My Social Life

Want to know what a glamorous Saturday night looks like? I'll tell you.

What you'll need: kitchen equipment to include steamer, pan, blender, food mill, ice cube trays (silicone, of course) and large wine glass; lots of organic fruits and vegetables (a selection could include parsnips, purple asparagus, broccoli, plums, apples, pears and bananas); one second hand kaftan/muumuu purchased at local flea market for $5; and (critically) a bottle of wine (spend about $15 on this; you'll be needing it).

Wait until husband leaves to go upstate to collect car (yes, it broke down again. But it was their fault so they fixed it for free). Put baby to bed. Call brother on stag do (bachelor party) in NYC's most glamorous nightspot just to hammer home the bathetic contrast between your night and his. Put Coldplay or other girly band on the iPod. Pour self large glass of Sauvignon Blanc, then commence frenziedly steaming, blending, pureeing, scooping and freezing first type of organic fruit/veg; wash up; repeat; repeat; repeat...

If you've followed the instructions to the letter, by the end you'll be mildly drunk but will also have accumulated a fairly impressive collection of food cubes to be fed to your darling child by someone else while you're at work.

You see? We know how to party round here. Lindsay Lohan eat your heart out.


Mum, I don't know why you've bothered. I'd much rather just eat balloon ribbons.

Or yoghurt.

Odds and Ends

The hubby went to the local pub last night for a drink with two of his mates. I say 'pub'; in fact it looks more like a crap youth club, all cavernous faux-wood vinyl walls, brightly-coloured plastic chairs, wobbly fold-up picnic tables and strip lighting, but he seems to like it, so whatever.

He got home to find me in a chipper mood. "You're awfully flirtatious," he said suspiciously. "What's up?" "I've decided not to write the blog tonight!" I replied gleefully - not because I don't love you all but because it was really nice to have Saturday night completely to myself and also because although I'd done lots of little incremental green things throughout the day, none of them seemed sufficiently groundbreaking to merit a post of their own.

As I've hit my green stride, more days seem to be like this. For example, I'd begun the morning with a homemade pampering session. I remembered my best mate Catherine telling me, back when she was a beauty editor, that the best exfoliant she knew of was sugar and olive oil, and since my gams were in serious need of a pre-holiday spruce up (after 9 months of pregnancy and six of motherhood, they aren't looking their spry-est) I retreated to the bathroom with the Filippo Berio Extra Virgin, Domino's granulated and some organic oats (to create a moisturizing soak) clutched to my chest. I ran a very shallow bath (it barely grazed my mid-bum) and hopped in. This was ambitious, and sure enough I'd barely got my hands all covered in gunk before squawks began emanating from the bedroom. I finished up as quick as I could, then propped Dot next to me as I approximated a bad homemade pedicure, which I'm sure saved water and I know saved money. Not sure it's quite Harbour Island material, though.

Later I did the composting, baked a cake and then set about trying to find eco-friendly alternatives to plastic baby spoons and sippy cups now Dot's no longer a boob-only girl. The Bowery Babes network came through for me as usual with tips on trying a wooden or ceramic baby spoon (so far I've found this spoon, which is lovely and which I will probably get) and SIGG sippy cups. This latter was dangerous because it introduced me to a site called reusablebags.com. Oh dear. I could spend a small fortune on this site. Instead I've restricted myself to a couple of cups for Dot and a larger bottle for me (to make an eco-statement when I get back to work), all made from guaranteed non-leaching materials.

So that was kind of it. I promise to try and find you some drama soon though.

"Now, where's my bottle of wine?" I asked the hubby.

"Oh. I didn't get you one," he said.

Charming. He gets to go to the pub; I stay home to put his first born to bed and what do I get in return? Nada. Not to mention what was the point of having a night off if I couldn't at least get a little bit merry?

"Maybe I'll write the blog after all..." I said. Then, when his face fell, "...or, you could make up for it by cooking the kohlrabi [which by this point had been sitting in the fridge for a week and was in danger of becoming better in the idea than the execution]. I found this Carluccio's recipe."

He agreed and got stuck in.

