Whittled Down

Habaneros at Home

2011-12-13T10:00:00.001-07:00

Would you believe me if I told you I harvested these habaneros off of an indoor plant in late November? How about if I told you that I managed to escape this dangerously bare-handed photo op unscathed? Seriously, I'm not sure how I managed it. Capsacin seems to really have a thing for my mucous membranes, but this time I managed to avoid sticking my finger in my eye.

This summer I grew 6 different varieties of hot pepper in the garden. Come fall, some of the peppers still hadn't ripened, though frost was imminent. I dug up several plants and transplanted them into pots, which I placed under a grow light and hoped for the best. They all survived the shock and the peppers ripened--habaneros, cayenne, and thai hots. What's more, the thai hots and habanero continued to flower and even set fruit!

I think I can expect to have fresh thai hots throughout the winter, and the habanero may continue to flower.

As for these? They went into a peach habanero hot sauce, made with a jar of our canned peaches. Yum!

Whittled Down to Zero

2011-12-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

Our first attempt at zero waste shopping. We cheated twice: the tofu and the sherry.

I am on a quest to eliminate as much packaging as possible from my life. As with most lifestyle changes I undertake, I'm doing this gradually--that's why the blog is called Whittled Down, after all. This is just the first post of many, I hope, documenting our experiment in zero waste living.* We've already been working at it for a few weeks, and this week we saw a dramatic reduction in our trash. We filled just a single bathroom-sized trash can with household garbage.

Now, we're not starting from scratch here. We have had a low-waste ethic for several years. Our commitment to the practice has ebbed and flowed. Recently, we've lapsed pretty badly. That said, here are some practices we already had in place which have made the transition easier:

Compost. We have a worm bin in our kitchen and a compost pile out in the yard. Most of our kitchen scraps end up here, though sometimes I get lazy when the compost container is full and food waste ends up in the trash.
Recycling. We regularly recycle, though I sometimes get lazy with the paper. Bonus: our recycling is picked up by a bicycle-powered trash removal service!
Buying in bulk. We buy many things in bulk, but sometimes bring it home in bags rather than in the jars we use to store the food. Sometimes we get lazy and forget to look for something in the bulk section, buying a similar item that comes in packaging.
CSA and a backyard garden. Self-explanatory. This food is never packaged. Once or twice I have used a plastic bag to weigh items at the CSA shed. Never again (I hope).

It's astonishing to me how much waste I still produce. Even though I shop around the outer aisles of the grocery store. Even though I have a CSA and go to the farmer's market. So where does this trash come from? Let me count the ways:

Oops! I forgot my reusable shopping bags. Forgetting my reusable shopping bags doesn't stop me from filling up my cart. Even though paper bags are recyclable and compostable, I'd rather not use them at all.

Oops! I forgot my jars for bulk goods. Our co-op has paper bags for bulk as well--if I arrived at the store unprepared, I used to just grab one of these instead.

Plastic produce bags of doom. Even if I don't need the plastic produce bags to get the food home, I would need them to keep the food fresh in my refrigerator. So I usually ended up taking a plastic bag when purchasing refrigerated produce. I ended up with so many of these. And I don't have a dog.

Local meat. Wrapped in plastic. Cheese too. This is one of the toughest sources of waste for me. Meat and cheese comes wrapped in plastic, or plastic lined paper. Not only do I feel badly about the waste generated, it grosses me out. I hate having meaty garbage hanging out in my trash can. Ew. And the cheese? Plastic is actually bad for cheese--cheese connoisseurs (and Europeans) will keep their cheese wrapped in paper. But here in the US, cheese comes wrapped in plastic as a sales tactic--it gives the consumer a visual preview of the cheese in all its gooey, textured glory.

Plastic-lined milk cartons. Where we live, we can either buy local, organic milk in a carton, or local, non-organic milk in glass. We have usually opted for the organic version. But milk cartons, even though they're recyclable, are lined with plastic.

Too shy to say no. When shopping at more traditional stores, if I miss that golden opportunity to pre-empt the clerk's bagging of my purchase, I'm usually too shy to tell them I don't need a bag.

