melanie wilson

Three women, a butcher shop and a neon sign. What sounds like a setup for a joke is serious business for three pioneering local entrepreneurs.

Since late last summer, when they opened Avedano's Holly Park Market in Bernal Heights, Tia Harrison, Melanie Eisemann and Angela Wilson have trimmed cuts of meat for loyal customers while creating an unusual niche in a male-dominated trade. Their butcher shop on Cortland Avenue is the only women-run store of its kind in San Francisco. They're cutting meat and chopping up stereotypes.

"People always want to know who the butcher is who cuts their meat," says Wilson, 37. "When we tell them it's Tia, they say, 'Wow, can she really lift the cows onto the hook?' "

Avedano's provides all the nitty-gritty service you'd expect from a butcher - the women will work over the insides of a recently slaughtered calf and break it down into quarters and primals - but its business practices, the women say, are shaped partly by their gender. The three have decorated the old store with retro signage, handwritten labels, wooden baskets and cookie jars full of colorful Italian candies.

Along with skirt steak, veal shank and oxtails, Avedano's offers fish, including wild-caught salmon and petrale sole. They even serve an array of take-out dinners prepared daily - from soups and paninis to cured meats and tacos on Sundays, all made with local, organic ingredients - because they like to cook as well as cut.

"Meat is the new black. We're making it fashionable and hip to eat meat responsibly and to celebrate it," says Eisemann, 34.

"But lots of vegetarians still come here for doggie bones and for our house-made marinara sauce," Wilson adds.

Eisemann was a vegetarian until 2003, when she attended a five-course duck-themed meal and found the crispy skin impossible to resist. At the time, she was working as a waitress at Sociale, on Sacramento between Spruce and Locust streets, where Harrison, 29, served as chef. Their "eureka moment" came last winter, when Harrison and Eisemann met with longtime friend Wilson over dinner. They got to talking about a joint venture, decided against a restaurant and then thought about running a butcher shop.

Harrison told them about having seen an abandoned shop on Cortland Avenue. "We knew we had to have a strong concept and vision to offer San Franciscans, and we thought, 'Hey, why not us in that place?' "

They realized that their skills meshed well. Harrison's experience at Sociale afforded her relationships with local meat vendors. Eisemann's experience as a server, and later as a landscaper, provided management foundation. Wilson's stint running her Divine Tea Co. and years as a cook at Laghi, an Italian restaurant, rounded out their skill set.

"I do the money better, Melanie does the decorations better and Tia does the food best," says Wilson. "We stay out of each other's way and really complement each other."

The three friends settled on the Bernal Heights storefront that once housed Cicero's Meats, an old-school butcher shop that opened in 1956. They agreed to keep their day jobs during the first year, and came up with a schedule to run the shop Tuesday through Sunday.

"I was confused at first because they didn't want to run it as a traditional shop like my father had," says Ed Cicero Jr., who owns the building. When not managing his family properties, he stops by for a visit and engages in some mentoring. "I showed the girls how to break beef," says Cicero, referring to the process of working the entire cow down into sides, chops, ribs and other parts.

Avedano's is named after Harrison's grandma Flora Avedano, a first-generation Italian American (whose mother, Francis Avedano, arrived in San Francisco from Asti, Italy, just days before the 1906 earthquake). Now they create dishes in her honor.

"I make sure to feature those recipes that remind me of her, like the sauteed vegetables that are in our panini and the scallion gnocchi that I roll by hand," says Harrison. "She also had a Meyer lemon tree at her house, and the smell always reminds me of her."

The Avedano's owners have created a scene right out of "Antiques Roadshow," decorating the store with odds and ends left over from Cicero's Meats: brass scales, a 1950s sandwich board announcing "Fresh Fish," butcher paper ink stamps. "When Melanie spotted a metal fish in the attic and climbed over the rafters to retrieve it, you would have thought she had won the lottery," remembers Wilson. "All we had to do was paint, put up some shelves, add a new floor in the back and we were good to go. The rest was here, including the original marble countertop and vintage linoleum with a mosaic bull."

While Harrison, Eisemann and Wilson are respectful of butcher shop traditions, their food aesthetic is influenced by their restaurant backgrounds and the neighborhood's tastes. The store's motto is "Local People. Local Food."

