Jacob Goodman, coordinator of the Bloomingfoods Kirkwood store, spends his days interacting with customers, stocking out groceries, and pulling together the operational details of our original location. Tucked into an alley intersection, between Village Deli and Runcible Spoon just off Kirkwood, this first Bloomingfoods store attracts Indiana University customers who stroll down the block down from Sample Gates. It’s the only co-op we know of that is made of limestone (it’s a former carriage house), featuring a wide staircase and upper floor. Packed with history and delicious things to eat, the Kirkwood location offers prepared foods biked in daily from the Near West Side deli, by Chad Roeder of Bloomington Pedal Power. Calvin Wong makes fresh sushi each day in the small Kirkwood prep kitchen.
In this intimate space, conducive to conversation, Goodman invariably talks with people about food, sometimes sharing the fact that he is vegan. He has recently begun to offer vegan cooking classes, too, at Jan Bulla-Baker’s Bloomington Cooking School on the Courthouse Square. He is also available to talk with student groups, as he did recently at Eigenmann Hall.
People choose a vegan diet for a variety of reasons: most are motivated by the ethics of (not) eating animals. Unlike vegetarians, who also refrain from animal protein, vegans decline animal by-products of any kind, including dairy and eggs. They may select to not wear leather, and to adopt other cultural features of a vegan lifestyle. (Many vegans ingeniously use the visual arts, including body art, to promote their identities and values.) |
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Exterior of Our Original Limestone Store Provides Habitat for House Sparrows The Downtown Bloomingfoods, in the alley off Kirkwood, has recently
been certified as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat through the National
Wildlife Federation and the Center for Sustainable Living.
Susan Bright, manager of the Kirkwood Store, asked Lucille Bertuccio
from CSL to tell us more about house sparrows and why their
relationship to the store qualifies it for Backyard Wildlife Habitat
certification. Here is what she told us:
A habitat is defined by the Illustrated Oxford Dictionary as the
‘natural home of an organism.’ Thus, while the environs of the downtown
Bloomingfoods store do not provide a habitat for our native birds, it
is most definitely a home for those species that we have, mistakenly or
otherwise, brought to this country from the cities of Europe. The house
sparrow is one such bird.
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Hi, all! Amy Loop at the Downtown Store would like to share the following report on our fresh meat and fish offerings.
Cheers,
Steve
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We here at the downtown store have been experimenting over the last year or so with a fresh meats case. Most of the products in the case are local, free-range, and sustainably raised. They are also free of any hormones or antibiotics in their feed, and the farmers use feed that is either homemade or organic. |
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