So what's our strategy for eliminating waste in our household? Here are some of the solutions we've employed so far:

Eliminating spontaneous trips to the store. Not only does a weekly shopping trip up my odds of remembering my reusable shopping bags and containers, turns out it saves me money by preventing impulse buys. I go with a list, and I buy only what's on the list. Anything I find myself tempted to buy spontaneously usually comes in packaging, making it easier to pass up.

Menu planning. Planning our meals helps us make a shopping list that does not require us to buy anything in packaging. It has the added benefit of encouraging us to cook more meals at home and to use what's already in the pantry.

Making use of my scrap pile. I'm not much of a sewer, but I do know how to crank out a simple bag. I saw this video of a woman making a variety of reusable shopping bags out of old shirts, and I finally had the inspiration I needed to cut my scrap pile of old clothing down to size. I use these bags for bulk items and produce, and the larger ones for grocery bags.

Reusable containers for the meat and cheese counters. This has been the biggest challenge for me so far. The solution seems simple--bring reusable containers to the store and ask the butcher to put your purchase in the container rather than in a wrapper. Unfortunately, making this request is extremely awkward, and gets you lots of weird stares. I'm not gonna lie. Half the time, they can't figure out how to tare the scale to account for the weight of the container, or they wrap the purchase and then plop it into the container. Bea from Zero Waste Home has some tips for overcoming this challenge, and I'm going to keep at it.

Compromising on milk. We've switched from the local organic milk in cartons to the non-organic local milk in glass. This way the only waste is the plastic lid.

Finding a friend with chickens. Or an art teacher. We give our egg cartons to a co-worker of mine who has chickens, or to my mother, who is an art teacher and uses them for paint palettes and sculpture projects. This doesn't eliminate the packaging, but at least it gets reused.

Creative refrigeration. We are still learning how to properly refrigerate produce without plastic. We've turned our sauerkraut crock into a root vegetable refrigeration unit, tucking them all in with a damp cloth. Our most enlightening discovery so far? The salad sack. I made a bag with a drawstring of an old terry cloth towel. We keep it damp, and fill it with lettuce, fresh herbs, and other delicate green things. They keep longer in this towel bag than they ever kept imprisoned in plastic. We had a head of lettuce in there, fresh as can be, for over two weeks.
Make More from Scratch. We love to cook, but often our busy schedules get the better of us. Our zero waste project encourages us to make more of our staples from scratch. Since we started this experiment we've made our own gravlax, yogurt and seitan, for example.

Honestly, I could go on and on. It's pretty tricky business avoiding packaging, and we have a lot to learn. If you've been experimenting with zero waste in your home, I'd love to hear about your trials and tribulations.

*Disclaimer: This blog is a judgment-free zone. I am not judging you for the trash in your garbage can--promise. Everything I share on this blog I share out of genuine enthusiasm. These crazy projects bring me great joy and personal satisfaction, and I hope to spread some of that to others. I couldn't care less what you buy or what it comes wrapped in.

Dark Days Challenge #1: Dinner Pie

2011-12-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

While we've made several mostly local meals this week, we keep gobbling them up before we remember to pull out the camera. Tonight we had a little more foresight. This meal is our weekly contribution to the Dark Days Challenge, in which we will make at least one largely local meal a week all winter, and blog about it. The best thing about this week's contribution?

Pie for dinner. That's right.

Here's the breakdown:

Butternut Squash Pie

The Local: butternut squash, semi-local flour (King Arthur's, up in VT), local eggs, butter and milk, and local ginger--yes, we are amazingly lucky to have a source of local ginger here in MA.
The Non-Local: organic sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, salt.

Pasta with wilted arugula and oyster mushrooms

The Local: Arugula from the farm down the road, onion and garlic from our winter CSA, oyster mushrooms from an amazing foraging haul, butter from VT.
The Non-Local: macaroni, parmesan.

Oh yeah, and the wine is not local, but it is imported locally and purchased from a locally-owned shop. There aren't a ton of local wine options here, but there are a few--perhaps we'll showcase some over the course of this challenge.

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge!

2011-11-27T10:49:00.000-07:00

We are lucky to live in an area with an overabundance of fresh local food. During the summer, we have a CSA share with a farm located just half a mile down the road. In the winter, there's a farmer's market every Saturday, and we split a large winter farm share with another couple, which gives us about 45 pounds of roots, squash, etc to eat through the winter months.

