Susan Jackson

Study shows yoga may elevate important brain chemical

Yoga has long been known for building strength, flexibility, and spirituality — but it seems that the exercise can also improve mental health. A recent study conducted by researchers from Boston University’s School of Medicine and McLean Hospital suggests that practicing yoga may increase levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an important brain chemical. Low levels of GABA, the brain’s primary inhibitory neurotransmitter, are often associated with depression and anxiety disorders.

Study lead author Chris Streeter, a MED assistant professor of psychiatry and neurology, was interested in research showing that yoga decreases seizure frequency and helps reduce symptoms associated with depression and anxiety. “I thought that yoga, which worked on two disorders that improved when GABA levels went up, would increase GABA levels — and it did,” says Streeter, who is also a research associate at McLean.

The study compared the GABA levels of experienced yoga practitioners after a one-hour session with the levels of a group that read for an hour. Levels of the chemical in the yoga group rose by 27 percent, while those in the reading group showed no change. In comparison, pharmaceutical agents used to treat depression and anxiety disorders can increase GABA levels by 30 to 40 percent.

“It is exciting that a behavioral intervention is having an effect on brain chemistry similar to medication,” says Streeter. She says the research may provide more choices for people looking to improve their health, but warns people not to stop taking their medication without consulting their doctor. “As people get older there are lifestyle choices that affect long-term health,” she says. “It’s important to make good lifestyle choices, and I think that for many people, yoga is one of them.”

Michael Halley, a yoga instructor at BU’s Fitness and Recreation Center, is not surprised by research that demonstrates yoga’s health benefits. “If you get into the habit, you can do it forever,” he says. “Yoga is something you can grow into and grow with.”

Getting started with yoga can be as simple as walking into a class or picking up an instructional DVD. Halley finds that many beginners are nervous about their lack of flexibility, but he says that stretching is only part of the practice. “Yoga is not about touching your toes,” he says. “It’s about learning to make more space in your body.”

FitRec offers classes in hatha yoga and power yoga during the summer as well as throughout the school year. The second session of summer classes begins the second week of July. For more information, visit the FitRec Web site.

A 144-acre farm in rural New Hampshire hardly seems like the place for a publicity hub handling interview requests from some of the nation’s largest media outlets, but it is there on Eagle Pond Farm that Houghton Mifflin author Donald Hall is doing just that. A celebrated poet for more than sixty years, Hall can now add Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, or simply Poet Laureate, to his list of accomplishments. The seventy-seven-year-old New Hampshire writer will serve as the country’s fourteenth poet laureate when his duties begin this fall, and because of it he is receiving quite a bit of attention.

The position of poet laureate was created to raise the national consciousness of and enhance appreciation for the reading and writing of poetry. Hall hopes to continue the tradition of the last several laureates and extend poetry’s reach to a wider audience. The sometimes outspoken writer is interested in the possibility of a poetry channel on satellite radio or perhaps on cable television. This is an interesting choice for a man who lives and writes in a rural farmhouse without the aid of a computer or even a typewriter.

Eagle Pond Farm has been in Hall’s family for several generations and it was there that at age twelve, the poet began practicing his craft. At sixteen, he attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont as a fellow. Then, after studying at Harvard College and Oxford University, Hall went on to teach at the University of Michigan.

Toward the end of his eighteen years at Michigan, Hall met Jane Kenyon, then a student who would later become his wife and an accomplished poet in her own right. After marrying, Hall left his tenure and he and Kenyon moved to Eagle Pond Farm to take up the uncertain life of freelancing. They lived and wrote together for twenty years until Kenyon’s tragic passing in 1995 after battling with leukemia. Ironically, they had initially put off marrying for fear that Hall, nineteen years older than Kenyon, would leave her as a young widow.

Kenyon’s death deeply affected Hall and its presence in his writing is clear. His 2005 novel, The Best Day The Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon, is an intimate look into their twenty-three-year marriage that further imparts the sense of loss felt in Without, an earlier book of poetry reflecting Hall’s grief.

