Archive for February, 2007
February 21, 2007 at 6:14 pm · Filed under ,
In spite of the echinacea and vitamin C I’ve been consuming enthusiastically since the first throat tickle, I seem to have caught a cold. To ease my sniffly transit around the apartment, I made myself one of these handy tissue to-go cups. To make myself feel better, I prettified it with ribbon scraps and an RCRG sticker. The whole thing took less than 10 minutes.
Next time I’ll use a bigger cup so there’s room to put a rock or something in the bottom of the cup. It works great, but it’s so light that the whole thing lifts up every time I yank out a tissue.
(Thanks to sweetie for being my photographer and hand model.)
February 21, 2007 at 5:58 pm · Filed under ,
In his comment on my last post, Andreas offered an encouraging kick in my vegan behind. I will indeed be providing “yummy vegan recipes” on this blog, but you’ll have to wait a little while for original recipes. At least half of my cooking is improvised. Sometimes I come up with tasty things, but I’m dreadful about keeping track of what I throw in the pot. I plan to take notes the next few times I cook and get back to you.
For now, you can sink your teeth into two of my all-time favorite lazy cook recipes:
- Superfast one-pot Sesame Kale Soba
- The only chocolate cake recipe you’ll ever need - perfect for cupcakes! (I like to undercook them so they’re even more moist and fudgy, but you’ll probably be more sensible.)
February 21, 2007 at 3:32 pm · Filed under ,
All day long I’ve been forcing myself not to stop working and devour the brand new batch of personal essays at Fresh Yarn. There’s one in there by Illeana Douglas (Six Feet Under fans will remember her as Angela, the mortician without boundaries who temporarily held Rico’s job in the Fisher family business) called “I Blame Dennis Hopper.” Apparently it’s about her hippie childhood after her father had his entire perspective on life reconfigured by Easy Rider. I’m pretty sure my dad’s favorite movie when I was a kid was Terminator, so I might not be able to identify, but it sounds interesting.
February 21, 2007 at 12:27 pm · Filed under
Can you fall in love with a voice? For years I’ve had a crush on Ira Glass, host of NPR’s This American Life. He’s a smart, sexy, deadpan funny radio god with a talent for surrounding himself with others of his ilk. And soon he and a peripatetic desk (each week he hosts in front of a new scenic landscape) will be on TV. Watch the preview here.
March 22 is the big day for those of you who have Showtime. The rest of us will have to wait a while. The TAL FAQ says they’re “hoping that the series will become available at some point on DVD or online for fans of the radio show who don’t get Showtime, but there’s no word about that yet.”
I sure hope they go with the online option. I know you can’t expect public radio accessibility from a cable-produced show, but I adore the way TAL currently shares their shows. You can get a free podcast, download an episode for free within 7 days of broadcast, stream any episode in the archives for free, download archives cheaply, or buy an archived episode in classy Chris Ware designed CD packaging. So flexible for internet fiends like me.
Also, Ira and his crew will be filming at Seattle’s Paramount theatre March 7. Tickets are currently sold out, but “seats may be available closer to the event.”
February 21, 2007 at 8:39 am · Filed under
How about a little sex ed to get your day started off? Yup, I just know you want to hear all about HPV right now. This post is based on a discussion I had with my naturopath yesterday. If you’re a woman who’s had sex, you might want to give it a quick looky loo…
Read the rest of this entry »
February 19, 2007 at 11:36 pm · Filed under
Perhaps you are like me and already have difficulty keeping up with your daily firehose of feeds, links, and emails, but just in case you want a little more of my blather, I’m working on adding a section of quick links to this page.
However today has been a busy day for me and my brand new baby blog, and I have a livelihood to feed. You’ll have to wait another day or two before random linky treats begin populating the left hand column of this page.
In the meantime, here ya go:
February 19, 2007 at 2:25 pm · Filed under , ,
A friend came to dinner last night and brought us a huge bunch of beautiful flowers. I have no idea if they’re organic or not, but I just wanted to say—particularly in case he reads my earlier post about organic flowers—that I love them regardless.
Organic is wonderful, but it’s harder to find and it’s more expensive. To eat healthy organic food on a frugal budget, you need the time and inclination to buy seasonal veggies, purchase staples in bulk, and make most of your food from scratch. That’s not always realistic, particularly for families struggling to raise children and pay basic living expenses. My friend Victoria’s blog post about her family’s experience with the recent peanut butter / salmonella contamination struck me as a quintessential example of this problem. She jests that perhaps…
God is angry with me for eating more cheap, crappy, fatty foods (which I don’t even particularly like) than, say, blanched organic vegetables (which I would love).
To which I say, Okay, fine, God - but who’s going to finance all these nice healthy groceries?
