in praise of sardines

Meet our printers: A. Maciel Printing

Opening Contigo, I have learned so much about myself. It has been an incredible workshop. A wise person once told me that how you do anything is how you do everything. I am a cook and I'm learning that I bring a cook's perspective to everything I do. I make decisions the same way that I cook and shop. When I go to the farmers market, for example, I like to survey the entire market before I choose which tangerine to buy. I sniff, I squeeze, I taste. I ask the farmers questions. I listen to their stories. I gain equal amounts of pleasure from the process as I do from the sweet juicy tangerine that is the end result.

I shopped for a long time to find the right printer for Contigo's business cards and other print materials. I interviewed, I got samples, I got price quotes. I wanted a printer who cared not just about the quality of the end result, but the process. I wanted a printer with integrity.

I had nearly given up my quest when I asked Elan, my girlfriend and partner in Contigo, to try her hand. I pride myself in my research abilities, but I am a punter compared to Elan. Ask Elan to research a topic and she will have an answer — no, the best possible answer — for you faster than a chocolate bar melts on a hot summer day. Her discovery: A. Maciel Printing.

 For those who care about the environment, A. Maciel Printing (and their subsidiary greenpostcards.com) is the dream print shop. Thanks to A. Maciel, we can proudly proclaim that all of Contigo's business cards and postcards are printed on 100% post-consumer recycled content, chlorine free, uncoated paper with soy based inks. And that's not all. A. Maciel's print shop is 100% wind powered, their presses are twice as efficient as comparable presses, and their workers are unionized. Their delivery car? A Prius, of course. I heart our printers.

Best of all, A. Maciel's story is as sweet as one of Will Brokaw's gold nugget tangerines. A. Maciel is a family run business. When he started the shop more than 20 years ago, Alfonso Maciel Sr. wanted to make sure his kids would be safe running around in their dad's print shop. He and his wife did everything they could to eliminate potentially toxic chemicals from their print shop. Now their children are grown and they work beside their parents in their idyllic printshop that includes an awesome 50-year-old Heidelberg letter press.

We at Contigo feel fortunate to collaborate with a print shop that shares our passion for sustainable and environmentally responsible business practices. Thank you, A. Maciel!

The answer to your question

Contigo will open at 5:30 pm on Tuesday, February 17th.

That's 4 weeks/28 days/677 hours/40,620 minutes from now.

See you there?

Read more in today's Tablehopper.

Or apply for a job on Craigslist!

Menu for Hope 2008 - We have a winner + a Contigo update

Congratulations, Thea Dwelle!

You won the combined In Praise of Sardines/Vinography Menu for Hope prize (UW14) this year: dinner for 6 at Contigo with wine pairings by Alder Yarrow! Please contact me so that I can send you your gift certificate.

Alder and I are so very proud and humbled that our prize helped to inspire our readers to purchase so many raffle tickets for Menu for Hope's 2008 fundraiser. I lost count after the number tickets for our prize exceeded 200. As a community, we food bloggers, restaurateurs, and our readers, fans, and friends raised over $60,000 for the UN World Food Programme. What an amazing feat, especially in these challenging economic times. The school children of Lesotho thank and applaud you all!

I'm almost ready to answer the question I'm asked several times a day: when will Contigo open? This week's big news is that we have started hiring! Contigo's fantastic new General Manager starts Monday. Our first order of business is to set an opening date and time table. Stay tuned for details.

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