For the record, the organic kohlrabi from our local River Brook Farm (food miles approx 2, carbon footprint virtually zero) tasted a bit like turnip and "a lot like bamboo shoots", according to the hubby. Unfortunately he managed to serve me the bits that were rather woody, but overall the slightly oily, cuminy, terribly worthy mess was a success (more so than the mangel wurzles we bought from RBF in the autumn). I decided to stick to plan A.

Today, however, the hubby undid all his good work by going snowmobiling with a mate. Way to spew pollutants into the atmosphere for absolutely no material gain.

But his face when he got back was a picture. I suppose a boy's got to get out from under the green thumb every now and then.

Now some actual green stuff

As I wandered down to the village store today to get some onions for my chickpea soup, I bumped into Alice of our local organic River Brook farm and told her how much we were missing her delicious food since she closed for the winter.

Fabuous news: she's open on the quiet for the loyal few on Saturdays selling all the usual local organic meat, dairy and soup as well as her own root vegetables - carrots, spuds, kohlrabi, etc. (I said that like I buy kohlrabi all the time but in fact I've never bought or cooked with it before in my life. So I googled 'kohlrabi recipes' and found some very appetizing options including this one for stuffed Kohlrabi, this one for Greek-style Kohlrabi and this for roasted Kohlrabi and butternut squash, if I can find squash in January, we'll see.)

So we'll go on Saturday and stock up.

What a relief - not only will there be no more despondent rifling through the meat and produce sections of Wal Mart and unappetizing meals full of hidden pesticides, but I'll actually get to live my 'shop and eat local' dream again.

It does seem completely ridiculous that when we live in the middle of loads of farms and round the corner from what is surely one of the best small-scale organic farms in the country, we've been ferrying in food parcels from New York. I suppose this is where we should take action and plant our own, but have you been in our back garden lately? I refer you to fig 1: the picture of the river from earlier. Trust me, you wouldn't be gardening in those conditions either.

Neil, Alice's husband, offered to help me learn to grow my own if I wanted. "We find that once we've shown people how to do it, they never complain about our prices again," he said. Especially not when it's 0 degrees F out there. That's F for frostbitten fingers.

Readers' Tips

Dear readers,

Thanks so much to those of you who sent feedback on what works, what you liked, etc. Turns out your fave thing is pictures of Dot. And there I was thinking you were logging on for my scintillating eco advice and dazzling wit. Ah well, whatever it takes, but you'll have to wait till the end for the pic. What? I have to get you to read on somehow...

Some readers sent me their best tips (the formatting here has gone bonkers and am too tired to spend any more time figuring out why - soz):

• from Penny: "try washing soda crystals to clean waste pipes from basins and sinks and to clean wash hand basins and baths. It is very effective and does not contain bleach, phosphates or enzymes" [I haven't found any yet, but will keep trying]
• from Looby: "I must recommend

reusable cotton wool pads that you pop in their own little bag in the washing machine" [these are brilliant - cotton wool is one of those things where you probably don't think about how wasteful you're being, but these are the perfect solution. Also, the course of googling to find these, I stumbled on washable baby wipes. Has anyone tried them? Is really icky but then again...]

from Nick (Dot's uncle, the dentist, he's in the UK) in response to our wine question: "most Australian wines are organically grown, but cannot market themselves as such, in case of an outbreak in which case they may need to use pesticides. Our French neighbours are not so enviro friendly (no suprises there then), so it's a tough call to make" [we'll find out about Californian wines - see if the same is true]

from Damo in response to my 'Wal Mart hoodwinking us' piece: Wal Mart is going to change what organic means. [I found the NY Times article he suggested. You have to read it (here) - is v. interesting analysis of the pros and cons of 'big' organic. Here's the 1-line summary: "These foods may contain no pesticides, but they are drenched in petroleum even so". Oh dear. I guess the scales have fallen from our eyes. Better than nothing but apparently not much - maybe. The jury's still out...]

the hubby has even got in on the act, emailing me daily news stories about green stuff (the best one from today: this from The Independent)

Some readers responded to say I'm making them feel guilty by doing so much. Well, I'm not so perfect, believe me. In fact, just for you lot I'll come clean about one of the really big chinks in my armour: showers.

