New Space

Hello!

You can find me over here now. On Medium.

moving

It has been over a month since I've added anything to this space.
Pardon me for going MIA.

I didn't mean for that to happen. After returning to school from spring break a couples things occurred and a couple things didn't, and both made me realize this blog didn't suit me anymore.

I'm in the process of creating my new corner of the interweb. Until it is ready, you can I find me over here.

carrot & quinoa muffins

Supposedly, I'm on spring break. 

And yet I am still wearing my long wool coat, still drinking at least three mugs of tea each day, and it is still snowing. I've seen daffodils and crocuses and snowdrops, but winter is lingering longer than usual. 

So, something like muffins spiked with cinnamon and ginger seemed well order for this chilly afternoon. The kitchen was warmed by the pre-heating oven. A few songs from this album played. And outside, the sun shone but the wind howled. 

CARROT AND QUINOA MUFFINS

Makes 1 dozen 

1/2 cup whole wheat flour (I would have used spelt, but we were out.)

1/2 oat flour (Grind whole oats in a food processor.)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

a dash of cloves

a dash of nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup cooked quinoa (1/2 rinsed quinoa cooked in 1 cup boiling water until curly-q develops.) 

1 cup grated carrot

1/2 cup homemade applesauce, unsweetened 

2 large eggs, beaten gently

1/4 cup milk (coconut, almond, oat, cow's...)

1/4 cup olive oil or warmed coconut oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour one set of regular size muffin tins. 

Mix flours, spices, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Then add the honey, quinoa, carrot, applesauce, eggs, milk, and oil. Mix until incorporated - but don't over mix. 

Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins and transfer to oven. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. When they're finished, run a knife around each muffin cup to loosen. Cool on a wire rack. 

days with two evenings

I rise early.

Here, at the end of winter and on the tip of spring, it is dark twice in my day - morning and evening.

When I'm at school, I share one, small room with a roommate who sleeps late. So until the sun rises (an hour or two after I do) I patter around with only the street lamps outside for light. I enjoy the dark. It makes me move slowly, mindfully. When my toes first touch the floor I go to the window to look at the weather: Is there snow on the neighbor's roofs? Are there puddles in the parking lot below? Then I dress, make my tea in our hall's common room, and slip back into our room to eat my breakfast (usually, it's bircher muesli, made the night before). I sit at my desk, sideways in my chair so I can watch the cars outside - slow white lights shining through the streets. I know the regulars by now (mostly professors). There is a man and his little white dog I see taking a walk every day at 6:30am on the dot. Slowly the sun comes up. First it is only a rosy haze, then - hopefully - it becomes sharp and golden.

In the evenings, I retreat back into the cocoon of our room again. I make a nest of pillows. I pick a book  and read until my eyes ache. Sometimes it's a book for pleasure. More often, it's a book for class.

I go to sleep early, like an old lady.

When I'm home, I slip downstairs before even my early bird younger brothers. I put the kettle on. I dare to run the blender to make my kale-banana-walnut butter smoothies. From my own bedroom, I watch the sun come up.

spring forward

These are a few captures from a beautiful afternoon with a friend. 

Spring is so close. 

morning & night

This week sped by in a blur of cold and sunshine, color and rain. 

chance find

A few days ago I found this book on the free shelf at a local cafe. 

Although it says it's for kids 10+ (and the writing does have a bit of a slant to it), it's a neat little volume about sustainability, consumption culture, localavorism, sweat shops, etc. For me it's even written by a local author (it's a signed copy too). Mostly, I'm keeping it for the resources - websites and organizations. And just in case there's some 10+ year old I find I need to convince to jump off the consumerism bandwagon.

from my desk

I spend most of my days in my room at my desk, it seems. This is what it looks like. 

green smoothie/seeing the sun set from eight floors up/note taking implements/a pear from market/afternoon snack/my current reading

unexpected lessons in gardening and culture

In my archaeology class last Friday morning, we discussed the rise of agrarian society in the prehistoric world.

It changed everything, my professor said. It was a societal revolution when humans figured out how to take wheat that was sprouting in the wild and domesticate it. He didn't use these words, but this is what I heard: agriculture is powerful.

