A different type of WOW!

I'm not actually doing the Eat Local Challenge this month, because I've been so busy. However, I'm trying to eat more local food. Today I did a large shopping at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market. Amazing and chaotic. Recommendation: stop at the information desk and get a map. Next to the names of the farms on the map, I wrote what I bought and how much it cost. Next week I'll have a much easier time finding what I'm looking for.

It's salsa season as both tomatoes and hot peppers are in season. Along with the rest of my food, I bought salsa ingredients (tomatoes, jalapenos, onions, garlic and cilantro). The tomatoes that I bought were dry-farmed Early Girls from Dirty Girl Produce. Absolutely delicious.

I also had lunch at the Slanted Door in the Ferry Building. I had the "Allstar Organics heirloom beans with fresh baby corn and torpedo onions". I was somewhat disappointed that there was almost no spice, but the green heirloom beans were fantastic and the yellow beans were even better. The baby corns (source unknown) where also fabulous. I don't think I've ever had fresh (rather than canned) baby corns. The difference is huge. This wasn't the spicy food that I normally prefer, but its a different type of WOW!

The Slanted Door is too expensive to eat there often, but it's a reminder that the quality of the ingredients really does matter. And next week, if I make it to the farmer's market, I'll be going to the Allstar Organics booth and looking for those wonderful beans.

More busy than green

My busy, green life has been much more busy than green recently. I've been busier at work in the last six weeks than ever before, including some very tight deadlines beyond the control of anyone at our company. As a result, I've gotten behind on everything not work related. This also means that I've been eating at the cafeteria, and therefore not knowing where my food comes from. I also went on a business trip recently, and before the trip a bought some new (not used, not Compacty) clothes for the customer meetings.

This week I finally got back to cooking and also to eating at least some local food. Hopefully, I'll be able to balance work and green living better in the coming months.

Used gifts?

Generally I don't like shopping. Given the pressure to pick something that someone else will like, shopping for gifts is especially stressful. And, if you are trying to avoid buying new things (a la the Compact) as I am, gift giving is especially tough. Two of my co-workers are expecting a baby soon and the shower is this week. Since I work quite closely with both Mom and Dad (one of them reports to me) I wanted to get them something nice. I surfed the web and found several children's consignment stores in San Francisco and selected one of them. Chloe's Closet in Bernal Heights is walking distance from the 24th St. BART station. It's an easy place to shop (well-organized and not too big). I selected 3 items (a shirt, a one-piece and a sweater). They are so little and cute.

I also stopped by a used bookstore near by and bought a book for the big sister-to-be. This is a nice little business district. Besides these stores, I found a grocery store with lots of organic produce and a small shop with local artisanal food.

I'm happy with my purchases, but the dilemma remains. Are used clothes an appropriate gift? I hope so. Do gifts need to be new? I'd like to think that the answer is no. The parents will get more clothes then if I had paid for new ones, and some clothes in apparently like-new condition will get a new home other than a landfill. I think its win-win, but I have this nagging thought that I've committed some grave social sin. In front of me at the cash register was a woman buying consigned clothes as a gift. My thought: oh good, I'm not the only one. Behind me was a woman returning the consigned clothes she had bought because the Mom-to-be to whom they were given didn't want her child wearing "used clothes". My thought: eek, I hope my colleagues don't feel that way.

The farmer's market by bike

I rode my bike to the South San Francisco farmer's market today. Most of the farmers don't have signs so it can take a bit of looking to figure out what's what. Here's what I bought.

from Calderon Farms in Hollister:

• 3 ears of corn
• 2 zucchini (~18 oz)
• 2 broccoli stalks (~19 oz)

from Berry Licious in Gilroy:

• one small box of raspberries

Both of these farms are certified organic.

Here's a quadruple bottom-line.