"We adjusted the inventory based on this neighborhood's needs," says Harrison. They offer traditional cuts as well as such current favorites as grass-fed hot dogs and lavender sausage. Above all, they carry types of meats that are easy to cook at home and that highlight the meat's flavor. Everything they serve is organically, responsibly raised.

They've got big plans for a local, sustainable Thanksgiving menu, including turkey from Sonoma's Willie Bird Farm, Woodland's Branigan turkey and Mary's free-range heritage turkey, as well as suckling pigs and Poulet Rouge chickens.

Running Avedano's "is a nice, new twist and a lot more political than working in a restaurant," says Eisemann. "I can educate the general public firsthand about sustainable meat and fish beyond the table."

None of the Avedano's owners have quit their day jobs yet. But the public's positive response and their own enthusiasm have motivated them to expand their business. In December, Ed Cicero Sr.'s former office, nestled between the store and garage, will be transformed into a 20-seat private dining room featuring Avedano's meats, fish and daily specials. The owners already have booked the room for holiday work parties.

While he misses his father's shop, Ed Cicero Jr. says the Avedano's women are honoring his family's dedication to quality and service. "My hats are off to them. They put a lot of sweat equity into the place, and they've brought it back to life."

"I never thought I'd run a butcher shop," says Eisemann, "but it's been so gratifying to create new food memories in this neighborhood, for local families and for ourselves."
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Dick Wilson, who earned an enduring place in U.S. pop culture for his TV commercial role as Mr. Whipple, the nervous grocer who warned customers "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin" in toilet-paper ads, has died at age 91.

The English-born actor, who often snuck a squeeze himself in more than 500 commercials he made over 20 years for the Procter & Gamble Co.'s bathroom tissue brand, died on Sunday of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Los Angeles, the company said.

Wilson had been a resident at the facility for the past five years, according to a spokeswoman for the hospital.

Wilson began his career as an announcer and disc jockey in Canada at age 15 and later graduated from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto with a major in sculpture.

He performed as an acrobatic dancer in vaudeville, and went on to appear in more than 300 U.S. television shows, mostly during the 1960s and '70s, including recurring roles as a drunk on "Bewitched" and Captain Gruber on "Hogan's Heroes."

He also had small parts in a handful of films, such as "The World's Greatest Athlete" and "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken."

But he was best-known as the bespectacled, agitated Mr. Whipple, whose recurring line in the 30-second toilet paper ads, "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin," became a popular household phrase.

He played the role in more than 500 Charmin spots, running from 1964 through 1985, turning the Mr. Whipple character into an advertising icon among the likes of the Maytag repairman and Rosie the waitress of Procter & Gamble's Bounty paper towels.

So closely associated with Charmin was Mr. Whipple that P&G brought Wilson back at age 82, in 1999, to launch a new line of Charmin, touted as more absorbent than the original but still "squeezably soft." In those ads, he comes out of retirement against the advice of his golf buddies, poker pals and his wife to spread the word about the new Charmin.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that the Mr. Whipple character, which Dick Wilson portrayed for so many years, is one of the most recognizable faces in the history of American advertising," Charmin brand manager Dennis Legault said in a statement from P&G.

Wilson is survived by his wife, Meg, three children, including actress Melanie Wilson of the ABC sitcom "Perfect Strangers," and five grandchildren.

(Editing by Jackie Frank)

began shipping chef-prepared food to the general public nationwide in August 2005. Previously, they had been shipping food locally from their Cederquist Medical Wellness Center in Florida.

Caroline Cederquist, M.D. is a weight loss physician (board certified in Bariatrics) and Director of the Cederquist Medical Wellness Center. She has appeared as a weight management expert on national TV, as well as serving as the contributing medical editor for NBC Ft. Myers for the past five years. She also has a radio health segment called "Get the Skinny" which airs around the country.

The Bistro M.D. plan is claimed to work because it provides the body with what it needs to lose weight when it needs it. "The meals actually improve metabolism. The plan gives the body adequate amounts of quality protein throughout the day - to protect lean muscle mass - along with enough carbohydrates with low glycemic loads so your blood sugar doesn't spike."

The program also comes with weekly support material created by Dr. Cederquist and her staff of behavioral therapists, and access to a staff of dietitians.



Meal Programs

All meals are chef-prepared and physician approved. They arrive fully cooked, all that is required is heating. There are over 100 unique meal selections, with the option for substitution if you don't like a planned meal. Daily calorie levels range from 1100 to 1400 and the plan usually results in 1-3 pounds of weight lost per week.

