You are welcome to speak on this environmental priority at public comment at the beginning of the meeting, from 5:30 to 6 p.m.

Anyone can speak for up to three minutes on any item on the agenda.

To get on the list you can call the City Council office up until 3 p.m. today at (617) 349-4280 or come to the meeting and sign up in the council chamber.

Henrietta Davis, city councillor

Do you believe an anti-Kerry ketchup created during President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign that claims its “W” doesn’t stand for George W. Bush? Can you believe it’s lasted more than seven years? (Photo: W Ketchup)

During lunch today at Central Square’s Veggie Galaxy — all wonderful, from the hot chocolate, Kendall Square burger and fries to the Melt sandwich (spicy tofu and vegetable salad), potato salad and coconut-based ice cream — W Ketchup was mentioned.

Somehow I missed this, but in 2004 at the height of President George W. Bush’s campaign for re-election, a New York banker and other right-wing friends created and began selling the stuff as an alternative to Heinz ketchup, which bore the name of a family once married into by the wife of Bush’s Democratic opponent, Massachusetts Democrat U.S. Sen. John Kerry. And it’s still on sale via a website that explains all you’d care to know about the conservative condiment, or at least a looking-glass version of it where the very reason it exists is talked around like a black sheep nephew in jail again after being caught huffing glue while wearing only a thong and a swastika armband after failing to rob a minimart with a paintball gun and barely literate note.

Since mentioning the actual W is taboo, some media said the “W” stood for “Washington,” Washington County, N.Y., or “George Washington,” but the “About W Ketchup” section of the website tells a different story. Ignoring the actual context of the product’s origins, the history instead shows a picture of Ronald Reagan and says:

W Ketchup was launched on June 14, 2004, nine days after President Ronald Reagan died at age 93. We thank President Reagan for his selfless service to this nation.

The implication here is that W Ketchup was inspired by Reagan’s passing and somehow readied for sale as a tribute after a frenzied eight-day miracle of entrepreneurialism, named possibly after the deceased leader’s totally unmentioned middle name (Wilson) for some equally unmentioned reason. If you buy that, there’s another suggestive stretch in that section, that “Unlike other brands of ketchup, W Ketchup does not donate any money to politicians or political groups” and that this is somehow an enlightened and applaudable position. That lasts only if you don’t read see the headlines of the company’s press releases, which lack the same sense of bipartisan restraint: “W Ketchup Calls on Congress to Impeach Obama” and “W Ketchup Demands the Senate Reject the Nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court,” for instance. The most recent, from Dec. 13, doubles down on the Kerry issue, though, coming off like a parody of conservative thinking:

Teresa Heinz married failed presidential candidate and disgraced senator John Kerry. Kerry is distantly related to the wealthy Forbes family, and was educated at an elite boarding school in Switzerland, where he learned French.

The press release has an odd headline as well — “W Ketchup reaffirms Commitment to American Cuisine” — but it all begins to connect when readers get to the paragraphs complaining that “Heinz is releasing a new ketchup made with balsamic vinegar instead of the traditional white vinegar”:

The company claims the new concoction is more “sophisticated” and recommends it be used on the “Haute Dog,” “Hamburgeur” or “French Frites.”

W Ketchup Chairman Bill Zachary reacted: “We doubt French spellings will convince Senator Kerry to share in the cuisine of his fellow Americans, or that he would dress his plate with so plebian [sic] a sauce as ketchup, whatever ingredients the laboratory at Heinz develops. We at W Ketchup will continue to offer traditional ketchup for those that relish in American food [sic].”

It’s true, in December Heinz began selling a limited-edition test flavor of ketchup made with balsamic vinegar, apparently to broaden the range of flavors like mustard makers have.

Not much else here is true, though. The myth-debunking snopes.com notes that “Teresa Heinz Kerry does not ‘own the Heinz Corporation’  — she has no involvement whatsoever with the management or operations of the H.J. Heinz Co., nor does she own anything close to a controlling interest of the company’s stock.  According to Heinz itself, the Heinz family trust which Mrs. Kerry inherited sold most of its shares of Heinz stock back in 1995 and currently holds less than a 4% interest in the company.” (Media friendly to W Ketchup got this backward, saying “A spokesperson for Mrs. Kerry has said only about 4 per cent of her stock consists of H. J. Heinz shares. W Ketchup countered this by saying that 4 per cent of her portfolio is ‘a ton of money.’”)

