Scrummed Up

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Scrummed Up

January 17-23, 2007

Health & Fitness 2007:


‘God, he’s sure bleedin’ a lot,” one fan says to another as they leave For Pete’s Sake Field on a recent chilly Saturday afternoon in Santa Rosa.

The field glistens in the sun, which has begun to break through the clouds, and highlights the 30 players on the field. The pitch resembles a soccer field and the game being played is much like soccer. Near the sideline there is a crowd and some commotion as the game continues. A player sits on the grass with gauze over his eye, which he takes off to reveal a gash that is bleeding profusely. No surprise there.

After all, this is rugby.

In rugby, play is never really stopped, so at all times there is offense in the form of eight forwards, who incorporate carrying the ball, kicking, passing, kick-passing and grounding the ball over the opponents try-line (end zone) as the main way to score. Defense is also crucial at all times. The seven backs, or players in backfield behind the forwards, make up the defensive part of the team, using tackling as their main strategy.

Playing against the Redding traveling team, the Santa Rosa Rugby Club shares club status with other Bay Area teams such as the Marin Reds, Krewe Rugby and the Bay Area Rugby Club. Established over 20 years ago, these clubs are composed of men from the ages of 17 to 58. There are about 25 to 30 men on a team; 15 play at any given time.

These rugby players are not simply weekend warriors. Most teams practice at least twice a week, with games on the weekends, and center their career and family lives around the team January through May.

Separated by only 40 feet, the two teams tearing up the grass at For Pete’s Sake Field share a sideline where the emotion is intense but honorable. Watching Redding and Santa Rosa battle it out is Lynn Meister, a local youth rugby promoter and coach who is a cofounder of the local high school rugby programs founded during the early 1990s to supply the Santa Rosa men’s club team with talented young prospects.

With rugby growing in popularity around Bay Area high schools, the Elsie Allen High School rugby team is an outstanding example of the pool of talent from which the club draws. Having won the 2005 California state championship, Elsie Allen’s rugby team was one of the most successful North Bay youth sports teams in any field in recent years.

Pat Farley, president and captain of the Marin Reds for the past three years, is another promoter of youth rugby. There’s a sort of rugby royalty in his family that pushes him forward. Farley’s grandfather started the Pacific Coast Rugby League, the league in which the Santa Rosa and Marin clubs both play, his father started Marin’s local high school team and now he is himself forming a youth rugby league.

The diversity of the teams crosses trivial local boundaries and is at times international. In fact, the teams have and do consist of some Australians and New Zealanders.

“If a player from one of the islands is coming through the Bay Area, the local clubs will give them a place to play,” Meister says.

Farley also says that his club will pick up overseas players looking for a team. “We’ve had players from Fiji, Wales, Ireland, Australia and England. A lot of times, they are coming into town for something like a job offer and are looking to play rugby with the same sort of social aspect that they are used to back home. They see that in the smaller towns; the rugby is central, sort of like a Friday night lights for them back home.”

Overseas, rugby is sometimes a nation’s main sport, as with New Zealand. When rugby became a professionally recognized sport in 1995, more and more countries have a growing number of rugby faithful.

Despite the thrill most of these men find in making their opponents bleed, everyone says that the social aspect of the game is what sets it apart from other sports. These seem like straight-shooting, hard-working men. The kind of men you might see in a Chevy commercial or a beer ad. The kind of men who have families. And indeed, the families of the players all seem to be in attendance, young children playing in the grass alongside their fathers; wives and girlfriends looking on from their seats on blankets, most sharing beers and cheers and general good spirits among each other.

Jon Muchow, president and coach of the Rose, downplays concerns that rugby is too rough a sport.

“Studies have been done, and it’s been shown that there are fewer injuries in rugby then in sports like football,” Muchow says. “More technique is needed [in rugby than football], which in turn causes you to be better protected. The techniques used allow you to play and protect yourself without [pads]. If I have a helmet on, I can tackle your knee and possibly hurt you, but if I try and tackle you in the knee without a helmet on, I’ll probably break my head.”

With a fraternity-like atmosphere, rugby traditions are strong, and there is none greater than the party thrown for the visiting team by the home team. And there is no law in the tradition more important to the camaraderie of the game as the drinking of beer.

Yes, beer. The most social of drinks for the most social of sports, beer and rugby seem to fit neatly together. It’s an amusing scene near the end of the game, as half the players are on the side-line for good. Most looking disheveled and some going shirtless, the New Castles they held were like amber beacons letting everyone know that they had played a well-fought game and were done for the day.

To learn more about the Santa Rosa Rugby Club, go to www.santarosarugby.com; for info on the Marin Reds Rugby Club, go to www.marinrugby.com.


Fight Club

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Fight Club

January 17-23, 2007

Health & Fitness 2007:


‘Twisting crunches!” demands a wiry fight instructor during a recent adult combat fitness class in Napa. While the other students, already exhausted by the relentless work out, obediently bob their heads up and down, the instructor singles me out. “Brett,” he growls, throwing a hostile glance my way. “You missed our warm-up!” I gulp. We’ve never met in person before. How does he know who I am?

“Sorry,” I offer, meekly trailing off. This is not the time for excuses about rush-hour traffic. In no time, I’m down on the sweaty mat contorting my body, trying with terrible speed to keep up with the rest of the class. Apparently, I haven’t missed the entire warm-up. I’m right on time for a series of body-ripping “combatives,” repetitions that develop muscles useful for street-fighting. We do twisting crunches and walking lunges, followed by a quadricep torture resembling the Russian dance in the Nutcracker ballet.

