiro installed 230 solar panels on the roof of their warehouse to cover all of their electrical needs. “That was a really big financial investment, but it was a really good emotional investment for us,” Magdanz says. “For me, having the panels really makes me feel like I’m trying to do something to make a difference,” Shapiro adds. The furnaces, too, were an opportunity to choose
sustainability. Traditional glass furnaces require extremely high heat—2400 degrees Fahrenheit, cooled down to 2000 degrees during the glass making process— but Almost Perfect Glass’s furnaces can melt glass without exceeding 2000 degrees, yielding better quality pieces and less gas consumption. Their heavily insulated furnaces can also be used around the clock, unlike traditional glass furnaces. And, when glass workers pull red-hot glass from the hand-built furnaces to mold into vases and bowls, the excess heat from each small furnace is captured and redirected through thin plastic tubes to supply heat to the entire building. Glass itself, whether turned into art or put to use in a more practical form, is also a sustainable material compared to plastic, the common alternative. Magdanz and Shapiro want to make the eco-friendly material more popular. “Glass is made out of sand, soda ash, and limestone, very common, very unassuming materials, rather than petrochemicals,” Magdanz says.
“It basically breaks down into the environment and goes back to being a glassy sand, whereas plastic stays around, goes in our oceans.” Magdanz and Shapiro also use recycled packaging materials, melt only recycled glass, and drive a pair of electric cars charged by the sun, but it is their dedication to environmental activism that they are most proud of. They hope their environmental efforts through Almost Perfect Glass inspire others to make more eco-conscious decisions, from shopping locally to adopting solar technology in their own homes. “People think, ‘What can I do?’” Shapiro says. “And granted, the big consumers are the bulk of the impact, but if every single individual makes a choice, some choice, that would have an impact and that would make a difference. I feel very proud to model those things and to be able to say that we do that. Everything that we do, we try to have awareness of.” The couple opens the glass making facility to the public for an annual Christmas studio sale and by appointment throughout the year, but they now sell the bulk of their own artwork through a gallery on Martha’s Vineyard. Local shoppers can find Almost Perfect Glass pieces at the Cambridge Artists Cooperative in Harvard Square. Magdanz and Shapiro both started working with glass in the 1970s, and opened their first studio, called Avon Place Glass, on Avon Place in Rochester, N.Y. When they moved to Cambridge in 1983, the pair chose to incorporate the same three initials into the name of their new glass studio. “There’s a tradition in the Amish tradition of making things, they always put a slight mistake in their [artwork] because only God can make something perfect,” Magdanz explains. “You can’t make something perfect, but you can make it almost perfect.” scoutcambridge.com | The Environmental Issue 31
SOMETHING VENTURED
CRAIGIE ON MAIN CELEBRATES 10 YEARS OF EVER-EVOLVING DINING BY ABBIE GRUSKIN | PHOTOS COURTESY OF CRAIGIE ON MAIN
T
he vision Owner/Chef Tony Maws holds for Craigie On Main is of a classic, vibrant space for community building and fine dining that continues to evolve. “Our general approach is to be a restaurant that’s timeless,” Maws explains. “While I’m not really concerned about food trends, I don’t want to cook the same thing over and over. I’m a pretty creative person, and I like to keep that part of my brain occupied.” As the restaurant celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, Maws is taking the chance to look to the future. The Craigie on Main team uses the Japanese term “kaizen,” meaning continuous improvement, as its motto in the kitchen. That eye toward improvement and growth has its roots in the restaurant’s move from Craigie Street, which it left a decade ago to become the rebranded restaurant on Main 32 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
Street. Maws jumped at the opportunity to relocate to a larger dining and kitchen space. “We had a blast operating a very small, little restaurant in a basement outside of Harvard Square,” he says, “but we felt like we had outgrown it.” The 10th anniversary brought several changes to the restaurant, including the renaming of the a la carte bar room to “COMB,” an acronym for the Craigie on Main Bar. The casual bar area is now serving fresh burger specials each month of 2019 alongside the classic Craigie Burger, and hosting weekly “Buffalo Sundays” featuring unique buffalo-sauced snacks. Traditional dining in the restaurant is now prix fixe only, with a new four-course $85 menu every day. There will also be special events like whole hog dinners and “Craigie Classics” cooking classes sprinkled
throughout the year. Despite the changes, certain daring entrees—like one featuring a pig head served in a sauce of pig blood—have become customer favorites and will remain on the menu for years to come. “We have people walking in here hoping that pig’s head is on the menu that night,” Maws says. “Literally, a pig’s head on a plate, you have to do all the work, you have to pick at it.” Maws credits the community’s mature taste palate with allowing his restaurant’s riskier dishes to succeed. “We’ve always been fortunate to have a population of people around us, because of who lives here, because of who goes to school here or who’s working here, that have been pretty well traveled and pretty well cultured in the ways of food and dining,” Maws says. “Because of that, we’ve been able to have some things on our
menu since day one that I think some other restaurants might not have been able to have.” In addition to serving exciting cuisine, Craigie on Main hopes to foster a relaxing space for social interaction. “We’re here to serve the community,” Maws explains. “We’re cooking food so people can eat it, take their minds off other things, have conversations with their friends. I’m just doing my job the way I’m supposed to and hoping I’m putting a smile on people’s faces, providing a place where they can take their mind off of whatever else is outside of these walls. We’re giving them a place where they can just roll up their sleeves and relax for a little while.” Craigie On Main is located at 853 Main St. For more information, visit craigieonmain.com or call (617) 497-5511.