So W Ketchup still doesn’t like Kerry; Kerry is married to someone who was once married to someone with the same last name as a company that makes ketchup but who has no say in what the company does; that company made a product with a funny ad that gives fancy French names for traditional food; Kerry speaks French; therefore do not buy Heinz Ketchup, but buy W Ketchup instead; because Ronald Reagan is a conservative icon.

And if you’re wondering why a Cambridge website includes this post — in what may be the only media reference to the product since 2004 — why, the logic is just as simple: W Ketchup exists; it competes with other ketchup brands, one of which is served with the French fries at Veggie Galaxy, 450 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square (unless Veggie Galaxy makes its own); the French fries are really good, with or without ketchup, and so are all the other menu items we tried.

Mindy Kaling talks with reporters at the 2009 Screen Actors Guild awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. (Photo: Kristin Dos Santos)

She’s conquered standup comedy and become a star on NBC’s “The Office.” She’s written books (including a funny memoir, “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?”) and plays (“Matt & Ben,” about Cantabrigians Matt Damon and Ben Affleck). She’s been in movies (including “No Strings Attached” and this year’s “The Five-Year Engagement”), was even just named a best-dressed by Nylon magazine — and now she’s on the menu at Mr. Bartley’s Gourmet Burgers in Harvard Square.

Alongside “The People’s Republic of Cambridge,” a burger topped with cole slaw and Russian dressing and “The Skip Gates,” a teriyaki burger with grilled pineapple and onion rings is “The Mindy Kaling”: a burger topped with guacamole and pineapple-jalapeno relish with baked beans. Now, to the layperson, that may sound confusing and potentially disgusting, but to a native Cantabrigian such as Kaling — born in 1979 as Vera Chokalingam — it’s an honor.

Stonehill College student and Kaling fan Kelsey Finigan went to Mr. Bartley’s on Friday night and had a Mindy Kaling, so new it’s only on the “Happy New Year” menu. And she tweeted it.

“So honored to have a namesake burger at Mr. Bartley’s in Harvard Square,” Kaling tweeted an hour later. “And next to Ray Allen’s!” (A Ray Allen is a comparatively normal burger. It has grilled peppers and dijon mustard.)

“Love this place,” Kaling said. And in reaction to a comment that the Harvard Square institution has the best onion rings: “I KNOW, THE BEST.”

The Mindy Kaling is only being tried out by Mr. Bartley’s, workers said Saturday. If enough people order it, it’ll make it to the permanent menu.

All kinds of chocolate will be glorified, taught about and even dispenses as samples Jan. 27-29 at Harvard Square’s second Chocolate Festival, including the hot chocolate at Crema Café and signature treats at L.A. Burdick. (Photos: top, Kai Schreiber; bottom, Sushiesque)

How dark can you take your chocolate? Because Harvard Square’s Chocolate Festival, running Jan. 27-29, adds a wrinkle from last year’s inaugural event: two upscale “Dining in the Dark” events in which people savor chocolate dishes blindfolded, heightening their sense of taste and smell.

One at Nubar, in the Sheraton Commander hotel, 16 Garden St., at 7 p.m. Jan. 27 ($65 each for 35 participants), and a repeat at UpStairs on the Square, 91 Winthrop St., at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 28. To keep the senses even more alert, owners Mary Catherine Deibel and Deborah Hughes are keeping the menu secret. ($60 per participant)

On that Saturday there’s also:

A chocolate treasure hunt in the square from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. starting with buying a $1 map in Deguglielmo Plaza in front of Crema Café at 27 Brattle St.). Proceeds go to support the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, and the hunt can be completed in as little as 45 minutes.

A chocolate sampling event from 1 to 2 p.m. in Deguglielmo Plaza with a samples from restaurants and shops from across Harvard Square.

