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.

Making a stand

This was yesterday’s post but we had to pop to the city, so it’s going up today instead. Sorry regular readers.

Well it has been an exciting day. Dot got us up bright and early so I decided to carpe diem and got on the phone to Pecks.

As I listened to it ring, I got a bit nervous – never have been massively confident on the phone – but before I could get cold feet, someone picked up.

“Er, hello, I’d like to speak to the manager about some ideas I have for the store, please,” I said.

A man came on the line.

“Oh, hello, I was wondering if I could set up some time to come and talk to you about a few ideas I have for the store?” I said.

“Go ahead,” he said.

“What, now?” I asked, caught off guard.

“Sure,” he said.

“OK, well, er, yes, the first thing is, did you know that Kleenex cut down 10,000 year-old forests to make their toilet paper? So, I was just wondering if you’d consider not stocking their products,” I began.

“No can do I’m afraid,” he said, “Or I’d have the other lot complaining to me to put it back. It’s what they’ve used all their lives and it’s what they like. I have to sell it.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to think fast.

“We used to stock Green Tree or something but they went out of business,” he continued. ”Now we stock Marcal, but it’s our worst seller and I heard they just declared Chapter 11, so I don’t know how much longer we’ll even have that. And our warehouse doesn’t carry other recycled ranges because they’re more expensive and people just won’t pay. They want what’s cheapest.”

Bugger. He'd pretty much covered all arguments.

“Oh, I see, but it’s just, well, it’s really bad about the forests,” I said, lamely.

“Hm,” he replied with an air of finality in his voice. Clearly the paper conversation was closed.

I decided to change tack. “Er, ok, well, in that case, you know how all your vegetables are packaged in Styrofoam?” I ventured. “And as you know, Styrofoam is horrible for the environment. So I was wondering if there was another option.”

“We looked into it, but paper trays are 3 cents apiece whereas the Styrofoam is only a penny. We’d have to pass the costs on to the consumer and when it comes down to it, people round here just want whatever’s cheapest,” he said patiently. “We tried it with the egg cartons but people complained so we had to change back.”

“Oh,” I said again, not knowing how to argue with this straightforward lesson in marketplace dynamics (of course cost-cutting, along with that other pillar of 20th and 21st century consumerism, convenience, is at the root of most of our environmental woes).

“So no chance of ditching the styrofoam, then.”

“’Fraid not,” he said.

By now I got the feeling I was sounding either naïve or like a total crackpot (or both) but the manager didn’t seem to mind chatting, so in a last-ditch bid I said, “There was one other thing. There are some great farmers’ markets and farm stands around here, and I was wondering if you would be able to stock more local produce, or is that cost-prohibitive too?”

“Actually we do that in the summer, we have local corn and apples,” he said.

“Oh, er, ok then, well that’s great,” I said, thinking I had seen little evidence of local produce this summer, but whatever. “Well, thanks for your time, and sorry for chewing your ear off.”

“Oh, that’s ok,” said the manager, as if humouring someone simple.

We hung up. I was disappointed to have made absolutely zero progress and completely nonplussed as to what my next step would be, but pleased I’d had the balls to at least try.

As I pondered how I was going to convince the people of Narrowsburg to boycott Kleenex (placards? I have a feeling the locals might not go for it), an exciting package arrived: the wooly breast pads. What a relief: no more disposables. Mind you, I got a bit of a shock when I opened them – they’re as big as saucers and thicker than a...thick wooly blanket. They do make one look a little matronly, but the temperature dropped to 20 degrees by this afternoon so I’m sure I’ll be glad of the extra insulation.

Once I had them installed, Dot and I headed out for a walk in the woods. No bears spotted today; instead something much rarer in these parts - a Prius. The driver turned out to be Barbara (she of the local conservation society and vegetable patch). We hope to be seeing more of her soon.

The day ended in the city with a lovely dinner at Jamie and Kim’s.

“It’s terrible about the trees,” said Kim, who's a reader.

“It’s worse about our loo roll,” said Jamie forlornly. “Bloody green bloody crap.”

He didn’t mean it. He’s having his new house outfitted with the latest energy-saving devices and natural gas. And I’m sure his tender bottie will soon have forgotten what Charmin even felt like. Cheers Jamie. The boreal forest will thank you.

Super supermarkets

When I'm in the UK, I love going to the supermarket (and yes, as discussed elsewhere, I do know I need to get out more). But this trip I've been consciously avoiding going, feeling I ought wherever possible to visit local shops and farmers' markets instead.

Anyway, Mum and Dad were going to Waitrose, my fave supermarket, today, so I decided we could justify joining them in the interests of research (but not before I'd given them a little lecture about finding a good local farm shop now they live in the countryside. God, how annoying I must be to have around sometimes). I'd also seen ads from Waitrose last time I was here offering locally produced goods in specific areas, helping consumers with the shop local thing, so, you know, they're the lesser of the evils, anyway.

Well, it was a bit night-and-day compared to good old Pecks of Narrowsburg. Waitrose offer an eco-friendly organic and/or fairtrade alternative or three to almost-everything - deodorant, biodegradable nappy bags, dried fruit and nuts, these things called e-cloths my Mum uses to clean the bathroom - I don't know how they work, but you don't need to use any cleaning products with them at all, baby bottom cream, shampoo, hairspray, muesli, yoghurt, meat, fish, bread, wine, fruit and veg, cleaning products, laundry detergent, tea, coffee, chocolate...and so on. Also in the fresh produce section all the British-grown stuff is helpfully flagged with a nice Union Jack so you can spot your local(ish) produce at 50 paces. Amazing. (Just to point out, it isn't an homogenously affluent area catering only to rich middle class people, so that isn't an excuse).

It wasn't quite as gratifying an experience as the organic-only Cirencester Organic Farm shop I blogged about a week or so ago (still one of the best shopping experiences I've had in years - like being able to get really drunk without getting a hangover because you can't go wrong, it's all organic) but it really wasn't bad. In fact, I found myself wondering if Waitrose isn't actually doing more good then harm by making all this stuff so readily available, even if it is a supermarket. (The Times had an article about exactly this yesterday, but it's inconclusive.)

God, it'd be so easy to be good if I lived in England (wouldn't have to keep taking those really bad flights across the Atlantic, either).

Speaking of locally produced food, by the way, the two main political parties in the UK have decided to make this a political issue. The head Conservative bloke, David Cameron, was asking on the radio on the way back from the supermarket why the army and British schools don't buy British food - they're huge markets. The scary thing about this is I find myself agreeing with the Tory leader. A slippery slope?