The omniscient instructor is Lance Meltzer, who also owns this school, Main Street Martial Arts. He bases his combat fitness class on a blend of several Israeli martial arts used by that tiny country’s army. Similar proprietary disciplines within this fighting genre are Haganah (meaning “defense” in Hebrew), and Krav Maga, billing itself as “the official self defense system of the Israeli Defense Forces.”

What differentiates these forms of combat fitness from the more well-known, theatrical types is a no-nonsense approach to efficacy. “It’s not set up for if you want to develop an artistic flair—that’s more the Asian martial arts. This is strictly Israeli, which is combat in the streets,” says Meltzer. “We teach very basic strikes to a particular target.” The focus is on hand-to-hand and hand-to-weapon combat.

Next, we pair up for combat simulations. A blond woman in her mid-thirties wearing a black T-shirt that says “Fight” introduces herself as Stephanie and offers to be my partner. The winemaker at Far Niente, Stephanie doesn’t look that menacing; after all, she has painted toenails, and, besides, she stands a good head shorter than I. But what if I hurt her by accident?

Such worry is totally unnecessary. Following Meltzer’s directions, I simulate having Stephanie in a moving choke-hold. Before I have time to laugh uncomfortably at how weird it is to pretend to choke someone, she has mock-elbowed my head and pinned me by the arm so that she can “marinate” my knees without worrying that I’ll get away. If all goes well, she’ll pretend-break my ankle. Even though this is just a practice fight, I find myself feeling claustrophobic in Stephanie’s mighty grip.

Hitting attackers where it hurts so you can incapacitate them is the goal of combat fitness. In other words, eyeballs, throat and groin are all fair game. “You can’t develop your eyeball to withstand a finger. It sounds kind of brutal, but that might be the only way you can get away from someone much bigger and stronger,” Meltzer says.

“Jackie Chan is not what works on the street, unless you are Jackie Chan. A kick to the groin works a heck of a lot more effectively.”

Instead of pandering to a taste for fancy moves, Israeli combat fighting cuts to the chase. “This is a kind of spoon-fed self-defense,” Meltzer explains. Even people without prior experience with martial arts can become proficient in two to three months to the point where they could feel confident if faced by a threatening situation. “We’ve taught police officers, firemen, housewives, 14-year-old high school girls and boys. It’s really for everyone. It’s very practical and very fun,” says Meltzer.

Although Israeli-style combat classes have been available in the United States since the early ’80s, the workout has only gained a substantial following during the last five years or so. In fact, not only have civilians caught on, but trainees have also included the Secret Service, the FBI and Navy SEALS. The fight tactics originated with the formation of Israel in 1948 and are still part of the mandatory military training there.

Meltzer, a retired chiropractor, began teaching Haganah some four years ago after he saw an ad for it in an issue of Black Belt Magazine. He flew all over the country to train as an instructor. Recently, he has dropped the proprietary name “Haganah” and now teaches a similar version in the combat fitness class.

Toward the end of the evening, Meltzer appears with a cardboard box labeled “training guns.” Distributing yellow rubber handgun models, he tells us how to get the better of an armed attacker. I pair up with Stephanie again. She places the gun in position just under my rib and flatly says, “Give me all your money.” I spring into position to disarm her, and she shakes her head. “No, you’re not supposed to look at me, and you’re hopping too much.” We do it again. I’m still doing it all wrong.

A woman named Monica Pasquini, 26, walks by and assesses our performance. “You’re moving away from the gun too much,” she says. “Instead, just breathe in to create space between you and the gun.” Now a high school English teacher in Rohnert Park, Pasquini started taking classes at the Main Street Martial Arts seven years ago. Soon after she started, she used tactics similar to those we were learning in the combat fitness class to ward off a sleazebag who’d cornered her at a San Francisco nightclub. “I used a technique we’d just learned that day,” she says, clearly still proud, “and that worked.”

Describing himself as a pacifist, Meltzer says, “Anyone can run, but [sometimes] handling the situation quickly is necessary.”

“Combat fitness is getting you in shape and giving you a hammer, screwdriver and a wrench in your belt,” he explains. “The others will give you the entire Allen wrench set.”

Kick It

Main Street Martial Arts currently offers combat fitness on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:30pm. $95 per month for unlimited classes, including other martial arts, or $15 per class. 1313 Main St., Napa, 707.224.6431. The facility is slated to move to the former Vallergas store at 1525 W. Imola Ave., Napa, in February.

Area centers teaching Haganah:
Schafer’s ATA Black Belt Academy, 1460 E. Cotati Ave., Unit I, Rohnert Park. 707.793.9401.
Segal’s Black Belt Academy Inc., 1416 Sonoma Ave., Santa Rosa. 707.568.4321.
Echelberger’s ATA Black Belt Academy, 363 S. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma. 707.763.KICK (5425).

Area center teaching Krav Maga:
Fight Academy, 5675 Redwood Dr., Rohnert Park. 707.584.3812.


Pomegranate Childhood

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Pomegranate Childhood

January 17-23, 2007

Marcel Proust had his madeleines, soaked in his aunt’s lime-flower tea, but for me, the lost flavors of youth were weirder than cookies. When I was growing up in Iran, there was gojeh-sabz–green, sour, unripe plums sprinkled with salt. There was khash-khosh, the large poppy bulb containing white seeds that we kids loved to snack on (my brother and I later learned they contained a mild dose of opium). But my true love, the food whose memory left my mouth parched and my heart aching, was the pomegranate.