Ultimately, I feel strongly that healthy food is not just a personal choice but a critical economic and social justice issue. As study upon study shows the long-term damage we’re doing to our bodies and our planet with pesticides and other unsustainable farming practices, the people who suffer the most are the ones for whom fast food is the only affordable dinner out and foods like cheap white bread with hyper-processed, sugary, hydrogenated-fat-filled peanut butter are staples.
Well, “suffer the most” is a tough call actually, and I’ll refrain myself from going further down that depressing road right now. This blog is about (among other things) making sustainable choices in daily life, so I hereby vow to continually address the economic side of things in future posts about food and green living.
February 17, 2007 at 7:00 pm · Filed under ,
Originally uploaded by yelahneb.
Sweetie and I have a Valentine’s Day tradition. The G-rated part of that tradition involves eating large amounts of takeout veggie sushi. Back in Richmond, we acquired said sushi from our beloved Sticky Rice. Here in Seattle, in spite of all the amazing vegan choices, we have yet to find a sushi restaurant that caters to vegans. Sure, you can always get the cucumber or avocado roll and cross your fingers that no fishy bits slipped in, but there’s nothing like the choices we used to enjoy.
This totally messed up our tradition last year. We went to Cafe Flora, which was wonderful, and heck, Sarah Kramer herself had V-day dinner there this year. But for us this year sushi was mandatory.
Serendipitously, I came across a link on Eco-Chick to this video of the Hippy Gourmet preparing sushi. He makes it look easy, and we made it even easier on ourselves by purchasing prepared sushi rice at Uwajimaya. Thus, our celebration last night (sweetie was sick on V-day) went gloriously. Witness the enormous quantities of homemade, unbelievably delicious, 100% vegan sushi in sweetie’s new flickr set!
February 16, 2007 at 6:42 pm · Filed under ,
I went to the College of William & Mary. Folks who are familiar with that venerable institution (second oldest university in the country, after Harvard) are often surprised. Guess I’m not a typical grad.
Here’s me in front of the Wren building when I was five, with my dad and brother.
Wren is a magnificent 300-year-old building. My memories of taking classes upstairs and peering into the tiny book-lined offices of my professors are some of the fondest of my tumultuous college years. In that building, time stopped and education seemed sacred. Even the dust floating in the air was magical when lit by sunshine pouring through those enormous round windows.
I don’t have a lot of fond college memories—just a few treasured friends I managed to keep. I don’t keep up with alumni affairs, and I’ve actively avoided providing W&M with my current contact info. But today a friend emailed me about the recent controversy over the cross that hung in the Wren Chapel for decades. The new college president Gene Nichol lobbied to have it removed and was charmingly surprised by the brouhaha this created. His thoughtful letter on the matter—written back in December, but new to me—actually made me weep. (Sure, I was emotionally vulnerable from having stayed up til 3, and I do cry rather easily, but still…)
I wish our country’s leadership could harness this kind of compassionate common sense:
Over the past eighteen months, a number of members of our community have indicated to me that the display of a cross—in the heart of our most important and defining building—is at odds with our role as a public institution. They did not say, of course, that the cross is an offensive or antagonistic symbol. They often understand that to Christians, like me, the cross conveys an inspiring message of sacrifice, redemption and love. Rather, they have suggested that the presence of such a powerful religious symbol—in a place so central to our efforts—sends a message that the Chapel belongs more fully to some of us than to others. That there are, at the College, insiders and outsiders. Those for whom our most revered space is keenly inviting and those whose presence is only tolerated.
(…)
I have asked myself and others, does the Wren Chapel, our most remarkable place, belong to every member of the College community, or is it principally for our Christian students? Do we take seriously our claims for religious diversity, or do we, even as a public university, align ourselves with one particular religious tradition.
He explains in the letter that the new policy is to have the cross up only on Sundays, and upon individual request for quiet contemplation. As long as nobody tries to abuse that perfectly reasonable policy, it sounds great to me. Good show, W&M!
February 15, 2007 at 7:41 pm · Filed under ,
I love flowers. I’ve been known to send them, and I’m always thrilled to receive them. But I’m feeling the need to clean up my act this year.
I’ve been reading up on various enviro-blogs. (They get a bit preachy on this subject in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day.) Basically, between the enormous quantities of toxic pesticides used in flower farming and the long distances most flowers travel in gas-guzzling vehicles, those $9.99/dozen roses just aren’t worth the weight on my conscience. Organic flowers look better, smell better, and are exponentially kinder to mama earth. Unfortunately, they cost a fortune.
If you’ve got a fortune to spend, by all means spend it here or here or at your local organic market.
Me and sweetie don’t have a fortune at the moment, but since he was sick on Valentine’s Day and he had a disappointing job interview, I decided to take matters into my own hands by making these:
Not my best work, but they’ve got a certain kindergartenesque charm, dontcha think? The only non-recycled element is the pipecleaners. Otherwise it’s just newspaper and fabric scraps.
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