Days 4-6 of Bridgeport Christmas...

(continued)

4. On the Fourth Day of Christmas… Four Winter Cocktails
Are you in the mood for some artisanal cocktails to warm you up? Take your loved one to family owned & operated Nana’s (3267 S. Halsted St.) for some seasonal cocktails, and stay for dinner. If you like whiskey drinks, try the Fresh Fig & Seedling Orchard Cherry Old Fashioned, or if you like lemonade in summer, try the Fall Cranberry and Ginger Bridgeport Lemonade. Other tasty concoctions include the Fall Sidecar and The Prince of Fall cocktail. You can check out the full menu at nanaorganic.com.

5. On the Fifth Day of Christmas… Five Chicago Sports Team Jerseys
Grandstand (600 W. 35th Street) sells jerseys and hats for all the Chicago teams (yes, including the Cubs). But you can buy jerseys anywhere, a Grandstand owner observes. She says people travel to Grandstand from across Chicagoland because they’ve got an amazing collection of other stuff. They have seasonal ornaments including miniature team Christmas trees, hand-painted tree-ornaments, and White Sox player-nutcrackers. They also have clothes from slippers, to socks, to negligees, plus a great assortment of toys, including team-themed Monopoly games and Mr. Potato Head. http://www.grandstandsox.com/

6. On the Sixth Day of Christmas… Six Bike Maintenance Workshops
Winter is the perfect time to take your bicycle apart and rebuild it. And Blue City Cycles at 3201 South Halsted is offering a winter series of bike maintenance workshops that can teach you, or the lucky gift recipient of your choice, to do just that. Workshops are $30 each, or $150 for a 6 class series that starts with the basics (fix a flat and make simple adjustments) and progresses through brakes, derailleurs and each of the bearing systems, and culminates with the fine art of truing a wheel. But act quickly, classes are limited to 3 students each – the number of bike stands in the shop. http://www.bluecitycycles.com/

(PSST - Issue 4 is now out at your local businesses - pick up a copy today!)

12 Days of Bridgeport Christmas (condensed version)

We're posting the 12 Days of Christmas article here in installments over the next 4 days to give you some ideas of what you can grab in the neighborhood for your gifting needs. Enjoy!

The 12 Days of Christmas: A Bridgeport Gift Guide
By Kristin Ostberg & Lynn Barnett

Been procrastinating with your shopping? Well, we’ve got the gift guide for you. We bet there’ll be at least one thing on this list that will surprise you – and it proves you don’t have to leave the neighborhood to get great gifts. It has been a tough year for retailers, which is an even better reason to spend your money here in Bridgeport!

1. On the First Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave to Me… One Traditional Tattoo

If you want to get your sweetheart something that will last forever, but don’t want to choose the wrong thing, consider buying a gift certificate to use at Bridgeport Tattoo Company (3527 South Halsted). Bridgeport Tattoo has walls full of traditional designs, and a reputation for doing very good work, safely, and for a fair price. The folks in the shop say a tattoo the size of a deck of cards typically runs about $150, but they can do smaller or simpler designs for $100 or less, or much larger ones for $100 an hour. http://www.bridgeporttattooco.com/

2. On the Second day of Christmas… Two Diamond Earrings

A friend of the Bridgeport International raves about Oscar’s Watch & Jewelry, now at 3505 South Halsted. Our friend had scoured Jeweler’s Row on Wabash, looking for an engagement ring. Then he walked into Oscar’s and found the perfect, distinctive, ring-set right here in Bridgeport. He says the quality was as good as anything he’d seen elsewhere, and the price was better. Oscar Serna first set up shop as a jeweler in Bridgeport in 1977. The shop has many types of fine jewelry & watches, and also repairs both on the premises. Want something extra special? They offer custom design work, as well. http://www.oscarswatchandjewelry.com

3. On the Third Day of Christmas… Three Brawling Monsters

Monster Island Toys (3335 S. Halsted) carries a wide range of action figures, but it’s best known for its Japanese monsters, including Godzilla, and the other beasts he fought with. Owner Loris Basso says he is the only Godzilla dealer in Illinois. He has customers who drive days from Canada to shop the store in person. But lately, between the recession and the big box sore options, there haven’t been enough of them. He may close the store at the end of January, depending on how the holiday sales go. Now’s the time to stock up! Some of the figures become collector’s items rapidly. A model of Ghdorah –a 3 headed dragon on display in the store’s counter–retailed for $25 when it came out a few years ago, and is trading for $100 today. http://www.monsterislandtoys.com/

Winter Issue Soon

The Holiday Issue of the BI Will be coming out soon!

A recipe from this month's issue:

Wiki that Cocktail: The Flip
with Edmar

Since it is the BI’s holiday issue, I thought I would share a delicious recipe that we made for our bar, Maria’s Packaged Goods and Community Bar.

A flip is a class of mixed drinks. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term was first used in 1695 to describe a mixture of beer, rum, and sugar, heated with a red-hot iron (“Thus we live at sea; eat biscuit, and drink flip”). The iron caused the drink to froth, and this frothing (or “flipping”) engendered the name. Over time, the proportion of eggs and sugar increased, the beer was eliminated, and the drink ceased to be served hot.