The Art of Chocolate Tasting at 3 p.m. at the Russell House Tavern, 14 JFK St. A master chocolatier explores the history of chocolate and the cacao bean, including its history among royals. ($25 each for 30 participants)

An Evening of Wine and Chocolate at 6 p.m. at Finale, 30 Dunster St., which takes a systematic approach to tasting wine and pairing it with chocolate and includes a discussion of how chocolate and wine are made. Organizers promise plenty of tasting. ($48 each for 25 participants)

A “Death by Chocolate” interactive murder mystery event at 7 p.m. at Fire + Ice, 50 Church St., featuring a gourmet three-course dinner. Here’s the idea, which is also a bit far to the sugary side, as described by the plotters: “Count Chocula welcomes you to ChocoCon 2011! Lady Godiva and Billy Wonka have come together to announce their newest creations. Their innovations are the Golden Ticket to chocolate success! Help Wonka sort through the clues and interrogate the suspects. Find out who was willing to go so far as to cause a … DEATH BY CHOCOLATE!” ($49.95 each for 150 participants)

There are also 2½-hour chocolate tours starting at 11 a.m. Jan. 28-29 teaching the history of chocolate, how luxury chocolates are made and bringing participants to a several sites for samples and tips on tasting, buying and storing fine chocolate: Cardullo’s, the gourmet shop with a wide variety of chocolates, Lakota Bakery cookies and other treats; chocolate shop L.A. Burdick, known for its hot chocolate and homemade truffles; coffeehouse and bakery Crema Café; Sweet Cupcake; J.P. Licks, the ice cream and hot chocolate shop; Finale, the dessert restaurant; and even, get this, Lush, the maker of vegetarian (and, the company says, more than 70 percent vegan) products for bath, hair and body, because it uses cocoa in some. ($48 each for 14 participants in each tour, with lower prices for kids)

This post took significant material from a press release.

Panera Bread baguette is good for a chain, great when it’s hot out of the oven and over-the-top terrific when it’s an example of good customer service. (Photo: Robyn Lee)

I think the Porter Square Panera Bread is here to stay for a while — and I suddenly have warm feelings to hope that’s so.

The eatery, which opened July 6 at what is technically 5 White St. in the shopping plaza, is Porter’s answer to the gourmet-ish comfort food of Au Bon Pain enjoyed by folks in Harvard, Kendall and Davis squares. But it did something for me last night no Au Bon Pain, its one-time kind-of owner, has ever done: won my cranky customer’s heart with great service.

I went in too late Tuesday night and found the basket of baguette (what the company likes to call “French baguette”) empty. I quizzed the workers with some desperation as to whether there might yet be a loaf hiding out somewhere, or even anything like a baguette. But no, the site had been slammed that day and had run out hours ago of an appealing plain bread.

Since Panera is my only local baguette option, I was out of luck. I didn’t even bother checking the nearby Shaw’s grocery store to see if it had any store-made baguette, which is not only the most expensive baguette I know of, but probably the worst I’ve ever tasted. And, if it’s not too old a joke, it usually sells out by the time I go looking.

Wednesday, though, I made it to Panera earlier; was briefly shattered to see the basket empty again; then elated to hear there were loaves just then fresh from the oven, so fresh they hadn’t been slipped into paper sleeves and stocked. I ordered one. “How many?” the manager asked. “Just one,” I repeated, asking the worker at the counter how many he thought I could eat.

But he gave me two — explaining it was to make up for my disappointment the previous night. (I don’t remember crying, just whining.)

Nice going, Panera manager.

I was stunned and delighted, a feeling that lasted through my walk home in the cold tearing off hot hunks of crusty bread, and lingered afterward.

Qdoba lasted there from January 2005 to June 2010, despite how universally its Mexican food was disdained compared with the competing Chipotle chain and certainly the Anna’s Taqueria across the street. With service and product such as this, Panera should be around for decades. And I may buy baguette there every night I can.

(Because we’re past that union problem, right?)

The weekly event is open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays through April at the Cambridge Community Center, 5 Callendar St., near Putnam and Western avenues in Cambridgeport.

In the tradition of Kendall Square’s Venture Cafe, which at one time was soliciting ideas for a different name, it looks like the default is going to last awhile here, too. While in October founders were still advertising a contest to name the market, now its website simply calls it “The Cambridge Winter Farmers’ Market.”