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scoutcambridge.com | The Environmental Issue 33
DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS
DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS, AND GAME CHANGERS
TUNEFOOLERY BY ABBIE GRUSKIN
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unefoolery brings together a vibrant mix of musicians united by their journey through mental health recovery. The group’s primary goals are to support musicians in mental health recovery, share music with others who are grappling with mental health challenges, and work toward eliminating stigma surrounding mental illnesses. “So much mental health treatment is about trying to minimize the struggling, but then when people are doing better then they’re gone,” says Executive Director Jens Rybo, a Cambridge resident and a licensed mental health counselor. “We just play music, and I think people really like that idea that something positive 34 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
is coming out of the mental health system, because there’s so much focus on the negative.” Founded in 1994 at the Cambridge-Somerville Social Club, the non-profit is a lively community of over 60 musicians in mental health recovery, many of whom are from Cambridge or Somerville. The musicians perform up to 300 gigs a year, as solo acts or small ensembles, at mental health centers, psychiatric hospitals, shelters, and public open mic events. “A lot of my work is to be out there in the mental health community in Boston and just be part of changing the view that people in mental health recovery can’t contribute,” Rybo explains. “We all have something
to contribute, and in our case it’s music. You do something that feels meaningful, that gives you a purpose, and that contributes to other people’s wellbeing.” Tunefoolery musicians are often introduced to the organization through therapists or counselors, and strive to meet personal goals within the group with support from their peers. “What I like about Tunefoolery is that everybody’s working toward something, everybody has a goal, small or large, and they’re working toward it,” musician Trudi Goodman explains. “We all have our struggles but we all keep working. I’m a much better musician just from being around these people, because I learn a lot.”
Recently, Tunefoolery musicians have incorporated a focus on mindfulness into their performances—both for them and for the crowd—which seems to have had an impact on audiences in shelters who are recovering from mental illness. “People in shelter situations often don’t show up more than once for something,” Goodman says. “I’ve got people now coming every single time we’re there, they’re looking forward to us being there, they’re getting a lot out of it, it helps them with their anxiety. The mindfulness has been a really good thing. This is just a small thing to get people to do for three minutes, and it works.” “Where we play, people are extremely appreciative, because not only do we provide music … in places where they don’t get that, but it’s also provided by people who had similar experiences,” Rybo says. “A lot of our musicians have been homeless at some point, most of our musicians have been in psychiatric hospitals. So to have that aspect of it, it brings a lot of hope, and when people are in a dark place they can really need that.” Tunefoolery holds auditions to ensure “that there’s a certain artistic quality,” Jens explains, but the group is a mix of different instruments and skill levels all working in tandem. “I really appreciate being able to play with people who are understanding of my limitations and go along with whatever level of musicianship I’m at,” Jeff, a musician who only gave his first name, says. Tunefoolery aims to make the musical experience about teamwork and collaboration, encouraging a tight-knit community of caring individuals. “When we go through hard times, it either breaks us or we learn something from it,” Rybo says. “People really support each other even when they struggle, and there’s a lot of forgiveness and understanding that life is rough sometimes and we all do things that we’re not proud of, but we will come out on the other side. The level of acceptance is really important to me. We’re all different, but it’s something beautiful to coexist.”