In Tehran, pomegranates would make their appearance just as the year’s other fruits were shriveling away. The air would turn crisp, the mountains on the city’s northern edge would gleam with new snow and my father would arrive home to our basement apartment in the evening carrying a heavy paper bag crammed with pomegranates. Ecstatic, my little brother and I would empty the bag and grab at the hard, red globes that rolled across the table. We’d each pick one and knead it with our thumbs, expertly crushing the insides without splitting the skin. Then, when it felt as squishy as a water balloon, we’d sink our front teeth in like vampires, puncturing the surface and letting the tart, red juice flood our mouths.

Our thirst slaked, we’d cut a new pomegranate into quarters, peel away the transparent inner lining and bite in. We munched on the ruby-colored seeds and chewed their hard pips into a buttery pulp that washed down the sweet, tangy flesh. After three or four pomegranates each, we looked as if we’d survived a sword fight.

The anar, as the pomegranate is called in Iran, is a culinary and linguistic staple. It is the fifth word that first-graders learn to read, right after “water,” “father,” “gave” and “bread.” It is a central ingredient in fesenjan, the succulent duck and walnut stew that is an Iranian delicacy, and a source for the deep reds in Persian carpets and miniatures. It is our equivalent of the Western apple, our winter’s daily fruit; the round, red icon every child knows intimately and sees everywhere.

At sidewalk juice bars, the proprietor would slap a few pomegranates into an aluminum squeezer and produce a glass brimming with a slightly acidic elixir that dissolved the soot and grime of the city. On autumn trips out of town, we’d spot tall mounds of the fruit on the side of the road and buy them from farmers.

On a visit to my aunt’s pomegranate orchard, in a village five hours southwest of Tehran, I wandered dreamily among dwarfish trees whose branches, with their yellow-and-green cigar-shaped leaves, sagged with fruit so ripe the skin had split to reveal the glittering seeds. Each pomegranate carried the individual tree’s flavor, and every tree had to be tried. Some tasted light and floral; others had deep, smoky undertones. Inhaling the sharp, fresh air, I lugged a crate of pomegranates up to the house to devour them beside the kerosene heater.

While the pomegranate is believed to have come from the Middle East, where the summers are hot and rainless, the English word derives from Old French (pome, for its shape) and Latin (granata, for its granular insides). Pomegranates in turn lent their name to garnets, for their color; to grenades, for the way the seeds fly out when the fruit is dropped; and, some believe, to the city of Granada (the Moors brought the fruit there from the East).

The pomegranate’s leaves help heal bruises, and its root peels repel insects. It may have even served as an early form of Prozac–the prophet Mohammed is said to have told his followers, “Eat the pomegranate, for it purges the system of envy and hatred.” But my favorite reference is from Persian mythology, in which a hero named Esfandiar becomes invincible after he eats the fruit.

It makes perfect sense to me: my father, the heroic provider of pomegranates, is named Esfandiar, too.

My pomegranate childhood ended abruptly in January 1979 when the Islamic revolution swept through Iran. For months, anti-Shah protesters had rioted in the streets. Schools and businesses were closed, and the whole country was on strike, causing shortages in gas and electricity. As dusk fell and gunshots echoed in the street, my family huddled in my uncle’s apartment upstairs, playing cards with our cousins around the candlelit korsi, a low table covered with blankets and quilts. Finally, on a snowy night two weeks before the Ayatollah Khomeini arrived and three months before I turned 12, my family boarded a plane for the United States.

The supermarkets in America were enormous, but they didn’t hold a single pomegranate. You could occasionally find one in a specialty shop, looking forlorn, like a new immigrant who hadn’t yet found a job. Even before tasting them, we could tell that these shriveled transplants would be dry and flavorless, good only for adding a splash of red to a table setting. Living in Portland, Ore., a city too wet for pomegranates to grow in, my mom learned to fake her fesenjan with tomato paste and brown sugar.

For me, pomegranates became a casualty of the revolution, stored with gojeh-sabz and khash-khosh and other memories of my now-inaccessible childhood. In their absence, these foods became mythological, and I even began to doubt that people still really ate them. If such stalwart institutions as the Persian monarchy or my American-run school in Tehran could be toppled, surely pomegranates didn’t stand a chance.

Even when I moved to California, a climate much closer to Iran’s, people I met had either never seen pomegranates or felt intimidated by them. “They’re too hard to eat,” they would say. “Too many seeds.” “Not worth the effort.” With a preacher’s passion, I defended the fruit, seeds and all. But eventually I gave up. California’s markets were stacked with plenty of other fruits over which to rhapsodize.

Little did I know that even then the American pomegranate was beginning to emerge from the underworld of obscurity. In the late ’80s, online flower mogul Lynda Resnick bought land in central California that included some pomegranate trees.

She tasted the fruit, got hooked and began to look into its health benefits. Research from the University of California has shown that pomegranate juice contains more antioxidants than red wine or green tea, and a study by the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology found that the juice may reduce plaque buildup in arteries. Over a decade, Resnick planted 6,000 more acres of pomegranates. Her company, Los Angeles-based Pom Wonderful, is determined to spread the pomegranate gospel.