What we don't have is an overabundance of time. Even though our pantry and refrigerator is full of local food, and even though we love to cook, I'm embarrassed to admit that these days we eat out far more often than I'd like. Aside from not knowing the sources of the food we're eating, eating out takes a toll on our health, not to mention our wallets.

We've been trying some new tricks to make it easier for us to cook meals at home on a regular basis. Menu planning has been the most effective, and when we do it properly, we can cook at home every night, and enjoy it. With our current system, we each come up with three meals we'd like to make for the coming week, then we share our choices and make a schedule and a shopping list. We plan our meals around what's already in the house to minimize grocery shopping, and most of the year that means we only go to the store for meat, dairy and staples like dry beans and rice. And in the winter, we'll also pick up fruit and maybe a few green veggies.

Of course, there are pitfalls, especially lack of motivation. That's why we're so excited to participate in the Dark Days of Winter Eat Local Challenge. Our friends over at D.I. Wine and Dine turned us on to the challenge (if you read this blog, you know we love a good challenge). The basics of the challenge are to cook one meal each week featuring SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients, and to blog about it.

With 45 pounds of winter share hanging out in our pantry, we'd better be able to handle that.

Hot Pepper Jelly

2011-10-02T16:57:00.000-06:00

Hot pepper jelly has been on my to-do list for years. It's one of my very favorite foods, and yet somehow I've never gotten around to making it. Until today.

I had 7 or 8 hot pepper plants in the garden this year, and needless to say we have a bumper crop of hot peppers. Poblanos, serranos, jalapenos, and thai hots went into this jelly.

Recipe:
1 lb. mixed hot peppers (mostly seeded)
1 c. peach vinegar (from Peach-a-palooza 2011)
5 c. sugar
1 packet sure jell

Yield: 2.5 pints

I was hoping the peach vinegar, which is a gorgeous ruby pink, would give a nice color to the jelly, but it came out looking pretty normal. It tastes terrific, though. These will be going into my holiday present arsenal (minus a few jars to get me through the winter). Yum!

Peachapalooza 2011

2011-09-29T14:14:00.000-06:00

I have managed to miss nearly every pick-your-own fruit opportunity this season. The strawberries passed me by before I even knew what hit me. The blueberries and raspberries too. So when I learned that there is a low spray peach orchard not far from here, I was determined to go, and to make up for the lack of fruit in my freezer and pantry.

So a few weeks ago we went with a friend up to Quonquont Farms. We went early. The orchard was misty. The trees were dripping with fruit. Heaven.

Before we knew it, we had picked over a bushel of peaches. We could barely carry them back from the orchard to the car. We headed back to the house for a processing party.

In the end, we yielded something like 12 pints and 8 quarts of canned sliced peaches, 2.5 quarts of peach nectar, and two gallon freezer bags of frozen peaches. Our friend, who lives in a prospector's tent without electricity, is over the moon to be able to bring so much shelf-stable fruit home with her.

Dogwood Fruit

2011-09-21T06:39:00.000-06:00

I've blogged about Blanche Derby's foraging videos before. Now that it's fall, I've returned to her video collection on youtube to see what else we can forage this time of year.

Right now, the Kousa Dogwood fruit is ripe. I had never known that dogwoods produced fruit, let alone edible fruit. These trees are all over town as ornamentals, and now I can't go for a walk without noticing all the ripe, edible fruit hanging from the branches. You can see the video about it here:

I've tried the fruit off of two different trees so far, and I'm on the fence about it. It's not unpleasant, but it doesn't make me go "wow", either, and it has a grainy texture that I find unappealing. Have any of you harvested dogwood fruit? What do you do with it? Do you like the taste?

What a Crock

2011-07-29T11:00:00.000-06:00

I gifted Tristan a crock for the holidays. It has been sitting patiently on the shelf for over half a year, waiting to be put into service. Today we finally took it for a test drive with our first batch of pickles for the season.

Last year's, we made simple pickles using an old-world lacto-fermented recipe. The resulting pickles were serviceable, but frankly waaaaay too salty for my taste, and the recipe didn't call for dill or other traditional pickling spices. This year we are using Sandor Katz's recipe from Wild Fermentation. If they come out anything like the description, they should be traditional sour dills, like the kind you would find in a good Jewish deli.

