Coming Clean with Green

It’s said that the kitchen and the bathrooms that sell a house. Why? Because these are personal spaces where we spend a lot of our valuable time. If we’re going to spend so much time in these places, I would argue that these should also be the healthiest spaces in your home. The organic and natural options for pampering yourself are plenty without sacrificing style and convenience.

Clockwise:

Pangea Organics is a Colorado-based company whose “principle belief is that together, we can create a new, more sustainable future.” The hardest part is deciding between the many flavors such as Pyrenees lavender with cardamom and Egyptian fennel with grapefruit and sweet orange.

I’ve fallen in love with these hand-crafted felted bars of soap that “combines high-quality soaps with the exfoliating power of soft Merino wool.”

Is there a  more important item in the bathroom than the towel? You want a soft, towel that absorbs well and matches the bathroom to boot, no? You get all and more with Nandina eco-friendly towels made from bamboo and organic cotton.

Key ingredients for an eco bathroom include, no-VOC paint, natural stone, low-flush toilet, second-hand vanity and a vintage medicine cabinet/mirror.

 

 

 

Find this and other interesting articles in the January 2012 issue of Life @ Home Magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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For Farm Fresh Produce, CSA is the Way

While we may have a fresh layer of snow on the ground, I am already thinking about spring and planting a vegetable garden. I am determined to have one this year and have my kids experience planting, tending to and eating delicious produce. I don’t expect that my 4′ x 8′ plot of land will yield enough for our family of hearty eaters. Yes, the grocery store is not far from us but I am no longer OK about eating produce that has been grown thousands of miles away. Besides being a real drag on the environment, produce that has to travel so far before it gets to you needs to be treated one way or another in order for it to arrive ready to eat at our huge supermarkets. You usually also sacrifice taste, quality and freshness when produce has to travels so long.

Enter the CSA program. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and essentially takes the middle man out of the equation and connects you with the farmer- ensuring that you get fresh, locally-grown produce and the farmer gets a fair price for his produce. You pay in advance (which helps pay for production costs) for produce from June to October. Each week you stop by the farm to pick up your basket full of produce that’s in season. I’m looking forward to the surprise of what will be available each week. While these programs can be pricey (typically $500 for a full basket), most farms that offer CSA allow you to get a half basket or you could share a basket with your neighbor.

For a good list of Connecticut farms that have a CSA program in place check  here or here .

 

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Waste Not, Want Not. Food Waste in America.

Warning- I’m going to name drop here…not because I think I’m all that but because it’s relevant…and perhaps it might get a few more eyeballs to this important post. I am friends with celebrity chef and Food Network Star Anne Burrell. Anne texted me this past Sunday to tell me she, along with three other chefs, was participating in a Food Network special called “The Big Waste.” The show’s objective was to highlight the problem of food waste in this country. Anne, with her team mate Alex Guarnaschelli, went up against Michael Symon and Bobby Flay. The two teams had to feed a party of 100 with only food that is considered waste.

What followed was an interesting hour of each chef visiting their favorite food purveyors, stores and farms, in and around New York City, to find the the food they would be preparing and serving. What they discovered along the way was eye-opening, even for these seasoned chefs. Tons and tons of fruit and vegetables are thrown out everyday because they have a blemish or bruise. 30 pound turkeys are discarded if, during the cleaning process, they get a broken wing. 5 billion eggs are wasted every day (chickens lay all sorts of sizes of eggs, so, many don’t fit into an egg carton!). When a customer returns twenty pounds of scallops because they ordered too much, it gets discarded. A beautiful four foot long fish had to be discarded because it was bruised. The waste was sickening!

I was really amazed by just how much is thrown out each and every day…and this is just one city! I give extra kudos to one guy who called himself a “Freegan.” He literally goes through garbage bags outside large grocery stores and finds so much food that is edible. It was astounding how much food gets discarded because the “expiration date” is the following day.

“This year, an average of 1.5 million New York City residents, 1 in 4 of which are children, live in households facing food insecurity.” WOW! During the show I kept thinking of all the people that go hungry in this country and food pantries that don’t have enough food to meet their demand. At the end of the special I was left with the feeling that now that Food Network has revealed this tragic, yet standard practice of the food industry, it now needs to take the next step and start doing something about finding a resolution. The Food Network has a lot of clout, right? When I lived in New York City just out of college I volunteered for a non-profit called City Harvest. They do the good work of collecting food “waste” from area food purveyors and distributes it to those in need. I just checked out their website and was shocked to see how few restaurant are participating! Stores restaurants, call City Harvest and stop wasting all that food!

So all in all this was an entertaining hour (or 50 minutes, if you skip the commercials like I did) of tv that  was also very informative. If you get a chance, the program is running again on Jan. 14th and Jan. 15th. I highly recommend watching it.

In response to her participation on the show Anne recently posted on her Twitter account: “I will now choose my produce as if I were choosing an animal from the pound.” Well said.

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How the Holidays Got Me

So…it broke me…the holidays got me. My daughter didnt ask for much from Santa…just “a Sleeping Beauty” dress and a doll. Sweet. I found the dress on Ebay (at a fraction of new at the store…without the crowds!) and the mom that was selling it even expedited the shipping for me as somehow Christmas snuck up on me. How does this happen every year? Christmas, next year please give me warning OK?  Inundate me with obnoxious music and tacky decorations everywhere…oh, you do?  Anyway,  I figured I would find her a doll on Ebay or at my local children’s consignment store, where I have found a lot of great gifts in the past. Then it happened. I was standing in the line at TJ Maxx and saw her. Noelle looked at me from within her plastic walls and said ” your daughter will love me.” It was true. Noelle had lovely brown hair (like my daughter and unlike the princesses she loves) and a sweet pink dress. But better yet, according to her dossier she was a veterinarian!

So Noelle, in her oversized box, came home with me. I ignorantly wrapped Noelle (in recycled paper) excited about my daughter’s reaction to her new doll. I was oblivious (or had I forgotten?) to what lay ahead when Sophie wanted to play with her doll. After a few attempts I was finally able to open the box although I still had lots of tape to pull to get the inner box out. Grumble. I then flipped this box over to find this.

Even if she’d tried, Noelle would not have been able to shift in her box during delivery. Every part of her body was taped down. Even portions of her hair were wired in place in the box! After, literally, ten long minutes, I rescued Noelle from her plastic walls. Then came the task of getting her accessories.

So in the end, my daughter loves her new doll (she thinks it’s an American Girl doll) but she doesn’t love it any more than something I could have found at the consignment store. Had I found her a “pre-enjoyed” doll as I was originally planning,  I would have saved the frustration I felt dealing with the excessive packaging and the guilt at having added more to the landfill as most of the box was not recycleable.

Next year I will be stronger than you, Noelles of the world…and the planet will thank me for it.

How was your holiday season? Do you think about the packaging of a product before you buy it?

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Hung With Care

This was what I faced December 23rd. For weeks I had this extra large sweater and fabric pieces sitting in my kitchen waiting to be transformed into four christmas stockings. So with only hours to spare, I finally got my scissors out and went to town!

Here are the results. I intentionally chose a sweater that was neutral in tone thinking I was going to “jazz” the stockings up after as a project with my daughter. Alas, she was not awake at 2am so it didn’t get done. That will be next year’s christmas project.

Otherwise, I kinda like how they turned out. So the outside material was an old sweater from Goodwill. The inside fabric were old scraps I had. The letters were new and purchased at Michael’s.

What do you think? Did you get crafty this holiday season?

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