• Money - $5.50 total ($3.50 for the vegetables, $2 for the raspberries)
• Food miles - ~85 miles for the vegetables, ~70 miles for the raspberries
• Time - ~35 mins (about ~10min bike ride each way, about ~15min at the market
• Taste - excellent (esp. the raspberries which are one of my favorite foods)

One (or the other) every day

There are two daily habits that I would like to get into. One is riding my bike to and from the train station on my way to work. This involves 9 miles of riding between morning and evening and isn't too difficult, except for the last segment in the evening (about 1.5 miles) which is uphill and always against the wind (sometimes a very strong one). The other is bringing a lunch to work rather than eating at the cafeteria. The cafeteria is fairly healthy since I usually have a salad with only balsamic vinegar as dressing, but still. Bringing food from home would be better since I would have more control over it. If I choose to, I can bring in some (hopefully in the future all or mostly) local and organic food. This is what I would like to be eating. Who knows how far the veggies in the salad bar have traveled in pollution spewing trucks and/or airplanes. Either of these changes would also save me money since the cafeteria food is expensive and the alternative to riding my bike is a trip on the local subway system (BART), and they don't have monthly passes.

Since these are new (at least for this year) and require some extra time, I'm going to do one or the other each work day depending on which is more convenient or desirable that day. For tomorrow, packing a lunch is the obvious choice since I have meetings from 11AM-2:30PM with no lunch break. Tonight I cooked some lentils and spices. Since I couldn't find a matching Tupperware top and bottom, I'm going to transport it in a old pickle jar. We have more used glass jars than we can possibly use as canisters, so why not? My co-workers will probably think I'm weird, sort of like their reaction upon learning that I don't own a car.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Seed collecting

The end of spring really is here. My farewell-to-spring is in bloom. This is the last of the major types of annual wildflowers to bloom in my garden. I've been collecting seed from flowers that came and went earlier in the season especially redmaids and meadowfoam. I've collected hundred of seeds. In a few weeks I'll be able to collect from the California poppies. I have a lot of seed pods, but they are still green. Someday, I may start up a little hobby business selling native plants (I'm frustrated by how few stores sell them). In the meantime, most of the plants will probably go into my garden until all the grass is gone and the plants are as dense as I'd like them to be. It's nice to have time on weekends to do things like this.

Unfortunately, the dandelions are everywhere and I'm so behind on pulling them. I'll try to pull a few each morning and evening on my way in and out, but I'd not know if this will be enough to keep up with this obligation.

Food waste, food miles

We had a celebration at work today with free lunch. I packed up a small fraction of the extra food for afternoon snack and lunch or snack tomorrow. Most of the extra food got thrown away. What a waste.

For those concerned about food miles and how much fuel usage and carbon emissions goes into the food you eat, consider this. The most energy efficient food you'll ever eat is what's already in the building and will otherwise be thrown away.

Oops

Sometimes carelessness is the mother of consumption. Usually I focus my gardening efforts on clearing the weeds around my wildflowers or watering my broccoli seedlings, but this week I've been trying to conform to the expectations of my suburban neighbors by mowing my lawn. I've never used a lawnmower myself, since I'm generally allergic to grass; but I gave it a try and all was going well until suddenly it stopped. I had run the mower over the cord and cut it in two. Fortunately, it just needs a standard outdoor extension cord, not some specialized part that they decide to discontinue in order to force you to replace the whole thing. So today, dear husband brought home a brand new extension cord. Alas, purchases sometimes happen despite my best intensions.

Business clothes and printer cartridges

I made it through both the business trip and printing my taxes without buying "new" stuff.

I went to Cartridge World and got the printer cartridge re-filled for about half the price of buying a new one. The IRS prefers that people file electronically, but most people have to pay extra to e-file. Therefore, I fill out the PDF-based forms on the IRS web-site, print them out, and send them to the IRS where they pay somebody to type the information into their computers. What a waste of paper, time and money.

