Spencer's Jolly Posh Foods Lets You Bring Home The British Bacon!!!

Reliving a memory can be fun, but actually eating a memory...ah, that's an order of magnitude of difference on the remembrance scale! I recently had a chance to both take a stroll down memory lane, as well as eat a memory, when I joined Nick Spencer for afternoon tea at Spencer's Jolly Posh Foods in Lake View, IL.

Nick Spencer, owner of Spencer's Jolly Posh Foods.

Growing up and going to university in Natal, South Africa (aka "The last outpost of the British Empire"), we didn't have a Downton Abbey or a Highclere Castle, but we did have a university students' club called the Empire Loyalists, on a campus that we renamed King George Land, with a Governor, and the cherry on the top of the parfait of pomp and pageantry, a venerable lady know as the Dowager Duchess of College.

As the lady-in-waiting to the Dowager Duchess, I spent many a sunny summer's afternoon in full garden party attire (floaty pale dress, hat, lacy white gloves) sipping tea and eating teeny cucumber sandwiches in one of the local parks or botanical gardens. So, as I stepped into Spencer's Jolly Posh Foods, it was like stepping into my past, into a store fashioned after a British country kitchen, where the memories were not just in my mind, but on the shelves all around me.

All the foods that those who long for the classic flavors and tastes of Britain when they move abroad are here: British and Irish cheeses, Granary loaves, Ballymaloe Relish, Yorkshire Chutney, Colman’s mustard, Lyle’s Golden Syrup, McVities, Walkers Shortbread, and joy of joys, Thorntons! 

The Easter Eggs have arrived!

Also in stock, Spencer's famous banger sausages, pork chipolatas, back-bacon, and black and white puddings. The back-bacon has achieved particular acclaim and, has been featured in Zingerman's list of Top Foods of 2010, and in Huffington Post.

Spencer's sells to mainstream and specialty retailers, restaurants, and distributors across the country, and they also take part in Farmers’ Markets in and around Chicago. 

The in-store cafe where Nick and I had afternoon tea goes live to the public on March 20, and the gentlefolk in the Lakeview and Chicagoland area will be able to enjoy a variety of famous British teas along with scones, jams and of course, clotted cream. 

On St Patrick's Day, Sunday 17 March, Nick and Spencer's Jolly Posh Foods will be featured on 190th North at 11.00pm Central on ABC (Channel 7 in the Chicagoland area).

Having experienced how sweet the taste of memories past can be, I have already scheduled my next visit to Spencer’s Jolly Posh Shop. It is situated at 1405 W. Irving Park Rd., Chicago, IL 60613. Their phone number is (312) 415 6919 and hours are, Wed – Fri: 11 am – 7 pm, Sat – Sun: 10 am – 5 pm.

My relationship with Spencer's Jolly Posh Foods is that of lover of afternoon teas, particularly when accompanied by scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream. 

CNG Transportation Solution An Important Step In Increasing US Supply Chain Sustainability

Left to right: Mike Nosewicz, VP Dairy 
Group-East, The Kroger Company, 
Dr Mike McCloskey, President and Owner, 
Fair Oaks Farms, Erin Sharp, VP Operations 
Manufacturing, The Kroger Company.

Fair Oaks Farms is a well known mid-west regional tourist attraction and popular field trip destination that promotes the importance of sustainable farming. Facility tours give visitors an opportunity to see cows being milked, calves being born, and artesian cheeses being produced. The latest chapter in Fair Oaks Farms' sustainable farming story is their new compressed natural gas (CNG) fueled milk hauling fleet. 

At an historic event on March 4, AMP Americas, Fair Oaks Farms, Greater Indiana Clean Cities and the Indiana Office of Energy Development celebrated the grand opening of AMP Americas’ renewable CNG, I65/I75 Corridor at Fair Oaks Farms.

Fueled by the dairy’s waste from 11,000 head of cattle, the system pulls biogas from the digester that is then cleaned and odorized to be compressed and dispensed at the station, ready to provide CNG fuel on demand to their 42, Class 8 milk transports. 