Both of us were surprised that the recipe called for a handful of grape leaves. Supposedly the tannins in the leaves help keep the pickles crunchy.

I've always made pickles in mason jars in the past. I'm excited to see how the crock does, and I'm hoping that it will lend itself to continuous additions. When we get more cukes from the CSA, we should be able to add them to the crock, along with beans and other garden veggies. Has anyone else had success with a continuous pickle-crock-in-progress?

New (to us) wild food: Sumac

2011-07-28T21:02:00.002-06:00

Until about two months ago, I thought that this plant was poison sumac.

Poison as in definitely not edible, gives you a giant rash. It turns out I'd been missing out on some real tastiness all these years. This is staghorn sumac. Poison sumac is a completely different plant, which grows only in swamps and is apparently very uncommon. For a comparison check out this handy site: http://www.poison-sumac.org/.

Lucky for us, local forager Blanche Derby set us straight. A friend tipped us off to this local art teacher's amazing collection of foraging videos. They are quite...something. It's quirky public access TV at its finest. See for yourself:

Tell me you're not hooked.

Enough preamble. Here's Tristan's take on discovering this new wild food:

Today I collected a bushel of sumac drupes. I hope that will keep us covered for the rest of the year. We are using them to make sumac-ade, a traditional Native American preparation that's very similar to lemonade. The sticky coating of the sumac berry is high in malic and citric acid, and also contains ascorbic acid, making it fit for a summer drink. Most of us grew up drinking lemonade, the American classic. It's one of those traditions that's so pervasive - like milkshakes and classic cars - that people attribute to it an unimpeachable wholesomeness. Many would probably say they just couldn't go without it. To do so would be Un-American! But like Henry David Thoreau, who was also dubious of the industrial economy, I have to ask myself with all sobriety "do we really need tea and coffee and meat?", do we really need lemonade if it means trucking lemons from Florida or California or even somewhere in South American to my little town in Western Massachusetts?

Instead, I strolled down my block to the edge of a wooded area and plucked an ample supply of sumac drupes.

Total cost: a bucket of sweat, and a dozen mosquito bites. Not too bad when you consider the scale of industry behind a single lemon.

Just because a product is pretty cheap on the shelves doesn't mean that it's so inexpensive down the road. When you take into account the long term effects of how it got there: the large scale manufacturing operations and their waste, the criminal and inhumane "employment" of downtrodden peoples, the huge trucking infrastructure and their carbon emissions - these have their hidden costs, absent from the budget sheets strewn about the desks of corporate headquarters. What is the true cost of a $1.50 carton of eggs at Walmart? Does anyone really know? Instead I can go for a stroll, get some sun, and experience the true and immediate weight of the exchange: sweat for sumac. And hey, it's kind of fun.

On my collection adventure I also had a chance to spy upon future fruits for harvest in the upcoming months. Scores of plump blackberry bushes laden with fruit are just beginning to ripen. Also the wild grape vines are covered with good sized fruits which will make for a good harvest this year I hope. For the blackberries, jams and preserves will be their eventual fate. Though I haven't tried it, I'm hoping to make wine with the grapes. Mwahaha!

CSA Day--Going for the Gold

2011-07-07T05:41:00.001-06:00

Wednesdays are CSA pickup days for us. When I get home from work, Tristan and I walk out the back door and along the dyke separating our neighborhood from low-lying fields. Our CSA farm, Town Farm, is just a 5 minute mosey along the path. This week, we rushed our goodies home and went to work making a delicious dinner and putting up three different kinds of ferments to enjoy later.

Dinner was a mutton pita concoction, with CSA cucumber yogurt sauce, CSA lettuce and tomato, and mutton sausage from the farmer's market. Yum!

Then it was on to the pickled beets. We put up two pints of a simple refrigerator pickle with 1/2 c. homemade apple cider vinegar, 1/2 c. white vinegar, 1 c. water, and some salt. CSA beets and half a regular yellow onion went in the brine.

Mysteriously energized by all this productive food preservation, we moved on to sauerkraut. We don't have a mandolin, so Tristan did all that fine shredding by hand, with the great Japanese knife my uncle sent me from Tokyo (thanks Uncle Jim!). We followed Sandor Katz's classic kraut recipe from Wild Fermentation--we had two heads of cabbage from the CSA (about 4 lbs) and added a few tablespoons of salt. The two heads of cabbage fit perfectly into a half gallon jar once they were crammed in with a wooden spoon. We added a small jar filled with water to the top as a weight--this morning the kraut is covered in a good inch or two of cabbage juice.