Photo by Sasha Pedro.
MEET THE SCOUT TEAM
MEET THE SCOUT TEAM
REENA KARASIN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
O
ur editor-inchief comes up with the themes for each issue, and then spends time brainstorming. What are all the different ways we can approach the topics of food, or the environment, or the arts? From there, she assigns, writes, and edits articles. Throughout the issue cycle, she works with Nicolle Renick, our art director, and Adrianne Mathiowetz and Sasha Pedro, our staff photographers, to make sure we’re getting great visuals for each piece. Reena also runs our websites and online presence, making sure
that we’re getting timely pieces out online in addition to creating our print magazines. Reena’s from New Jersey, and came up to Somerville to attend Tufts University. She majored in English, and has always enjoyed reading and writing. Now, Reena lives just over the border in Cambridge. She loves that at Scout she gets to learn and share people’s stories. When she’s not writing and editing Scout, Reena can often be found at the Cambridge YogaWorks (formerly Prana Power Yoga), where she’s getting certified to be a yoga instructor. She says yoga is a great complement to the quickpaced world of journalism.
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Left: Reena takes notes at a meeting of LIPS, run by the Welcome Project, which helps bilingual teenagers become translators. Right: Reena (center) hikes at Walden Pond with friends.
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scoutcambridge.com | The Environmental Issue 35
CALENDAR
MARCH 17 | MUSIC
Photo courtesy of Cambridge Symphony Orchestra.
APRIL 7 | FOOD
CAMBRIDGE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PRESENTS “HEROES AND ANGELS” 4 to 6 p.m., $25 Kresage Auditorium at MIT— 48 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge In “Heroes and Angels,” the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra will take audiences on a musical journey from swans to angels to Martin Luther King, Jr. Music will include Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5, Nan Schwartz’s “Angels Among Us,” and Joseph Schwantner’s “New Morning for the World” (“Daybreak of Freedom”).
MEATBALL MADNESS AT BOW MARKET 12 to 5 p.m., $39.99 1 Bow Market Way, Somerville Bow Market has gotten a reputation for being a melting pot of foods from around the world. So, why not channel that all into … meatballs? In addition to the classic Italian meatballs, at this event you’ll find Mediterranean meatballs, vegetarian meatballs, Asian meatballs, and more, topped off with beer from Remnant Brewing.
APRIL 27-MAY 4 | ENVIRONMENT
MARCH 21 | COMMUNITY
Photo by Derek Kouyoumjian.
GROWING DIVIDES IN CAMBRIDGE: A TALE OF 2.0 CITIES 6 to 7:30 p.m., Free Cambridge Public Library— 449 Broadway, Cambridge The Cambridge Center for Adult Education presents this examination of the city’s growing income inequality as part of its “Conversations On the Edge” series. Cambridge Community Foundation President and CEO Geeta Pradhan will moderate the panel.
Photo courtesy of the City of Somerville.
This is a very rare opportunity to own a single family home with garage on one of the largest lots in Davis Square . The Victorian-era house has 4 bedrooms and one and a half baths on two levels. The detached garage
APRIL 28 | DANCE
the Morrison Ave. and Grove St., is the very large, open, level yard. Owned by the same family since 1955, this unspoiled home is ready for a new family to make their own updates and memories.
MARCH 25 | BOOKS
Photo courtesy of Gareth Hinds.
GARETH HINDS AT PORTER SQUARE BOOKS 7 p.m., Free 25 White St., Cambridge Graphic novelist Gareth Hinds has created works around many canonical texts, including “The Odyssey,” “Romeo and Juliet,” and “King Lear.” He’ll come to Porter Square Books to speak about his latest graphic novel, “The Iliad,” out on March 12.
SUSTAINAVILLE WEEK Times vary, Most events are free Prices are already up quite a bit over 2013, which was Various locations in Somerville the strongest market in years. More inventory has started to appear, but it is still not enough to satisfy The City of Somerville’s annual demand. Consequently, prices should continue to rise inwith 2014. SustainaVille week returns various Please call us for more information on the market, events promoting and celebrating or to get a sense of the current value of your home. Todd, Niké, Jennifer, and Lynn sustainability—think Meatless~Thalia, Monday, Our New Listings a climate justice workshop, and “Waste Myth Busters.” Visit somervillema.gov/ ~ $1,495,000 sustainavilleweek for the full event lineup.