Hall’s most recent work, White Apples and the Taste of Stone, chronicles more than two hundred poems from his lengthy career. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington noted that the new laureate is “one of America’s most distinctive and respected literary figures. For more than fifty years, he has written beautiful poetry on a wide variety of subjects that are often distinctly American and conveyed with passion.” The array of those subjects is featured in this collection, from details of his life on Eagle Pond Farm, to his marriage, and even his love of baseball.

As former five-year poet laureate of New Hampshire with thirty-five books of poetry and prose, children’s books, and plays to his record, Donald Hall is certainly a highly qualified man of letters. When he begins his duties as the nation’s laureate, he will travel to his Washington, D.C., post at the Library of Congress several times a year, and make appearances around the country. However, even with the increased attention on Hall’s life and work and the $35,000 stipend given to laureates, it is likely that much of the business of his new position will still be arranged through that unlikely media hub nestled within the walls of an 1803 New Hampshire farmhouse.

Woods Hole, Mass. is more than just a stopover

From May to October, Falmouth, Massachusetts’ sleepy seaside village of Woods Hole wakes up to welcome thousands of seasonal visitors. Many will just pass through on the way to Martha’s Vineyard—parking a car, grabbing a cup of chowder, and hustling to catch one of the Steamship Authority’s regularly departing ferries. These Vineyard travelers may think of the area only as a stopover, but Woods Hole boasts enough attractions to delight those with time enough to stay ashore.

Though the livelihoods of local business owners depend on the increase in visitors in the summer, year-round, Woods Hole is a scientists’ town. Jammed into its 2.16 square miles are numerous scientific organizations, including branches of the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Geological Survey, and the privately funded Marine Biological Laboratories (MBL) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)—the organization behind the discovery of the Titanic in 1985. The resulting feel of the tiny community by the sea is decidedly hipster-meets-hippie intellectual, with a bit of old salt toughness stirred in.

Parking is extremely limited in “the Hole,” as locals call it, so if your not already planning on arriving by shuttle bus from one of the Steamship Authority’s many parking lots throughout Falmouth and beyond, two wheels may be a more convenient mode of transport than four. The Shining Sea Bikeway is a four-mile paved stretch of flat and friendly terrain that begins just outside Falmouth center and ends at the main Steamship Authority parking lot on Railroad Avenue in Woods Hole. Named after a line in the song “America The Beautiful,” written by Falmouth native Katharine Lee Bates, the scenic bikeway travels through the woods, past salt ponds and marshes, and along the ocean. If you’d rather not break a sweat, the charming Whoosh Trolley loops from Main Street in Falmouth to Woods Hole every twenty minutes in the summer ($1/ride, $3/day pass).

Whether arriving by car, bike, or trolley, Woods Hole’s attractions are easily navigable by foot and are generally located around Eel Pond, the small harbor in the middle of the village. If you pull into town in time for breakfast, the Pie in The Sky (10 Water St.) and Coffee Obsession (38 Water St.) offer baked goods, coffees, teas, and juices in cozy atmospheres complete with local art, funky employees behind the counters, and free wireless Internet access. If you take your fare to go, make sure to stroll by the post office (16 Water St.) for a postcard-worthy photo of its ever-blooming window boxes below the village’s name marked in gold gilt on the plate-glass windows.

For a sit-down breakfast, Fishmonger’s Café (56 Water St.) cooks up omelets and homemade muffins and is perched next to the tiny drawbridge that separates Eel Pond from Great Harbor. On the hour, the bridge raises to let boats, large and small, pass through. The process of closing the road and raising and lowering the bridge is undertaken by a single bridge-tender and often draws a crowd.