"This will change American history,"
Dr Mike McCloskey, President
and Owner, Fair Oaks Farms
commenting on the CNG waste
to transportation solution.

While this large-scale CNG transportation solution is an important step in the US effort to create an increasingly sustainable supply chain, and reduce the independence on imported oil, the way the tractors will be used is just as noteworthy. According to an article published in a trade magazine, it is planned to run the 42 tractors virtually around the clock in a milk-hauling relay operation designed to squeeze maximum productivity from the equipment.

“AMP Americas produces biogas from dairy cattle waste and after cleaning and odorizing this gas, pipes the resulting renewable natural gas directly to the Fair Oaks Station for onsite use as CNG vehicle fuel,” according to Mark Stoermann, AMP Americas Project Director. “The anaerobic digester is so big, the energy it produces also powers a 1 megawatt generator for the cleaning process and dairies’ electrical needs.”

“The dairy’s CNG truck fleet will allow them to transport more than 90 million gallons of milk per year on a reduced greenhouse gas footprint,” according to Kellie Walsh, Executive Director of the Greater Indiana Clean Cities Coalition, a designated U.S. DOE Clean Cities Program partner that works with local public and private sector fleets to deploy alternative fuels and related technologies. Walsh continued, “By using dedicated compressed natural gas engines this deployment will reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil by 1.5 million diesel gallon equivalents (DGE) a year, while moving the dairy industry closer to it’s greenhouse gas (GHG) U.S. EPA mandated levels.”

In addition to dual saddle tanks, two CNG fuel tanks are mounted behind the cab giving the Fair Oaks Farms tractors a range of almost 600 miles. Photo credit: Fair Oaks Farms.

The Indiana Office of Energy Development in partnership with the Greater Indiana Clean Cities contributed $750,000 toward the RCNG Station at Fair Oaks Dairy. These funds were from the U.S. Department of Energy Clean Cities Program American Recovery and Reinvestment Act competitive award of $10,125,000.

This post is based in part on information in a PRWeb press release.

Personalized Healthy Eating - Eat Right, Your Way, Every Day

March is National Nutrition Month, a nutrition and education campaign that is annually sponsored by the Academy of Nutrition and Diatetics. The campaign focuses attention on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits.

The 2013 theme, "Eat Right, Your Way, Every Day," encourages personalized healthy eating styles and recognizes that food preferences, lifestyle, cultural and ethnic traditions and health concerns all impact individual food choices.

Here are some favorite food and food-life philosophy quotes from the Twittersphere to inspire during National Nutrition Month.

"Eat food, not to much, mostly plants." Michael Pollan via @David Grotto

 "Just toss it in." @hooraypuree

"Try not to eat food with a label on it and you'll feel good!" @TheHealthyApple

"We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie." David Mamet via @Pillsbury

"A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety." Aesop via @MomsOfAmerica

 "Love is food for your soul." @LoriMoreno

"The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found." Calvin Trillin via @Moonalice

Best Chili Recipes, Ever!!!

As one of our regularly scheduled blizzards howls across the prairie, it seems seasonally appropriate that February 28th is National Chili Day, because nothing warms like a tummy filled with a heartening bowl of chili!

Here are some chili favorites, including recipes from +Amie Valpone of The Healthy Apple, +Jennifer Silverberg of  Eat Yourself Well, Pillsbury and Hooray Puree.

The recipe list below was created in a free Facebook app called myList, and will dynamically update as new recipes are added!

Have a to sigh for chili recipe? Please add a URL in the comments and I will be happy to add!!! In the meantime, enjoy!!!

Top 10 Twitterati Tweets About Flowers

This list was inspired by an Instagram moment involving a jar of tulips, and made possible by a search on Twitter. The blogging equivalent of a random act of flowers.