“YOU CAN DANCE IF YOU WANT TO” ~ $519,000 7 to 9 p.m., $15 The Dance Complex— 536 Massachusetts Ave.,~ $349,000 Cambridge Dance meets live music in “You Can Dance If You Want To,~”$229,000 where a nonprofit string ensemble will present Hungarian and Romanian “traditional dance tunes” alongsideComing dance Soon choreography. Stick around for the second act and you’ll get to try your hand at dancing too!
Lovely Agassiz 2 bedroom/2 bath condo with private porch on a pleasant side street between Harvard and Porter Squares. Near great shops, restaurants, and Harvard campus.
Roomy Ten Hills 2 bedroom/1 bath condo with charming details, reonvated kitchen, parking, and storage.
Near Medford Sq., this 1 bedroom/ 1 1/2 bath condo
Photo by Hil Steadman.
is in an elevator building with parking.
In the heart of Davis Sq., this 2 bedroom/1 bath condo in a brick building has a parking space. Equidistant from Davis and Porter Squares, this 3 bedroom/1.5 bath condo on two levels has in-unit laundry, 2 porches, private yard, and exclusive driveway for 3 cars. Renovated 1 bedroom/1 bath near Prospect Hill with central air, in-unit laundry, private porch, and shared yard.
MAY 5 | MUSIC
MARCH 27 | HISTORY
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN GARDENS 6 p.m., Free Harvard Semitic Museum— 6 Divinity Ave., Cambridge Egypt was home to the oldest documented gardens, according to the Harvard Semitic Museum. At this event you can learn about their representations, as well as “the symbolism and functions of gardens in the religious and personal lives of ancient Egyptians.”
MARCH 30 | HISTORY
Photo courtesy of Mount Auburn Cemetery.
WOMEN’S HISTORY WALK 1 to 2:30 p.m., $12 Mount Auburn Cemetery— 580 Mount Auburn St., Cambridge This walk at Mount Auburn Cemetery will “honor women who have led efforts to end war, violence, and injustice and pioneered the use of nonviolence to change society,” according to the event page.
36 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
Photo by Adrianne Mathiowetz.
PINDROP SESSIONS SEASON 2 FINALE 7 to 10 p.m., $20 Aeronaut Brewing Company— 14 Tyler St., Somerville This monthly “classical-ish performance series” has become quite popular, and the season finale will feature what Aeronaut says is the first brewery-commissioned classical work in the country. “No stodginess. No competing sound. Just sweet, shared silence, beautiful beers, and beautiful people,” Aeronaut promises.
MAY 3-5 | ART
SOMERVILLE OPEN STUDIOS Times vary, Free Throughout Somerville It’s Open Studios time again! Take a peek at the art being created in your city during one of Somerville’s most exciting weekends of the year.
Please consider shopping with these and other Scout sponsors.
REAL ESTATE DIRECTORY TEAM JEN & LYNN
Thalia Tringo & Associates Real Estate Lynn 617-216-5244, Jen 617-943-9581 TeamJenandLynn@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
Bringing our expertise and good humor to help you find a perfect home or say good-bye to your old one.
CHARLES CHERNEY REALTOR AT COMPASS
CambridgeRealEstate.com 617-733-8937, cc@compass.com Helping You Buy the Right Home and Sell for the Best Price in Cambridge and Somerville, MA.
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Jennifer Rose
Residential Sales Specialist, ealtor R ® cell/text Jennifer@ThaliaTringoRe alEstate .com
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Lynn C. Gr aham
Residential Sales Specialist, ealtor R ® cell/text Lynn@ThaliaTringoRe alEstate .com
RESTAURANT DIRECTORY LEONE’S SUB AND PIZZA
DR. KATIE TALMO, D.M.D.
MIKE’S FOOD & SPIRITS
SOMERVILLE FAMILY PRACTICE
292 Broadway, Somerville 617-776-2511, leonessubandpizza.com Pizza and subs fit for a king since 1954. Now being delivered by Dash!
9 Davis Square, Somerville 617-628-2379, mikesondavis.com Pizza, Pasta, Seafood, Burgers and more! Dine in our casual dining room open to Davis Square or watch a game at the bar!