Just past the bridge you will see a marker that annually draws a crowd of a different sort. Outside the Captain Kidd Bar and Restaurant (77 Water St.), you will find a thick line painted from sidewalk to sidewalk indicating the starting point of the Falmouth Road Race. This thirty-five–year-old athletic tradition draws 10,000 runners and swells the town’s population in the beginning of August each year.

If there is a need for the requisite souvenir t-shirt, Sweats (6 Luscombe Ave.) provides the standard variety, but Howlingbird Studio (89 Water St.) creates designs with a local flare. For more than thirty years, the studio has sold t-shirts and other apparel with screened images of marine life such as horseshoe crabs and cuddlefish. For other homegrown keepsakes, Woods Hole Handworks (68 Water St.) is a cooperative gallery featuring unique items including jewelry, stained glass, and ceramics. Under the Sun (22 Water St.) also provides an outlet for local artisans.

The spirit of localism is strong in Woods Hole. The village’s businesses are all locally owned and residents like it that way. In 1996, McDonalds was set to move into the first floor of the Lee Side Restaurant (2 Luscombe Ave.). Locals were vehemently opposed to the chain opening and launched a campaign to voice their displeasure. T-shirts and buttons urging officials to “Keep Woods Hole Franchise-Free,” a parade, and legal action ensued. Eventually brothers Joe and Jamie Crowley, also owners of The Captain Kidd, purchased the Lee Side and eliminated the possibility of the golden arches glowing by the sea.

Being local though, is not a requirement for two of Woods Hole’s most popular summer residents. LuSeal and Coco, harbor seals who call the Woods Hole Science Aquarium (166 Water St.) home, were rescued after being stranded on the beaches of Maine. The pair draws large crowds to their twice-daily feedings and is quite popular with school groups. The small aquarium showcases animals from regional waters and welcomes visitors behind the scenes to interact not only with the staff, but also with snails, crabs, and other small creatures in two shallow “touch tanks.” Especially on a rainy day, the aquarium is widely considered a top attraction.

Another free draw lies away from the hustle of Water Street. Constructed in the 1880s, St. Joseph’s Bell Tower and its accompanying garden on Church Street overlook the boats tied up in Eel Pond. In line with the community’s scientific emphasis, the tower’s two bells are named Mendel and Pasteur.

After the walk back from the Bell Tower around Eel Pond, you’ll probably have worked up an appetite for lunch. To sit on the water with a view of the Steamship Authority ferries docking, and smaller vessels tying up at an arm’s length from your table, head to the Landfall Restaurant (3 Luscombe Ave.). Opened by David Estes in 1946, the restaurant is now run by his sons, Don and Jim and displays a mass of nautical décor. The classically New England menu features a clam chowder that shouldn’t be missed.

If a fresh squeezed cocktail and a quahog (a stuffed clam) are on your must-try list, walk down the cobblestone path off Water Street to Shuckers World Famous Raw Bar and Café (91a Water St.). The casual dining restaurant is located practically in Eel Pond and serves it’s own signature Nobska Light Beer, named for picturesque Nobska Lighthouse located just outside the heart of Woods Hole.

If your perfect Cape Cod day involves more lying on the beach and less exploring, Stoney Beach (Gosnold Rd.) is the place to get comfortable in the sand. A favorite among scientists, families, teenagers, and seniors alike, the beach is packed on the weekends, so plan to arrive early. If you do drive, a one-day Falmouth Town Beach sticker will cost you $20.00.

For the less adventurous, Woods Hole may never be anything more than the last bit of dry land on the way across Vineyard Sound. But for everyone from a family of five to someone looking to enjoy a cold cocktail on a hot summer day, Woods Hole brings a whole lot of choices to a Cape and Islands vacation.

See Woods Hole from three different perspectives on these free, guided walking tours. Reservations are recommended.

WHOI
Access to WHOI dock area and other restricted village facilities, background on WHOI history and research information.

(Late June through early September, M–F, 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., 508-289-2252, information@whoi.edu.)

MBL
Video presentation, visit to Marine Resources Center to see research animals.

