Can it be we’ve gone two years without a Savory Scone Update?  Well, let me assure you, I have not gone two years without a savory scone, that’s for sure.  My new local spot, Dwell Time in Cambridge, offers a nice scone selection, including more than one savory option!  At my first visit, I tried the whole wheat bacon scallion scone, pictured blog right.

It was small, but that’s not a bad thing since your average scone is 105% butter and has more calories than you’l burn in a lifetime of sitting in coffee shops writing blogs.  It was on the crumbly slide, as opposed to the sometimes chewy type of scone.  Visible bacon bits, a good sign for sure.  It most certainly hit the spot.  Highly recommended.

At a later visit, I tried the Goat Cheese Scallion Scone.  I must say the goat cheese was subtle, and that’s not the vibe I usually get from goat cheese.  But here’s what sets this scone apart: the scallion was actually visible and tastable, like it is in the better scallion pancakes you can sometimes get in Chinese restaurants, or , if you’re super lucky, in the homemade kind.

A touch of spring onion-ness and buttery goodness.  I don’t think I’ll ever go back to sweet scones.

I’ve you’ve been reading this blog a while, you know that I sometimes count my food miles, the distance that something travels from being grown or raised or caught, through whatever processing or production it gets, to the point at which I photograph and then devour it.  It’s interesting to think about since transportation costs money and energy, and because buying things from far away sends your money – and sometimes your jobs – far away.

Thinking about these issues has led me to join, indeed to co-found, a group called Sprout Lenders.  Inspired by Slow Money (itself inspired by Slow Food), Sprout Lenders is a group of people putting their money to work for local food businesses in the form of an investment club offering loans.  I’m writing about this not to pat myself on the back, but in the hope that both of my readers will help get the word out to local food businesses that might benefit from a Sprout Lenders loan.  We’re looking for greater Boston food businesses with local and sustainable bona fides (not necessarily official organic status) that need cash for expansion or working capital.

Slow Food and Money

Slow Food is a movement founded  ”… to counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.”  Slow Money came out of the Slow Food movement and describes itself somewhat less succinctly but I like the 4th principle a great deal, “We must learn to invest as if food, farms and fertility mattered. We must connect investors to the places where they live, creating vital relationships and new sources of capital for small food enterprises.”

Sure, I’ve got access to a dizzying array of food from around the world, much of it organic or artisanal.  It feels nice to support small businesses and farms around the world.  It’s also nice to support small businesses and farms in my own community. Some of the Slow Money principles sound anti-growth to the free market enthusiast in me, but why not be pro-growth right here where I live?

Why Lending?

If you believe in any of the ideas of Slow Money and Slow Food, how can you advance those agendas in your community?  Buying local and eating local are great starts, but individual action only goes as far as your own spending. Activism, advocacy and lobbying are other paths.  In the organizing discussions at Sprout Lenders, we wanted to take our experience in business and orientation as capitalists in a kinder and localer direction.

Equity investing might be the “slower” path, being more involved in the running of the business and having a long time horizon.  Lending, however, is somewhat lower risk for us as beginning investors, and it fits the seasonal and cyclical needs that a lot of food businesses have for working capital.  If we’re successful, the loan fund will grow with interest on repayment, and we can help several businesses a year become a little more successful themselves.

Sprout Lenders is taking applications for loans now for the spring/summer round. It’s not just for farmers, it’s for any food business that thinks and acts locally in the greater Boston area.  Please help us spread the word.

I had just about given up after a month of disappointment.  I didn’t think the M&M Ribs Truck was ever coming to Boston City Hall.  Four strikes and you’re usually out. But then, I chanced to spot a cryptic tweet:

Today is the day!
— TeamMMRIBS (@TheRibTruck) May 8, 2012

Did those words mean what I think they meant? It turn out, yes, they did.  M&M Ribs finally graced Boston City Hall’s rainy windswept food truck plain with their presence.  B and P tagged along.  Actually, they could barely be restrained.

Early signs were good.  A medium-sized line to order but not too many waiting around for food.  A short menu board with two sandwiches, three meals, four sides and one dessert.  A nice canopy on a good-looking but not overly polished truck.

I ordered the brisket sandwich and a side of collard greens for a total of $9.  The Froyo and Savory trucks’ staffers stared jealously.

This is, in my partially informed option, a very well-run truck serving some very tasty food.  With a staff of just two, they moved the line along admirably, in stark contrast to the slow pace of similarly delicious Anthony’s Catering and the more numerously-staffed Paris Creperie.  I’d say the operational setup was on par with Staff Meal.

But the food is what it’s all about, and I am officially all about this food.  The collards were tender and not bitter at all.  On their own, I might have wished for more garlic or maybe even vinegar, but as a side, they were perfect.  Some  wished for a bit of bacon in there, and I sympathize, but for me, the greens are sufficient.  The sandwich was about the right size and not so overstuffed to be hard to eat.  The meat was falling-apart melty and the sauce was zippy and tangy. The bun knew its place and held its own. Fingers were licked.  The rest of the menu, notably the mac and cheese, must be sampled.