Wait, more cabbage? Oh yes. In addition to two heads of green cabbage, we also had a neglected head of napa cabbage languishing in the fridge from a previous CSA pickup. We whipped up a batch of my personal favorite--kimchi. I start by halfing the cabbage and spreading salt on each leaf (more on the stems than the leaves) and let it wilt for several hours. I also wilted a handful of sliced turnips in lieu of daikon radish. After they wilted, we rinsed the veggies thoroughly. To these I added a mixture of: 1/4 c. red chili flakes, 1/4 c. fish sauce, 6 scallions from the CSA, 2 inches of ginger - minced, 5 cloves of garlic - minced, and 1 tsp. honey. Into a jar they went!

Oh yeah, and half a cuke's worth of fridge pickles!

Everything but the kimchi was done within about 2.5 hours, and we even managed to clean up as we went. And the timing couldn't be better--we're headed out of town on a mini wagon tour. When we return, we'll have fully fermented beets, kraut, and kimchi waiting for us, instead of wilted, moldy beets and cabbage.

Changes

2011-07-03T08:27:00.000-06:00

We left New Mexico in the gypsy wagon just about a year ago. It's hard to believe. Now that the wagon is entering it's second year, it's high time we got around to putting on some finishing touches. We always intended to finish the interior, to protect the wood and add some color.

It was really difficult for us to decide on a color scheme, and even harder to make that first stroke. But now that we've started, the changes are growing on me. The wagon was looking pretty dirty and beat up inside. A coat of fresh paint makes a big difference.

Preparations

2011-06-27T19:22:00.000-06:00

The wagon survived its first winter outside and uncovered. It held up amazingly--especially considering our record snowfall. Nonetheless, it's time for some touch-ups and improvements as we prepare to bring it to Deek Diedrickson's tiny house workshop in a few weeks. Stay tuned for some musings on maintenance and the addition of some new features!

The Herb Bag

2011-06-17T12:44:00.006-06:00

For the past half year Libby and I have been sifting through this bag at meal time to find our thyme, sage, and oregano. Last fall we filled this paper bag with herbs we picked from our CSA. Whenever we cook we take a sprig and crush it into our cooking. This bag has lasted us through the year, and now our new thyme and oregano plants are filling up the outdoor pot we planted them in. As a result we haven't had to buy any this year. It's surprising how little space and effort it takes to grow enough basic cooking herbs for a couple. A pot on the deck or a few snips from the fields of your local farm is all you need, and for virtually no cost. All it takes is a little planning ahead to have responsibly sourced herbs year round.

Happy Summer

2011-06-07T18:21:00.001-06:00

Strawberries from the Tuesday Market with garden mint and local blackcurrant cordial cocktails. Ah, summer!

Dear Readers (if there are any readers left):

I can't believe I haven't touched Whittled Down since February! We have spent the last several months adjusting to our new lives, which seem to come with less free time than ever before. It seems a bit daunting to get back in the swing of things after such an absence, but here goes nothing. In brief, here's what's going on here as summer sets in:

Our porch is brimming with potted plants, including my latest obsessions: lemon, dragon fruit, hops, fig, and lemongrass.
Our building has an informal community garden. Our plot is planted with peas, lettuce, kale, pickling cucumbers, melons, patty pan squash, tricolor bush beans, soybeans, leeks, garlic, walking onion, tomatoes, hot peppers, and tons of herbs.
Our CSA farm, Town Farm, is a 3-minute walk from our house. We are so lucky to be able to walk out the door, down the street to the dyke, and along the dyke to the farm. Now that's local food!
We're back on the fermentation bandwagon. A batch of lager from the winter months is dwindling, and we have a hard cider ready to bottle. We've added a red wine vinegar mother and kefir grains to the mix as well.
The prairie schooner is currently living up in Vermont, on my parents' land. In a few weeks, we'll haul it out to eastern MA for Deek Diedrickson's tiny house workshop. In the meantime, we've got lots of touch-ups and extra features to add.

