One more menu to go after this and I’ll have a full week’s worth. As I’ve written in some of my other menu posts, I don’t actually cook a different dish every day. In fact, please don’t follow a entirely different menu every day. If you follow this menu today, cook another menu tomorrow and […]
environment
18 Energy-Reducing Tips for the Kitchen
Here in the U.S., food-related energy accounts for about 16 percent all the energy we consume nationally. That energy includes all the steps in the food supply chain—growing and processing the food, packaging it, shipping it, storing it, preparing it and handling all that food we waste. This post focuses on reducing food-related energy consumption […]
Recipe Index Update: Vegan, Veganizable, Vegetarian
The Alaskan permafrost has begun to thaw. This is bad. As the permafrost melts due to increased temperatures, it will expose centuries-old buried plants that absorbed carbon dioxide and froze before they could decompose. As the no-longer-perma permafrost thaws, it will expose this organic matter, which will then decompose and as a result, release carbon […]
Start Here
Last week, Andrew Bondarenko, a photographer, told me about a 6-month road trip he’ll embark upon in September 2017 in order to raise awareness about plastic pollution. An avid hiker and backpacker, Andrew hopes to travel to the most popular trails, forests, lakes, national parks, national monuments, mountains and beaches in the US—and take pics of the […]
Do It for the Cash
Let’s say you don’t care about the environment at all. All you care about is money. Why? Well, perhaps you’re testing the theory that money can’t buy you happiness—and you demand first-hand proof. Maybe you have a psychological disorder—greed may be just that. Or possibly you look forward to living in the most unequal society […]
Don’t Be Perfect
I really struggled with this blog post because…I wanted it to be perfect. The irony! As one of my creative writing teachers told us, just write “s&!%, s&!%, s&!%” over and over and over if that’s what you must do to get words onto the page (or screen). Like perfection, the zero in zero waste […]
21 Consumer Products You Can (Likely) Live Without
I haven’t written a rant for some time… I was slow to see the hit show Mad Men. I found it difficult to watch a bunch of white, sexist, racist, entitled, whiskey-swilling, chain-smoking, philandering men develop ad campaigns to sell Americans things they didn’t need. But then again, I think that was the point—to shine […]
How to Store Produce Without Plastic
Read aloud in a Brad Pitt drawl: The first rule of food waste is: you do not buy too much food. The second rule of food waste is: you do not buy too much food. In an ideal world—one in which you have time to shop a few times a week at a local farmer’s […]
A Reorganized Recipe Index
The recipe index on this blog gets constant, steady traffic. I had originally organized the index into an alphabetical list but as I added more recipes, it became a bit unruly. I’ve reorganized the index with categories like “Ferments, beverages,” “Bread and sourdough” and “You can make that?” so you can more easily find what you’re […]
7 Starter Steps to Zero Waste
Adjusting to a new shopping/cooking/living routine took us a few months. We had to figure out which stores had the best bulk options—and which would allow us to fill up using our own containers. We had to plan ahead more. Gone were the days of running to the store for a plastic tub of sour […]
How to Make Eggshell Calcium Powder
My daughter MK made me some homemade toothpaste a couple of years ago that I really liked. It was very similar to this recipe but she added calcium powder to it. She bought calcium supplements and emptied the contents of the gelatin capsules into her toothpaste concoction. I have wanted to make her toothpaste recipe […]