I managed not to buy any new business clothes either. I noticed before the trip that the VP that I would be traveling with also uses a laptop backpack, so no need to feel self-conscious about that. We would have two days of meetings with the client so I packed the two shirts I own that I feel confident are sufficiently professional (button-down long-sleeved shirts with real collars) and one spare shirt (more causal but good enough for work). Dressing for the first day was no problem. However, in ironing my shirts I discovered that the second collared shirt had a spot on it right in the middle near the buttons. I knew from the first day of meetings that we would be meeting with some of the same people the second day and that people at the client company dress more formally than at our company. So I didn't want to wear the same shirt and the more casual shirt wouldn't be appropriate. I considered buying a new shirt for the second day. I almost justified it by thinking that having only one shirt that I can wear to meet with customers isn't going to work, so I would need to buy another one at some point anyhow. However, if I waited until I got home, I could get one at a re-sale store. If I bought a shirt on short notice I would almost certainly need to buy new. Fortunately, I also had a white cardigan sweater with me and it had been quite cold in the meeting room. I decided that I would wear the shirt with the spot with the sweater over it and I would keep the sweater buttoned. I did this with no problem.

A week later I had a local meeting with a different client. I wore the un-spotted collared shirt, but I noticed a very small spot on it, unlikely to be noticed by anybody else. I had the sweater with me, but it was too hot to wear it. The clip-on visitor badge they gave me to wear covered it up very well. Now that I'm back home I can look for some new-to-me business shirts at a re-sale store, when I find the time.

Too dependent on technology

Our inkjet printer cartridge is out of ink. Yesterday, when my husband and I were in the city we tried to get it re-filled. We went to a Walgreen's that, according to their website re-fills inkjet cartridges. They did have a machine to re-fill cartridges, but after at least 10 minutes, they decided they it couldn't handle ours (an HP #26). We tried a Comp USA about a block away, but the woman at the information desk said that they don't re-fill cartridges or sell re-furbished ones. When I get back from my business trip, I'll try Cartridge World. Hopefully, they can re-fill it.

In the meantime, I have a one-page letter that I need to send. I typed it on my laptop and since I couldn't print it at home, I printed it at the office. Tonight, I tried to prepare it for the mail, but I couldn't find it. I looked around the house for it and I started getting worried. I thought about whether I could wait until after my trip to send it. It took about 15 minutes of searching before the thought occurred to me that I could write the letter by hand.

It’s funny how we forget the basics sometimes. Fortunately I have very readable hand-writing.

Business travel worries

I joined the Compact in January. The Compact is a group of people who have pledged not to buy any new stuff for some period of time (often a year, though many continue beyond that). So far, not shopping has been pretty easy. I was never very interested in shopping anyhow.

A few days ago, I found out I'm going to be going on a business trip to the Midwestern city were I went to college. This brought on a whole bunch of worries. How many days of meetings would there be? Do I have enough different sets of sufficiently professional clothing? Is my laptop backpack sufficiently professional and adult looking? What about a purse, stockings etc? I work in Silicon Valley, so work attire is informal. Even my boss, a senior VP, often wears jeans to work. I carry my laptop, wallet etc. in a very handy backpack that I bought before I started Compacting. Will that be OK? I don't want to look like a college student in front of a potential client. I'd also like to avoid buying (or wearing) nylon stockings. Nylons are such a waste since they often develop runs after having been worn only a few times. I usually wear white gym socks, but certainly that won't work for these meetings. I remember buying some black trouser socks last year. I guess I'll need to clean my house and find them before the trip. Any thoughts about carrying my stuff to the meetings? Should I use the backpack or hit the thrift stores and try to find something more "professional"?

The other thing that bothers me about travel is the CO2 emissions associated with air travel. According to Native Energy my plane trip will cause 1.395 tons of CO2 emissions. All that for the modest contribution that I might (or might not) make to closing some business for my company. I can, and probably will by carbon offsets for the trip, but I don't consider flying to be sustainable even if you do buy offsets.

I suppose if I were not going on this trip someone else would be going instead...

