Archives for February 2016

TCOLV…Here, Oh Here Come We!

February 4, 2016 By Jen Chase

Pretty soon, Off the second-floor elevators at the Chandelier Bar; Across from STITCHED; and, In direct sight of the line-up line for Marquee, will be three ways to answer what we hope will be The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas’s hottest question of 2016:

Where’s The Juice Standard?

Best part? The answer will always add up to awesomeness.

Following suit with “The Rose” and “The Hive,” TJS’s third outpost will be affectionately called “The Buzz,” and is fixing to open at The Cosmopolitan in February. So when you or your Strip-bound guests are looking to whet your whistle with the most deliciously raw, fresh, cold-pressed sips made from organic produce, nuts, seeds, and grains , remember: Unlike those big-box brands from out-of-state, we’re the real-deal local choice that’s never pasteurized, and always served with advice, a smile and some love. (And, a menu that features faves and a few surprises can neither be confirmed nor denied.)

Friends Who Juice: Meet Chelsea Dora

February 4, 2016 By Jen Chase

Mary, Mary, quite contrary: How does your garden grow?

So goes the famous nursery rhyme…but watch out: In the Vegas version, throw Mary in a desert and rename her Chelsea, and it’s no more silver bells and cockle shells, but hardy crops from a self-taught farmer who not only drinks our juice, but grows some of the produce we press.

Indeed, despite the kind of blistering, water-sucking heat that rips life from plants instead of inspiring growth, Chelsea Dora is a Las Vegas-based farmer/owner (Urban Hydro Greens is her biz) who makes microgreens-growing magic in the most unlikely spot: a 1000-square foot vertical farm space, in an industrial park off Sunset near McCarran International Airport. There, Dora tirelessly grows the kind of greens that are as gentle on the environment as they are on our stomachs.

I moved to Las Vegas in…2003 from…South Carolina, and at UNLV I studied…International Business Marketing with a minor in Chinese. I graduated in…2013.

In my experience, the biggest misconception about living in Las Vegas is…that everybody eats-sleeps-works on the Strip, and that there’s no life outside the Strip. If you think about other cities [the Strip] is one street—one street! There’s so much to Las Vegas within four hours: hiking, swimming, snowboarding, lakes, beach….

The thing I not-so-secretly love most about living here is…the landscape and the weather. The skies are always so beautiful and blue, and the mountains look different every single day.

My daily mantra or “quote to live by” is…“Be the change.” Very simple. It inspires action, always, which I think is lost on a lot of us. We have mantras or things we want to do every day, but “Be the change” is so powerful.

Don’t get me started talking about…misconceptions in the health information world. I get so fired up. I feel like I have a deep understanding of how the body works, and there’s so much marketing out there about what our body “needs.” People see an article they read on Facebook they’ve scanned for a few seconds and think they’ve become an expert.

Every day I strive to…stay present. There’s no shame in striving to do something, even if you don’t reach it. When you go to the store and someone’s in the checkout line, it’s so easy to be inside our day and not say, “Hi. How are you? Who are you?” I try to set the intention [to be present].

Something people would be shocked to know about me is…I kill houseplants. Microgreens are really easy. [But] I have no green thumb.

A fave Vegas spot that never gets old is…the trail system, and the mountains. There’s a trail behind Rhodes Ranch with gypsum caves. It takes 10 minutes to drive there and five minutes to walk, and there’s a view of all of Las Vegas.

About Urban Hydro Greens

Being a farmer in Las Vegas makes me sound like an urban farming unicorn. When I tell people what I do, I get funny looks, followed by this:

Them: You’re from Las Vay-gas? Oh, how cool. What do you do?

Me: I’m a farmer.

Them: What do you meeean?

And this is the thing: With urban agriculture, we are really creating an industry. In this new-age, urban setting, I use some soil but I’m not knee deep in cow dung. I live in a high rise and I drive my Mustang. There are a few out there, but there are maybe two or three new-age urban farms growing micro greens as a health-oriented company.

We get questions worldwide on our Facebook page [about what we do]. People want to be healthy. You may need a doctor once a year, but you need a farmer three times a day.

This is how I acquired the company. A lot of people don’t know the inception story. When I was in college and I was going to farmers markets (and you should encourage students to go to farmers markets!), I met husband-and-wife team—Dennis and Nickie Vitali—and they had a farm. And I started buying microgreens from them. Mind you, the microgreens were just in a box, so I started learning about what they were and why they were good for me.

I went home and would put them in my smoothie. Then, any time I was at the market as a customer, I started selling to the other customers, explaining what microgreens are. The Vitalis were like, “Hey: You can come to the farm!” Finally, I started volunteering and I learned how to farm them. I wanted to start a juice bar, so they invited me to open one next to them. And I did. And, I ended up buying into the company.

Today, Dennis and I are partners and Nickie has her own business. But they sparked the interest in me by giving me the inspiration that hey: I can grow. I attribute a lot of this success to them. They’re older and wiser, and for them, I brought a youthful energy

I supply the micro greens to TJS. The thing that makes me most proud about my collaboration with the company is…I think it’s one thing to serve juice, but to go the extra step to inspire them and educate them about something that’s better than anything they could make at home? Something they would feed it to their mom, or give it to their child?

