The other day I was talking to a relative of mine about The City of Ember and this relative was lamenting the environmental state of the planet. She tells me, “Well, that’s why I bought my Prius. I had to do something to help our planet.” Oi. I could come up with a dozen things that she could do to help the planet, but the best she could come up with is buying a car. Don’t get me wrong - I’m glad she bought the Prius. Clearly, buying a Prius is better than buying a Hummer, for instance, or any of the typical oversize, gas-guzzling SUVs that my suburban neighbors think they somehow need. But the whole idea that that is the only something she could come up with to help the environment was depressing.
So today I read an article in one of my favorite blogs, The True Face of Birth, entitled Is Brown the New Green? Good timing. I’m particularly loving the link she provides to this blog. If we can all aspire to being Brown, than maybe our world just might survive.
In honor of the brown, a quote from George Costanza:
So, anyway, if you think about it, manure is not really that bad a word. I mean, it’s ‘newer’, which is good, and a ‘ma’ in front of it, which is also good. Ma-newer.
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We joined a CSA at a local farm recently and have been enjoying our super-fresh, peak of season produce. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It’s basically a subscription to produce - just like paying a subscription fee and getting a magazine every month, we paid a subscription fee and get fresh produce every week for 6 months.
The farm is a family-owned farm and they were nice enough to invite us for a farm tour the other day. We got a look at where our food comes from, and it was a great learning experience for us and the kids. It was a beautiful day to be out in farmland too.
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Yesterday we had the first pickup of the season from our new CSA. We’ve pre-paid what amounts to $20/week for about 6 months worth of weekly vegetables at a local farm. I’m excited about this for several reasons. First, this helps us move toward our goal of eating locally produced food, at least for half the year (more if we are able to do some canning). Second, we get some of the freshest vegetables around - stuff that was picked from the field hours, or sometimes minutes, before pickup.
But this is my personal favorite part of being a member of a CSA - it forces me to learn about new vegetables and make healthier meals. For instance, yesterday I was given two bunches of white turnips with the greens attached. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never bought a turnip before. I’ve never cooked turnip greens either. When I got home with the veggies yesterday, I googled turnip greens and found out that they are among the healthiest vegetables out there. Now, I’ve been trying to eat more leafy greens for awhile. I’ve done chard, kale, and spinach quite a bit. But I’ve never done collards, mustard, or turnip greens. Who knows how long it would have been before I got around to trying turnip greens. But now, due to the CSA, I have them in my fridge. I think it’s great fun to figure out recipes to make with these new (for me) vegetables.
This week’s CSA order included: 2 bunches of white lady turnips with greens, radishes, 2 bunches tatsoi greens, a huge bag of spinach, garlic scapes, cilantro, several varieties of mint, thyme, sage, white and yellow popcorn and sugar snap peas.
Last night’s dinner was:
- tatsoi salad with red bell pepper, toasted sesame seeds, and a ginger-sesame-balsamic dressing
- pasta with garlic scapes, thyme, sage, and sugar snap peas.
Some of the other recipe ideas I have for this week include: mojitos, spinach-ginger-lentil pasta, guac-radish-sprout-feta sandwiches and braised turnips. Please send me your recipe ideas for using the turnip greens. I haven’t figured that one out yet!
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dianovo is a relatively new site for green-minded social networking. For Valentine’s Day, they are planting one tree for every ‘eco-valentine’ sent from their site from now until Valentine’s Day. There is a small catch - basically site membership. You have to be a member to send and the e-card needs to result in a new member, but I think the few minutes it takes to sign up are worth getting a tree planted. And by ‘few minutes’ I do mean that - their sign-up involves writing about how you are or are planning on living greener, etc. I haven’t spent too much time at the site, but I like the premise.
Send an e-card and plant a tree!
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Continuing with my evaluation of how to be earth-friendly and such, I wanted to see how speed affects gas mileage. 55mph has been touted for years as the most efficient speed in terms of gas consumption, so I decided to try driving a whole tank at 55mph (while commuting on roads with appropriate speed limits, of course).
Except I couldn’t do it. I can drive 60mph, but 55mph seems Way Too Slow. Ridiculous, driving-like-a-grandma slow. Every-single-person-on-the-highway-is-passing-me slow. (Caveat: the major highway I take has a 65mph limit - then I have the joy of driving through NJ, where peeps drive WAY fast for a 50mph zone.) I think it was actually more dangerous too - I spent a lot more time checking my speed, reducing my attention to the actual driving. At 60mph, the rpm was a hair under 2500 and the engine sounded right, and I could drive more normally.
The car in question is a 5 speed manual Subaru Forester, acquired primarily as a reliable, snow-friendly family vehicle. Prior to this test, I usually drove about 65mph and got roughly 25mpg (a guesstimate). At 60mph, the mpg bumped up to 28.5 - not too shabby. With a gas tank of almost 16 gallons, that’s almost 60 more miles, enough to commute to work one-way. And the difference in commute time is only about 5 more minutes.
Another plus is that going that speed means I rarely need to pass anybody and am enjoying a way more leisurely ride. I’ve been known to be a, shall we say, opportunistic driver, and I’m finding these leisurely rides to be less stressful. So I drive along calmly, listening to an audiobook, a podcast or belting out some tunes (my stay-awake-at-night trick). I’ll keep shooting to drive a whole tank at 55mph, but only if I can do it without having to pay constant attention to my speed. Have you tried anything like this?
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