I'm headed to Puerto Rico for a week, where I will see an old friend and, at long last, get to meet folks from the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, who I have been consulting with (over the phone) as they work to build a new community radio station in Vieques. These folks were in large part responsible for getting the US Navy to stop using the island as a missile range, and I can't wait to finally meet them in person. When I return, the blogging commences in earnest. Promise.

Antique coffee grinder

2011-02-23T08:00:00.002-07:00

My grandmother used this antique coffee grinder as a planter for years. I've put it back into use doing what it was originally intended to do. It took some cleaning and de-rusting, but now it makes great finely ground coffee. As cool as it was with a spider plant growing out of it, I'm glad that it's back in commission. By the way, its buddy up above is an antique juicer that Tristan gifted me--we've been on quite the fresh-squeezed OJ bender lately.

Weekend Mod: Stationary Bike/Lamp

2011-02-22T08:00:00.001-07:00

Saturday thrift store scouring is a regular habit of ours. In the middle of a brutal winter like this one, pickings get pretty slim. So when we saw this beautiful vintage exercise bike, we had to have it. The question is, what exactly did we have to have it for? A thrift store lamp and about an hour of tinkering yielded the lamp/bike. Once the right plan emerges, we plan to turn the seat area into an end table.

Bock (Name TBD)

2011-02-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

What better way to spend a cold Sunday in February than by warming up the house with some brewing? We sold all our brew gear when we left Santa Fe (Tristan still hasn't forgiven me). A few weeks ago we scored a carboy at a flea market, and so our home brewery is up and running again. It's hard for me to believe, but it's been over a year since our last batch of beer. This one is an American Bock, and it's our first lager, which needs cool temperatures to ferment properly, making it a perfect winter brew. It will ferment in our cool basement at around 55 degrees F.

All homebrews need a good name. What should we name our bock?

Urban Homesteading Day of Action

2011-02-21T14:41:00.001-07:00

Urban Homesteaders in Santa Fe, NM

I'm sure many of you have heard by now that the Dervaes Institute has managed to trademark the terms "Urban Homestead" and "Urban Homesteading" and have recently begun going after authors, non-profits, and bloggers who use these terms in their work.

Today is a day of action for urban homesteaders to stand up and be counted, and to let it be known that urban homesteading is a movement, and that no one has the right to claim ownership of the language we use to identify ourselves.

I have no doubt that the Dervaeses will soon find themselves on the losing end of legal action (thanks to the good people at EFF). This brand of greedy legal intimidation won't win them anything in the courts , and it won't win them any friends either. And so, I don't want to waste too much breath on a rant about why it's wrong for the Dervaeses to trademark these terms. It's obvious, right?

A movement has really come together over the past few days to defend the spirit of collaboration and generosity that is so central to this lifestyle. One of my favorite things about urban homesteading is that it means many different things to many different people. It's so broadly used a term that I doubt we could even agree on a definition. I've been reading some of the other blog posts associated with this day of action, and I really admire the diversity represent. Some of us are applying permaculture principles in our backyards, others focus on preserving foods they get from local farms. We are radical homemakers, businesspeople with chickens on the side, and everything in between. Heck, we don't even define the term "urban" the same way; we live in major metropolitan areas, small towns, and suburbs alike. It's inspiring and invigorating to know that there are thousands of us out there, and I'm proud to be a part of this loosely defined movement.

I want to give a special shout out to Grow and Resist, who has made me think hard about the connotations of adopting a loaded word like "homesteading" to define my lifestyle. In her words, "...the term homestead is loaded with historical traumas. Some things come to mind are manifest destiny. The displacement of Indigenous People by force. Genocide. It is a history of white privilege and power. Current day the term is often seen as a movement of only positive things, such as practical, sustainable and environmentally sound principles. Ignored is the gentrification that often takes place as well as the white dominance of the movement." Now, I've been running around calling myself an urban homesteader and building covered wagons, and needless to say it's time for me to re-evaluate the way I talk about my lifestyle. So thank you, Grow and Resist, for keeping me on track to do just that.

Problematic though the phrase "urban homestead" may be, it's what we've got for now, and its meaning has been defined collectively over many decades. "Urban homesteading" has united us, helped us find each other online, on blogs, meet each other at social gatherings and identify a common vision. We own it in a way that no corporation can, because it's not simply a piece of "intellectual property" to us; it's a part of our identity and it's a vision for our cities and our neighborhoods.

