The authors also have a blog, which I recommend checking out, too – the web ads a layer of interactivity and accessibility to the authors that I can really appreciate. These guys are real pros – and they can write, which is always a plus. And they have chickens, which I’m kind of jealous about (for some reason I’m finding myself increasingly draw to animal husbandry – unfortunately I think my cats would torture and perhaps even kill a chicken if given the chance).

Big props to Kelly and Erik – you’re an inspiration! And if you ever find yourself in Brooklyn, you’re welcome to stay at my house and help me make my yard into an urban oasis.

Yesterday I picked up my mail and was pleased to discover that my expected delivery from Amazon.com had arrived. Just a week earlier, I went online and paid $3.50 for the book ($7.50 with shipping), which happens to be a 1977 paperback edition of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath“. This is a classic piece of American fiction that I’ve never read before, but have recently been compelled to pick up after reading another book, “Stuffed and Starved” by Raj Patel.

“Stuffed and Starved” gives an informative and well-researched overview of our ailing global food system, and although it’s not as artfully written as some other works in its genre, particularly those authored by Pollans, Schlossers and Lappes, it is a must-read for anyone who cares about food, nutrition, environment and social justice. But more to the point, Patel’s book regularly quotes Steinbeck, and inspired me to read “The Grapes of Wrath” (which I will, starting today).

A new copy of “The Grapes of Wrath” will run you at least ten bucks, so I really scored with my $3.50 copy. Plus, my copy has a nice yellow coloration and some lovely coffee (or maybe chocolate?) stains on the cover, which give it character and a light fragrance. I am a strong believer in judging books by their covers, and I can tell that this is going to be a good read. And new books are tainted with carbon footprints and the blood of happy young forests, which is simply awful.

So if you’re planning to buy a book (or anything else, for that matter), try and get it used. I promise it will be better for your wallet, better for the planet, and it will look cuter on your coffee table.

I settled on these:

These sneakers are made by Simple, a shoe company that makes a great product and is working to attain “100% sustainability”. The company does make leather and suede shoes (from environmentally-friendly tanneries), but most of their products are vegan, made of green materials like recycled paper, hemp, organic cotton, recycled rubber and plastic, and even coconut shells (for buttons).

My sneakers are comfortable, attractive (although they’re getting dirty – I should have known better and gotten a darker color!), and they were affordable, to boot. I highly recommend visiting the Simple website if you have feet and care about the environment.

 The New York Times published an article last week about some new research that showed really really high (scary high) levels of mercury in tuna found in sushi restaurants in New York. For those of us who love sushi, tuna, and fish in general, this is bad news. My personal recommendation is just to stop eating tuna, especially bluefin tuna, because aside from being mercury-laden, it’s also over-fished.

But, if you just can’t live without it, and want to find out the maximum amount of mercury tuna that your body can handle safely, check out the Environmental Working Group’s Tuna Calculator. As a woman of child-bearing age, I am basically told not to eat any tuna at all (boo). Apparently, mercury has this nasty habit of causing brain damage in fetuses. Pretty lame.

Also, if you want some more info about the mercury-in-fish situation, Consumer Reports provides a decent overview. It even answers the question “how the heck does mercury get into fish in the first place?” (here’s a basic answer for those of you who are too lazy to click on the link:

1. coal and other fossil fuels are burned up to make power for our TVs and cuisinarts and whatnot

2. the smoke from the power plants contains mercury, and blows all over the place – including into the ocean

3. here the mercury gets absorbed by plankton and other tiny organisms at the top of the water, then fish eat those little guys, then bigger fish eat those fish

4. the mercury gets caught up in the fish’s fatty tissue and never comes out until that guy with the funny hat and the super sharp knife slices it up and puts it on a plate in front of you).

The End. Watch out for the fishies.

Isn’t this a sweet new alarm clock? I bought it for myself the other day, after the cheap plastic one I’d been using for three years self-destructed. I didn’t want to get another cheap one, because I need an alarm clock that will be with me for the long-haul, so I looked for a sturdy, metal model that could put up with my morning crankiness, as well as being repeatedly knocked off my night stand by my cats.

So this is the clock I found. I bought it at a small local appliance store and it’s nice and sturdy, which is great, but it has one more feature that I think is totally cool: it’s people-powered.

Now, many of us may look at the back of this alarm clock in confusion and perhaps mild disdain, because it’s quite old-fashioned. I, however, see it as a symbol of the future.

This clock doesn’t require batteries or a power outlet – all it needs is a little winding. And what’s more, it’s easy to wind up and set (although I admit I’d never used one of these before so I did have to spend a couple of minutes with the instruction booklet).

In my search for a human-powered generator (to fuel my Cuisinart and other gadgets), I’m finding that one of my best options is just to avoid buying and using electronics altogether. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not giving up my quest for a small, me-powered electrical source – but I am trying my best to keep things electricity-free in the mean time.

And this alarm clock is a small, simple addition to my home that will help me minimize my electricity use. And since it makes me so happy when I look at it, it may even help me get over that crankiness issue.

I highly recommend checking out this video and passing it along. It’s about 20 mins long, so you should set a little time aside to watch it, but it’s highly worthwhile and very informative.

www.storyofstuff.com

On a similar note, I think it’s time we give up these plastic scratchy body wash thingies and instead switch to loofahs. Like tea tree oil, loofah is a natural, non-toxic, biodegradable and totally effective skin care option. Next time you’re shopping for skin scrubbing devices, go with loofah and forget the plastic. It’s better for you and its better for everybody else, too.