“We’re making every effort to take away the fear factor,” says Fiona Posell, a Pom Wonderful spokeswoman. The company’s supermarket displays include brochures with tips on how to open a pomegranate mess-free (underwater, so the juice doesn’t squirt out), how to freeze it for later use and what to call the seeds (arils). A few years ago, Pom Wonderful launched a line of juices in distinctive bulbous bottles that helped spark a nationwide craze for pomtinis and pomdrivers. The juice even made a splash on reality TV, when the Fab Five swooned over pomegranate spritzers on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

But you don’t have to ingest the fruit to reap its benefits. Murad puts out a line of pomegranate skin-care products, Calvin Klein has a pomegranate-infused perfume and Henri Bendel makes a pomegranate candle. According to a breathless article in the Florida-based Sun, Calista Flockhart has even bathed in the juice, an option my brother and I never considered.

A few years ago, my father began to report sightings of decent pomegranates in California farmers markets. Inspired, he planted a pomegranate tree in the backyard. My mother has returned to making her fesenjan with the real thing. But the moment I knew America had finally joined the tribe of true believers was two winters ago in a Queens supermarket. Picking through the usual slim offerings, I came upon a three-foot-high box of giant pomegranates selling for $1.99 apiece. I hefted one; it was reassuringly heavy. After inspecting it for signs of age, I bought two, went home and rediscovered the sweet and tangy nectar of childhood.

Well, almost. Last fall, my father and I returned to Iran, and at a little store in our old neighborhood we ordered a fresh cup of pomegranate juice from a man with an aluminum press. The juice was pinker than I’d remembered, with a clear yet complex flavor that carried hints of the leaves and the soil and the air we’d been away from for so long. Then we ordered another cup, and I thought of a remark from Tom Tjerandsen, manager of the San Francisco-based Pomegranate Council, that made me feel proud of those fragrant little trees on my aunt’s farm. “We do produce what has become known as the gold standard,” he said of the four American varieties that have recently gained prominence. But one other country still wears the crown. “The only place you’ll find better pomegranates,” he confessed, “is in Iran.”

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Sin-Soaked Boy

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the arts | stage |

By David Templeton

Those unfamiliar with the work of composer Kurt Weill will no doubt have their eyes snapped wide open in surprise during the two sin-soaked hours of Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill, running now through Jan. 20 at the Cinnabar Theater. Weill, best known for The Threepenny Opera and other bold, modern collaborations with Bertolt Brecht during his early years in pre-war Berlin, was the John Steinbeck of European sleaze and debauchery, peopling his shows with hookers, alcoholics, thieves, murderers, gamblers and all forms of love-struck low-life.

As a kind of unofficial sequel to Cabaret–Cinnabar’s huge hit from two years ago–director Elizabeth Craven and musical director Nina Shuman have created a tight, two-part cabaret-style musical revue, driven by a strong cast of five singers who strut, prowl, slink and parade their way through some of Weill’s finest and best-known songs. The first act is a sin-tillating trip through Weill’s down-and-dirty Berlin operas, written while living in the early years of Nazi Germany. Then the show takes a jump forward to the far more refined world of New York and Broadway, where Weill worked with some of the United States.S.’ greatest literary figures to create a decade’s worth of hit Broadway shows.

Between the detailed program notes and the entertaining, trivia-packed narration of Jeff Coté, one can’t help but leave the theater with a Cliff’s Notes’ familiarity with Weill, including the side-note that the Doors once recorded a Weill cover, “The Alabama Song,” from The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, which is showcased here in all its subversive anti-mainstream glory. In addition to Coté, the able cast includes tenor Andrew Cox, baritone Martin Bell, soprano Lara Bruckman and mezzo-soprano Julia Ulehla, the latter of whom steals the show twice with astoundingly entertaining, superbly acted renditions of “Surabaya Johnny” from Happy End, and “Pirate Jenny” from The Threepenny Opera. Berlin to Broadway, though occasionally uneven, is a solidly entertaining tribute to the man who gave us some of the wildest, most dangerous theatrical music ever written for the stage.

Berlin to Broadway concludes Friday-Saturday, Jan. 19-20, at the Cinnabar Theater. 3333 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. 8pm. Pre-show closing gala, Jan. 20 at 7pm; $10 extra. $23-$25. 707.763.8920.



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The Byrne Report

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January 17-23, 2007

On Jan. 3, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat devoted its front page to praising the “character” and “courage” of the late Gerald Ford. Above the headline “Ford’s Final Journey,” the editors pasted eulogist Tom Brokow’s comment, “Thank you, Citizen Ford.” Brokow, a retired corporate news anchor, spent his career sound-biting reality for consumer consumption. And Ford, as you may remember, preventatively pardoned President Richard Nixon, thereby saving him from criminal prosecution for a docket of crimes.

The Chamber of Commerce-approved Ford green-lighted Operation Condor, a political assassination program run by Latin American dictators with the connivance of Henry Kissinger, his Machiavellian secretary of state. It is no accident that the ranking pallbearers at the golfer-in-chief’s funeral were Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. The careers of these two murderous officials were seriously advanced by Ford, who was himself a thoroughly bad egg, but you wouldn’t know that from the mainstream media’s hagiography.

In 1928, Upton Sinclair wrote his classic analysis of American journalism, The Brass Check. The title refers to the brass token that Roaring Twenties whorehouse managers gave clients as proof of purchase of sexual labor. Sinclair, who would not have been shocked by the posthumous tail-kissing of Ford, wrote, “The moral for you is just this: that when you pick up your morning newspaper, and think you are reading the news of the world, what you are really reading is propaganda which has been selected, revised and doctored by some power which has a financial interest in you.”