What can I say? I love showers. I know I should be keeping showers short, switching the water off while I soap up and shampoo, and buying an eco-friendly shower head (this I will do when I have some cash) but the fact is our bathroom is fer-eezing at this time of year (no heating in there of any kind. In a wooden house in the mountains! And it's 9 degrees F out there right now!!) and the shower is the rare bit of me-time luxury I get these days (forget pedicures and massages, I now remember even uninterrupted brazilian waxes fondly). And so, every morning I take my dressing gown off, shivering, promising myself this will be the day I start short showers, and then I get under that lovely hot water and I just cave in and stand there, immobilized, for just one more minute, just one more minute....Fortunately it's about then that I hear (or think I hear) a little someone squeaking and I turn the shower off and hastily dry myself and get myself dressed.

To be fair, for the last year or so in our overheated New York apartment, and especially in the summer, I really was turning the water off while I washed my hair; it's just at the moment I can't face it. And at least I rarely succumb to the temptation of a bath. But every time I get out of the shower, I know I've been bad. I wait for the hubby to pick me up on it (this is one place where he, having very little hair to wash and therefore being a very efficient showerer, could claim the mroal high ground) but he never does.

But now you know. And now I've told you I guess I have to do something about it. Apparently 3 minutes is the optimum. I'll start timing myself tomorrow, the coldest day of the winter so far.

God, my timing is off.

Now, in reward for your patience, here's the promised pic: in her littlegreendot suit and matching socks, knitted by her grandma:

Ooh, those eyes.

Wal Mart telling porkies

Check this out: apparently Wal Mart is calling non-organic food organic in a bid to hoodwink earnest do-gooders like me into buying it. The cheek! Let's see what the investigation reveals.

Dot's Xmas recos

So, I will get to the cheese but first, Dot wanted to show you some of the greener pressies she's acquired this Christmas. First, from the MIL a fabuous new tote which speaks for itself.

Do what it says on the bag - just say no! The MIL got this at The Organic Farm Shop in Cirencester; not sure where else you can get your hands on this exact one but check out this site for other reusable bags - a friend Sam's Mum is making them and they are totally gorgeous. Available only in the UK at the mo but if anyone has any bright ideas about how she can break into the US, just let me know! Anti-plastic statement bags are set to be a trend, I reckon (they already are in Australia), so prove how ahead of the curve you are and get yours while it's hot. Or even better, make your own with an old bag and a magic marker. You heard it here first...

Next up Dot's pressie from me - yes, it's a sock puppet! No, I have no idea what animal it's meant to be, but look, she likes it! Oh, in case you're wondering, this is eco-friendly because it's made from an old sock (we did wash it first) and bits of felt and buttons that were lying around. Who says kids need loads of stuff to be happy?

Next up: Dot's dinosaur! A gorgeous squishy dinosaur made of post-consumer recycled fabric (that looks like it's Missoni but is actually Muji) from Emily. She likes it so much someone wondered whether she wouldn't end up being a paleontologist. Er, maybe.
And finally, a sleeping bag created by my Mum from a polo neck jumper I wore when I was 19 and forgot even existed. She made the chest bit from the neck so she didn't even need to gather or smock it - genius. Toasty and gorgeous, perfect for PA nights and has to be better than buying (yet another) grobag, even one of the organic ones you can get now. That little hat is also very eco - it was her Dad's when he was a baby, knitted by his aunt Leslie. Gorgeous, eh? And the hat's not bad, either (ho ho)

Right, the cheese thing. It's going to be a huge anti-climax now, isn't it? So, as you know I was in Waitrose in England with the parents last week. They were doing great - organic milk? Check. Organic yoghurt? Check. Organic chocolate, baby wipes, cereal bars? Check, check check. Organic cheese? Oh, hold on a minute... As Mum approached the cheese fixture, I watched as she walked right by the Organic Yeo Valley cheddar and reached for her usual Davidstow (non-organic) cheddar. I raised an eyebrow. "What?" she said. "We like the Davidstow." "Oh yes," I said, giving her a look. "The extra mature organic is a pound more per kilo," she said. "And?!" I replied. I'm sure Dot also raised a brow from her buggy. "Oh, alright," Mum said, "We'll get the organic mature and extra mature but I'm still getting the Davidstow. We'll do a taste test." "Deal," I said.

