haiKupiec

If you haven’t already read it, I highly recommend Coming Home to Eat by Gary Paul Nabhan. I have been a vegetarian most of my life — that makes me a friend of natural foods. (Every vegetable is my friend but I treat broccoli like it’s chicken.) So it’s not surprising that I have an interest in where food comes from–add climate change into the mix and local foods become even more appealing. After reading Nabhan’s book, I became more earnest about buying bread, tortillas, vegetables and fruits from local sources. I belonged to Reno’s Co-op and the Northern Nevada CSA.  I tried to buy locally made bread. I stopped drinking bottled water. For the most part, other than Trader Joe’s, I stopped going to grocery stores. There’s something that’s very appealing about knowing where your food comes from–especially when it comes from a neighbor or a local business. Having local food suppliers also helps improve the long-term sustainability and viability of the food supply. It also encourages biodiversity. There’s more than one kind of squash, people.

Since I am in a new locale, I checked out the local Kansas City CSA and was instantly reminded –again! — that geography matters: I am not in Nevada anymore. There isn’t one CSA–there are MANY. Take a look at the options: www.kc-csac.org/farms. (I should say that I loved the Northern Nevada growers–if you can, join your local CSA.)

One of the interesting attributes of the local CSA(s) is that people are encouraged to have a direct relationship with the people who grow their food. This is a lot different than picking out produce in Safeway!

This is a baby round zucchini grown in my Nevada garden. I brought one with me to Kansas City but it’s a BIG baby. Zucchini muffins??

Back in the day, sporks just seemed a little pathetic. Not a fork, not
a spoon it was an odd little utensil with an identity crisis. Fast
forward about 20 years and wade through mountains of disposable
plastic ware at the dawn of global climate change and we start to
examine everything destined for the landfill.

Inspired by Low Impact Man, his blog, and comments from his following,
I purchased 4 sporks from Light My Fire for me and 3 friends that I
thought would appreciate–or at least be amused by–such a gift. These
are a wholly different utensil from their confused predecessors. These
are utentsils on a mission! They come in several colors. I bought blue
for my beloved, red for my favorite buckeye, yellow for a girl who is
not afraid of color, and green (of course) for myself. My spork has
already saved me and the earth from disposable plastic madness on
multiple occasions.

Now all I need is a jaunty reusable napkin to tuck in my bag so I can
just say no to paper napkins.

AKA: my 4th of July weekend so far.

We’ve been shopping for a portable A/C unit for the upstairs bedroom. We don’t really need to run the A/C except for that room and the A/C doesn’t help anyway. (Except that we’ve needed to run it because of our smoky skies.)

Sooo…our thinking is we turn off the central A/C and just get a portable unit for the bedroom. We looked at every conceivable option before boldly buying a unit that we had not planned on buying. I’ll keep you posted. It actually pretty hard to figure out whether this is an environmentally sound decision. Hopefully less is in fact, less.

Robert like tennis, therefore, I see a lot of tennis. I don’t understand the rules at all. This is in spite of numerous explanations. Why I can understand baseball’s infield fly rule and the scoring of tennis eludes me, I cannot explain. I do like to watch them hit over the net. And the outfits, especially the outfits of the rebellious tennis players. Today I watched the women’s Wimbledon final. I like Venus Williams and I am glad that she won.

One of the major activities of the weekend was catching up on ironing. Every once in a while, I like to iron everything in my closet and organize my clothes by type and color. Makes me feel like a little order has been restored to the universe.

I am a big fan of the environment and I am a big fan of reusable bags. Seattle is considering a 20 cent/per bag tax on disposable plastic bags–the kind that you get in grocery stores. The city estimates that 360 MILLION plastic bags wind up in the landfill every year. That’s 600 bags per Seattle resident per year. That’s a lot of consumption, my friends.

Where to start? Just carry one reusable bag with you and try to use it as often as possible. Say no to double bagging at checkstands. Don’t bag things that really don’t need a bag. Or just go crazy and get a whole set (or two) of my favorite reusable bags, the ACME Workhorse from Reusable Bags.com–available in several colors, it’s strong, packable, washable and hip. They last a long time–I’ve had mine for years and they still look great. Other great options include the reusable bags at Trader Joe’s–they are awesome and an incredible deal at only 99¢. I use mine all the time for everything. If you like color and want something more fashionable than the Workhorse, take a look at the Onya Bags. Onya bags have great details like a carabiner clip to attach the bags to your key ring, backpack or bag.

But wait–there’s more! If you know me, I will buy you a reusable bag to get you started. Just email me. You will get a bag and my admiration.

Small actions add up to big change. Believe it. (Go to www.wearewhatwedo.org for more ideas.)

Listen to Ketzel Levine’s interview with Gary Paul Nabhan from NPR’s Morning Edition

Other links:

• Native Seeds/SEARCH
• Center for Sustainable Environments at NAU
• Slow Food USA
• Slow Food on Campus – Blog

Learn more about the Tohono O’odham community online at www.tocaonline.org. One of the programs is the Community Food System, a project dedicated to the creation of a sustainable food system within the Tohono O’odham community.

See the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s site on Food Systems and Rural Development specifically, Fighting Diabetes with Native Foods.

This is a plug for the Great Basin Food Basket and CSAs in general. I signed up last year and every week was an adventure even for this long-time vegetarian. The food was great. Each basket came with stories and recipes–and sometimes vegetables I had never seen or heard of before. We had delicious blackberries, beautiful squash, and more peaches than I think I have eaten in a decade. It was a significant investment and a lot of food so it might be better to share in the future.

I have been thinking a lot about stuff–how it complicates life and my worry that it wreaks havoc on the planet. This Story of Stuff video confirms many of my fears. It’s also a powerful motivator to reconsider the role of stuff in my life and happiness. I hope you will take 20 minutes to watch it.

Good on ya, Mr. Gore. Nobel Laureate is better than President. You should have had both but I know you aren’t done yet. You did good. Keep going.