Tomorrow is BART Rider Appreciation / Thank You Day, and you, dear BART riders, will reap the benefits. The people at TransFair USA will give away 50,000 coupons for a shot of fair trade espresso from Tully's Coffee. Perfect for getting a move on in the morning and getting things moving, you know, down there. And remember, folks: That's tomorrow, January 31, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the more heavily-footed stations, like Civic......

Come volunteer to give away free espresso to support fair trade...

We're sure y'all heard the big rumor out there that the Giants might trade either The Enchanter or Matt Cain to the Blue Jays for Alex Rios. This morning it was Timmy but now SFGate is saying it's Cain. Either way, our opinion is this-- hell to the noes. ...

Photo of the screening of an admission free movie about fair trade in Dolores Park...

Friend of SFist James Guzzi, who is with TransFair USA, alerted us to a cool event his group is holding tomorrow night in Dolores Park. Black Gold is about coffee farmers in Ethiopia and helps to hammer home the importance of using fair trade products. Show up at 7:30 p.m. to sample some goodies (chocolate, coffee); the movie starts at 8:30 p.m....

Free Chocolate We got a wake up call at Wednesday night's Free Chocolate exhibit opening by artist April Banks. Her images detailed the politics of chocolate, from years spent researching cacao farms in Ghana and Cuba. Apparently chocolate isn't just what's for dessert. Chocolate is made in some of the world's poorest countries. Unless designated as fair trade, very little of the money paid for cocoa beans gets into the hands of the farmers......

Okay, so Burger King has introduced this new coffee, B.K. Joe, available in regular, decaf, and (wait for it . . .) TURBO ("40 percent more caffeine!"). A lot of places hope to lure in customers with good coffee as a sweetener to buy other products. McDonald's, for instance, is doing something similar, but using New England as the test market, so we can't really check that out yet (using fair trade, organic coffee and hyping the quality, not the power; seems like a better idea to us). Specialty's, though, is now carrying Intelligentsia coffee, a pretty well-known brand out of Chicago that's apparently well liked amongst coffee snobs. We, in fact, were excited to hear this; Specialty's old coffee . . . well, let's just say your Trmiethyldioxypurist's cheapness is well known, yet he couldn't stomach Specialty's 50-cent-if-you-bring-your-own-cup deal back when he used to work near the Montgomery Station location. ...

We first heard about Kathy FitzHenry and her company Juliet Mae when friend of SFist Fatemeh casually mentioned that she had bought some piment d'espelette. This Basque ground-up pepper product is hard to find but we like it for seasoning meats, stews, and vinaigrettes. We found FitzHenry, a stylishly dressed, slim, energetic woman, at Oakland's Grand Lake market. We left with piment d'espelette and a small armful of other ingredients. FitzHenry's extensive background in......

We found a really nice coffee -- from a local roaster no less -- and when we made it at home on our stovetop doohicky (still our favorite mode of home brewing), it was as good or better than anything we've had in a cafe. From our little kitchen in the dungeon, no less! Taylor Maid Farms has great coffee -- and President Mark Inman drops by with the skinny on this great enterprise....

Friday we're all over the place -- some of us are going to more of the San Francisco Fashion Week shows tonight, some of us are going to the book release party for A Popular Guide To Building a Community FM Broadcast Station, all of us are having a great time. Saturday is all about the body for us, as we have even more Fashion Week events all day long, an open house at......