Weekly Meal Program

Full Plan: 3 meals and 2 snacks a day

Includes 21 meals and 14 snacks, program materials and free phone and email access to company dietitians.

Sub-Versions of the Full Plan:

Value Plan

7 days: 3 meals a day, Full plan without snacks

Includes 20 meals, program materials and free phone and email access to company dieticians.

Executive Plan

5 days: 3 meals and 2 snacks a day

Includes 15 meals, 10 snacks, program materials, free phone and email access to company dieticians

Healthy Eating Plan

5 days: 3 meals a day

Includes 15 meals, free phone and email access to company dieticians

Weekly Information Package

Each week an information package is received that guides you and helps you understand what causes weight gain and how to lose it - and keep it off.

Free Access to a Team of Dieticians

You will have access to the firm's team of dieticians, to ask them any questions or get advice that will help you reach your goals. You CAN actually speak to a live, degreed dietitian. Bistro M.D. has a staff of 4 or 5 people with a BSN (Bachelor of Science & Nutrition), that are available by phone 8 am to 5 pm EST, Monday to Friday (no weekends). Most customers call this staff a lot with questions before signing up. Once on the plan, most don't call back (common with other companies as well since most dieters prefer to do it themselves or are concerned they'll get advice that's too general or superficial), although some clients do call extensively.



Price

Bistro M.D. Full Plan: $21.50 per day, $149.95 a week. Other Plans (Value, Executive, Healthy) range from $89.95 to $119.95 per week. Therefore, the price of this program ranges from about $360/month to $600 or so.

Delivery

Meals are shipped every Monday. You can expect to receive your week's plan within 2-3 days, depending on your location. You may choose to receive your shipment at your home or office, whichever is more convenient.

The special packaging ensures that the food arrives in perfect condition. All Bistro M.D. orders are shipped in insulated coolers with enough dry ice to guarantee freshness upon delivery.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Dick Wilson, who earned an enduring place in U.S. pop culture for his TV commercial role as Mr. Whipple, the nervous grocer who warned customers "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin" in toilet-paper ads, has died at age 91.

The English-born actor, who often snuck a squeeze himself in more than 500 commercials he made over 20 years for the Procter & Gamble Co.'s bathroom tissue brand, died on Sunday of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Los Angeles, the company said.


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Wilson had been a resident at the facility for the past five years, according to a spokeswoman for the hospital.

Wilson began his career as an announcer and disc jockey in Canada at age 15 and later graduated from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto with a major in sculpture.

He performed as an acrobatic dancer in vaudeville, and went on to appear in more than 300 U.S. television shows, mostly during the 1960s and '70s, including recurring roles as a drunk on "Bewitched" and Captain Gruber on "Hogan's Heroes."

He also had small parts in a handful of films, such as "The World's Greatest Athlete" and "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken."

But he was best-known as the bespectacled, agitated Mr. Whipple, whose recurring line in the 30-second toilet paper ads, "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin," became a popular household phrase.

He played the role in more than 500 Charmin spots, running from 1964 through 1985, turning the Mr. Whipple character into an advertising icon among the likes of the Maytag repairman and Rosie the waitress of Procter & Gamble's Bounty paper towels.


So closely associated with Charmin was Mr. Whipple that P&G brought Wilson back at age 82, in 1999, to launch a new line of Charmin, touted as more absorbent than the original but still "squeezably soft." In those ads, he comes out of retirement against the advice of his golf buddies, poker pals and his wife to spread the word about the new Charmin.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that the Mr. Whipple character, which Dick Wilson portrayed for so many years, is one of the most recognizable faces in the history of American advertising," Charmin brand manager Dennis Legault said in a statement from P&G.

Wilson is survived by his wife, Meg, three children, including actress Melanie Wilson of the ABC sitcom "Perfect Strangers," and five grandchildren.





BestDietForMe.com Commentary: As with most diet/chef-prepared food home delivery services, this is for the affluent dieter. However, the fact that the founder is a Board certified bariatrician is a plus. Also, the fact that you have access to dietitians for support is another plus. As for price, at $360 to $600 per month, it's significantly less costly than Atkins At Home(TM), with the added benefit of free phone support by registered dietitians, if you need it. Atkins has no such support. All in all, Bistro M.D. is a good value, in our opinion. Our staff sampled the food, and the comments that came back were "delicious" and "just as good as it looks on the website".