Other restaurants and stores I supply my micro greens to are…Winder Organic Farms (which delivers farm-fresh products); View Wine Bar and Kitchen at Tivoli Village; Chef Jeff at Todd English P.U.B. (at Aria); The Sparklings; and, The Juice Standard. We’ve worked with more than 30 restaurants.

What’s your 5-year goal for the company? We have a school curriculum, a classroom initiative. I’d like our “Garden In A Bag” kit to be retail-able. I’d like…for young people to have some sustaining income, and to open farms in food deserts, or in the middle of New York City. There are projects I’d like to see grow and be managed by young people. Farms create community, and I’d like [the Urban Hydro Greens] model to spread like wildfire.

Chelsea On Juice

The fruit or vegetable you’ll always find in my pantry is…goji berries. I always like them in tea.

The first time I realized I loved cold-pressed juice was…probably when I watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.

The first time I drank green juice…it was wheatgrass, and I was one of those people who just threw it up. I detoxed so quick! But it showed me how much I really needed to detox.

Today, I drink cold-pressed juice because…I believe it’s an integral part in understanding produce and food as a whole. The idea is that we don’t eat enough things that start from the ground, and [juice] is an easy way to get the nutrients we need. Who’s going to sit and eat as much produce as what’s in a bottle? I’m a vegan, and I can’t sit and eat so much kale. I don’t want to be in an uncomfortable place. But cold-pressed juice hips me get those natural, healthy things into my diet. Plus, I feel healthy. When I drink a green juice, it feels like medicine, and it reminds you that you’re giving yourself a gift. You’re treating yourself nicely

My advice to a newbee juicer is…to avoid juice with too much fruit. They should try something like a Bee Resilient, because for a green juice that is one of the smoothest juices I’ve ever had, it is the most healthy juice TJS has. It’s going to be the most detoxifying. And I think it’s imperative that new juicers know that.

Who Are The Bees In Our Hive? Urban Hydro Greens.

February 4, 2016 By Jen Chase

In the last 5 years there’s been a huge uptick in people caring about where their food comes from, since the fewer the miles ingredients travel between harvesting and cooking, the more nutritious they are.

Couple that feel-goodyness with a return to how food was harvested in the olden days (i.e., without pesticides) and you’ve got folks craving the purity of organic produce just as much as The Juice Standard does. So in this occasional feature, “Who Are The Bees In Our Hive?” we’re introducing you Bees to the farmers and purveyors who help TJS do the deliciously good work that we do.

Urban Hydro Greens: Go Small or Go Home.

Know those delicate, frilly little greens that started topping salads and sammies a few years ago? Hardly for show, they’re called microgreens and they’re harvested for more than cuteness.

The threadlike shoots that veggies like broccoli, kale and peas produce just after they sprout are massively nutrient dense: A handful of broccoli microgreens actually has the same vitamin and mineral content as a pound and a half of its full-size cousin. (Imagine the chewing you can save!) Plus, their size makes them easier to digest than the full-fledged veg…so people who have trouble tolerating typical, gas-inducing culprits like broccoli or kale do much better with littletons greens.

TJS uses micro greens in our Field Greens Salad and our newest juice, Bee Resilient. And we buy them from right here in Las Vegas from Urban Hydro Greens, founded by farmer Chelsea Dora and her partner, Dennis Vitali, where thanks to their hard work, within 24 hours Urban Hydro Greens’ greens go from soil to TJS salad plate, wrap or bottle. Can’t get much more local than that. Here, Dora shares some ins and outs of this farm just five minutes off the Las Vegas Strip.

US (The Humble Bee): You’ve created a vertical farm, indoors, in the desert…and a very successful one, at that. You must still get weirdo looks.

THEM (Urban Hydro Greens): We have birthday parties. We teach classes. We sell “Garden In A Bag.” Most microgreen farmers you speak to are [growing] for specific restaurants, and we do that too; but we have a different take. I’m in business to teach people. I’d like to “Mary Kay” this, where mothers can start their own farms as a source of income and feed their own communities.

US: You sell microgreens at farmers markets. Is the home cook savvy enough to buy them?

THEM: When I first started going to farmers markets, maybe one in 50 people knew what they were. Now? About one in 15 do.

US: What’s making them more popular?

THEM: Microgreens are more gentle on the digestion…and their live, active enzymes break down easily, so the body is more capable of absorbing them. One handful of microgreens is up to 40 times more potent than the vegetable itself. They’re like live multi vitamins. We like to say, “Don’t just garnish your food; garnish your life!”

US: What’s in the TJS blend you grow for our salads and juice?

THEM: We call it our “Local Superfood Microgreens Blend.” It contains micro broccoli, kale, pea shoots, red cabbage, bok choy, and amaranth, and it does everything from fights cancer and increases immunity; delivers plant protein and amino acids; makes hair, skin and nails shine; and even detoxes the liver and gallbladder. The mircogreens in the blend were carefully chosen to crate the ultimate meal booster…[and] the easiest way to get your daily vitamins and minerals in one serving!

