All I can say...

... is that I would like to alternately punch Palin in the face and debate her on a large stage.

I mean, more power to the grand old party to make dumb decisions all across the board. It's typically what they do best. I disagree with Mrs. Palin on more topics than I can fit in a dumpster, so let's just start with this one:

She seriously thinks global warming is real, but that it is not caused by human activity.

WHAT?

She supports more extensive drug legislation, so it's not likely she's smoking the crack, but that's the only explanation I can come up with for such amazingly flawed thinking.

'Tis the season

The season for fresh fruits and veg here in the States. Cukes, squashes, tomatoes, citrus, beans, all sorts of tasty treats await us in our gardens and at the grocery. This is the season of bounty because so many crops are ready for harvest in the Spring/Summer.

In my constant effort to live/eat/shop consciously I'm reminding myself to enjoy these foods now, when they're in season, because when the weather turns cold again and I start to see pale, mealy, watery tomatoes in the grocery I need to steer clear. In terms of carbon footprint "hothouse-grown" foods at your local grocery are a big no-no. The non-renewable energry spent on growing those foods, in addition to fuels burned in the transport, all add up to make those very bad choices at the market.

So go out and visit your greenmarket this weekend (you can find one by looking here), buy those local fruits & veg, support your regional farmers. Take a peek at www.eatlowcarbon.org to see how you can cut down on your food's carbon footprint. Check out www.sustainabletable.com to find restaraunts/shops/markets/bakers/butchers in your area that are committed to sustainable food practices.

It was only a matter of time

I had a feeling it would happen sooner or later. It's one of those things I knew would creep up on me and get me when I was least expecting it. I've thought about it in the past, but always shied away before I committed. Lots of my friends do it, so eventually it was going to spread to me, right?

The vegetarianism, I mean.

Here's the deal - in addition to having some animal-friendly guilt I have always advocated conscious eating. Read: be aware of where your food comes from, know what you're eating, if you can't pronounce it you don't want to put it in your mouth, respect the source, etc. I think most Americans' eating habits are deplorable, so for years I've been trying to eat healthier and buy local (hence my participation in a CSA), doing whatever I can to contribute to sustainable and respectable food practices not only for myself, but for the benefit of my local community.

Our culture of blind consumption is counter intuitive to treating ourselves and our planet in a way that encourages life. Right now we throw away more than 30% of all the food we buy. That's unbelievable. That means on average, you throw away $30 of every $100 you spend at the grocery. If we did that with commodities other than food it would seem outrageous to us, but since it's food we don't really notice. Think of it this way. If you go clothes shopping and you buy a new outfit, shoes and all, then you come home and throw the pants away before you've even worn them, that's the equivalent of what we do with food as a nation. Seems insane, right?

Part of our over-consumption is wrapped up in wasteful practices that go into producing the food we eat. For example: it takes 2,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of ground beef. That's the same amount of water you can save each year by installing a low-flow shower head or smaller capacity toilet tank. 2,000 gallons! For one night's meal of taco salad! I just can't justify 2,000 gallons of water for a taco salad dinner anymore. And I loves me some taco salad, people. All that water, all that grain/corn (and the land needed to grow the grain/corn) that goes to feed the cow that lives a short and cramped life so that I can later eat him in a completely detached way has become totally unappealing to me now.

From an animal-lover's perspective, eating meat has always brought some conflicting emotions. My dad hunted when I was a kid, and it was always for food, not for sport. He taught me about guns being dangerous and only for hunting. He made sure I went with him to the butcher a few times when he took the deer in to be parceled out into the multitude of white butcher paper wrapped packages that would eventually fill our freezer. I stepped over dead deer that were being prepped for butchering and was filled with a sense of respect that those animals had been killed for us to eat. It was my first introduction to my very own food source. Rather than seeing an anonymous venison steak or burger on my plate, I knew that meat came from the deer my dad and I took to the butcher. There was something important about that experience. It showed me that meat is not only food, meat was once an animal that had a face and a mother and a life.

The humane reasons for not eating meat were never quite enough on their own to make me become vegetarian. However, the environmental impact of meat production is exactly enough to push me over the edge and change my ways. It's a personal decision. Personally, I simply can't justify my meat consumption anymore. I don't begrudge anyone their steak. I will miss cheeseburgers in a way that is best described as "demented", but that's not enough to make me ignore all the other parts of mass meat production. My eyes have been opened and I can't "unsee" what I've seen.