So after dinner she brought in the cheese plate. "Hold on a minute," I said, "Let's do this properly." I went to the kitchen and arranged the three samples on a plate, the Davidstow at 6 o'clock, the extra mature organic at 10 o'clock and the mature organic at 2 o'clock. "Right, let's start with the cheese at 10 o'clock," I said. "Well, I can tell you without even tasting it that's the Davidstow," said Dad. "It's pale, creamy, definitely." I smirked. We tried it. It was great. "Right the two o'clock", I said. "Plasticky," we agreed and moved on to the 6 o'clock. "Not as good as the Davidstow," said Dad. I couldn't keep a straight face. "That is the Davidstow," I said. "And the 10 o'clock is the extra mature organic" "Really?" said both parents. "You see!" I smirked. "So will you change to the organic?" "Definitely, it's much better," they agreed.

Because I'm so pathetic, this made me really happy. Another small victory for littlegreendot. Changing the world one lump of cheddar at a time.

This dilemma has teeth...

Another thing I've been wondering about is beauty products. Until very recently - until I got pregnant with Dot, actually - I was merrily using any old shower gel, shampoo, moisturizer or body lotion as long as it was unperfumed (I'm a bit of a delicate flower, don't you know). Then I read something telling me almost all lotions are petroleum-based so shouldn't be used during pregnancy, which made me think it might be best not to be using them at all, then. I did a bit of research on greenpeople.co.uk who make lots of lovely organic products and apparently loads of the ingredients in the beauty products we use might be carcinogenic, contain oestrogen or irritate the skin.

Rather than try checking all my products for complicated-sounding ingredients like 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol (contains formaldehyde, apparently) I've started switching to organic stuff. I now use organic shampoo (can't remember the brand), body lotion (Alba - the hubby says it makes me smell like an old lady but as I keep telling him I thought it was unscented when I bought it, and now I have to use it up before I switch to avoid waste. This is an occupational hazard of experimenting after years with your old staples, I will warn you) and eye cream (Dr. Hauschka) and once I run out of my Neutrogena will switch to organic moisturizer too. They aren't all fiercely expensive, Dr Hauschka notwithstanding.

So, while I was at the Organic Farm Shop the other day, i decided it was time to try organic toothpaste again. (I'd given Tom's of Maine a whirl before, but it wasn't a big hit; the hubby refused to use it, saying it tasted of sick and I found it didn't foam up and left a nasty taste in my mouth). This is a big step for me because I come from a family of dentists and am obsessed with oral hygiene, constantly brushing and chewing gum, and am also neurotic about fresh breath. I bought some from Green People and left it in the bathroom.

Driving along yesterday, the MIL said 'I wasn't sure about that toothpaste. It didn't really feel like it was doing anything, although my mouth did feel clean afterwards'. I had to agree with her - it feels a bit like when you haven't put enough toothpaste on the brush, and I just don't feel confident about my minty fresh breath. In fact I've already brushed four times today (it's not 1 o'clock yet) and still my mouth feels a bit frowsy. I know my brother will be down on me like a ton of bricks for overbrushing - which can erode enamel or something like that - so another dilemma arises. Do I continue with this or go back to the Colgate?

To help me decide, I did some research and found out the following on www.goandco.com/toothpaste.html:

"Sodium Lauryl Sulphate is used for the same purpose in toothpaste as it is in bubble-bath - as a foamer and detergent. BUT SLS is a particularly strong, harsh detergent as well as having good foaming qualities. Indeed SLS is used to clean oil spillage from petrol forecourts, it is so effective...Plus it is especially preferred by personal care products 'manufacturers' because it is very cheap.

Technically SLS is a 'surfactant', an 'emulsifier', and a 'denaturant'. It is well KNOWN to be a harmful skin irritant that is particularly nasty in contact with the delicate eye, and mucous membranes (this is the main reason for instructions to 'flush your eyes with plenty of water' if you get shampoo in them – because SLS is known potentially to cause damage to the eyes).