The listed vendors: Big Sky Bakery; Bug Hill Farm; C&C Lobster; Danish Pastry House; Deborah’s Kitchen; Fastachi; Foxboro Meat and Cheese; Jordan Brothers Seafood; Redfire Farms; Samira’s Homemade; Seacost Butters; 7 ate 9 Bakery; Shady Oaks Organics; Silverbrook Farm; Sprouted Raw Foods; Swiss Bakers; Taza; Q’s Nuts; Valicenti Organico; and Westminster Meats, with food demonstrations by Cambridge Brewing Co., live music by Two Tire Fire and a free art exhibit at the center’s Riverside Gallery.

Including its new entertainment license that allows bands to perform until midnight Sundays through Wednesdays, until 12:30 a.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and until 1 a.m. 25 times a year, the 50-52 Church St. venue will more than fill a cavernous space left empty when the Phatt Boys restaurant closed in February 2006. Some people living nearby and at least one square business owner worry about noise, parking problems and public drunkenness, and hired Huron Village attorney Shippen L. Page to argue that the commission should reject the transfer of Phatt Boys’ liquor license and ask for a new application for the live music.

“It can and should consider the prospective overall impact on the community,” Page wrote, noting  a multiperson fight that broke out Nov. 30 at the larger Central Square restaurant and nightclub, The Middle East, as well as residents lacking a chance to look at floor plans and the failure of the businessmen behind The Sinclair to get sign-off from city zoning officials in the time laid out by commission rules.

But the commissioners granted the license transfer and adding nightly capacity by 396 people (and 52 outdoor dining seats) to the current 304.

Alcohol sales are to end when shows stop, and the venue is to get three-month and six-month reviews, according to people who attended the meeting. On issues of parking, however, commissioners said Harvard Square parking garages aren’t used fully and can absorb more visitors.

Opposition was led by Pebble Gifford, who lives just outside Harvard Square and told commissioners Nov. 15, in a roving 20 minutes of testimony, how much she dreaded a return of the drunkenness long-time residents lived through in decades past. She also urged commissioners to look at the kinds of bands booked by The Sinclair’s proponents, The Bowery Presents, noting some that had obscene names and others dressed in Arab garb and wondering if they were “trying to be provocative.”

Despite the lawyer, Gifford’s testimony and a roomful of similarly concerned people, commissioners okayed the plans, giving Harvard Square another live music option (larger than Tommy Doyle’s and more diverse than the jazz-minded Regattabar and folk-focused Passim) and late-night dining.

Resident Charles Teague felt commissioners gave a pass on the delayed zoning official signature only by saying such rules were broken all the time, but his take after attending the meeting wasn’t all negative.

“It’s good to have another performance space,” Teague said, “but I think it’s dying to be in Kendall Square.”

Harvard historian Ezra Vogel discusses his “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China” in a video posted on YouTube.

The lifetimes of Deng Xiaoping and Toscanini overlapped for more than a half-century, but it’s a good bet they never met until now.

That is, Toscanini’s ice cream, in Central Square, is hosting Harvard historian Ezra Vogel, whose weighty “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China” (The Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2011) is drawing equally weighty reviews from media including The New York Times and the U.K. Independent, at 6 p.m. Monday. Toscanini’s is at 899 Main St.

Deng, the somewhat faceless successor to Mao Zedong, is known for transforming China into an economic powerhouse during his roughly two decades of leadership and presiding over the bloodshed ending the Tiananmen Square movement for Democracy in 1989. Vogel’s tome is drawing attention not just for its topic, but for the fact that despite its topic “most of Deng’s life and career takes up only a quarter of Vogel’s 714 pages of narrative,” as the Times notes, and a sympathetic tone summed up in the author’s defining question: “Did any other leader in the 20th century do more to improve the lives of so many?”

While as a topic for an ice cream shop book signing “Deng” makes somewhat less sense than having in Jeff Potter for his “Cooking for Geeks,” it reflects the eclectic interests and circle of friends of founder Gus Rancatore — and makes some sense in the hometown of Harvard (where Vogel is Henry Ford II research professor of the social sciences, emeritus) and where the Chinese-speaking population has grown from 3.7 percent of the population a decade ago to 4.1 percent in last year’s U.S. Census.