PolyJuicery: BEE In Love With More Than One.

February 4, 2016 By Jen Chase

Bee Pure, Bee Resilient and Bee Grateful are three different and swoon-worthy juices that will provide a day’s worth of delicious nutrition. While society pushes us to vary what we eat—and it’s pretty much a necessity for maintaining a balanced diet—who’s to say that same need for, er, “variety” isn’t applicable to other areas of life?

This month, we honor variety of another kind: our ability to bee in love with more than one juice—and, daresay, one person—and beeing brave enough to explore it.

If you’re a person of a certain age, chances are you’ve run the gamut of relationships.

Maybe you’ve been in love, out of love, sworn off love, or don’t know if you’ve actually seen it.

Whether with men, women and/or both, maybe you feel like you broke love or love broke you.

Maybe, try as you did, you couldn’t connect with the face across the pillow that you chose for as long as you both shall live.

Maybe love’s not your gig, and maybe it’s all you ever wanted.

Maybe you partnered flawlessly and your other half died. Or maybe, when he or she walked out, the corpse left in their wake was you.

For centuries we’ve been conditioned to frame love and loss through a somewhat Colonial and Puritanical lens. But today’s truth is this: More and more people are exploring how to wrap their minds around giving love, seeking love and receiving it from more than one person at a time. And they’re pretty timid to admit it.

Cuddle Puddle

Beecause of this, for the 30- to 50-year-old demographic, bookstore shelves are thin from sales of titles that today’s women seem starved to digest: alternative relationships, polyamory, and the fact that some people’s capacity to love can be so abundant, the ages-old construct of monogamy—the choice to partner with one person at a time—doesn’t work for them.

Let that creep in a little:

Monogamy…feels off.

That may seem harsh, but we couldn’t mean less harm. Books like Esther Perel’s perennial Mating In Captivity, Sex From Scratch: Making Your Own Relationship Rules and The Ethical Slut (and don’t go judging a book by its cover because that last one is profound) are thoughtful and deeply researched missives about open relationships relative to polyamory, which the Polyamory Society calls “the non-possessive, honest, responsible, and ethical philosophy and practice of loving multiple people simultaneously.”

(Now let’s think about that concept for a minute as it applies to how we partner:)

The non-possessive, honest, responsible, and ethical philosophy and practice of loving multiple people simultaneously.

((And call us crazy, but shouldn’t all relationships be like that?))

Actually, the notion of not placing all of our love eggs in the basket of one person to carry is a lot like building a custom TJS Singleton Six-Pack. Sure, it’s safe to buy six bottles of the same juice, especially if it keeps you sipping within the lines of predictability. But what if your soul’s true palate points to not one, but three flavors that independently, symbiotically and chemically fill not just your TJS cardboard carrier but your heart, too? What if we weren’t afraid to admit that the ages-old definition of partnering with one end-all-bee-all person doesn’t work for everyone? Isn’t it possible it would be more fair to our partners if we sought some things from some and others from others, rather than expecting everything from one knight or princess? And what keeps us from being honest about expressing new thoughts about our needs…even if they shatter the status quo?

If we crave multiple people to fill our proverbial love tanks—if we believe that advice like this exists to remind that the human capacity to love is SO abundant that it explains how a mother can equally love each of her children—it may be time to better support one another as we reach for the courage to admit there’s no shame in feigning convention. It may help us force the question that if we have the capacity to love more than one person, and we seek a partner with the flexibility to explore this beautiful way of sharing a life with someone who’s likeminded, maybe together we’ll build bravery to talk about it. Seems like the above books and candid conversations is a pretty good place to start.

At TJS, juice is our one true love. And in this emotive month—and during these emotive decades in people’s lives as we swan dive into our own authenticity after a separation, an uncoupling or a death—there’s zero shame in saying, “Traditional relationships haven’t worked for me. I want more.”

This month—this Valentine’s Day—if you don’t have a “one love,” it hardly means you don’t have love. You can love more than one thing. Know why? Our one true love is that which we do in our lives for ourselves: our career and our parenting; our art; our juice…whatever. And while a handful of Team Bees waxed poetic last week about this very subject, Creative Director Mallory Dawn said it beautifully best:

Our one true love is simply that which moves us; and when we allow ourselves to love more than one person or thing, we invite more love to return to us.

(How does it get any better or less scary than that?)

So for all our talk about being kind to one another, this February (this life?) let’s baby step toward being kind to ourselves while exploring how freeing it could feel to own a face of love that works for us, not one that works for society. Let’s loosen conversations in our friendships and communities that explore just how much our hearts might grow if we drop the fear and inch toward what we think might be true for us…even if it’s not popular. Beecause while monogamy can be our life’s most precious gift if we’re blessed to find our “one,” if how you’ve partnered hasn’t felt quite right, it might be time to change the dance.