Veggielution Avant Garden food and art fundraiser at KALEID gallery

Experience food, wine and art in the downtown San Jose to raise money for local artists and Veggielution!

What: Avant Garden 2011

When: April 15, 2011 7-10 pm

Where: KALEID Gallery 88 South 4th St. Downtown San José

Cost: Purchase pre-sale admission tickets $10 at http://www.veggielution.org/donate/Tickets at the door will be $10 

San Jose, Calif.--Avant Garden pushes the boundaries of food and art with innovative artists and chefs who will feature their creative artwork and appetizers to the public to raise money for Veggielution Community Farm. "We're really excited to see the outpouring of support for Veggielution's mission from the local artist community, and to build this bridge between healthy food and beautiful art,” says Amie Frisch, co-founder of Veggielution.  

Laura Stec, a local chef and author, Mike Borkenhagen, and other chefs will prepare appetizers and small plates in a live demo for guests.The sustainably grown, farm-fresh ingredients will be provided by Veggielution and other local growers. 

Avant-garde local artists will create Veggielution-inspired artwork available for purchase at the silent art auction. Pieces donated by artists explore food, urban and rural farming,  land, environmental, social, and health issues. Artists keep 0% to 40% of the final sale price of their artwork. The remaining proceeds support Veggielution.

Pre-sale admission tickets are $10 and come with 2 food tickets. Tickets at the door will be $10. Additional food tokens can be purchased for $3 each at the event. Purchase pre-sale admission tickets at http://www.veggielution.org/donate/

About Veggielution

Veggielution empowers youth and adults from diverse backgrounds to create a sustainable food system in San Jose. Our urban farm located at Emma Prusch Park in East San Jose engages the community by providing access to healthy and local food, creating youth leadership opportunities, and developing creative solutions to social and environmental justice issues. Our volunteer workdays, youth programs, sliding scale farm stand, and free community workshops give people a chance to get their hands dirty growing veggies. For details visit our website at www.veggielution.org.

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Amie Frisch
Director, Veggielution
408.905.7327
amie@veggielution.org
www.veggielution.org

Two Games To Go

The regular season is about to end for the Sharks in two short games, both against the Phoenix Coyotes: today in Phoenix, and tomorrow in San Jose.

Two things we know for certain: the Sharks are in the playoffs and Sharks have again won the Pacific Division title.

What we, as Sharks fans, must do now is to hope for a successful post-season campaign. If the playoffs started today, the Sharks would face the Ducks, the same team that defeated them last game 6-2. Many would argue, however, that Coach Todd McLellan used that opportunity to give the Sharks added practice time and to give goaltender Antero Niittymaki some time in the net, due to the certainty of the Sharks qualifying for playoffs and the Division title.

Fortunately, the Sharks are also anticipating the return of both Ryane Clowe and Scott Nichol. Clowe had missed the last game due to a lower body injury, while Nichol had missed nearly twenty games due to an upper body injury. Both players will be vital to the Sharks’ success in the postseason.

For the Western Conference, only the Vancouver Canucks, the Sharks, the Detroit Red Wings, and the Los Angeles Kings have already qualified for postseason, meaning there is a close fight between five other teams scrambling to fill in four spots – one of those teams being the Phoenix Coyotes.

Fortunately for the Sharks, they have had relative success against the Coyotes this year, outscoring them 17-7 so far this season. The next few days will determine rather quickly just how the Western Conference teams will fill out.

The Sharks play the Coyotes tonight at 7:00pm PST in the first of their last two games of the regular season.

National Empanada Day at the Mmoon!

The Mmoon is celebrating National Empanada Day by giving away a FREE empanada to all customers between 8am-8pm today! They also just added 2 new empanadas I'm anxious to try, the Chicken Enchilada Empanada and the Tri-Berry Dessert Empanada. If you still haven't tried out The Mmoon, today is the day to do it.

Click the image below for more info!

Island Grill & Bamboo Lounge

New San Jose Froyo Truck - Twisted Chill

Well... it's about time. Finally someone in Norcal figured out a way to package self serve Frozen Yogurt into a food truck, and they just happen to be based out of San Jose.

The truck is called Twisted Chill and below are some mock ups, including one rough one of what the self serve section will look like. They are already planning to participate in SJ EATS!

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Wednesday Wishlist: One of THESE up to Lick Observatory

April 2011 Downtown Dimension Highlights

Here are my notes from the latest edition of Downtown Dimension:

• Business Improvement District fees are being slightly raised to help offset the loss of funds from the RDA.
• The convention center is a go and will include 125k sqft of new construction, new chillers, new boilers, new cooling towers, new fire alarm and building management systems, and a $20m renovation of existing "front-of-house" public spaces.
• Cinequest rakes in a record 91,000 attendees!
• Liquid Agency is doubling their office space in SoFA.
• Works moved to a new SoFA location at 365 Market.
• MACLA is adding 3700sqft of gallery space.
• Touchstone climbing is coming back Downtown in what used to be WET Nightclub.
• Groundwerx has added multiple new machines to better clean the streets of Downtown San Jose.

To read the full newsletter, click here!

Convention Center Bonds Sold

The long overdue convention center expansion project is finally going to happen. $138.4 million in bonds were sold last Friday, which means the city has the cash in hand needed to start construction immediately.

The expansion will require demolishing the old MLK Main Library and adding 125,000sqft of convention and meeting space that will front San Carlos Street. Also in the plans are a general face-lift and modernization for the rest of the center. For more info, click here.