Save Your Trash

Just read an AP story about Ari Derfel, a Berkeley caterer, who saved his trash for a whole year, composting food scraps. He apparently kept every tissue, every receipt, plastic bottle, and wrapper and put them in bins in his apartment. Here's Mr. Derfel's saveyourtrash blog. I just emailed him to ask if he would do an interview for the blog.

Got the photo from Mr. Derfel's blog via The San Francisco Chronicle (photo by Kim Komenich)

A List for Disney

I'm starting to make a list -- okay, I'm starting to think about a list, but it will have chex trail mix and wet naps on it. Because, I've discovered, if you don't want to pay the kingly ransom for food, snacks, and even cold, bottled water, it's best to bring your own containers of the stuff. While the kindly security officers look down on bringing in coolers to the parks, they do not mind a large baggie of chex trail mix and your own containers of water, discreetly tucked into a satchel. I think it must be some policy about meeting the dietary needs of their guests, as in, "my religion requires that I and my family stuff ourselves with a 1/4 cup of chex trail mix at 15 minute intervals. Same with water."

Still haven't heard from the good folks at Environmental Initiatives, possibly fogged in at their perch on Tom Sawyer Island -- we've had a lot of fog lately in this part of Florida, so I'm thinking something similar is brewing in Orlando.

2008 Slingshot Organizer is here

Got to Goering's fast enough to get one of the large, spiral-bound Slingshot planners. It's snazzy and, once again, it's red. If you didn't read the original post on the planners, you can see it here. Go here for a list of bookstores what sell it.

More About Seitan

Here's the update: The seitan was a mess by the end of an hour's cooking time. A goopy, stringy mess. There was, maybe, one chunk that was vaguely reminiscent of what seitan looks like. I tasted it -- it's darn good, but I don't know if it's going to stand up to the rigours of turning it into wheat meat stroganoff.

While doing the first post on seitan I had come across this bulletin board where someone was whining about how they got dumplings out of their seitan brew instead of meaty chunks. Well, now that I'm the one whining about it, I'm going back over my searches in an attempt to find it again. In the meantime, I ran across this intriguingly named site, The Hillbilly Housewife, who has all sorts of tips about making seitan. I think the tip I will use in the future is using vital wheat gluten, eliminating the rinsing of the dough.

Okay, here's the thread from The Vegan Forum where advice is given on the making of seitan. I think wheat gluten is the way to go.

Oh well. I scooped out what I could into a container, and then threw the rest of it, broth and all, into the pot I'm making lentil/barley soup.

Update: I have to say, the soup turned out really, really good. The leftover chunks of seitan that I couldn't scoop out of the broth also went into the soup, giving it a good texture. I'm almost halfway done with this batch and am really enjoying it!

Seitan!

Nothing says "Christmas" like a big batch of good, old-fashioned seitan. Also, I had some veggies that were about to go completely bad.

I used the recipe for seitan from Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson, but here's a seitan recipe
from Allison Wunderland that's very similar but doesn't really provide amounts. Here's another recipe through Associated Content that has actual amounts, if you're into knowing that sort of thing.

Also, the Vegetarian Resource Group has a nice little intro to seitan which provides a fair amount of information on its origins, and some really tasty-looking recipes.

The Vegan Planet recipe calls for a big amount of flour -- I just happened to have a bag of whole wheat flour that was languishing in our pantry -- and calls for a simmering broth made from your classic stock-type veggies like carrots, celery, garlic, and onion, and some soy sauce and bay leaves. The house smells like soup!

I made seitan once from a mix, so this is my first foray into making it from scratch. Apparently some recipes call for mixing spices right into the seitan, like poultry seasoning for chicken-flavored, or fennel and pepper for sausage-flavored, etc.

Just checked the seitan in the pot -- it still seems kind of gooey and it's about half-way through the cooking time. I hope I did it right. We'll see. If it turns out well, I'm going to make the fam some seitan strogranoff, combining the recipe from Vegan Planet with the one from the Vegetarian Resource Group. That was what we made with the from-the-mix seitan and it was so tasty.

More about Christmas Trees

In the midst of all the Christmas magic the past 2 days, I looked at the tree in my mom and dad-in-law's house and realized I was being really humbug about the whole live tree vs. artificial tree. They have a live, potted, pine tree that they keep indoors for a couple of weeks and decorate. After Christmas they plant it in their backyard and, in a couple of years, they cut it down and haul it back inside. It still ends with terminating the tree's life, but it seems more sensible to me than buying a cut tree every single year.

I read in O Magazine (yes, my mom-in-law passes them on to me) that in 2006 Americans bought 30 million cut trees*. There is apparently a crisis of where these trees go after they have served their purpose, but it seems there are a lot of opportunities to mulch the trees. The article also said that a tree can take up to 30 years to decompose on its own.

I just called our public utility and asked them what they did with old Christmas trees. I was happy to learn that Waste Management picks them up and turns them into mulch.

O Magazine (and this issue was just full of tips) also talked about the live Christmas tree concept and got their information from the Iowa State University's Department of Horticulture.

Here's an alarming blog piece from Scientific Blogging about the pros and cons of both artificial and live trees. I did not know that a lot of artificial trees can shed lead dust and that some artificial trees come with warnings because of lead content. Also, artificial trees are made from nonrenewable petroleum -- something I did know but prefer not to think about.

Now, what does this mean for our family? Well, I'm not sure. I have to get some florist's tape and do some repair work on some of the branches of the artificial tree we have, but after only about 4 years of use it's kind of falling apart. I still don't believe in cutting down trees just to keep in your house for a short while once a year, but I'm wondering if maybe the g-rents have the right idea; buy live trees each year, plant them out and then after one gets big enough, cut it down and bring it back inside for the next season. It will take a few years for this to actually work, but it might be worth a try.

Here's a link to Agricultural Marketing Resource Center's online discussion of the Christmas tree industry.

Here's a link to an article in the NY Times that discusses the debate of real vs. artificial, with some information on the history of Christmas trees.


* The reference for this article is: O: The Oprah Magazine, December 2007, Volume 8, Number 12, page 20 of special section "Green for the Holidays," entitled, "Treecycling."

Picture from Balsam Hill Christmas Tree Company, via Associated Press, via NY Times article referenced above.