New Home, New Worm Bin

2011-02-09T18:15:00.000-07:00

I recently counted the number of homes that Tristan and I have lived in as a couple. In our 4+ years of cohabitation, we have called nine different dwellings home (and yes, that includes the gypsy wagon). A few weeks ago, we moved into our latest place, an apartment I hope will be our home base for some time.

This place has a very different vibe than all that came before it. It's newly renovated, we have no housemates, and everything is clean and *gasp* functional. I know. It actually has felt a bit awkward for a couple of DIYers, itching for any excuse to break out the drill gun. More than once in the past fews weeks I've asked myself, "will this place ever feel like our own?".

Well, nothing makes a newly renovated apartment feel homier than a new worm bin. I've grown so used to composting that I feel out of sorts when I don't have the means. Having to throw food waste in our makeshift trash can felt so wasteful, and not just wasteful--smelly. So it was with sheer glee that we welcomed the delivery of red wrigglers that came in the mail today, and we spent the evening fixing them a new home of their own.

There are billions of tutorials for making worm bins on youtube, so I'm not going to provide a tutorial here. I'm no vermicomposting expert, either, so please, check out the vast universe of expertise on the web. We've had various different composting systems over the years, including worms, and to be honest we've never had great success with this method. In New Mexico, we actually didn't produce enough food waste to appease our chickens, outdoor heap, and the worms, and so the worms were neglected and hungry, and eventually I froze the poor darlings solid.

But you know what they say: if at first you don't succeed...

I try to be conscious of the question of appropriate technology when it comes to sustainable living. Worms weren't an appropriate technology for us in New Mexico, because we had better alternative methods for disposing of our food waste. But now we live in an apartment complex in town, and the ground will be frozen solid for months to come. Vermicompost seems to be the best tool for the job.

Our little friends will live in a simple home of storage tubs, tucked out of sight in a cabinet right next to the sink, under the dish rack. This placement is dark and consistently warm, and easily accessible for plate scraping and the like. It feels good to add a new living system to the house. Real good. Feels like home.

Vanilla Specimens

2011-01-31T18:21:00.001-07:00

This kitchen project was inspired by form more than function. We scored a pair of these beautiful glass jars at Goodwill. But what to display in them? Homemade vanilla extract seemed like the natural fit. We can get vanilla beans for cheap in bulk at our local co-op (though I can't attest to the quality). $7 worth of vanilla beans and two cups of vodka, and voila! Right now the jars have a beautiful color gradient, from a darker brown on the bottom to colorless on the top. The varying thickness of the jar's walls magnify the beans inside, making them look like specimens in a science project.

I followed instructions from a google search to make the extract. We opened up the beans and covered them with the vodka, where they will sit for at least eight weeks.

Sustainable Seafood

2011-01-09T08:03:00.001-07:00

Choosing sustainable seafood can be overwhelming. Fish is healthy, and supposedly three servings a week is ideal. But maybe not if that three servings is full of mercury, and not if the fish is being hunted to the point of extinction. So what's a seafood-loving girl to do?

I carry the Seafood Watch iphone app with me on every trip to the fish market. They also make a wallet chart that you can pick up at Whole Foods or other such places. A quick glance will tell me whether a potential purchase is a "Best Choice" a "Good Alternative" or something to "Avoid". If you want to delve deeper, it will also explain the rating to you. I used to avoid seafood all together because the subtleties were too overwhelming, but this tool makes decision-making much easier. That said, food fraud runs rampant in the seafood industry, so make sure your fish market is knowledgeable and trustworthy so you don't end up with catfish instead of snapper (But you wouldn't buy snapper, right? It's on the "Avoid" list.)

Where I live there are many seafood peddlers to choose from. There's the small, locally-owned fishmonger, which has the best quality fish around but not always the most sustainable choices. Then there's the local food co-op, which has plenty of sustainable options at crazy high prices (though their little packages of leftover lox ends are super cheap and have become a staple for me). I've found that Trader Joe's, at least last time I checked, doesn't carry very many sustainable options in their freezer. Even the generic grocery store in town has a pretty fine seafood counter, which is where we ended up last night in our search for mussels.

