The other day I had the good fortune to be invited to a dinner/poetry reading at the Amaranth Bakery. The café is on Lisbon Avenue at 34th street, not far from West Side Academy ll where 8th graders had written poems and made drawings using African Adinkra symbols. Later, the project was expanded to include symbols of peace including mandalas, circles of peace and American Indian symbols. The work was then compiled into a beautiful glossy paper book called Life is a Dark Crystal. Their goal is “to use art (poetry, drawings) to facilitate peacemaking and intergenerational and interracial dialogue.”
During the reading, the students read moving poems about their families and their neighborhood, a place which has seen its share of violence but also a lot of love and support from the students’ friends and families.
As for the dinner: We had a choice of sweet potato lasagna or Italian sausage lasagna with a lovely fresh, organic green salad dressed with a lemon vinaigrette dressing and a piece of their seeded ciapotte. For dessert there was a choice of their rich fudgy brownies, blueberry and almond custard tarts, key lime tarts with fresh raspberries and blueberries on top , or one of their cookies which usually include oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, chocolate chip and molasses to mention a few.
There are usually two soups; today we had a choice of either peanut, chicken vegetable or chick pea vegetable curry.
If you go for lunch, there are also several kinds of salad and quiche as well as daily buttery croissants, morning buns and pecan rolls and several house baked breads They use only organic flour and sugar in their breads and sweets and organic products generally when possible.
Amaranth Bakery is open for lunch Mon-Fri. from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. There will be barbecue in the side yard this summer. Call Amaranth Cafe for details.