SLS is just an unpleasant chemical that should just NOT be used on (or in!) the human body! – Due to growing negative media coverage in the last few years SLS has been removed or 'replaced' in SOME products (but you have to check 'what with' - see below!!). However, it is still very widely found in many well known, off-the-shelf, big-brand products...even though it is known to be:

Toxic to the liver and kidneys,

Toxic to aquatic animals/fish (remember many tons of this stuff washes-off down our drains!!)

On the NIH hazards list

Known to trigger eczema and skin problems

Known to cause mouth ulcers [mouth ulcers? what?]"

Er, ok, well, I guess it has to be worth persevering then. Anyone have any toothpaste success stories for me?

By the way, just so you know, apparently to be labeled 'natural', a product need only contain 1% natural ingredients. So don't be fooled...

Green and pleasant land?

Loyal readers, apologies for the missed days. We've been at a family funeral. We're back now.

Sooooo, here we are in the UK. I have to admit that after reading about the UK being the second greenest country in the world (beaten only by Sweden) Dot and I imagined ourselves coming to the land of milk and honey, and in many ways England has not disappointed.

Instead of yet more credit card solicitations, the junk mail my mother-in-law receives through the post is a catalogue called Send a Cow (no links today - bloomin software - but it's www.sendacowgifts.org.uk) - a catalogue full of ideas for ethical Xmas pressies (including buying a cow for a third world farmer). On Saturday, I bought eco-friendly (biodegradable) nappies in Sainsbury's, your bog-standard supermarket, in grotty Camden (last time I shopped in Camden it was for Soul to Soul Vol 1 Club Classics and a pair of dungarees. Aaaah how times change). Yesterday evening we picked up a bottle of organic wine at a rural BP gas station (the US equivalent would have stocked nothing but Marlboro Reds, radioactive ice pops and beef jerky), and today we had a wonderful experience at The Organic Farm Shop in Cirencester (http://www.theorganicfarmshop.co.uk) - they basically sell absolutely everything a regular supermarket would, but unlike e.g Whole Foods where not all the produce is organic, everything they stock - from jerusalem artichokes through sausages to breast pads (boys, unless you've had babies you won't know what these are and probably for the best, really) - is. If I lived here I would never shop anywhere else. It was heaven. Oh yes, diesel cars are ten a penny here, too, and diesel is sold on the main forecourt, unlike in the US.

But there have been some disappointments. On Sunday morning at brunch in Primrose Hill (London's answer to the West Village; locals include Jude Law and Kate Moss), the hubby texted me 'Pls pick up wrapping paper'. I texted back 'What for?'. 'Family Xmas pressies,' came the reply. I called him to discuss. "I am not buying wrapping paper. We'll wrap them in used newspaper." "We can’t wrap the family presents in newspaper," he objected, scorn dripping from his words. I knew he was thinking, 'stupid woman, how embarrassing, we'll look totally pikey and the family will not see the funny side' (his enormous family somehow all happen to be incredibly cool and style-conscious). "Well I'm not buying wrapping paper. The family read my blog and will get it," I replied. He huffed down the phone. "Alright, if I can find recycled paper, I'll get that," I offered as a compromise, "OK," he sighed.

So I trawled every last shop in Primrose Hill’s ‘village’. But my quest turned up nothing more than a few 'I dunno's and 'sorry, love's. I expected more from one of London's most chi chi, affluent, supposedly trend-setting neighbourhoods (after all, they have a fab farmer's market and a great deli stocking almost exclusively British produce). Instead, I went home empty-handed.

The wrapping paper stalemate was resolved when I agreed to some spare paper our hosts Theo and Sally had lying around - on the basis that if it had already been bought, it was ok to use it up (in fact one of the Xmas tips I was going to give on here was that you should see what hilarious bits of paper your Mum might have lying round from when you were a kid. I remember some classics like Donald Duck in a father Xmas outfit – sort of vintage 80s chic).