We are what (and where!) we eat.

Back in 2005 an institution in NYC was shuttered for good. The Fulton Fishmongers fish market was housed in the New Market Building at the Seaport starting in 1836. The building still stands, although currently vacant and in need of some TLC, and there is a group trying to bring it back to life. Their goal is simple - renovate and repair the building, which is publicly owned, with public funds from the city and return it to use as a public market.

Public markets have been a tradition in this city for centuries now and they are rapidly vanishing. This group, New Amsterdam Public (a nod to the city's first European name), seeks to put a slight twist on the public market angle. They want the market dedicated to regional and sustainable food. Nothing sold in the market would come from more than 500 miles outside of New York City and obviously, natural and organic goods would be preferred.

This is really exciting for me. MT and I recently joined a cooperative in our neighborhood which buys shares in a farmer's upcoming crop and in return, we receive fresh fruits & veg each week from June to November from that farmer (he delivers them to our neighborhood!). Our particular farmer has a gorgeous organic farm in upstate New York near the Vermont border. This type of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is gaining some strength in urban areas where people are becoming more conscious of the carbon footprint and chemical fertilization required by their grocery store foods.

CSA coupled with sustainable, regional markets are a way to ensure that we not only have economical and healthy food options in large cities (eating organic and local has a bad rep as exorbitantly expensive and it doesn't have to be that way), but that we eat foods that come from close to our homes. It means we don't need to ship fruits from Chile and Argentina year round, instead we can get fresh foods from our own regions. It's healthier for the eaters, more sustainable for the producers, and better for the planet which we seem to be destroying with wanton disregard. It's good for us, good for the economy, and good for Mama Nature. A win-win, right?

So this morning, right now, MT and I are headed off in the freezing rain and ice to go to the New Amsterdam Public Wintermarket. It's a preview of what the market could be if we can pull together and get this funding from the city. Mario Batali will be there cooking and giving tips on how to make delicious meals from ingredients purchased at the city's greenmarkets this time of year. I hope to bring home a bottle of NY state wine and some honey because we're getting woefully close to a honey shortage in our apartment. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for reading my little PSA.

No, Kermit, it actually is pretty easy being green...

I just subscribed to our electric utility's green energy option. This basically means that evil, evil ConEd will now supply our electricity from a green energy source. Evil, evil ConEd will continue to bill us on one consolidated invoice, but instead of the money going to evil, evil ConEd it will go to the green electricity provider of my choosing - with a nominal distribution charge still going to evil, evil ConEd, a'course. We'll only be paying a penny more/kilowatt hour. Pennies, people. Pennies to help out Mother Nature. Who, incidentally, we as a species have been screwing since we lit that first fire. And then came cars. You know the rest.

I chose to get 35% wind power/65% river-to-run hydropower instead of fossil fuel electricity from a conventional source. All the power comes from New York state, which is also a cool thing. The hydropower comes from facilities that transform the motion of the river water into electricity without rerouting or destroying natural habitats and the wind power comes from wind turbine parks all over the state like the one in the picture.

Some people have fought the installation of turbine parks in upstate NY for various reasons - not the least of which is property value. In spite of the objections, wind power is a growing source of energy in the state and that's got to be better for us all than burning ever increasing amounts of fossil fuels and creating massive amounts of carbon emissions... regardless of what it does to property values upstate. In this trade off game I'm betting on the turbines.

In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that evil, evil ConEd provides a number of green power suppliers to choose from and they make it super easy to switch. They even noted the ease of switching to green power in this month's bill. I guess maybe that means they can be upgraded to simply evil ConEd. I like progress.

P.S. I still feel that Strip Bar class in my thighs. Great googly moogly.

Where has my winter gone?

It's January 6th. It's 67 degrees outside and I have all the windows open. WTF? It is not supposed to feel like Spring. It's just not. I'm angry about it. This warm stuff has got me all screwed up. It's messing with my head. I completely missed winter last year. Miami was hot the whole time. No snow, no bundling up, no scarves, no gloves, no hot apple cider walking through the park. None of that. To say that I have been looking forward to this winter is a gross understatement.

Well, it's here and it's certainly not acting like much of a winter.





<< This is what my neighborhood should look like this time of year.




<< And this is what it actually looks like.








I'm off to take Duke to the park. Neither of us will be wearing a jacket. *sigh* Where has my winter gone? Brooklyn should be a wintry paradise right now.