When shopping for a friend who is also a reading teacher, it’s fun to go to a bookstore.
Shopping Bag
A shopping bag plus a gift card to help fill the bag – and then fun with wrapping.
A Little Fun Repurposing
As the Cat said, “It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how.”
On Monday, I started the charcoal grill with a goal of making burgers for supper – bacon cheeseburgers, if you want details. Don’t judge me; I served them on whole wheat buns, okay?
But back to the charcoal grill. If you’re like me and you prefer the charcoal grill to gas, you know that when the meat is done, the coals are still hot. In my kitchen, that’s the golden opportunity for planned leftovers, or planned-overs. On Monday night, the burgers shared the coals with chorizo (Mexican style sausage) and a Polska Kielbasa ring sausage.
Tuesday I made spaghetti and meat sauce – lots of both. The remaining spaghetti might become part of a side dish with the kielbasa or a batch or spaghetti carbonara. The meat sauce, with a little chili powder and jalapeno pepper, could be the base for a crock pot full of chili. If I decide to make that chili in true Wisconsin chili mac style, diced leftover spaghetti is right there in the refrigerator waiting for me.
Potatoes make great planned-overs. When I jump start a batch of baked potatoes on the grill, it takes hardly any time at all to finish them in the oven or microwave. If I make the planned-over potatoes into twice baked, complete with good Wisconsin cheese and green onions and chives from the garden, they’re not only delicious, but they carry a little of that charcoal flavor into another meal.
In conclusion (did you think I’d say “The moral of the story”?), planning ahead and cooking ahead meant that I only needed to light the grill once this week, and we had the potential for at least three meals from one charcoal fire. Like it? I did.
Side dishes, if you’re curious, included fresh asparagus and a mixed fruit salad, also fresh. Gotta love the farmers’ markets. We eat well in the summertime!
I’ve been waiting and waiting for this day. The Downtown Farmers’ Market has returned to my fair city! The weather was muggy, but tolerable. No rain, just the threat of it. And people? The street was mobbed. We bought — wait. I can make this easier.
Market Bounty, Week I
You can probably recognize the spinach, the asparagus, and strawberries, and lettuce, too. I also picked up whole wheat bread with flaxseed (from my favorite Amish baker) and a small loaf of cheddar cheese bread. For my sweet husband who loves to cook, we picked up scallops (not local, I know), red potatoes (much more local), and a great local barbecue sauce. He chatted with the sauce maker for a while and got some tips on how to grill really tender ribs. There’s more, but I must get to work prepping the strawberries and the peas. The peas are in the picture, sort of. They’re hiding under the asparagus.
Ah, the Downtown Farmers’ Market. Now it really feels like summer.
I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle about five years ago. I was wowed by the project of eating locally for a full year. Her experiment was impressive, starting in spring with rhubarb from the local farmers’ market and asparagus from her own yard and then moving through the seasons.
I still use some of the recipes from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I do lean toward local foods, in particular local produce. I’m nowhere near the level of Kingsolver’s experiment, but putting the locavore philosophy into practice is now a natural part of our food shopping and preparation.
Another year long experiment was No Impact Man by Colin Beavan. I’d had No Impact Man on my wish list for a while. When a copy became available on Paperback Swap dot com, I grabbed it.
Beavan’s project was impressive, too. He decided to create a carbon footprint as light as possible for a full year. His project started in stages, starting with walking or biking to and from work and resisting the urge to buy food or drinks on or in disposable containers. Every few weeks he would add in a new challenge such as limited electricity or water. His project was as urban as Kingsolver’s was rural; Beavan and his wife and daughter lived in a ninth floor apartment in New York City.