Which brings me to a dilemma the mother-in-law and I were discussing today – which is, when you decide to switch to the eco-variants of stuff, do you use up the bad stuff first, or switch right away and chuck the bad stuff in the bin (you’ll remember I had this same question over the eco-friendly lightbulbs)? My POV is you might as well use it up first because once the pollutants are out there, they’re out there, so they might as well serve a purpose before they head to landfill or waterways, otherwise the damage really is wanton

Actually, what I do is get the eco version, then keep the other under the sink in case I run out because I really can’t bring myself to use it. Or, in the case of laundry, you could do a wash every few weeks with the biological powder if your whites are looking a little more Magnolia.

Anyway, before I go, had to drop in a quote from Jon Bon Jovi, discovered in an article in this month's Q magazine about musicians going green:

"I think Gore is the smartest man I have ever met," Bon Jovi explains. "But if you really want to know why I'm doing this [showing trailers for An Inconvenient Truth at his recent tour], it's because i feel guilty about the huge hole in the ozone layer my haircits created. It is my responsibility to get right all the wrongs of the '80s"

Elnett-tastic.

Mother's Ruin

Dot is an extremely easy baby. She sleeps for nine hours straight at night (she said, tempting fate), she almost never cries and she's generally speaking a smiley, giggly, scrumptious little thing. But even so, by the end of a day keeping her happy, mummy is jonesing for the one (ish) glass of wine a breastfeeding woman is allowed. So around 6 o'clock most evenings, T offers to hop in the car and pop to Michael's wine shop in Narrowsburg to pick me up a nice bottle of red.

Tonight I wanted to drop in on my friend Anna who's just opened a fantastic store, Nest, there (you'll here more about this anon but basically it's a fantastic assortment of home stuff, toiletries, clothes, books, linens, candles etc. and lots of it is either fairtrade or organic. Dangerous), so I thought I'd go to the wine shop myself. I also had my own agenda: I wanted to see whether Michael stocked organic wine.

Why? Well, last week, I sudennly realized that wine is really heavy so is probably horrendous from a carbon dioxide perspective, especially since we live nowhere near the places our wine is produced (you UK readers are fine - France is just across the pond). So I figured if I was boycotting Mexican Butternut squash, it was a bit hypocritical not to give up the Auzzie and French vino too (god this being good is a Pandora's box).

So we'd been sticking to the slightly less long haul Californian stuff, but I figured we could do better and last night got on Google. I discovered there were in fact a couple of vineyards within 60 miles of here (one in Hunter in the Catskills) so was planning a nice little tasting day trip today, till I discovered they're closed for the week - bummer! Undaunted, I decided to research organic wines. Since organic farming uses half the energy of traditional methods (via Ideal Bite), I figured the same had to apply to viticulture, and apparently I was right (I can't find the evidence now, must have been that glass of wine going to my head so you'll just have to trust me on this).

Hence the Narrowsburg mission. Michael didn't look impressed when I told him what I was after. But to my surprise, he graciously showed me his selection of five organic reds. He said he had them because some people are allergic to the sulphates in normal wine. He shrugged when I asked what he'd recommend - clearly not his favourite section of the store; we settled on Oreleans Hill, a Californian Zinfandel with a hippy-ish label. Thought that way I could do a fun taste-test with the remainder of last night's Zin when I got home (listen, you have to make your own fun in Milanville and oh god, I am turning into my parents). To add insult to injury, I then tried to bring up the topic of local vineyards. Michael was having none of it. "When your palate gets used to a certain calibre of wine, it's hard to go back," he said. "Your husband and I have very similar taste." Which I took to mean, 'if that's what you call wine, you should leave the wine choosing to the men next time love'. Fair enough, good wine is his business but saving the planet is mine, so I'm prepard to try anything once. Well, almost. And you have to agree it's impressive he even had the stuff at all.

I brought Anna and her husband Kelly by and we had our little tasting. The verdict? Oh god, how do you write about wine without sounding like a pretentious twat? Er, in a blind test, I reckon I'd pick the non-organic. But it really isn't half bad and apparently you don't get hangovers from it. So I'll keep working my way through the selection and keep you posted.

Does the supermarket sell humble pie?