I was on the hunt for an iron-rich snack, because I'm starting to suspect I'm running a little low in the iron department. Mussels are a great source of iron, and according to my handy-dandy iphone app, farmed mussels are a "best choice" purchase because they are raised in an environmentally responsible manner. The seafood counter at Big Y had bags of live mussels farmed in Prince Edward Island (not exactly local, but not Thailand either). The price: $5.50 for 2 lbs. Sold! We took those puppies home and made an amazing meal by steaming them in a creamy wine sauce. A big win for my iron intake, my wallet, and sustainable seafood!

The Vinegar Jar

2011-01-03T08:48:00.005-07:00

Vinegar making is as simple as any other fermented food. As our fermentation book Wild Fermentation says: "just leave it out!" We've been keeping a half gallon jar on the counter with a screened lid. The jar started out with some dated fresh apple cider. I dumped the fizzy brew into the jar and let nature take its course. After a week or so the fermenting stopped and I racked it (i.e. poured the liquid off the yeast cake on the bottom, rinsed the jar and replaced the liquid) and let the vinegaring commence! Whenever there's been some left over apple cider we just dump it in the jar. Now the jar contains a sharp acidic aroma rather than an alcoholic one, and the liquid is quite tart! The stuff can be used just like any other apple cider vinegar: in sauces, dressings etc. and also for cleaning and sanitizing. The same method can be used for a wine vinegar. Just dump out the hair of last night's dog into a jar and cover with a screen of some sort (mesh or cheese cloth). Once it's converted it can be used for dressings and sauces, and in the meantime you can always use it, in whatever state, to deglaze after sauteing.

Holiday Greetings

2010-12-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

Our housemate made us this amazing Christmas card. How cool is this? Happy holidays, everyone!

A New Lease on Yogurt

2010-12-07T08:36:00.006-07:00

We learned a new technique for making yogurt that promises to be simple and painless. The trick, if you've made yogurt before, is keeping the temperature stable and relatively high, but not too high! This can be an annoying task: testing the low settings on ovens, using coolers with hot water baths and thermometers, building custom thermostats, and many other such nuisances. My mother recently befriended a Pakistani family who lives in her neighborhood and learned this trick from the woman of the house. She takes a thick walled crock and fills it with hot water to heat up the walls. Meanwhile the milk is heated until steaming and too hot to hold your finger in, then cooled to the point where it is warm and you can hold your finger in it ("baby warm"). Next the water is poured out of the crock and a spoon full of last week's yogurt is put in the crock. The warm milk is added a little at a time first, stirring vigorously, then the remaining portion dumped in. Now, the crock is wrapped in a bathroom towel, and placed in an enclosed area, she uses the microwave, we use our canner, and left overnight undisturbed. That's it! Leave it to the people who make yogurt every week to figure out the simplest and lowest tech solutions. It works!

I got my hands on a crock, without spending a fortune, by grabbing an old crockpot at the thrift store and taking the crock out. I spent a whole $6.50 on it. Now we have a crock pot too. I considered trying to hack it with a dimmer or some other circuitry to use as an incubator, but why bother? A little low tech technology is sometimes the best solution.

Preserved Lemons

2010-12-06T11:26:00.006-07:00

Citrus season is upon us. As with every harvest comes the time to practice the age old art of preservation. Today we "put-up" some lemons à la Morocco. The process is remarkably similar to that of making sauerkraut. The lemons are washed, and the stem nubs cut off. Then the lemons are sliced open and the crevices are filled with salt.

Next the lemons are packed tightly in a jar using a wooden spoon. The lemons are submerged by the expelled juices. An extra lemon worth of juice is poured on to make sure that the smooshed lemons stay submerged. Some people add a little olive oil on top to keep it extra sealed. All that's left to do now is let them pickle, turning the jar dally at first to weasel out any trapped air bubbles. I read on one forum post a story from a woman who kept her jar contamination free for eight years(!) sealing the confit with olive oil and always using a clean utensil to fish them out.

The culinary implications of this preserve are, needless to say, very exciting: Moroccan chicken or fish with olives and preserved lemons, dips, spreads, dressings and even drinks! We will keep you posted on what we do with our preserved lemons as the months pass and our lemons mellow.