1.   A flower has to go through a lot of dirt  
      before it can bloom. Unknown Ann Tran

2.   Personality is to a man what perfume is to 
      a flower. Charles M. Schwab Nina Garcia

3.   Happiness held is the seed.....Happiness  
      shared is the flower. Unknown Kevin 
      Green

4.   Love is a flower, let it grow. John Lennon 
      Rock Christopher

5.   Autumn is a second spring when every 
      leaf is a flower. Albert Camus A.R. Karthick

6.   Life is the flower for which love is the honey. Victor Hugo Loren Ridinger

7.   The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all. Mulan Elizabeth   
      Berkley

8.   There are always flowers for those who want to see them. Henri Matisse Bobbe Brooks

9.   Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature. Gérard de Nerval Brainy Quote

10. If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever. Alfred,  
      Lord Tennyson Roger McNamee 

Processors see the big picture in packaging

If product is spoiled or damaged, then it doesn’t matter how “green” or sustainable the packaging is. Dairy processors are moving beyond waste and recyclability and taking a holistic view of product packages. 

While cost is the top factor driving the packaging industry today, sustainability concerns will dominate packaging industry work in 10 years in both Europe and North America, according to a recent study conducted by Packaging World magazine and DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers. Consumers also care increasingly about the environment, and they expect the products they buy to be produced in an environmentally responsible way. Milk is no exception.

Read the rest of this article in the latest issue of Dairy Foods magazine.

Marva Maid Dairy, Newport News, Va., touts the environmental friendliness of its milk cartons. In December 2012, the dairy processor said it brought back the milk carton because “cartons mean better milk and a cleaner environment.” It had been using plastic. The cartons feature a barrier board that keeps oxygen out and taste and vitamins in, the processor said. The processor said more than 50% of the energy used to make the carton comes from biomass (renewable energy) and that more than 70% of the carton material comes from responsibly managed forests.

Technorati token T8X9U9QM7GJZ

How to save and share your favorite Facebook photos and posts

 myList helps Facebook users and Pages discover, save and share things 

  with their friends, all inside Facebook, like this album of Moonalice posters.

As the social network manager for his band, Moonalice, I have often heard Roger McNamee say that serendipity is the greatest force in the universe. So, it was apt that I met +Jennifer Silverberg, VP of marketing for myList, when both of us made a bee-line for a front row seat to hear Roger share his newest insights into the future of digital during his presentation on How to Revive the Web at last the MashableConnect conference, last year.

Roger McNamee, acclaimed technology investor and co-founder 

of  Elevation Partners, at Mashable Connect 2012 during his 

presentation on How to Revive the Web.

After Roger's presentation Jennifer and I stayed behind at our table and she showed me what was at that stage a very early version of myList. My first reaction was, "This is pure genius! It's like Pinterest for Facebook, but way, way cooler!"

I had often wished that there was a way to create "Favorites" on Facebook, so myList's value prop. of not having to leave Facebook to be able to save and share favorite photos and posts, was compelling.

In the announcement of the launch of myList at the end of last year, +Rob Wight, Chief Executive Officer of myList, described the free Facebook app, “While myList was born from our 14-year ecommerce business, Channel Intelligence, it takes a completely different approach. myList focuses on the Facebook user, allowing them to personalize their experience to what matters to them – an online world of things that have been filtered through the collective lenses of the people and organizations that they know and trust.” 

According to myList the app, "Transforms the social sharing experience from “crowd-sourced” picture viewing into a connected community of self-expression and discovery made up of things and people that matter. This provides an unprecedented opportunity for Facebook Pages of all kinds, including manufacturers and retailers, to share the things they make, sell, or recommend in a connected, contextual way with their Facebook audience."

So, what does myList for a Facebook Page look like? Thanks to the myList "Embed" feature now available to Pages using myList on Facebook, you can share your favorite lists, like this +Moonalice News list and the +Hooray Puree recipe list. Not only can lists easily be shared, but when doing so, lists retains the full functionality that they would have on Facebook. Click on any of the images in the two lists below and see for yourself.

My relationship with myList is that of very early adopter (I created the first myList page for a brand, for +Roger McNamee's band, San Fran. carnival rock phenom. +Moonalice ), and major fan.