Yesterday, in another of my classes, my anthropology professor spoke about Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk who gave us modern genetics. And he did with pea plants. He was a gardener. Growing food leads to incredible things. Plants can change the course of history.

My archaeology professor brought up two other ideas that I scribbled in the margin of my notebook:

First, today we live among strangers. In band, tribe or chiefdom societies (those of early man) this would have been unimaginable. Everyone knew everyone.

Secondly, it's true: you are what you eat. Archaeologist can take skeletons that are thousands of years old and discover what the deceased's diet was thanks to chemical signatures left in their bones. What you consume indelibly builds the structure of your body. (Depending on how you choose to eat, this could either be alarming or gratifying.)

Maybe these four ideas seem completely disparate. I'm not so sure they are.

The power of agriculture.

Gardening.

Missing connections.

You are what you eat.

If you can keep a garden, you can feed yourself. That's pretty empowering right there. But a gardener is aware of their food - where it is grown, how it is grown - and so more likely to be aware of their own health. We must stop to nourish ourselves everyday. While that could make it appear less significant of an act, I think it only makes it more important that we eat mindfully. Growing food is also creative, hence it goes against the grain of our consumption driven culture (which, maybe it's just me, but that doesn't seem to be doing most people or our one and only planet much good). From what I've seen, gardens and food bring people together too: tending, harvesting, cooking, teaching, eating, cleaning up. And then - when the compost pile is replenished with scraps from the meal - the cycle continues.

lentil sprouts

The first time I had lentil sprouts they came from the farm, as Side by Side is called in my family. From time to time a box of them appeared in the share I received as an intern.

I'm not sure why I've never tried sprouting myself. This week I decided to give it go. The process is really very simple - so simple, in fact, that I sprouted these lentils in a mason jar on the window sill of my dorm room. It took three days of rinsing them in the morning and letting them sit, rinsing them in the evening and letting them sit. They're wonderfully crunchy and earthy tasting.

Sarah Britton (of course) explains why sprouting is so special in her post here.  And next, I'm going to try sprouting quinoa.

notes from global environment class

I am now happily in the thick of school life again. Rising early, bundling up to walk to class (I knitted my first hat for just this reason), lectures, reading, writing, papers, professors...

This semester, one of the classes I'm taking is called "Global Environment." I was expecting it to be about climate zones, and natural disasters, and the water system, and all that jazz - but no, it's better than that. It's about ecology, sustainability, agriculture/food resources, etc. Right up my alley.

(And even better, I'm taking this class with a friend who occasionally whispers snarky comments and is good at playing the devil's advocate when we discuss weighty environmental matters after class. It lighten things up.)

This week we have an exercise due wherein we have to calculate our ecological footprint using this program. Mine resulted in this projection: if everybody lived the way I do (as best as I could articulate it in the calculator) we would need 3.9 Earths to sustain us. Granted, the program does make assumptions because I am an American. But try it for yourself. Seeing your ecological impact broken down - even if it is just theoretical - can't help but make you think.

In class last week we discussed sustainability and specifically voluntary simplicity - giving unnecessaries up for the sake of the "global commons." It made me consider how much I would be willing to give up.

Or maybe it isn't a voluntary matter. I recently came across this article from the New York Times about a brave lady who, by necessity, went "back to the land" in the heart of the city, and gave up many things only to gain many more.

(Pictured above: one of four massive hanging sculptures on campus. They are paper cranes made of many smaller paper cranes.)

the second semester and a bowl of granola

Tomorrow afternoon I head back to university for the second semester of the year, my fourth semester as a student. When it concludes I will be half way done. Half way. 

And my wish was granted: I wanted another proper snowfall before I went back. It happened yesterday into early this morning, and in the evening the sun was out, bright and brilliant. So I took a walk, took my camera, and had this song echoing in my head all the while. 