(Late June through the end of August. M–F, 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m., off-season tours available upon request, 508-289-7623, comm@mbl.edu.)

Woods Hole Historical Museum
10 downloadable audio tours with photos and interviews.

Learning the basics of gourmet beans

Amy Thieeault wears a small, sparkly stud in her nose and her blond hair cropped short. Her welcoming smile is enough to ward off any stress as she deftly assembles a line of breakfast burritos behind the counter at True Grounds, the coffee and sandwich shop she and Rhett Richard opened in Somerville’s Ball Square in 2004. The Saturday morning crowd is lively—a group of women tuck themselves into a table in the front window, loudly sharing stories and laughter; students in sweats clutch laptops and textbooks as they crane their necks, looking for an empty table in every corner of the tiny maroon-walled seating area; middle-aged adults relax with newspapers. Amidst the tribal masks, landscape photographs, and coffee kitsch lining the walls, everyone sips his or her caffeine of choice from one of True Grounds’ colorful, mismatched ceramic mugs. Thieeault may not be able to tell you where all her customers have come from on any given day, but she can tell you where their coffee did—each and every cup.

True Grounds exclusively serves Terroir Select Coffee, a gourmet brand based in Acton, Massachusetts, that believes in a transparent approach to the business of acquiring and roasting coffees. The company sells only single-origin varieties, meaning Terroir knows that all the beans in a batch came from the same place, as well as how they were grown, and by whom. “The single origin is a huge draw,” says Thieeault. “We’ve had great conversations with our customers who are psyched to have George in the area.” The George she speaks of is George Howell, owner of Terroir Select and legend in the world of specialty coffee.

Terroir, the French word that refers to the characteristics the geography of an area imparts on wine, is a fitting name for the company and its coffee values. Thieeault knows, for example, that the dark roast she is serving this month came from the Matalapa farm outside El Salvador’s southwestern city of La Libertad. If she visited Terroir Select’s website, she could also find out that the 14-acres of virgin tropical forest that makes up the farm is owned and operated by Vickie Ann Dalton de Díaz, whose great grandmother began the operation in the late 1800s.

Try getting that from someone behind the counter at Dunkin’ Donuts.

This origin-specific information may seem superfluous to many, but to the coffee elite, it can be essential for enjoyment. It lets them know what to expect in terms of flavor, body, and other characteristics. These people are on a higher level of loving coffee, and if you’re not in their club, they can spot you like a freezer bag full of Folgers Crystals. If you want to tread on their turf, you’ll need to know some coffee basics.

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Before the Starbucks boom in the late 1990s, coffee was not widely seen in the United States as a beverage of status. Tasters Choice and the bottomless cup at the local greasy spoon fueled early risers and all-night study sessions. Independent coffee shops existed, but harbored hip people who spoke a language foreign to just-add-water, instant drinkers. They used words like cappuccino and latté. They put on open mic nights and sold vegan biscotti. In those days, you avoided the potential embarrassment of not knowing how to properly order a cup by avoiding these places.

But now, these places are everywhere. Thanks to the proliferation of that green circle and crowned mermaid, ordinary people are fluent in such Starbuck-ified Italian units of liquid measure as tall, grande, and venti.

Coffee is not simple anymore. For someone who doesn’t drink a lot of it, a trip to Starbucks can be a nightmare. Choosing from the extensive drink menu and worrying about ordering correctly can induce sweating, especially when everyone else in line potentially is a coffee elitist, waiting to flex his or her expert ordering muscles while you stumble over where to correctly insert the word “iced” into your beverage request.

