On Friday, as y’all were counting down the minutes to the start of your long weekend, we went and checked out Verde Market, Miami’s first bulk buy grocery store.

Founder Pamela Barrera gave us a tour of the sunny, Insta-worthy store, and then we learned how to tare (that’s what it’s called when you zero out the food scale with your empty container on it). Almost everything in the store is sold by the ounce, but they also sell some individually packaged eco-friendly items like bamboo toothbrushes, charcoal toothpaste, and fair trade coffee.

They had a couple pro tips:

• You can use any kind of container with a lid that you want, but glass is better – it won’t hold onto the smells or colors of anything you store in it. Old sauce jars are great for this.
• Because you can decide how much to buy, this is a great time to try out something new, whether it’s an infused olive oil or a new shower gel. You can buy as little as an ounce.
• Always, always tare before you start scooping things into your containers!
• They sell lots of different types of containers in the store, but they prefer for you to bring your own, since they’re all about minimizing waste.

These were some of our favorite products:

• Unscented hand soap that can be customized with essential oils that they stock in the store
• Laundry detergent (which you can just pour into your empty detergent containers!)
• Freshly ground nut butters (which you can sweeten up with extras like coconut flakes and cacao nibs)
• Vanilla fig balsamic vinegar. Enough said.

Get the full download over on Facebook, and then head to the store at 2328 NE 2nd Avenue.

📖 Bring poetry to Miami. Applications for the 2019 O, Miami Poetry Festival are officially open! Got an idea for helping more Miamians encounter poetry out in the wild during April? Submit it today! Applications close Oct. 20.

🏖️ Clean our beaches. International Coastal Cleanup Day is Sept. 15, and there are 45+ cleanup opportunities happening across South Florida. Want to do your part in cleaning up our beaches and ocean? Find a volunteer opportunity and sign up.

🎼 Make some noise. Radical Partners has launched its $1 million Music Access Fellowship for those who want to bring the power of music to youth in Miami. The goal is to bring together several organizations to collaborate and have a larger collective impact. Sound like something you want to be a part of? The pre-applications are now open.

💸 Get a little help.  Need some tips for marketing your small business? The Miami Bayside Foundation is offering a free marketing and branding workshop on Sept. 29. Sign up here.

Got an opportunity, workshop, scholarship, grant, etc. you want other curious locals to know about? Hit us up at [email protected] to have it listed here.

Major key. If there was any doubt that El Dorado is the most Miami furniture store ever, this should erase it: DJ Khaled now has his own furniture line, and it’s selling exclusively at El Dorado. You were missing a King of Khaled Throne Chair in your life, right? (Miami New Times)

Not everyone’s best friend. It’s become pretty common to chill at South Florida breweries with friends and pups, and lots of breweries actually market themselves as dog friendly. But a little-known state Department of Health statute says it’s actually illegal to have pets inside breweries and bars, and in one Florida county, local health officials are now actually enforcing it. There’s a petition going around to change it. (Miami New Times)

Put us on the list. The first love of Chef Niven Patel, the brilliant dude behind the farm-to-table Indian restaurant Ghee, wasn’t Indian food. It was pasta. And because first loves never totally die, he’s now opening up a farm-to-table Italian restaurant in Downtown Dadeland. We are so here for that. (Miami.com)

“Ramp rats.” Apparently Black Point Marina in South Dade has become such an arroz con mango every weekend – with folks fighting, colliding, and running into the docks as they attempt to launch and trailer their boats – that now some people just show up with beach chairs and a cooler of beers to settle in and watch the drama. A county spokesman calls them “ramp rats.” (WLRN)

Unacceptable. Last week, just days after the election, a neo-Nazi group began ringing up Florida Democrats with robocalls mocking Andrew Gillum, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee. The narrator spoke in a black minstrel-style voice against a background of jungle noises. The DeSantis campaign called the robocalls “appalling and disgusting,” and the Gillum campaign called on Floridians to not give them “undeserved attention.” One week into the election, it’s becoming clear this fall will test whether Florida has left its Jim Crow past behind. (POLITICO)

New rules. Saeed Moshfegh is an Iranian Ph.D student at University of Miami who’s been here for seven years. He’s had a bank account with Bank of America for almost that long, providing proof of legal residency every six months to keep it open. But when he went to use his account recently, he was locked out — and told that his previous proof was no longer enough to access his cash. He’s one of many legal residents across the country whose Bank of America accounts were frozen after the bank questioned their legal status. (Miami Herald)

Nom nom nom. As the scorching summer sun starts to subside a little bit, we’ll enter peak growing season here in South Florida. That means it’s time to sign up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). How does it work? You sign up and pay for deliveries of produce grown on local farms, and once harvest time rolls around, you get regular boxes piled high with the freshest produce. (Edible South Florida)

THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY.

In honor of Churchill’s 39th anniversary week, here’s a throwback to their most memorable shows. Rock on.

– The New Tropic