I never thought I'd say this, but Dot and I actually had a very satisfying morning at the local supermarket, Pecks. We entered disconsolately, certain to find nothing to fit our principles, and the total lack of any organic items in the fresh produce section did little to lift our spirits (we did at least find a bag of locally grown apples, but not until we'd put back a butternut squash because it seemed ludicrous to us that it was imported from Mexico when we know they're in season down the road at River Brook Farm. This checking the origin of everything we buy is new to us but we're thrilled to have discovered another way to be geeky and self-righteous).

But then we stumbled on a small organic foods section, enough to equip us with organic black beans and pasta. And in the frozen foods aisle - usually the last place we'd shop - we came across a pocket of organic breads and organic frozen fruit and vegetables - so we grabbed some. Pecks also stocks delicious yoghurt and cheese from the local Tonjes Farm (they look rather incongruous amidst the plastic cheese and nuclear chicken breasts, and we couldn't help noticing that the cheese as a little mouldy, suggesting we might be the only ones who actually buy the stuff), so we stocked up on those too.

Feeling emboldened by these happy finds, I asked the lady at the checkout whether they stocked eco-friendly loo roll or cleaning products. She looked at me blankly but offered to call the manager. This friendly lady immediately agreed to look into stocking the paper and told me she might have it as soon as Thursday, all being well. She then took me to the cleaning aisle where she proudly showed off their one brand of eco-friendly washing-up liquid as well as a multi-purpose cleaner and Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds. Apparently other customers had requested these and so Pecks had introduced them.

So it's humble pie for dinner for us tonight - there we were dismissing this as a lost cause when all we had to do was actually bother to look instead of acting on assumptions and ask, rather than sitting there moaning and being all superior (typical bloody New Yorkers, us). I'm normally a bit shy about these sorts of things but if making a change is really this easy, we're going to have to get over ourselves and become ecopests.

We'll be checking back next week to see if the loo roll arrives. Then we'll tackle our next crusade: the fruit and veg, and after that, lightbulbs. Of course, once they've turned up in-store, the next step is encouraging people to buy them. Now that might be a little bit trickier...

Oh dear, a rant just crept up on me...

So I'm afraid I have to admit that we've fallen off the wagon again, but this time I'm blaming the supermarkets.

It was the nappies, of course. Yesterday I drove a half hour to our nearest health food store in Honesdale to stock up on all my fave green goodies (nappies and cleaning products, organic fruit and muesli, etc.). We got back and I'd just put Dot down for a nap in one of the eco-friendly nappies when she started protesting loudly. I thought I'd better check that the nappy wasn't the problem and what I found in her pants (and her tights, onesies, knickerbockers, hat, etc. Well, alright, not her hat) was not pretty. Apparently Dot and her bowel movements have suddenly outgrown the size small Seventh Generation numbers (don't worry, we'll pass them on to a new baby we know. The unused ones, natch).

Now, in the UK this would be no big problem - you'd simply nip to the local supermarket and pick up size medium eco-friendly nappies aplenty, along with all the non-toxic cleaning products, fair trade shade grown coffee and organic or locally grown fruit and veg and your earnest little heart could desire. But we're in America, pretty red-state America at that, and so there's not an organic apple, let alone a compostable nappy, to be found in any supermarket this side of New York (or LA).

I know Wholefoods and co are bucking the trend - and in fact our friend Jamie arrived for Thanksgiving from the city today with a lovely care package of Wholefoods organic honey, tea, chocolate, pie and milk (hm, trying to pre-emptively atone for anticipated bad behaviour, JB?!), but it'll be a long while before WFs makes it to Honesdale. And I know Wal Mart is, to much fanfare, meant to be going organic, but in their Honesdale branch there's not an organic scrap to be found, and even on their website all I could find in the organic section was organic milk, organic Ragu pasta sauce and organic Kelloggs Raisin Bran. Hardly changing the world there, are we?

