Archive for November, 2007
My Uncle’s Farm
Over Thanksgiving I had the pleasure of spending a day upstate at my aunt and uncle’s farm near Cooperstown, NY. It’s not a commercial farm, but they’ve got a lot of cool stuff up there and I wanted to share a bit with you. (more…)
Yet Another Pumpkin Recipe
Mini pumpkins and squashes are great for decorating your home during the fall season, but as winter rolls around and the time comes to make space for Christmas trees and mistletoe, we’re presented with the challenge of disposing of these gourd-like objects.
Rather then sending them to the landfill this year, I recommend trying something new:
EAT THEM!!
Stuffed Mini Pumpkin
This recipe works with squashes, gourds and pumpkins, but DO NOT try it with dried, shellacked, or other non-edible decorative gourds. It wouldn’t work, and it might kill you.
ingredients: (serves 4) (more…)
Give them Greentertainment this Christmas
Yesterday 20th Century Fox released the “Futurama: Bender’s Big Score” DVD, touted as the first “carbon-neutral” DVD ever. The studio apparently did all that it could to reduce waste during the DVD production process, and bought carbon offsets to balance out the remaining “unavoidable” energy use. The feature-length film also includes a cameo appearance (does it count as an appearance if it’s really only his voice?) from Al Gore, preaching the word of Green.
I’m not a huge fan of Futurama, but I have been known to chuckle at the show and I highly recommend buying this DVD for yourself or a loved one this holiday season. But if you and your loved ones aren’t into futurama, here are some practical and ways to give and receive greenly this year. (more…)
Biggest, Guiltiest Travelling Day of the Year
It’s almost time to get on the road and drive upstate to my aunt’s farm for turkey day, and I expect nothing less than a traffic nightmare and a facefull of CO2. But I can’t complain, because that would make me a big hypocrite. Yes, friends, I admit it: I have a car. (insert screeching breaks noise here)
And what’s worse, it’s an SUV (be it a small one – a Honda SUV). The thing gets about 28 miles to the gallon on the highway, and I don’t take it to work, and I share it with boyfriend and my two sisters, but still. It’s a car, and I live in New York, and I should at least have a Hybrid, right?
So, that’s another thing that brings convenience and guilt to my not-so-green life. It makes my stomach turn a bit just thinking about it, but I’ll have to get over that because I’m expected to consume about 27 lbs of turkey and other holiday fare over the next several days and nausea would hinder me severely.
Drive safe, everyone.
Green Turkey Day
I realize most Thanksgiving hosts have probably already ordered their turkey for this year’s feast, but for those of you last-minute cooks and early birds already planning Christmas Dinner, I recommend buying a pasture-raised, antibiotic-free turkey (or other animal). You can find them at the Eat Well Guide, from farms or stores in your area. (more…)
Garbage Game
This is kind of New York-specific, but everybody’s got garbage and this is an interesting way to start thinking about what happens to your trash once you toss it in the bin…
The Gotham Gazette Garbage Game 
Mini Greenhouse!
This past weekend I finally got around to building my mini greenhouse, and I must say I’m pretty proud of it. All of the materials I used were scrap, either scavenged from my home and neighborhood or purchased from this really amazing store called Build it Green located in beautiful Astoria Queens:
(more…)
Corny Mistake
Oh, NYC Department of Sanitation. You’ve got such good intentions. You sweep our streets, you pick up our recycling, and you magically keep our city of 8 million sparkling clean. I really can’t say enough good things about the sanitation department.
But the other day I saw this and it kind of gave me heartburn:
Eating Pumpkins
Did you know? Pumpkins are edible! And they taste pretty good, to boot.
In order to make food out of pumpkins, you usually have to do a few things:
(more…)
Green TV
As you might have noticed, NBC is airing a special week of programming this week, called “Green Week“, which is part of Universal’s (NBC’s parent company) “Green is Universal” campaign. The whole idea behind all of this is to get viewers to pick up green living cues from NBC public service announcements (PSA’s), shows and online video that offer tips on how to go green. And, as an added bonus, their peacock logo is green all week (note: the peacock logo featured above is one that I made myself in photoshop. NBC doesn’t let you steal their logo from their site, unfortunately, so my bootleg version will have to do. Sigh…). (more…)