I must say, most New Years come and go with little significance for me – usually it just means I have to remember to write a new number on checks and whatnot. But 2008 is a year I’ve been waiting for for a long time – nearly 4 years, in fact. And I don’t want to get too political here, but I don’t think you have to be political to realize that it’s time for our current president to hit the road and make way for somebody that actually is up for the job of leading our country.

Aside from the upcoming regime change, 2008 also offers us each a chance to make change on a small, less national level. I’ve never had much success with the New Years Resolution. In fact, if I remember correctly, last year I promised myself to do 10 push-ups a day, and so far I’ve completed about 25 of them (total). But that doesn’t mean that I should give up. I’ve managed to integrate lots of positive changes in my life over the years, all it took was time and determination.

As a child, for instance, I had trouble giving up my finger-sucking habit (similar to thumb-sucking, only weirder), and ended up carrying around a ragged blanky at an embarrassingly old age and growing in some petty gnarly teeth. Some might have predicted at the time that I would never grow out of this 10-year phase, but with support (and nagging) from my family, I managed to overcome the habit and now I only occasionally dabble in chewing on my appendages.

This year, my resolution is simple, small, and inspired by a Christmas present that Boyfriend gave me:

Hankies!

Yes, I’m going to give up disposable tissues and use hankies instead. I actually started the new practice yesterday, and it went pretty well. Depending on how runny my nose is, I think I’ll probably go through about one every two days, and wash them with my laundry every weekend. I’ll let you know how it goes -the upcoming Jan/Feb cold season will certainly put the hankies to the test so I’ll be certain to share with you stories about inevitable and embarrassing subway snot fiascoes.

And if you’re looking for something green to add to your life this year, you might get some good ideas by reading what people on Wisebread are resolving to do. The little changes we make can really add up big, so picking something that’s easy to integrate into your daily routine is probably a better choice than making a bigger change that you’re less likely to carry out. Good luck and happy New President Year!!

I must have been pretty good this year, because Santa brought me some sweet presents.  Two of my favorites:  the Atlas Pasta  Maker,  and the Cuisinart Food Processor.  Pretty much as soon as I got home from Massachusetts last night I took them out of their packages and put them to work.

The meal: Ravioli with Cheese and Veggie Filling

Ravioli is fun to make but can be a bit time consuming. I recommend making a bunch on a slow weekend or when you’ve got some time to spare, and freezing some. It’s also a fun meal to make with kids. When I was little my mom would make home-made pasta (usually lasagna) and it was always a fun cooking event for the kids to participate in. Cooking with your kids is a great way to get them interested in food and nutrition, and also to encourage them to eat new foods that they haven’t tried yet. 

Anyways, so ravioli looks fancy, but is actually quite simple to make. You just need to make pasta dough and some filling, and then put them together like a little pocket full of heaven. You also need a pasta maker and a food processor (or somebody who really enjoys dicing veggies).

Pasta dough is basically flour, eggs, salt, oil and water. I used olive oil and half whole wheat flour/half white flour (they say it’s good for the colon). Here’s a basic recipe for a couple of servings of ravioli pasta – I tripled it so that I’d have leftovers to freeze:

2/3 cups flour; 1 eg; 1 tbs oil; 1 tbs water; 1/2 tsp salt   — mix flour and salt, beat egg with oil and water and add into flour, mix it all with a wooden spoon and/or your hands until you have a nice big ball of dough.

Lay the dough out on a table with some flour and roll it out with a rolling pin until it’s about 1/2 inch thick. Then cut it into strips and feed it into the pasta maker on the lowest setting (low setting = wide noodles, high setting = thin noodles). You need to run the pasta strips through the pasta maker a few times, each time raising the setting so the noodles get nice and thin. When you get holes in the dough, make sure to patch them so your ravioli don’t ooze.

Take your pasta strips and cut them into squares (I like my ravioli big – about 3-4 inches wide and tall). Set them aside and make your filling:

What kind of vegetables do you like? Carrots? Squash? Spinach? Chop it up in your food processor and mix it with cheese and salt, and you’ve got your filling. Boyfriend and I made three kinds: mushroom, spinach, and squash. We mixed them with feta cheese and parmesan, but you could pretty much use any cheese (your call). Throw in some fresh herbs, pine nuts, whatever you like. The only criteria is that the filling be kind of dry – you don’t want it too wet and drippy (so once it’s all mixed together it should be a pasty or muddy texture).

Then you take small globs of the filling and put it in the center of one pasta square. Put another square on top of it and pinch the edges together with a fork – make sure that you press hard enough so the edges bind, but don’t press so hard that you poke holes in the ravioli. Trim the edges of the pockets with a knife so you get a nice clean square, and then pile them on a plate with a bit of flour sprinkled on each so they don’t stick together. They should look like this:

At this point you can take some of your uncooked ravioli and put it in a plastic bag in the freezer (if you suck the air out before you seal it they’ll last longer without freezer burn). The rest you toss into a pot of boiling water and cook until a minute or so after they start floating.

Top them with some sauted garlic, olive oil and salt and serve. Yum!