Water containers: the bad, the good and those in between

I finally brought a re-useable water bottle into work on Friday. I usually use a real mug to get my water from the water cooler. However, the water isn't very cold so I often end up getting ice from the cafeteria. Unfortunately, they only have styrofoam cups. I feel really guilty using them and bottled water isn't the most environmental choice anyhow. Friday morning I noticed a re-usable plastic water bottle that I bought a while ago, but never used. I filled it with ice and water from the Brita pitcher and took it to work.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling that well so it didn't last all day. So at lunchtime, I found myself getting ice water at the cafeteria. They don't have any re-usable cups available. Fortunately, I noticed that they have switched from styrofoam to the "Ecotainer" from International Paper. It says on the cup that it’s compostable. I took it home to research it and since I can't compost it at work.

Here's what I learned at the Ecotainer.

The good part:
1) The eco part is that the liner that makes keeps the liquid inside the cup is made from corn rather than petroleum. Aside from reducing petroleum use, this allows the cup to be composted. The standard cups, with a petroleum-based liner, can't be composted.
2) The cups that the cafeteria used to carry are stryofoam. At least, they aren't using those anymore.

The bad part:
1) The paper in the cup is not re-cycled. This is very disappointing. It's hard to call any disposable cup environmentally conscious, especially one made from virgin paper.
2) Chances are that very few of these "compostable" cups will ever become compost. There's no composting container in the cafeteria, so most of them will go to the landfill. The conditions in standard landfills make it very unlikely that the cup will actually bio-degrade.

My paper cup is luckier that most. After I brought it home, I filled it with dirt and planted one of my broccoli seedlings in it. It will serve as a pot for vegetable seedlings until its worn out and ready to go back to the earth. I can only use so many veggies seedling pots; so I'll try to take a paper cup as rarely as possible, and stick with my re-usable plastic water bottle.

Let's just hope I can remember to fill it up and bring it to work.


What's in season?

Here's what I bought at the farmer's market this week.

leeks
broccoli
red cabbage
pink lady apples
navel oranges

Inertia

I really haven't made much progress on green living since I started writing here. As you might guess from my lack of posts, I've been very busy. Today's a Sunday and I'm lying on the couch with a cough and a sore throat.

In the last month of working hard and not focusing much on green living, I've noticed something interesting (and perhaps obvious). The chance that one will do what one thinks is the right thing is largely based on the extent to which it has become routine. Yes, we are creatures of habit unless we really try to make a change. The things that we do routinely are fairly easy, even if they would seem difficult to others. Changes that other people think of as fairly easy can be difficult if they haven't yet become standard practice in one's life.

A few examples are in order. One change that we've made in our life that many others would find difficult is giving up our car. We sold our car about 4 years ago. The last time I drove was about a year ago, when I rented a car during a visit to my college friends in a less transit-friendly city. In some ways not having a car isn't easy. It takes me significantly longer to get to work (on the train), but its much more relaxing to sit back and read a book than having to constantly watch the road and trying to avoid killing someone. Still there are times when its raining or I'm sick and really want to go the store to get ice cream (sometimes my beloved husband will get on his bike and buy me some :) ) and the convenience would be nice. The relevant point here is the even though car-freedom has its occaisional disadvantages, it's become standard practice for us. Therefore, it's quite easy even though most of my co-workers find it almost unthinkable.

On the other hand, my hopes of switching to local, organic, and unpackaged food have fallen victim to my busyiness at work and my lazyness. I eat pretty healthfully (lots of salads) but often they come from the cafeteria at our office complex. It's higher quality than most cafeterias, but it still means very little control over where the food comes from. They certainly don't label it with the point of origin. I usually eat my food in the cafeteria, thus no take-out containers; but sometimes I'm so busy that I take it back to my desk. To some people, eating local or organic or un-packaged food might be easier than not driving a car; but not for me. It's not a standard part of my life yet. I hope someday it will be.