Gourmet chains have given the masses a basic education in specialty coffee—it seems nearly everyone has a favorite number of espresso shots—and it’s difficult to tell the coffee fanatic from the poseur. So does that guy ahead of you who just ordered the Breakfast Blend with such authority really know what is in it? Or has seeing pictures of Britney Spears’ daily Frappuccino © runs subliminally spurred him to come in? Maybe that woman in the power suit really needs a gallon of high-test coffee to push her through an important M&A meeting, or perhaps she believes the cup complements her pencil skirt and completes her air of authority. What about the pack of teenage girls giggling behind you? Do the milkshake-cum-coffee beverages they are undoubtedly about to order make them bona fide coffee connoisseurs? You definitely can’t order the safety drink—a hot chocolate—with this group around. They’ll know you’re a fake. Plus you’ll probably say “small” instead of “tall” and really make the green-aproned baristas snicker at you behind that noisy machine that spits out steam and pretentiousness.

Knowledge of the Starbucks menu alone, though, doesn’t qualify your line-mates for PhDs in coffee. “The green giant sells more milk than they do coffee,” says John Wheir, who has been a professional roaster with major companies International Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and Allegro Coffee (coffee supplier for Whole Foods). “I appreciate their effort to educate the public about specialty coffee, but they have become the McDonald’s of coffee.”

So where to turn for tutelage if not to the giant? Websites, online communities, and podcasts dedicated to the art of loving coffee can be places to build an understanding without risking the scrutiny of the coffee shop snob (or wannabe snob). Sweet Maria’s, Coffee Geek, and Coffee Review are just a few. The Snob Free Coffee podcast is particularly aware of the highbrow coffee clique. Its welcoming message states, “If you haven’t got it by now—we hate coffee snobs. It’s not that we don’t agree that a combination of good machinery and good technique can produce great coffee. But that doesn’t mean that looking down at people who don’t know their macchiato from their ristretto is called for.”

When it is your time to bravely explore the world of coffee elitism, start with something widely consumed that you are probably already familiar with—blended coffee.

Blends can help mediocre coffees become unique flavor experiences. Like wine grapes, and plant life in general, coffee beans take on different flavors and characteristics depending on where, how, and when they are grown. Because of differences in weather, soil, and countless other factors, the tasting notes for South Australia’s Penfolds 2005 Koonunga Hill Shiraz indicate that the wine has hints of licorice, while the 2003 vintage does not. Similarly, a farm may yield coffee crops of varying quality from year to year. The beans used in a blended coffee may come from a variety of different farms, regions, or countries and work together to compensate for individual weaknesses or inconsistencies—it’s teamwork in beverage form.

With blends, roasters must begin with the end result in mind and know what the farmer’s intentions were when producing the beans. Altitude and position of mountain slope are among several hundred other microclimatic conditions that contribute to the unique flavor of an origin the roaster is trying to bring out. “To determine the desired end taste profile of a blend, a master roaster may have a palate of berries from Ethiopia’s Harrar region, the earthiness of freshly picked mushrooms in a Sulawesi, or the rich black currant one might encounter in the perfect Kenya AA,” says Wheir, who speaks as if he is a priest, and coffee is his religion.

Blends can combine beans of a lesser quality with something great, but coffee experts know that blends can also mask the superior qualities some exemplary beans possess. Enter single-origin coffee. The belief is that fine single-origin coffees, like fine wines, should not be blended, but rather allowed to stand alone as complete statements. This approach showcases superior beans and gives kudos to the farmers responsible for their cultivation. Properly incentivised, the single-origin market encourages farmers to strive for quality and recognition unattainable when producing for anonymous blends. Most notably, a competition called the Cup of Excellence (CoE), known as the Oscar’s© of coffee, determines a country’s absolute best single-origin offerings for a particular year through a stringent selection process. The winning lots are sold via a worldwide Internet auction to the highest bidder. Eighty-five percent of the fetching price goes directly to the farmer. “Winning the Cup of Excellence auction is a life-changing event for these farmers,” says Jerry O’Hare, customer service manager for Terroir Select, which purchases CoE lots. On the commodities market, coffee is sold for between 60 and 80 cents per pound. Through the CoE, the coffee sells from 5 to 50 dollars per pound.