Eclipsed by the front-page Ford tribute was a page five story, picked up from the Washington Post and headlined, “Report Details New Gitmo Abuses.” The story was based on a 2004 FBI report made public by the American Civil Liberties Union pursuant to a lawsuit. A comparison of the PD‘s truncated version of the Post article with the original reveals that the PD chopped out the really nasty parts. According to the PD‘s version, the worst type of abuse suffered by our prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was one soldier who “inadvertently spray[ed] urine” on a Koran. And one unlucky Muslim was “baptized” by an interrogator dressed as a Catholic priest, while being forced to listen to “Satanic black metal music.”

“Ho-hum,” you probably thought. But, according to the Post article, female interrogators engaged in “sexually suggestive tactics”; prisoners were routinely subjected to extreme heat and cold; some were wrapped in the Israeli flag while guards laughed; and many were deprived of sleep, food, clothing and other basic human rights.

For its part, the Post article fell short of the BBC’s wire report on the same topic which detailed interrogators breaking the fingers of detainees and chaining them to the floor for days at a time in fetal positions without food or water while they urinated and defecated on themselves. But even the BBC did not report the ACLU’s assertion that it has “uncovered more than 100,000 pages of government documents detailing the torture and abuse of detainees” by military personnel and civilian contractors. In fact, none of the above press outlets once used the word “torture,” choosing instead to label it “mistreatment.” Nor did any of these news machines mention that the FBI decided not to bring criminal charges, because “the techniques reported were expressly authorized by Defense Department policies.”

For their banality and bureaucratic detachment, the FBI documents rival any memos Adolf Eichmann ever wrote about “mistreating” Jews in German concentration camps. They contain reams of important information that the mainstream media decided not to mention. (They are available at www.aclu.org/torturefoiasearch.)

It is clear from the original FBI reports that most if not all of the Gitmo detainees had no relevant information to divulge. And in a classic case of cognitive dissonance, the American torturers called what they were doing “games.” A female inquisitor did a lap dance on a detainee. One guard told the FBI that after the air conditioning in an unventilated cell was turned off the temperature rose “probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night.” Ha, ha. What fun!

A detainee said, “While the guards held him, [a female interrogator] removed her blouse, embraced the detainee from behind and put her hand on his genitals. The interrogator was on her menstrual period and she wiped blood from her body on his face and head. He said he asked one guard, ‘Why do you hate me?’ The guard responded, ‘If I could, I would kill you.'”

But his sad account of being tortured by our government did not make it into the Press Democrat on the day Citizen Ford was shrink-wrapped in lies and sold like soap.

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Brush with Greatness

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Brush with Greatness

January 17-23, 2007

Health & Fitness 2007:

With the new year come resolutions to lose weight. On TV, celebrities are hawking diet plans, and new products are promising to help you shed the unwanted pounds. Personally, I gained three pounds this Christmas. It’s not a tremendous amount, but unwelcome nonetheless. So I was interested when I heard about Crave-Breaker, the appetite-control toothpaste.

Crave-Breaker is made by the Australian company White Glo and distributed in the United States by the Great White Trading Company in Santa Rosa. It claims to clean and whiten your teeth while suppressing your appetite at the same time.

The Crave-Breaker box reads: “Through years of research, White Glo has developed CRAVE-BREAKER, an effective homeopathic herbal formula which helps to suppress your hunger during the day. This is a world’s first!”

That sure sounds convenient! After all, I have to brush my teeth anyway. Not only will my toothpaste be cleaning my teeth, it will also be whitening them and making me thinner at the same time. Talk about multitasking.

I asked Steve Miksis, general manager of the Great White Trading Company, what I can expect from Crave-Breaker. He says he’s had nothing but positive feedback from customers so far.

“I tried it too,” he says. “The effects lasted for about three hours. I didn’t want coffee, I didn’t want food. I wanted water, but that’s about it. It’s like it turned off my snacking desire.”

I bought a tube at Raley’s for $5.99. The directions instructed brushing thoroughly with the stuff for three minutes twice a day. There are no warnings except that pregnant women or kids under 12 should consult a doctor before using.

The toothpaste itself smells like black licorice. It tastes like black licorice too, only with some spice or mint thrown in. I noticed that when I put some on my tongue, it got slightly numb, but in a pleasant way that wore off quickly. I also discovered that three minutes is a long time when you are brushing your teeth. Afterwards, I really wanted some licorice, preferably red licorice, since I’m not all that crazy about black licorice.

But despite the candy craving, I did notice a shift in my eating habits. Instead of getting hungry around 10am, as usual, my appetite was pushed off until 11:30am or so. I also noticed I was more, um, regular.

Crave-Breaker’s homeopathic formula includes focus vesiculosis, a seaweed extract that’s supposed to boost metabolism to help the body break down fat, and nux vomica, which is used to “stimulant action on the gastro-intestinal tract,” according to A Modern Herbal.

Before making a deal to distribute the toothpaste in the United States, the Great White Trading Company made sure the ingredients were FDA-approved. In addition, it has been sold for two years in several countries, and there haven’t been any complaints.

“But Crave-Breaker is not meant to be a weight-loss supplement,” says Miksis. “It’s meant to be used as an additional tool in your weight-loss toolkit, in addition to eating right and exercising.”

Over-the-counter weight-loss products range from mild metabolism boosters to “breakthrough” formulas that promise to make you slimmer while you lounge on the couch eating Dove Bars and watching American Idol.

OK, maybe the promises don’t go quite that far, but the Federal Trade Commission did recently slap the makers of four diet pills–Xenadrine EFX, CortiSlim, One-A-Day WeightSmart and TrimSpa–with a $25 million fine for false advertising. In a controlled study, people taking a placebo actually lost more than those taking Xenadrine. And in the other cases, the people in the before-and-after photos lost weight through diet and exercise, not the diet pills.