First Steps in Local Food

I'd like to start eating more local and organic food. I'm not ready to go 100% local since I don't know where to find everything I would need (especially grains). Also, if you need to know where all of your food comes from, it's very hard to eat out except at a few places. With my busy life, I eat at the cafeteria in our "office park" quite a lot and who knows where that food comes from. I don't know that I have time to buy and prepare all of my food. Still, a few steps in that direction would be a good idea.

Yesterday, we went to the Heart of the City farmer's market. Its located in the UN plaza in San Francisco, right across from City Hall. From what I'd read about it the prices are great but there isn't much organic food. Both of these proved to be true. The oddest thing about the market was that almost none of the farmers had signs to indicate the name of their farm or where they are located.

I found one certified organic farm. It was only from the organic certification attached to the stand that I learned that the farm was Ortiz Brothers and that they were from Santa Rosa (about 55 miles from the market). I happily bought some broccoli, bok choy and cilantro from the Ortiz farm for $5. He was friendly as well and didn't mind when I used a little beginner Spanish.

I bought a red cabbage from a stand not labeled organic since I love red cabbage and it was the only stand that had any of it. It was only $1. I asked the woman where the farm was. She got irritated, and said "everybody" asks that and that she considers anything within 250 miles local. She mentioned San Juan Bautista. When I got home I discovered that this is ~92 miles from the market near Hollister, so it was probably fairly local.

We also got red potatoes, garlic, onion and chile peppers from the largest stand in the market, closest to City Hall. Again no mention of organic or where the farm is. They were very busy so I didn't ask. When we got home we had a nice, home-cooked, fairly local meal.

In general, I was fairly disappointed with the market given the small amount of organic food and the difficulty in figuring out where it's from. I probably won't go out of my way to there; but if I'm walking by the Civic Center on a Sunday or Wednesday, I'll be looking for the Ortiz Brothers.

Weeding and wildflowers

Today was a Saturday and an absolutely beautiful, warm, sunny day. I spent as much of it as possible in my front garden, pulling weeds. For the past few years, I've been gradually pulling out the grass in front of our house and replacing it with native plants (both shrubs and wildflowers). The wonderful thing is that once a species get established, the plants grow and spread on their own. The perennial shrubs grow each year and the annuals multiply and spread. Since the plants are adapted to this climate they don't need to be watered, except for the first year if you plant in the dry season. Finding the plants is more effort than for your standard garden center plants; but once they are going, they aren't much work at all. They do benefit from weeding out the remaining lawn grass as well as removing the other weeds. This fits in well with my busy schedule because I can put in some hours of weeding when I have time; but if I go a few weeks without working in the garden, they do just fine.

The ones that have spread the most are California poppies and beach strawberry. California poppies are the state flower and in my garden they grow large and re-seed prolifically. Every time I'm weeding I find a few small poppy plants that I hadn't seen before and I clear the grass from around them. In a few months the flowers should be stunning. Beach strawberry spreads by runners and it likes my garden. It's very effective at replacing the grass. So far no strawberries to eat, but it makes a attractive, low-maintenance ground cover that stays green and doesn't need to be watered.

The first few flowers are appearing in the garden. The first flower heads are appearing on my two Ceanothus (wild lilac) plants. The red maids (Calandrinia ciliata) are also just starting. I have many of the these rapidly-spreading annuals. In a few weeks, it will look really nice. Perhaps, I post some pictures. That will be a good incentive to clear out the weeds around these plants so that they take better pictures.

It was a wonderful day, and it was sad when I had to come inside to do some work.

Introduction

Here's some things you should know about me if you are reading my blog.

I'm a thirty-something married woman living the San Francisco Bay Area. I work an intense Silicon Valley job that keeps me very busy. I'm also trying to live a "green" life that minimizes my contribution to global warming, destruction of ecosystems and so on.

This blog describes my efforts to do both and still get enough sleep.