Identifying origin and paying super-premium prices may seem outlandish in a world of generally accepted anonymous coffee, but it is exactly like knowing the region and vineyard of a particular wine. Even for those who are not sommeliers, hearing the names of regions like Napa Valley or Bordeaux conjure up associations about the quality and taste of a wine. Similarly, a coffee fanatic would expect that beans from Brazil would yield a heavy-bodied brew.

“Coffee really hits your palette in different ways,” says Maureen Keleher, a full-time coffee lover and part-time barista in an independent shop. “Sumatra really hits the back of your throat—it tastes like dirt.” Like many serious drinkers, Keleher has strong opinions about her beans, but she didn’t always. During the beginning of the Starbucks boom, she lived in San Diego and worked for the corporate giant for 4 years. Although she grew up in an instant-coffee household, she unlocked the mysteries of specialty coffee through patience and tasting. “My favorites tend to be single origins, although blends can be excellent depending on where they are from,” says Keleher.

There is a complex relationship between blending rituals and the terroir-specific single-origin estate coffee, but there isn’t necessarily a question of superiority. “Each coffee has a combination that must be unlocked,” says Wheir. “Once unlocked, a coffee’s fullest potential may be as a single-origin offering, or it may be as a portion of a fine blend. The coffee determines its own destiny. . .our greatest responsibility as roasters and buyers is to unlock that coffee’s potential. That may mean a lightly handed roast or a heavier handed roast—a blend or a single origin.”

Wheir’s longish hair falls into his eyes as he describes the roasting process, drawing crude pictures representing a coffee bean as it cracks and expands with the increasing temperature inside the roasting machine. “The coffee starts out green; it’s the seed of a coffee cherry actually, not a bean at all,” he says. “As the roasting occurs, the tiny green bean transforms into the rich brown bean people are familiar with.”

Just how brown those beans get can be just as important to the final cup of coffee as the conditions in which the beans are grown. Many believe that the darker the roast, the better the flavor, quality, and higher the caffeine-level of the coffee. In actuality, dark roasts can destroy the subtle flavors of a fine coffee and generally contain less caffeine than a lighter roast. Starbucks is known for its dark roasts and is often criticized for serving brews that taste burnt. With high-quality single-origin coffees especially, a lighter roast is the best approach to fully enjoy the characteristics of the coffee and its region. Unless a very talented roaster is at the controls, the longer and darker a roast goes, the more the beans can discard their own individual flavors and take on the flavors of the roasting process itself, becoming bitter and smoky. Improperly dark roasting particularly good beans is like charring a premium cut of filet mignon down to a dried-out cube—a waste.

Terroir Select coffee strongly believes in utilizing the light roast to impart nuanced flavors. Oddly though, at True Grounds, Thieeault offers that El Salvadorian dark roast mentioned earlier. “A couple years ago we had a strong following of the dark roast and French roast fans, so we had to push George into doing a French roast for us,” says Thieeault. Surprisingly, Terroir Select was happy to accommodate despite their typical adamancy about light roasting. “George has such a wonderful palate that he can recognize the characteristics in a coffee that would allow its flavor profile to blossom in a dark roast,” says Wheir.

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Dark roasts are bad? Dark roasts are good when done right? Single-origin coffee is the best, but blends are great too? If all this coffee talk has only succeeded in making specialty coffee seem more unattainable, don’t fret. Opinions on the subject vary, but with time and patience, you can develop an understanding of coffee, and a sense of coffee-elitism all your own. Practicing at home may be more economical though. Wheir points out that even though prices can top $16 per pound for specialty coffee, you’re still only spending less than 75 cents a cup.

In the meantime, if you want to play the part of informed coffee elitist among the masses of those in the know, or pretending to be, while in line at the gourmet coffee shop, ask the barista for a black, single-origin Costa Rica La Minita Estate and watch Mr. Iced Grande Caramel Macchiato behind you quiver. He’s probably got a bag of Folgers in his freezer anyway.