And, after all, ice cream is yet another thing quite China can claim to have invented.

“Please come meet Ezra and have ice cream, coffee or tea,” Rancatore said Sunday.

Copies of the book will be available.

Five questions. We just want to ask you five questions — or, rather, get five recommendations of things to read, listen to, watch, eat and buy from people who live, work or otherwise spend time in Cambridge. First up is Erica Milia, a Cambridge resident who works in Porter Square.

Read: “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” by Edward R. Tufte (Graphics Pr, 2001). is Erica’s recommendation for reading material. “That’s a very Cambridge answer for you,” Erica says, calling it “one thing everybody should read” but amending that to: “Anyone who studied graphs in school should read it. It sounds boring, but it is actually really funny, and half the book is pictures,” she said.

Listen to: “Can I say Adele, even though everyone’s already listening to her?” The British singer-songwriter has just two albums out, 2008’s “19” and this year’s “21” (both named after her age while recording them) and has had extraordinary success with each, with the latest spending 13 weeks at the top of Billboard charts — a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since 1998. “She just goes far beyond most people doing pop,” Erica said. “She has an amazing voice and puts a lot more emotion into her songs. She writes her own lyrics, so she portrays her own feelings in a way most performing artists can’t manage.”

Watch: Erica struggled to find a recommendation for this category but finally found one “If you’re into hardcore partying and high drama with British teens”: the U.K. version of “Skins,” the sex-and-drugs soap MTV tried remaking this year with controversy and limited success. “It’s probably not something everyone should see,” she said, and “for the record, I have not seen the later seasons. They weren’t on Netflix.”

Eat: Cambridge Common, 1667 Massachusetts Ave., between Porter and Harvard squares, gets Erica’s vote because “the food’s relatively cheap and really good.” Not to be missed: the curly french fries.

Buy: Without hesitation, the store that gets Erica excited is Penti, the hosiery and lingerie store that opened at 9 JFK St., Harvard Square, just last month. It’s big in Europe, but this is the Turkish chain’s first location in the United States. “You don’t think you need tights until you walk in there and realize you need all their tights,” Erica said.

Send us your own five recommendations and your best big photo at editor@cambridgeday.com.

Five questions. We just want to ask you five questions — or, rather, get five recommendations of things to read, listen to, watch, eat and buy from people who live, work or otherwise spend time in Cambridge. First up is Marian Schmidt, a Hampshire College grad now working as a researcher at Harvard.

Read: “Every Living Thing: Man’s Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life, from Nanobacteria to New Monkeys,” by Rob Dunn (HarperCollins, 2009). “It’s a portrait of biology. People view the world as human-dominated, so Dunn breaks it down into all the living things and their part in it. It’s a new portrait of life — recommended to me by a friend’s grandfather.”

Listen to: The Tallest Man on Earth, also known as Swedish songwriter Kristian Matsson, has two studio albums and two EPs. “He’s kind of folkie, kind of indie rock — he’s very relaxing. He sounds like a modern Bob Dylan.”

Watch: TED.com, an online branch of the Technology, Entertainment and Design idea-sharing conferences, was recommended to Marian by her mother after she saw a video by neuroscientist  Jill Bolte Taylor, who suffered a stroke and, uniquely, “understood what was happening — scientifically — and gave a whole recap of the experience” from the inside. “It’s just totally amazing people presenting on such mind-blowing things.”

Eat: Masala, an Indian and Nepali restaurant at 1127 Broadway, Teele Square, Somerville, the former location of Tip Top Thai. “They have $3 margaritas and the food is way better than all the other Indian places I’ve been here.” Key dish: the Navraltan Korma, a combination of nine vegetables in a mild cream sauce with almonds and cashews.

Buy: “The No. 1 place I like shopping here is Paper Source,” the stationery and craft store, at 1810 Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square, “for seasonal crafting. They even sell little crafting kits.”

Send us your own five recommendations and your best big photo at editor@cambridgeday.com.