I made some provisions for my return to school. Among them, a batch of granola, adapted from Stephanie Congdon Barnes' recipe:

Simple Granola

6 cups rolled oats
2 cups mixed nuts and seeds (I used flax and pumpkin seeds)
1 teaspoon cinnamon 
1 teaspoon cardamom (optional)
1 cup honey and/or maple syrup
Dash or two (or three, if you dig salty with your sweet like I do) sea salt

Method:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
Place a baking pan (at least 9 x13—I actually use our big roasting pan) over medium heat on the stove top. Add the oats and toast, stirring for a few minutes. Add the coconut, nuts and seeds and spices and continue to toast for a few minutes more until everything begins to brown and become fragrant.
Warm the honey and maple syrup in a small saucepan until liquid. Pour over oats mixture and stir to thoroughly combine. Sprinkle with salt.
Bake for approximately 20 minutes (it depends on the size of the granola batch and the size of the pan). Check every 5-10 minutes or so and give it a good stir. Allow to cool and store in an air-tight jar.

woodberry kitchen

Yesterday evening I had some very fine local fare.

A lovely lady who is like my aunt though we're not related took me down to Woodberry Kitchen for supper. The good stuff that made it's way onto our plates came from nearby sources, from farms and from the sea. For the winter months the restaurant cans and preserves relishes, sauces, tomatoes, syrups, etc. The food was artfully concocted and composed. We got a seat on the balcony and could look down at all the happenings below. Not long after we arrived a song that makes me happy started to play.

It was an absolute treat.

There aren't many books I would say everyone should read. Often that's too much of a generalization. I adore To Kill a Mockingbird, it's a classic, etcetera - but I don't think there's much to be gained by forcing it upon everyone. I'd say the same for the poems of Emily Dickinson and Mary Oliver, the works of Virginia Woolf, and Howards End.

But everyone should read Eaarth, by Bill McKibben.

This book was passed on to me by my mom and I'm yet part way through it. For one, it's cleverly written. For two, it makes it absolutely, undeniably clear just how much we've altered the only planet we have. Global warming or global "weirding," as I once heard it called, can seem an abstract concept (especially when you step out your door at noon and it's 19 degrees Fahrenheit...as I did today). McKibben takes away all the vagueness, and it's a little scary, but we only have ourselves to blame.

And so I think that means we can work to fix it.

I lately came across a blog called the No Trash Project and am enjoying going through the archives. It chronicles the efforts of one lady who is trying to live a life that produces no waste. And while that may seem a simple statement, when you begin to think about it (think about what and how much you put in your trash can each day), it's an immense task. But she's up to it; she's doing it. Her weekly waste crate photographs I really like. She has one small (wooden) crate of throwaway things that is never pictured full.

In his book, McKibben makes the point of saying that we have altered the Earth to such a degree that it is a different planet than it once was (hence the title). Consequently, we have to live differently now. It was fortuitous that I found the No Trash Project when I did. It depicts a different way of living, going against the current.

So if you keep a reading list, you now have two things to add to it. I don't say this lightly: Read them soon!

around the table

Lunch at Juliana's in the Village, a local farm to table restaurant, for my brother's fifteenth birthday.
There was a whole grilled cheese menu, spicy tomato soup that put all other tomato soups to shame, and goat cheese cheesecake.

secret smoothies

During the summer months - when it was hot and I was tried from a morning at the farm - smoothies became one of my favorite snacks. Lately though I've been making them a bit differently than I used to: now, I put veggies in them.

It's one thing if I enjoy them. But a few weeks ago I put a 1/2 cup of raw spinach in a smoothie I made for my eleven year old brother. Upon taking a sip, he didn't notice. I thought I was being so crafty, so sly. (He knows now and was only mildly impressed.)

So here are the basic ways I sneak vegetables into smoothies. Depending on how I concoct it, one glass can sometimes contain two to three servings of fruit/veg.


Banana smoothie base:
3 ice cubes
1 banana, peeled
1/4 - 1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4 - 1/2 cup water (or milk of any kind)
1/2 - 1 teaspoon honey or maple syrup

Toss everything into a blender and give it whirl until the ice is chopped and everything is well combined. Add veggies if desired.

Vegetable additions:
Spinach → slight change in taste, no change in texture if when blended.

Raw broccoli → change in taste noticeable, texture becomes gritty.

Lettuce → makes smoothie bitter, no change in texture. 

To disguise the veggies, add:

Spices to taste (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves)

Nut butter

Raw/whole nuts

1/4 - 1/2 cup other fruit (frozen blueberries and strawberries work well)

fresh orange juice in place of water or milk

Add desired vegetables and disguises and blend for another 1 - 2 minutes, until there are no longer any chunks of anything.



