Tea at Trianon: La Cocina

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, June 23, 2014

La Cocina

From Wells Fargo:

There’s a San Francisco kitchen cooking up a lot more than meals. Called La Cocina (pronounced la co-see-nah, meaning “The Kitchen” in Spanish), this “incubator” helps low-income entrepreneurs launch food businesses and find financial independence along the way.

Founded in an ethnically diverse and economically vulnerable part of the city, La Cocina’s Mission District neighborhood now is thriving — thanks in part to the many small businesses that serve it.

La Cocina has helped 41 entrepreneurs establish businesses since its founding in 2005, and it also has aided countless other residents find jobs in local kitchens. Wells Fargo was a founding funder of La Cocina and has supported it ever since.

Soon La Cocina will open an East Coast outpost in Brooklyn, N.Y., bringing its recipe of business skills and financial support to New York.

The work that La Cocina does transforms lives and has an impact on the entire community. It’s an example of how, little by little, we can achieve a lot. For individuals, for a community, for a neighborhood, the effect can be huge. (Read more.)