One trait both books share is the experimental nature of each project. The authors were both skilled writers before their environmental projects began; and their reflections throughout their respective projects reflect both facts and subjective responses. Difficulties, roadblocks, support, positive and negative attention, and real-life reflections make both experiments less clinical and more enjoyable. Colin Beavan’s toddler decided she preferred her new cloth diapers to the disposables they’d used previously. Barbara Kingsolver’s daughter went to college mid-project and relished her home visits for the good quality local food.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and No Impact Man remain active on the web and in the green scene. That’s what impressed me. They didn’t dump their experiments the minute the calendar flipped to the next year. They left the extremes behind, but the core of each project remained. Kingsolver continued to buy and serve local food, growing what she can and raising her flock of heirloom turkeys. Beavan turned on his electricity and uses public transportation now, but he turns off the lights when he leaves a room and rarely uses an elevator.
Why a book review in June, years after these two were published? Well, folks, I realized that our family already makes a fairly decent low carbon footprint, and courtesy of our freezer and a hot water bath canner, we enjoy local fruits and vegetables year round. I’m not writing a book (well, not about that), but I’m using the space in my semi-urban backyard quite well.
Readers, what are your green habits of choice?
Today’s political climate is scary in that so many seem to have forgotten the fights that have already been fought. Seeing so many attempts to return women to a marginalized group (I can’t bring myself to say “minority”) reminds me of a story from not-really-so-long ago. The original title was “Being a Woman”. Here it is, courtesy of Grandma Daisy.
I almost posted a quiz – a list of feminist slogans and quotes along with a list of years, with an opportunity for readers to match the two. Instead, I offer you an chance to reminisce about creativity in the feminist movement. Remember the Barbie Liberation League? In the 1990s….Grandma Daisy does this sort of storytelling best, so here she is.
Oh, children, your world is different, thank goodness. I lived through a fascinating and yet difficult time we called the Women’s Movement, or Women’s Liberation, Women’s Lib for short. We reminded lawmakers and voters that we are people, endowed with basic human rights along with our, ahem, voluptuous figures. To put it bluntly, we didn’t need balls to make good decisions about …. oh, your mother is listening. I can’t say that in front of you young ones., so back to the history behind the story. We had rallies, we held demonstrations. We ran for office ourselves instead of waiting for men to take care of our needs. We worked to pass laws that protected our right to make health care decisions.We built awareness of the importance of birth control and how much that birth control meant for our freedom, our liberation. We fought for equal pay for equal work. Laws passed, medications improved, but attitudes were harder to change.
Sometimes women got creative to make a point. The Barbie Liberation League was one such example. We females were determined to be good students and make it “cool” to be smart. Math and science were supposedly men’s territory, so girls had some catching up to do. Adult role models like teachers and nurses pushed us young ones to go farther, higher, faster into the world of advanced math and sciences.
Barbie dolls. You know the doll, right? Of course. They’re at the bottom of your sister’s closet with the rubber ducky and the worn out blankie she won’t throw away. Barbie, the doll with the unrealistic figure (39-21-33 at 6 feet tall were the proportional measurements, if you’re into trivia) was a favorite of many young girls. Girls knew she wasn’t realistic, but some tried too hard to look like her and became anorexic. A doll for a role model? Well, it happens.
When the Talking Teen Barbie came out, she had a limited vocabulary. Unfortunately, the people who programmed and recorded Barbie’s phrases had been in a fog throughout the entire women’s movement. Take a look at these examples.
Will we ever have enough clothes?
I love shopping!
Math class is tough.
Wanna have a pizza party?
In the old toy store aisles, G.I. Joe was a parallel type of doll, er, action figure, on the little boy side. His vocabulary was macho and tough – what they called “all male” back then.
This is going to be rough. Can you handle it?
I’ve got a tough assignment for you!
Mission accomplished. Good work, men!
The Barbie Liberation League took action. They bought Talking Barbie and Talking G.I. Joe from toy stores, swapped out the voice boxes, and then repackaged the dolls and returned them to the stores. Little boys and little girls got Barbies that said, “Vengeance is mine!” and G.I. Joes that suggested, “Let’s plan our dream wedding.” When Joe proclaimed “Math class is tough”, it sounded ludicrous.