(Above, my breakfast smoothie containing lettuce and peanut butter, paired with toast from here.)

ice garden

Yesterday morning I woke - jumped out of bed nearly - and found the ice-drops and ice-fingers created overnight. It was so cold outside they lasted long into the afternoon. 

They were lovely, but a disappointment. I want snow. Oh, I want snow. 

(I've realized the fact that I do not have to shovel said snow when/if it arrives - thank you Dad, thank you younger brother - may influence my desire for it.)

Seeing: A friend from school, and going here. 

Hearing: new terms like DPN, cast on, and garter stitch as I begin to learn to knit. 

Tasting: soup for dinner, three days in a row.
(Black bean, then their soup, then curry.)

Smelling: a world that got a slight reprieve from the bitter cold; a hint of spring. 

Feeling: tremendously grateful. 

ethical clothing: definitions

What makes a garment ethical?

It seems to me there isn't any exact definition, which is understandable since ethics are subjective. But that - and the fact that our society isn't completely in gear when it comes doing the best environmentally and socially - makes consuming mindfully tricky.

Because there is also sustainability, which from every definition I've heard means the intersection of social equality, economic honesty, and environmental consciousness. So which should one shoot for? Uphold your ethics or sustain? Or both? Or do the two overlap? I am still working all that out.

And so I made a list of what buying mindfully means to me. It's by no mean exhaustive, and as I learn more it might evolve. At this point in time though, these are my own guidelines for navigating the world of wearables:


Vegan: No animals were harmed. No feathers, fur, or skin.

Fair trade: The makers were hired by someone else who treated them decently and paid them decently. For this there is a proscribed set of standards.

Second hand/Vintage: Buying something already worn, giving it a second (or maybe third or fourth...) life.

Handmade: This could be interpreted different ways. I take it to mean pieces of clothing that you or an independent person (many of the designers on etsy) made. Could be sewn, knit, crochet, etc.

Environmentally sustainable/conscious: The processes that went into to growing the material and making the garment or accessory were all calculated to be environmentally friendly.

Recycled: A new piece was remade from other pieces or a new piece was made of materials that were once other objects that were previously used. (I'm currently in the process of reading Cradel to Cradel, which makes it apparent that "recycled" isn't as simple a definition as we suppose.)


sources: here/here/here

on experimenting in the kitchen

I think many people are afraid to experiment when they cook. Several times now I've been standing in the kitchen when my mom was in the middle of making or planning a meal and she realized she was out of an ingredient. Just use garlic scapes instead, I might say. Or: I doubt it matters if you leave that out. Or even: Wing it (on Christmas Day, when twenty-one people are expected for dinner...).

I seldom follow a recipe to the T. When making a yeasted or sourdough bread I follow the instructions as though they were a magical incantation that I must recite perfectly. Otherwise, if I don't have enough cumin all is not lost; I'll substitute curry powder and maybe throw in a little cinnamon. No mushrooms? Well, we do have eggplant. The consistency is about the same and it's going in the food processor anyway.

And then there was banana bread this past week. I started with this recipe, which I've made on several occasions. Then I went into our cave-of-a-baking-cupboard and discovered there was no whole wheat flour. (I refused to bake with white.) However there was barley...which is technically a whole grain, I figured. So I substituted that. Then we had no vanilla. Oh well. It got left out entirely and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon and nutmeg thrown in its place. Forty minutes later the bread came out, not as pretty as Sarah Britton's, but just as delicious as every other time I've made this bread.

And to think I could have been stopped in my tracks because I couldn't conform to the recipe, forced to make something else or nothing at all.

When people say they "can't cook" I have to refrain from rolling my eyes. Can you read at or above grade level and do you have all your five senses intack? Yes? Then you can cook. It isn't about perfection, it isn't about replicating something you saw on the glossy pages of a cooking magazine. It is about your taste buds, your sense of smell, your eyes, your ears, and the feeling of something on your tongue and in your belly. In most cases, recipes are guidelines.

In her TEDx talk Tamar Adler speaks about this beautifully: How to be a clever chef. How to look at cooking differently.

And if you think you can't cook, I suggest you read Ms. Adler's book: An Everlasting Meal.