Hold on, I'm not quite done with this rant yet. Since I was a kid, you've been able to buy eco-friendly washing up liquid and cleaning products in every supermarket in the UK. The leading UK retailers are currently falling over each other to be the greenest on the block (for example, you can now buy a windmill to generate your own power in B&Q, the UK's equivalent of Home Depot) and whatever their motives, this has to be a good thing for everyone. So how come the US is so far behind? No wonder it now ranks #53 in the list of eco-friendly countries (only China, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia do worse - not exactly stiff competition, is it? The UK on the other hand is #2. But this wasn't meant to turn into a US/UK pissing contest).

Phew, sorry about that, so anyway, my point is, we ended up - and it really pains me to tell you this - buying a small pack of Pampers to tide us over until the compostable Nature Boy and Girl nappies arrive in the mail.

I tell you, it wasn't easy being green in New York but it's really an uphill struggle sometimes out here.

If anyone knows, by the way, how to convince a supermarket to change its stocking policies (and I know convincing the locals to buy is probably the answer) please let me know! And I promise to try and be less serious tomorrow.

Purple carrots

So here we are back in the country, and that means that when you get hungry at about 1 o'clock, you have to magic up some lunch from what's in the fridge. No nipping out to Hale and Hearty for a scrummy thing of soup and a fancy cake.

The cupboard was looking pretty bare, but I found some purple organic heirloom carrots in the fridge from Willy Nelson over at River Brook farm (our friend Paul said everything at River Brook is funny colours - pink potatoes, purple carrots, white tomatoes...), and decided to make curried carrot soup with them. Felt very resourceful and Nigella-esque - until my 6-year old blender decided to deposit most of it on the floor. Salvaged it somehow (alright, with a potato masher) and it ended up being edible, if a little redolent of mashed-up watery carrots.

But the flavour was hardly the point. This soup had a) saved me at least $7 (soup for two from chi-chi lunch joint: <$10; bag of hippy carrots: $3), b) saved the planet from pesticide contamination and c) contributed two less plastic (or cardboard) take-out containers to landfill. In fact, if we lived here for a year and I made soup instead of buying it every weekday lunch, that'd be 261 fewer plastic containers. Double that for the hubby and we're up to 522 - not to mention the paper baggies and the 522 annoying plastic utensil packets - aargh, and now I'm imagining all that multiplied by the six years I worked in Manhattan; or what about multiplied by all the readers of this blog (of course there are....several); not to even contemplate what you get to once you've added all those Thai and Sushi evening deliveries, and I'm looking at...well, the whole of Milanville would be shoulder-deep in waste. Oh, I have been so naughty, if I could take back all those plastic containers I would, but now they're all filling up a landfill site already and it's too late! I thought the only reason to look like a saddo and bring your own lunch was to save cash but I promise that if I do end up going back to work in January I shall bring my lunch with me as often as possible and positively flaunt it in my colleagues' faces as a badge of my eco-friendliness.

Ahem, anyway, so my point is, this was carrot soup for the soul.

And later, checking out a link sent to me by the lovely Courtney, I became even happier about the organic carrots. This site has a chart of the relative toxicity of different non-organic fruits and veg so that if you're a bit skint, or you're faced with a supermarket like the ones up here where there's no choice, you can at least pick the lesser of the evils. Carrots, it seems, are #13 on the list of the most toxic fruits and vegetables you can eat if not organic, so in fact I'd done me and Dot another favour. Hurrah!

Of course the bad news is that clocking in at numbers 1, 5, 6, 7 and 8 respectively are peaches, nectarines, strawberries, cherries and pears. Guess what yours truly literally gorged on the non-organic-but-highly-appealing Citeralla versions of while pregnant with Dot this summer....

This happy little tome then goes on to say:

There is growing consensus in the scientific community that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can adversely affect people, especially during vulnerable periods of fetal development and childhood when exposures can have long lasting effects.

Oh Dottie, Mummy is very, very sorry.

This is all too depressing. I'm off to reset the mousetrap (what, you didn't think I'd forget, did you?)(and actually, make that 'rebuild' - guess who dismantled the previous incarnation and of course hasn't stuffed up the hole behind the cooker?) and then to bed to toss and turn with angst. Oh my god, I just heard a mouse skittering across the floor overhead. Really. Right, this time I mean business...