White & Snowy Flip in Bridgeport
Recipe by Ken Zawacki and Eric Olson of Maria’s.
Our flip is a cold gin flip using Junipero Gin. Junipero is made by Anchor Brewing Company, one of the first major craft breweries in the US who got their hands dirty with distilling spirits. Their gin is made by hand in the classic “distilled dry gin” tradition, utilizing more than a dozen botanicals in their natural state, in a small copper pot still at their little distillery on Potrero Hill in San Francisco. You can try a Dutch Gin as a substitute.

RECIPE:
1 and 1/2 ounce of Junipero Gin
1/2 ounce of simple syrup
1/2 to 1 ounce egg white
Two dashes of nutmeg
One cinnamon stick
1 1/2 ounce Knudsen’s Spiced Cider

Add ice gin, simple syrup, egg white, and cider into a shaker. Shake vigorously for 20-30 seconds
Pour in a chilled rocks glass.
Add nutmeg and cinnamon stick
Drink.

The New Issue of the BI is out

Get your copy at your favorite shop in town... Or try Bridgeport Coffee, Maria's, Pleasant House, Dunkin Donuts, or Ramova Grill...

Download a copy , here>>>

Bridgeport Wants to Retire Crawford and Fisk coal plants

A note from our friends at Sierra Club:

As you read this, Chicago is at an energy crossroads. Our community remains dependent on dirty energy sources like coal that contribute to asthma, lung disease, cancer and other serious health and environmental problems. Here in Bridgeport, that Crawford and Fisk coal plants just across the river are contributing to cancer and respiratory disease, as well as causing asthma attacks especially in children.

The good news is that we have solutions. There is a bright future in transitioning to clean energy, but change will not come unless we demand it. That’s why we here in Bridgeport are building a campaign to pass a strong clean energy plan through this fall that will limit dangerous health pollution from coal and create clean energy jobs for Chicago workers.

We can make this happen this fall, but we need YOUR help. The best way to learn more and get involved is to come to our Community Action Meeting to Move Beyond Coal Wednesday night here in Bridgeport. RSVP right away and bring a friend to:

Community Action Meeting to Move Beyond Coal

Wednesday September 28^th 7:00-8:00pm

Benton House

3052 South Gratten St, Bridgeport

(Refreshments Provided)

All are welcome, please bring your friends!

We have a unique opportunity this fall to push Edison International to stop burning coal and bring in clean, healthy jobs. We need investment in the health and wellbeing of Bridgeport, not more of the same.

So please join us on Wednesday Sept 28^th at 7:00pm. We will have special guest speakers attending, as well as lots of your neighbors. You can expect to find out how you can make a real difference to support the campaign and bring an end to unhealthy coal pollution. It’s time to tell Edison International that enough is enough, and that we’re ready for clean energy now!

RSVP here to let us know you can make it, and bring a friend! Bring a neighbor! Bring anyone interested in cleaner air and a healthier Bridgeport!

Best,

Emma Greenbaum

Sierra Club Field Organizer

Clean Power Coalition Campaign

Bridgeport, Chicago, IL

520-275-4812

emma@greencorps.org

September 24th is Chicago's Roll Beyond Coal Day

Form our friends trying to make The Fisk Power plant (across the river) change to clean energy:

The coal plants in the city of Chicago have been polluting our air for decades. Our campaign to transition these plants is a defining moment in the Sierra Club's national Coal to Clean Energy Campaign. Coal combustion puts billions of tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.

Here in Chicago, the Fisk and Crawford coal plants are contributing to climate change by emitting 5 million tons of carbon dioxide every year.

At our Roll Beyond Coal event, September 24th, we'll call on Midwest Generation, owner of Chicago's two coal plants, to clean up or retire the plants and support renewable energy projects.

Don't miss out -- sign up to attend the Roll Beyond Coal Event on September 24th!

Here are the details:

WHO: You, your friends, and family!

WHAT: We'll kick off the day with a massive bike ride from Daley Plaza to Dvorak Park in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. We'll gather with community residents and others in front of the Fisk coal plant for a rally and clean energy march.

WHEN: Saturday, September 24th, 11am

WHERE: Bike Ride leaves Daley Plaza at 11 a.m., Rally near Dvorak Park (1119 W. Cullerton St.) in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood starts at 12:30 p.m.

Questions: Christine Nannicelli, christine.nannicelli@sierraclub.org

RSVP: http://action.sierraclub.org/site/Calendar?id=156861&view=Detail

Hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

Christine Nannicelli
Beyond Coal Campaign
Sierra Club

Property Owner & Manager Workshops

Hey there, in our latest issue that recently came out, we had an article titled, "You might be a slumlord if..." that talked about property maintenance and tenant screening. The information we posted about the workshops at the end of the article was slightly incorrect, we've learned. Here's a link to more information about the 4 upcoming workshops (two in Sept. and two in Nov.): http://www.greenpublicsolutions.com/landlord-resources-training/property-mgmt-training/schedule/