Well, darlings, that was the point. If a man couldn’t say it without sounding idiotic, why should a woman repeat that phrase and internalize that philosophy? Talking Barbie wasn’t pulled off the market, but the feminists and the Barbie Liberation League had made their point. Being female didn’t mean being less intelligent. It still doesn’t.
Anyway , my grand-precious ones, some day I’ll tell you what we did when the guys at our college claimed that women couldn’t play jazz. Hah! We showed them, all right. Now go practice your trombone, and I’ll tell you that story later.
The Pantry Raid is a simple technique for creating a meal without running out to the store. It means raiding the refrigerator and the pantry for a few things that together might just make a meal. Let’s see how the Daisy Reality Show explains a pantry raid to the bumbling assistant director.
Daisy: Let’s see. Leftover rice, but not quite enough. I’ll add to that.
Assistant: Add what?
Daisy: Go in the back hallway, please, and pick out two cans of kidney beans. If I don’t have two, get kidney beans and something else.
Assistant (doubtful): Beans? Oooohkay.
Daisy: Trust me. She digs into the produce drawer and finds two peppers, one green and one red, about 1/4 of each left. Oh, and grab a small onion while you’re there, please!
Assistant: I haven’t figured out how any of this can actually feed a family.
Daisy: Watch me. The end result will resemble red beans and rice – a good meatless meal on its own, or one with a little meat added. She dices the peppers and the onion, throwing the onion’s peeling into the compost bucket beside the sink.
Assistant: Rice, beans, onion, peppers – now what?
Daisy: Well, that would be enough if I had a bigger batch of rice. Since I don’t, I’ll make a small pan of quinoa to stretch it. The flavors will mesh nicely.
Assistant: What’s quinoa?
Daisy: Never mind. Just watch. This is a classic pantry raid. I’m throwing together the last of the peppers, an onion, and sauteing them in a pan. When they’re soft, I’ll add the cans of beans. When that has heated through, I’ll add the leftover rice and the quinoa I just cooked. Sprinkle a little dried red chili pepper and garlic salt, and we have a tasty main course or side. Excuse me, I need to reach the meat drawer.
Assistant: Meat? I thought you said meatless.
Daisy: It can be meatless, but I happen to have a few andouille sausages left after last week’s jambalaya. They’ll be perfect either diced and added to the mix or served on the side in hot dog buns.
Assistant: What did you call this?
Daisy: A Pantry Raid. The first word has an R in it. It’s not the kind of thing your frat house fantasized about doing to the girls’ dorm. Pantry. Food storage.
Assistant (blushes): Oh. I get it.
Daisy: Next lesson? Planned-overs.
So we leave the family members at the O.K. Chorale with their tasty meal, courtesy of a creative cook and a pantry raid. We’ll return to the Daisy Reality Show some other time – maybe after the family eats. Or maybe after the director gets tired of her bumbling assistant and hires someone new.
Last month, my school district sent a referendum to its voters. The voters responded by saying, “Yes! We’re willing to pay in a little bit more to support our schools.” I did my part by posting a sign.
A campaign sign is a visible, tangible symbol of support. Mine was more tangible than visible because we were hit with (yet another) snowstorm just before the election.
Really. There’s a sign here.
When the snow melts enough, I’ll pull it out and reuse the stand somewhere in the garden. Reusing and repurposing political signs is just another way to make a statement: the statement that my convictions last beyond election day.
It seems like yesterday that Chuck was complaining of a stomach ache, refusing to take fiber, and then talking trash about my minivan. Remember this exchange?
“Here, dear, I found a jar of Metamucil for you.”
“I’m not ready.”
“Not ready?”
“I like my Saturn. I don’t want to drive a Buick yet.”
“I took it years ago when I was pregnant with Amigo.”
“And look what you drive now!”My minivan — he’d dissed my minivan! The minivan that took us on more than a few vacations, moved La Petite to and from college, brings big batches of yard waste to the brush dump every summer, took my carpool to graduate classes for two years, and more!
My poor Pontiac Transport finally entered its last days when we discovered the power steering was showing signs of failing. It was a ’98 vehicle, old enough, and we’d put plenty of bucks into repair and routine maintenance. It was time.
