Mollie Katzen's New Soups

Baby boomers and enlightened vegetarians will no doubt recognize Mollie Katzen's name. Author of classic cookbooks like the Moosewood Cookbook and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, Katzen has been a pioneer in the natural and organic food world for 30 years.

Next time you go to click and send flowers to that special someone, stop and redirect your browser to OrganicBouquet.com. OrganicBouquet.com boldly established the natural products industry's newest category, organic flowers. If you don't usually think of pesticides when you think of flowers, think again. Flowers sprayed with chemicals can be so toxic that florists who have been in the industry for years are sometimes forced to leave the business because of dermatitis and other health problems.

Two of Southern California's best known restaurateurs are no strangers to organic food. In fact, Mary Sue Milliken of Border Grill and Susan Feniger of Ciudad helped pave the way for the expansion of Los Angeles' organic food marketplace. Both the Border Grill and Ciudad restaurants feature Latin-inspired foods with every organic ingredient true to the original recipes. The scrumptious results of extensive travel and painstaking study of foods and cultures native to Central and Latin America are evident in each restaurant's authentic cuisines. However, these two restaurants are only the most recent additions to a long-time LA-based partnership built on a mutual love of ethnic cuisine, culture and organic food.

Rock goddess Gwen Stefani got one. So did Usher and Sheryl Crow. Ditto for Jessica Simpson and Lenny Kravitz.

At the 2004 American Music Awards, held in Los Angeles, celebrities accustomed to grabbing goodie bags crammed with pricey fragrances, designer duds, iPods and the latest electronic gadgets were greeted with a delightfully eco-friendly surprise: gift bags overflowing with organic treats like Annie's Homegrown Organic Macaroni and Cheese, Taylor Maid Farms organic coffee, gift certificates for Organic Roses from OrganicBouquet.com, Zhena's Gypsy Tea, coupons for organic ice cream and European-style butter from Straus Family Creamery, and organic cotton tote bags from Patagonia, among other fabulous freebies.

For Jesse Jacobs, tea is more than a simple beverage. It has become his passion-a lifestyle choice "to take care of your body, to make time for yourself and to spend your life with those people you love," he explains.

Whether he's discussing the velvety sweetness of creamy oolong, the chamomile and lemon verbena infusion that relaxes fans of his organic "Chill Out" blend, or the invigorating organic peppermint/black pepper blend (with hints of licorice, ginger root and cardamom) that he dubs Mother's Mint, Jacobs can wax poetic on all of their virtues.