Ah, diet and exercise. There’s just no getting away from them, is there?

“The problem with taking any kind of pill to lose weight is that at some point you’re going to stop taking the pills and go back to your old eating habits,” says Eveline Simard, clinical nutritionist at It’s You! Nutrition in Santa Rosa. “And it’s actually more harmful to your body to go on these yo-yo diets. You need something more sustainable and long-term.”

All in all, I used Crave-Breaker for 10 days. By the third day, the effects seemed to wear off and I was back to feeling hungry at 10am again. I did, however, lose one pound, although that may have more to do with the absence of Christmas cookies than the toothpaste. That, and the new Dance Dance Revolution game my husband got for Christmas.

But I will say this for Crave-Breaker: after 10 days, my teeth definitely looked whiter.

Crave-Breaker is available exclusively at Raley’s and its affiliated markets.


Morsels

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January 17-23, 2007

The lemon tree in my front yard has just given birth, and I’ve got lemons coming out of my lemons. Visions of creamy curds and citrus-y vinaigrettes dance in my head. I shove fistfuls into chicken cavities, tart up pound cake batters with juice, and I’ve still got more lemons than I know what to do with. But I’m certainly not complaining. I revel in the Northern California winter, bragging endlessly to my Right Coast family and friends of the riches growing steps from my front door.

Natives of this region may not appreciate that, when winter arrives, produce bins take a serious nosedive elsewhere in the country. Sure, in many states you can find grapes from South America or kiwis flown in from halfway around the world, but for those committed to eating seasonally and locally, the options plummet with the mercury. (No offense to root vegetables, which are ubiquitous this time of year, or to beloved members of the cabbage family.)

Here in California, it’s a different story altogether. When I moved here from Boston, I was blown away by the produce available year-round. Not just in the farmers markets, where I half-expected it, but in unassuming corner groceries, big-box supermarkets and casual Mexican eateries. Avocados, in particular, were a revelation. How is it possible that in all my years of mindless avocado-eating I’d never had one as perfectly ripe, as uniformly creamy as those available here? On the East Coast, finding a good avocado is a Herculean challenge. Grab one that’s hard and it stays that way for a week. Check it two minutes later and it’s brown and mushy. Or buy one that yields to gentle pressure, seemingly perfect, and take it home, halve it and recoil in horror at the overripe goo that hides inside.

We have so much to celebrate here, and not just in fertile months of summer. Satsuma mandarins, pomegranates, fragrant herbs, crisp lettuces–all are available now and most are locally grown. Resist the urge to choose familiar foods from far-off places, and reach instead for what’s sprouting right outside your door. Grab those Meyer lemons like you mean it. Squeeze them with reckless abandon. Just because they’ve grown in your backyard all your life doesn’t make them any less extraordinary.

Quick dining snapshots by Bohemian staffers.

Winery news and reviews.

Food-related comings and goings, openings and closings, and other essays for those who love the kitchen and what it produces.

Recipes for food that you can actually make.

Sound of Things to Come

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Sound of Things to Come

January 17-23, 2007

Enough with backward-glancing assessments and persnickety rankings of the albums, songs, bands and events of 2006! What about 2007, a year saturated with promise? Its potential is palpable; its slate, clean. True, there’s a bit of hopeful wishing in what follows, but a little positive thinking never hurt anyone.

This year, the famed South by Southwest music fest will exceed all expectations by offering five bands for every one patron. The influential indie-music site Pitchfork will go one entire week without championing an adorable Scandinavian pop band. For the first time in 10 years, the British music press will not overhype a debut album by a band of cheeky 19-year-old lads.

Surprising no one, the Smiths will become the only beloved band of the 1980s that does not reunite. Morrissey, however, will shock legions of fans by re-declaring his celibacy.

Michael Jackson will set records one again when his album of all-new material sells only one copy, making him simultaneously the world’s bestselling and worst-selling artist. The sole CD will be accidentally purchased by a profoundly farsighted Wisconsin woman who mistakes it for a Mahalia Jackson album. In a misguided attempt to save face, Jackson will generate even more bad press by donating the 900,000 unsold CDs to starving child refugees in the Congo. It will be pointed out that none of them owns CD players.

Realizing that it’s best to quit while she’s ahead, Madonna will take an extended break from recording music, choosing instead to devote herself to her family by delegating tasks to her five nannies and hiring a sixth. Britney Spears will irrevocably damage her vocal chords with her excessive partying, and the world will breathe a collective sigh of relief. During an appearance on Larry King Live, Ms. Spears will make a racist comment about Jacko’s Congo CD donation debacle, though no one will be able to hear her since she has no voice. The reputations of Ms. Spears and Mr. Jackson will neither suffer nor improve because of this event.

Joanna Newsom’s follow-up to the colossally perplexing Ys will be relatively normal, surprising many but disappointing none. When asked about it in interviews, Newsome will say, “You really didn’t expect me to pull that shit off twice, did you?”

Reviews of Scarlett Johannson’s album of Tom Waits cover tunes will focus on how sort of bearable it is, but nevertheless stress that there’s not much of a reason to buy it. Meanwhile, Tom Waits’ Scarlett Johannson tribute (in drag) will debut in Berlin and become the toast of the town.

Kraut!, the big-budget Broadway musical revue featuring favorites by the seminal art-prog-rock band Can, will flop miserably. The off-off Broadway debut of Scumdogs of the Universe, however, a revue of GWAR songs starring GWAR themselves, will be a runaway success. Still reeling from the poor reception of Lestat, Elton John will cease writing lyrics for stale Disney movies, effectively bringing on his retirement.