IRENE BREMIS THE IBREMIS TEAM
OPA GREEK YEEROS
THALIA TRINGO & ASSOCIATES REAL ESTATE
MASS AVE DINER
617-905-5232, irenebremis.com irenebremis@gmail.com Real Estate Consulting, Listing, Marketing, Sales & Rental Specialist.
617-616-5091, thaliatringorealestate.com
Our agents strive to make your experience of buying and selling as smooth as possible. From start to finish, we are here to help you. Free classes.
HEALTH & WELLNESS DIRECTORY
378 Highland Ave., Somerville 617-718-2900, opayeeros.com Authentic Greek cuisine and a lively atmosphere. Expanding soon!
906 Mass. Ave., Cambridge 617-864-5301, massavediner.com Since 2010 Serving Killer Brunch and Diner Fare. Now Open Late and Serving Craft Beer and Wine!
180 Highland Ave., Somerville 617-864-6111 Dr. Talmo provides a personalize approach to dental care. Come enjoy a comfortable dental experience in her newly renovated office space.
1020 Broadway, Somerville 617-628-2160 somervillefamilypractice.net Now accepting new patients.
BLISS BRAIN
64 Union Square, Somerville 617-821-5560, bliss-brain.com Learn how to utilize your brain’s natural neuroplastic abilities to create the life you strive for through NeuroSculpting and meditation.
SHOPPING DIRECTORY PORTER SQUARE BOOKS
25 White St., Cambridge 617-491-2220, portersquarebooks.com Porter Square Books is your fiercely independent source for great books, magazines, fun gifts and more.
LA POSADA RESTAURANT
505 Medford St., Somerville 617-776-2049, laposadasomerville.com Somerville’s spot for delicious, hand-crafted Latin American cuisine.
MAGPIE
416 Highland Ave., Somerville 617-623-3330, magpie-store.com
Unique jewelry, apothecary, art, edibles, housewares and more!
JOSE’S MEXICAN RESTAURANT
131 Sherman St., Cambridge 617-354-0335, josesmex.com Authentic, homemade, Central Mexican Cuisine. Patio, private party room and full bar. Catering also available.
TACO PARTY
711 Broadway, Somerville 617-764-0683, tacopartytruck.com Building tacos from the ground up.
MAGPIE KIDS
95 Elm St., Somerville 617-764-4110, magpiekids.com Modern gifts for modern kids. Clothes, toys, books and more!
scoutcambridge.com | The Environmental Issue 37
JUST VISITING
JUST VISITING
Hasty Pudding’s Woman of the Year Bryce Dallas Howard, photographed by Mark Ostow on Jan. 31.
Hasty Pudding Man of the Year Milo Ventimiglia, photographed by Mark Ostow on Feb. 8.
ABOUT JUST VISITING
Renowned photographer and Cambridge resident Mark Ostow has taken portraits of many powerful people in politics and culture, including Barack Obama’s cabinet and several presidential candidates. Just Visiting features Ostow’s snapshots of influential people who are passing through Cambridge and Somerville. 38 The Environmental Issue | scoutcambridge.com
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Neighborhood Bar Brunch Every Saturday and Sunday 10am - 2pm
Bring in this ad and receive a
Free Appetizer Dine In Only, Offer applies to Appetizer of $12 or lesser value Limit One Per Table, cannot be combined with other offers No Duplicates Accepted
518 Medford St. Somerville, MA
617-776-2600
magounssaloon.com
The Dexter-Hall House 156 Ivy Street Brookline
Set back from the street, sited on nearly an acre of land in the historic Cottage Farm district, this imposing 1851 single family has the feel of a country manor—yet it is within walking distance of both Fenway Park and Cambridge. The renovated home offers 4 bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths, 3 studies, library, dining room, living room, 5 fireplaces, finished basement with media room, high ceilings, central air, beautiful architectural details, and 3-car garage with electric car charger. The large, private lot abuts conservation land donated by a prior owner who co-founded Massachusetts Audubon, and birds and wildlife can be seen year round. Walk to Green Line B, C, and D trains as well as major hospitals and the BU campus. Shown by appointment. Marketed exclusively by Thalia Tringo and Associates Real Estate.
listing agent:
Thalia Tringo, President, REALTOR ® 617.513.1967 cell 617.245.3902 vm/efax
Thalia Tringo & Associates Real Estate, Inc. 128 Willow Avenue, Somerville, MA 02144
Thalia@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com