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Zero-Waste Chef

No packaging. Nothing processed. No waste.

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Use-It-Up Corn Cob Broth

Posted on July 27, 2019September 22, 2019by The Zero-Waste Chef

Vegetable broth made with corn cobs, husks and floss tastes absolutely delicious and contains only the minimal ingredients that you yourself put in the pot.

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Zero-Waste Basics

Ditch the Produce Wash and Use Baking Soda and Water Instead

Posted on July 10, 2018July 31, 2019by The Zero-Waste Chef

Someday we shall look back on this dark era of agriculture and shake our heads. How could we have ever believed that it was a good idea to grow our food with poisons?” — Dr. Jane Goodall I buy organic produce at the farmers’ market from small local producers who: grow a variety of crops […]

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Use-It-Up Corn Cob Broth

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Update on our rent a fork endeavor. To paraphrase Thomas Edison, we have not failed. We just found one way that won’t work.
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Only one person rented a fork at the farmers’ market and he didn’t return it. But that’s okay. We learned some things:
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1. We need to have a separate table from our produce bag giveaway. People almost stampede our table to get their bags and the forks can’t compete with all the bag excitement.
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2. We need to set up that second table with the forks closer to the prepared foods area where people queuing up for their food will see us. Here Cecilia and Louise are walking around the food stalls looking for takers. (They are fearless!)
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3. We need new signs. Maybe “borrow a fork” so shoppers realize we aren’t actually charging money, just lending reusable items for a refundable deposit. If we wanted to make money here in the heart of Silicon Valley, renting forks would not be the way to do it. Although it wouldn’t surprise me if some startup comes along and turns our rent a fork idea into a subscription service or app or both and gets gazillions of dollars in funding.
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4. We need a better way to ensure we get the forks back. Our lone customer may have returned after we had left the farmers’ market (it was really hot Saturday!). Thrift shop forks don’t cost much so replacing my pilfered fork won’t exactly break the bank.
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When we started our produce bag project, after our first sewing session, I wondered how we could make that work but we did. We can make the utensil lending work also. Failure is just one step closer to success 😉

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This week’s farmers’ market haul.
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I did most of my shopping on Saturday before our big upcycled produce bag giveaway—we needed a couple of bags filled with fresh vegetables for merchandising—even bag giveaways can use some marketing. (See yesterday’s post for how we did at our giveaway.)
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I predict ratatouille in our future this week, vegetable fritters, and lots of sautéed Swiss chard. The fennel fronds went into pesto last night and I’ll roast the bulb and stalks today.
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Yes, the bunches of chard and cilantro have twist ties holding them together 😱 Twist ties come in handy to close up cloth produce bags in the freezer. Once they wear out, I strip off the paper and if it’s clean, put that in recycling and hang on to the metal for metal recycling. Once every year or two, I drop this stash of metal off at the recycling depot (I can’t put it directly in our bins). Swipe to see a few pieces of twist tie metal. I don’t expect people to go this far. I just like to show you what I do on here, especially since I regularly get questions about what to do with twist ties.
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I think that if you have reduced your waste to the point at which twist ties are your biggest zero-waste dilemma, then you can buy all the chard you want guilt-free. Actually, buy all the chard you want guilt-free regardless, as long as you eat it all 😉 #mytwocents

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Rent a fork!
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Tomorrow, our bag sewing circle will hand out 500 of our upcycled cloth produce bags made from your donated fabric at the Sunnyvale Farmers’ Market at 10am.
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I’ll also bring my community cutlery collection. For a 25 cent deposit, shoppers can borrow real utensils for their delicious to-go lunch that they buy from one of the the many booths selling prepared foods. Upon returning the dirty utensils to us, they will get back their deposit. I figure (hope) that with that nominal charge, fewer people will walk off with my forks, knives and spoons.
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I’ve been collecting utensils for a few years for this community cutlery collection. I have over 100 pieces now. People have donated utensils and I’ve bought others at thrift shops for next to nothing.
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Even if only a few people take us up on our fork rental tomorrow, the sign and the utensils, like the cloth produce bags (which are wildly popular!), will help spark conversations on plastic pollution. When people stop to think about plastic waste and see such simple swaps, they realize that a better way is not all that difficult.
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See you tomorrow!

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The only trick to making really good kombucha is finding a SCOBY, or symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, to ferment the sweetened tea. Once you have that, if you can brew a pot of tea, then you can make kombucha.
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You may be able to find a free SCOBY in your Buy Nothing group, Nextdoor, Craigslist or other similar online marketplaces. People are happy to unload them, as they reproduce almost like tribbles.
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If you can’t find one, you can try growing one. Pour a couple of inches of good, raw kombucha into a jar. Cover it with a cloth secured tightly around the jar so no flies or dirt find their way in. Within a couple of weeks, you should see a thin film forming on the top of the kombucha. When the SCOBY has thickened a bit (a few millimeters should do the trick), use it to brew your kombucha.
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I adopted my scoby five years ago. Her name is Etheldreda. I’ve been handing out SCOBYs ever since and keep track of where Etheldreda has moved to on a Google map (swipe to see her travels). She has taken up residence in many cities here in the San Francisco Bay Area and also in Hawaii, Canada, Argentina, France, Germany, India and Japan.
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I can’t mail these out—it’s a big, expensive hassle—but if you find yourself in the Bay Area and would like a SCOBY, please ping me and I’ll give you one. And if you already have one of my SCOBYs (I’ve given away at least 200) and have shared with someone living outside of your city, please let me know so I can add another pin to my map. Thank you!

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