A whole bunch of thirty-something white people will attend the Jan. 21 KRS-One show at the Last Day Saloon for nostalgia. Tainted Love will perform shows at the Mystic Theatre no less than 55 times. Everyone will go out and see live music at least once a week, causing Netflix to go out of business.

Sometime this March, the average American will be able to walk into a major grocery store chain or fast food restaurant without having to hear Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” or Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.” A huge error in corporate judgment will cause Starbucks to release a CD by Mac Dre, thus exposing Middle America to hyphy slang.

After years of putting up with my pestering, Dad will finally break down and let me take his old Johnny Cash, Hank Ballard and Bo Diddley records. The cancelled sea chantey sing-along that I tried to go to in December will be rescheduled. I will attend, it will be awesome and sea chantey sing-alongs will sweep the nation. For the first time since 1995, Mr. Bir Toujour will go a through two-hour period without air-drumming once. During this short pause, he will be receptive to my hints that I want a functioning record player for my birthday. When I receive it, I will celebrate by playing Bo Diddley Is a Lover at top volume, and all will be right with the world.


Go Bots Get Rad

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Go Bots Get Rad

January 17-23, 2007

Altar (Southern Lord)
Sunno))) & Boris
What would the Iron Giant sound like if he started a rock band and had full access to a Pro Tools home studio? This celebration of neo-psych stoner rock and doom metal is a dream collaboration between what the All Music Guide has cleverly characterized as “powersonic drone throners Sunn 0))) and Japan’s experimental rockist thunderhead Boris.” Heavy synth washes, eerie guitar doodlings, roiling drums and seemingly endless power chords alternate with ethereal vocals and a cascading sense of dread. Fire up your subwoofer–this heady mix of personnel includes Boris bandmates Atsuo (vocals), bassist Takeshi and guitarist Wata; Sunn 0))) guitarists Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson; and such guests as Joe Preston of Thrones, High on Fire, and the Melvins; Earth’s Steve Moore; Alan Dubin of Khanate; Rex Ritter of Jessamine; Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil; fellow Seattle scenesters Jesse Sykes, Phil Wandscher and Bill Herzog of the Sweet Hereafter. And all of them are ready for the apocalypse, now!

Miracle of Five (Zedtone)
Eleni Mandell
Move over Madeleine Peyroux. Eleni Mandell (shown) is a former Berkeley student-turned-Southern Cal boho who mentored under Chuck E. Weiss (the subject of Rickie Lee Jones’ breakthrough single “Chuck E’s in Love”). She has cultivated a knack for noirish songwriting sometimes reminiscent of Cat Power (especially on 2003’s Country for True Lovers). But I have to say I liked this new disc better than Cat Power’s overhyped 2006 CD The Greatest; with haunting tunes that stick in your head (“Girls”, “Moonglow, Lamp Low”) Miracle of Five is filled with catchy songwriting. This stripped-down, emotionally raw but always charming collection of meditations on love, death and relationships has a bittersweet edge, sort of like Neko Case without all that Biblical angst. It boasts a supporting cast that includes avant-jazz guitarist Nels Cline and ex-X drummer DJ Bonebrake on vibes. One of 2007’s best releases.

Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life (Blue Note)
Various Artists
This all-star tribute to the man who penned or co-wrote such jazz classics as “Satin Doll” and “Lush Life” serves as the soundtrack to Robert Levi’s new PBS-TV documentary about the celebrated composer and arranger for the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Pop star Elvis Costello offers “My Flame Turns Blue (Blood Count),” the title track from Costello’s 2005 CD, and Dianne Reeves contributes vocals to six of these 15 tracks, including the title track, Strayhorn’s bitter ode to the rusty side of romance. Other guest artists include 88-year-old pianist Hank Jones (a standout solo performance of “Satin Doll”), saxophonist Joe Lovano (who delivers a gritty version of “Johnny Come Lately”), guitarist Russell Malone and drumming legend Paul Motian.


Close Quarters

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Close Quarters

To your health: The easiest way to stem the spread of infection is also the most obvious: wash your hands.

By Patricia Lynn Henley

Health officials are keeping tabs on recent outbreaks of norovirus, commonly known as the stomach flu. That may sound like a trivial problem, but this group of related viruses can be serious, even fatal. Not something we think of much, it’s nonetheless estimated that more than half off all food-borne illnesses are caused by noroviruses. Former President George H. W. Bush, for example, was infected with a norovirus when he threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister in 1992.

No stomach flu is pretty, but things get serious when it affects those whose health is already compromised or who coexist in tight living quarters. Take prisoners or the elderly, for example. In 2006, there were four norovirus-related deaths in Sonoma County, and all involved elderly patients.

“It’s most dangerous in a skilled nursing facility, because the people there tend to have underlying diseases that get hit hard by norovirus,” says Leigh Hall, deputy health officer for Sonoma County. Last week, the Healdsburg Senior Living Community became the ninth institution in Sonoma County to report an outbreak of the virus since the season began in October; a senior’s death there may mark the fifth fatality of the year. A Sonoma Valley nursing care center became the 10th facility affected by the outbreak.

Also last week, San Quentin prison was closed to all visitors because some 500 inmates came down with norovirus symptoms. Outbreaks are currently being monitored throughout the greater San Francisco Bay Area, and a quick Internet search reveals similar situations in Utah, Montana, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Michigan and Japan. This is such an everyday malady, second only in frequency to the common cold, that medical officials generally don’t test for the virus unless a large group of people fall ill.