This would be the perfect place to end a food truck safari, but who would want to end such a journey?  Tomorrow, we’re giving Boston Speed Dogs one more chance to show up. Stay tuned.

Nothing hits the spot on a chilly spring morning like a warm mug of some beverage and a pastry.  It’s even better if the pastry is warm too.  Visiting the Netherlands back in the day, I got to know the stroopwafel, a cookie/pastry/waffle that sits atop your hot beverage until it gets all soft and gooey inside, keeping your beverage warm while it does.  Now that’s what I’m talking about.

As if a warm and gooey syrup-filled waffle cookie wasn’t great enough, the stroopwafel originates in the city of Gouda (pronounced with a throat-clearing “chow-da” and a big smile), yes, the Gouda of the most excellent cheese.

In this video, you can learn the proper way to say “stroopwafel” (makes me wonder if the New Yorker would print it as “stroöpwafel”) and also note that the recommended 2-3 minute melting time fits rather nicely with the span of time one might steep some tea.  Just sayin.

In the Boston area and looking for a stroopwafel fix?  There’s a thread on Chowhound for that, and I can vouch that you might also find some North American organic stroopwafels at Whole Foods and Wegmans, made with maple syrup of course.

When you’ve done all that, it might be time to join the Association of Stroopwafel Addicts.

I went to check out the newish Dwelltime Coffeebar and Bakeshop in the newly-hopping Broadway zone of mid-Cambridge.  Whilst enjoying an americano, smooth and served with a glass of water like they do in civilized nations, and a whole wheat bacon scallion scone, not too large, crisp and savory, all for a bit more than $5, I took notice of two notices.

First, the are going to turn off their wifi during lunch hours to reduce, well, dwell time, and to avoid becoming a co-working space.  Second, they have a petition going to get the Peoples’ Republic City of Cambridge to allow them more than 20 seats, a number to which they are limited because they have no off-street parking.   Are these things related?

Item 2, crap anti-business elitist NIMBY zoning

There’s a bus stop out front and the place is 4 blocks from the red line, but somehow the city thinks that the business needs to provide parking.  And the penalty for not providing parking is to be restricted to perhaps half the seating capacity it could serve.  Certainly the last thing I want in my precious Cambridge neighborhood is a cafe full of people.  Ugh, the thought of it.  I’m sure the only reason the neighbors tolerate that school across the street, teeming with germy children and no doubt swamped with SUVs at dropoff and pickup times, is some kind of grandfathering.  Awesome pro-business stance there, Cambridge.  An empty storefront across the street from a school is a much better idea.

Item 1, people who sit in a cafe all day

Before Dwelltime opened, I remember hearing a piece on the radio in which the owner talked about reducing the number of electrical outlets to prevent people from setting up camp all day.  I laughed.  Maybe that will slow down some people with crummy computers, but you can easily go four hours on a modern laptop, all day with an iPad, and as long as your supply holds out with an actual book.  So now they’re throttling wifi to keep people moving?  Again, that’ll hold off some people, but it won’t hold off technological progress.  Tablets, phones and hotspot devices let you skip the cafe’s wifi, as I am doing right now with a personal hotspot from my phone connecting me to a 4G data network.

It’s a social, behavioral problem, and restricting the tech, even if it could really work, won’t do the job.  High unemployment, scads of students, cheap technology, and a sense of entitlement will keep people camping out all day at cafes.

So, what to do?

Obviously the need to turn over the tables faster is exacerbated by having fewer tables than you might “naturally” have in the space.  At the same time, having people move through quicker would mean parking spaces would also turn over faster. Most of the parking nearby is resident or metered with a two hour limit.  If metered parking really worked, it would probably cut back a little on the all-day cafe types, but I’m guessing many of them are walking or taking transit.  I’ll leave the zoning thing alone for now except to say that the city needs to price street parking appropriately and let the cafe live or die on its own merits. For the all-day cafe dwellers, I suggest…

A modest proposal: waiters

People sit in cafes all day because they can.  Passive-aggressive moves like restricting power outlets and internet won’t cut it.  You need to make those people pay up or move on, and I think table service is the way to do it.  If I get a single coffee at the counter and hunker down for six hours, nobody’s coming over and asking me to buy more stuff to earn the right to stay or telling me that another party is coming in and they need the table.  But that’s exactly what waiters do in restaurants.  The better ones are less obviously obnoxious about it, but they all do it. “Anything else for you sir?”  Subtly-yet-pointedly leaving the bill.  You know the drill.

They way I see it, a skilled waiter or two could increase the average revenue per seat per hour and keep the malingerers moving along.  Plus, despite the best efforts of city planners, it would create another job, and it would make the cafe a bit safer by having another set of eyes on the floor.

Your mileage may vary, but if you’re car-free in the area, you should drop by Dwelltime and sign their petition.