Category Archives: Simplify

Stirring the Polenta

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I do not like to clean. Therefore, many of my life choices have been made to simplify the clean up. When I cook, I search for simple recipes that include little processing and the least amount of pots to wash. Most of my meals are made with one pot. Some may call me lazy; I would not disagree. My husband is quite the opposite – he approaches a meal as one would approach an adventure. He loves to explore new recipes with wild abandonment, the more ingredients, processing, and kitchen tools being used the better. I have been the fortunate recipient of many fabulous meals that I would have never ever attempted on my own. On the other hand, I have washed more kitchen tools, pots, pans, for one meal of his than I could create for a weeks worth of my meals. Hey, but life is about trade offs, and I would rather enjoy his delicious meals and do the dishes than do all the cooking, no doubt about it.

 

When Mike cooks, I always offer help, but he usually says, “No Thanks.” However, one day, he actually said, “Yes.”  It should have been my first clue that something was up. He asked me to stir the polenta with a wooden spoon in the same direction for 45 minutes while he was fixing another part of the recipe. After 10 minutes of stirring in the same directions, switching arms periodically, I asked if there were other options to making the polenta. He said, “Well, there was one recipe that took 10 minutes, one 30 minutes and one an hour; but I just wanted to see if the hour recipe was better.” Mike found a great cookbook that gives the history of the ingredients and recipes, it’s very interesting, “The Best of Northern Italian Cooking” by Hedy Guisti-lanhan and Andrea Dodi. It has great commentary – “Polenta is more than food; it is a way of life.”  Sure, because you have to devote your life to making it. “Polenta is a mush made of cornmeal.” I have to agree with that, as unfortunately that night I realized I did not care for polenta and my arms reminded me of it for 3 days.

Come on, Let’s Just Reduce

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I’ve been a long time reducer, reuser, recycler and composter. Early on, I realized that we humans are creating too much trash and are having a difficult time managing it.  I remember driving past a landfill when I was a teenager and concluded that trash should not be buried. In Florida, if you see what appears to be a hill or a mountain – it’s a mountain of trash! That is so wrong.

Furthermore, it should not be put onto a barge and floated out to sea. Remember the barge that no one wanted? In 1987, it left NY and for 112 days, it traveled 5,000 miles down to Belize and back because no one wanted the trash.

In 1997, Captain Charles Moore discovered the “Pacific Trash Vortex.” It is an area in the North-Central Pacific where tiny bits of trash, together weighing as much as 100 million tons, the size of the state of Texas had been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. There are five similar vortexes on our earth. That’s a lot of trash!

Yes, we have to live and we will generate waste, but if we look at what we actually need and how to obtain these necessary items, we are able to limit the amount of trash we create. Germany knew that too much trash was generated from unnecessary packaging; so in 1991 they passed a packaging law “Verpackungsverordnung,” that requires manufacturers to take care of the recycling or disposal of any packaging material they sell. Therefore, waste became the burden of the manufacturer not the consumer. Guess what happened? Products were produced with less packaging – BRILLIANT!!

When I moved into my first apartment after college, I started to look at my trash differently. For the first time in my life, I was living on my own and deciding what I needed and what I wanted to buy all by myself – no roommates to negotiate with.

  • My first step was to stop buying items that would generate a lot of trash – no more extra-unneeded wrappers or packages. At first, I shopped in the average grocery store. I wandered the aisles, making choices based on ingredients and then on the amount of packaging. Fruits and vegetables were less challenging to buy, as they tend to have less packaging but not always.  We are lucky in the USA as we have so many options when shopping.
  • Then, I found that I could buy items by bulk at a food co-op, enabling me to reduce packaging.  Many communities have some type of food co-op, here’s a link to find one close to you http://www.coopdirectory.org/directory.htm

At first, I would simply bring my herb jars to the co-op and fill them up. Now I buy herbs, dry fruit, grains, honey, maple syrup, vanilla, molasses, cooking oil, coffee, shampoo, conditioner and of course meat, cheese, fruit, and vegetables in bulk.  It takes planning no doubt, but if I bring my own containers and bags (which I reuse of course) I generate very little waste. Two added bonuses are that many of the bulk items tend to be less expensive (no $ going into packaging) and procured locally, so I am helping the local economy, my pocketbook, while reducing waste.

  • Farmer’s markets are an excellent way to buy in bulk, support local farmers and reduce wastes. The Eat Well Guide is a great resource; it helps locate farmers’ markets, family farms, food co-ops, restaurants, grocery stores, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, U-pick orchards and more http://www.eatwellguide.org

In 2011, a group of students and professors from Yale University found two fungi in the Amazon rainforest that can degrade and utilize the common plastic polyurethane (PUR) in anaerobic conditions (without oxygen), which may provide some relief to our waste issues.

Yes, we can recycle, reuse, bury our trash, put it on a barge, send it into space, perhaps even use fungi….but isn’t it easier to not create it in the first place? Let’s just reduce!

Do you have ways to reduce your wastes? Please share them, as I will continue to share more of my ideas with you.