“There are probably more cases in the community than in any single institution, but when it gets into an institution, it can run rampant because of the opportunities,” Hall explains.

Named for a 1968 outbreak in Norwalk, Ohio, noroviruses spread easily in all kinds of situations, from cruise ships to prisons, summer camps to convalescent hospitals–anywhere that people live together and share eating and bathroom facilities.

“It definitely happens all year round,” Hall says. “Some people seem to think it happens more in the winter months, but our statistics don’t seem to bear that out. All it needs is one case introduced into a facility and you have another outbreak.”

In 2006, there were two major norovirus outbreaks in Sonoma County. The spring saw 388 cases in 15 skilled nursing facilities, with one related death. The second outbreak started in the fall and continued into the new year; by Dec. 31 there had been 475 cases at nine facilities, with four fatalities in 2006 and another suspected norovirus-related death last week.

Not everyone was tested, so some of these illnesses might have another cause. However, if people close to someone with norovirus fall ill with similar symptoms, it’s assumed they have the same viral bugs in their systems.

“Any time you get a big outbreak, it’s almost always norovirus, partly because it’s so contagious,” Hall says.

Most individual cases are never reported; people just get sick and then get better. But the number of recorded norovirus outbreaks in institutions has been increasing in the last few years. In response, the California Department of Health and Humans Services recently issued revised guidelines for investigating and managing norovirus in residential facilities.

Norovirus outbreaks were reported at nine skilled nursing facilities in Napa County in 2006, but none with the high volume seen in Sonoma County, says Teresa Richmond of Napa County Public Health. Each Napa County outbreak involved less than 50 people.

Norovirus is currently infecting residents of a senior healthcare facility in Marin County, and there were 14 minor outbreaks reported in Marin in 2006, with 12 of them in skilled nursing facilities, says Anju Goel of the Marin County Public Health Division. The key to dealing with this disease, she adds, is cleanliness.

“It is very contagious but it can be prevented if people are diligent about hand washing,” Goel explains. “That will really stem the outbreaks.”

This may seem like a simple solution, but it works. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say people with norovirus are contagious from the moment they start feeling ill to at least three days after their symptoms end, and some people are contagious for as long as two weeks after they recover. Since antibiotics don’t work on viruses, the best option is prevention.

Although for most people norovirus is simply a common (if extremely unwelcome) gastrointestinal problem, it can be serious and Goel emphasizes the need to be alert. “It’s a disease that’s easy to spread, but it can be prevented.”


Scrummed Up

January 17-23, 2007Health & Fitness 2007: 'God, he's sure bleedin' a lot," one fan says to another as they leave For Pete's Sake Field on a recent chilly Saturday afternoon in Santa Rosa.The field glistens in the sun, which has begun to break through the clouds, and highlights the 30 players on the field. The pitch resembles a...
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Fight Club

January 17-23, 2007Health & Fitness 2007: 'Twisting crunches!" demands a wiry fight instructor during a recent adult combat fitness class in Napa. While the other students, already exhausted by the relentless work out, obediently bob their heads up and down, the instructor singles me out. "Brett," he growls, throwing a hostile glance my way. "You missed our warm-up!"...
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Pomegranate Childhood

January 17-23, 2007Marcel Proust had his madeleines, soaked in his aunt's lime-flower tea, but for me, the lost flavors of youth were weirder than cookies. When I was growing up in Iran, there was gojeh-sabz--green, sour, unripe plums sprinkled with salt. There was khash-khosh, the large poppy bulb containing white seeds that we kids loved to snack on (my...
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Sin-Soaked Boy

the arts | stage | By David Templeton ...
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The Byrne Report

January 17-23, 2007On Jan. 3, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat devoted its front page to praising the "character" and "courage" of the late Gerald Ford. Above the headline "Ford's Final Journey," the editors pasted eulogist Tom Brokow's comment, "Thank you, Citizen Ford." Brokow, a retired corporate news anchor, spent his career sound-biting reality for consumer consumption. And Ford, as...
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Brush with Greatness

January 17-23, 2007Health & Fitness 2007: With the new year come resolutions to lose weight. On TV, celebrities are hawking diet plans, and new products are promising to help you shed the unwanted pounds. Personally, I gained three pounds this Christmas. It's not a tremendous amount, but unwelcome nonetheless. So I was interested when I heard about Crave-Breaker,...
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Morsels

January 17-23, 2007 The lemon tree in my front yard has just given birth, and I've got lemons coming out of my lemons. Visions of creamy curds and citrus-y vinaigrettes dance in my head. I shove fistfuls into chicken cavities, tart up pound cake batters with juice, and I've still got more lemons than I know what to do with....
Read more

Sound of Things to Come

January 17-23, 2007Enough with backward-glancing assessments and persnickety rankings of the albums, songs, bands and events of 2006! What about 2007, a year saturated with promise? Its potential is palpable; its slate, clean. True, there's a bit of hopeful wishing in what follows, but a little positive thinking never hurt anyone.This year, the famed South by Southwest music fest...
Read more

Go Bots Get Rad

January 17-23, 2007Altar (Southern Lord)Sunno))) & BorisWhat would the Iron Giant sound like if he started a rock band and had full access to a Pro Tools home studio? This celebration of neo-psych stoner rock and doom metal is a dream collaboration between what the All Music Guide has cleverly characterized as "powersonic drone throners Sunn 0))) and Japan's...
Read more

Close Quarters

To your health: The easiest way to stem the...
Read more
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