Vehicle Replacement Procedure requires time: time for research and time for shopping. Time, of course, is something we don’t have in abundance. Decisions take time, too. Did we need another vehicle with cargo space? Or could we buy a sedan instead? Did that cargo space need to be a minivan, or would a small to medium SUV fit our needs? We did a little research, figured out what we could afford, and then started looking.
And then we got lucky. Chuck was filling his car (his Subaru) with gas at the Fleet Farm gas station to make use of the gas coupon we get every time we shop there. He glanced across the street to a used car lot and noticed a late model minivan with a sign in it proclaiming it Manager’s Special. He crossed the street and looked it over. 2012 Dodge Caravan, reasonable mileage, in our price range – what could be wrong?
We asked that exact question the next day when we took a short test drive. Everything looked good, and we were ready to take the next step: the Complete Test Drive. All three of us (Chuck, me, Amigo) came out to the lot for a test drive. While Amigo and I played with controls and explored the many features, Chuck drove to a nearby mechanic. The mechanic checked it over, pointed out a few things, and pronounced the vehicle healthy and sound and a good deal.
The next day, I emptied the personal items (Kleenex boxes, snow brush, tire gauges) from the Transport and drove it to the dealer for paperwork and trade-in. To make a long story short, we did it. The 2012 Caravan is now in the garage, my cell phone charger and garage door opener installed in their proper places.
And perhaps the best part of the story: everyone is healthy. No tummy aches in the family, fiber or no fiber, at the moment. I think I’ll bake some nuts and twigs banana bread just to keep things in order.
It got into my head during BridgeGate. You might remember New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his staff dealing with the aftermath of an episode that could also be called Traffic Troubles and Retribution.
Closer to home, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is refusing to answer questions about an alleged ongoing violations of campaign laws when he was Milwaukee County Executive and running for governor. He had his campaign staff set up an alternate email system using laptops so that the emails would not be public record and so that his office staff could work on his campaign during their office hours, essentially working on his campaign while on the public dime – a violation of Wisconsin law.
Even closer to home, a local school district had a heartbreaker of a case where a teacher was mistreating students. A paraprofessional (teacher aide) in the class felt intimidated and feared she would lose her job if she reported the problems.
In all three cases, the workplace climate is key. In both governor’s offices, the philosophy seems to be “Do it; we’re above the law.” Both governors are still fighting the battle of “what they knew and when they knew it” and both have watched staffers take the fall for the events that broke the law. In the third case, the worried witness felt unsafe, intimidated, and basically bullied into submission.
Above the law.
Do it.
Don’t question anything.
Don’t rock the boat.
Don’t even consider making waves.
Whether Gov. Christie knew of the bridge closing traffic-disrupting action, his workplace climate obviously encouraged retribution and demonstration of power.
Gov. Walker’s staff did as they were told. Whether he was the puppet or the one holding the strings, his office was another one with an inner circle that promoted and enjoyed the privilege of breaking laws without fearing consequences.
In the school district’s case, a follow up investigation seemed to say that the working climate was safe, open, and unintimidating. I have my doubts. This kind of office philosophy is harder to uncover than the Powers That Be might think. Fear runs deep.
And as we enter another election cycle and my phone starts ringing with volunteer opportunities, I have to ask myself: where do I stand? How far am I willing to go in order to expose this kind of workplace climate and participate in changing it for the better?
That’s a climate change I could handle.
It had to happen. The local rag had a big feature on Garden Tips. Most are tips and tricks I’ve already used or at least read about, such as using eggshells in the soil to contribute to tomato plant growth, or planting marigolds to discourage wild bunnies and mosquitoes. I’ve saved my eggshells a few times, and I finally decided it was just as good to compost the shells with the rest of the kitchen waste. The whole mix will eventually become one with the soil.
And then I began a project of cleaning my inbox(es). I’d saved an email containing this link, hoping that Chuck might build one for our backyard.
Not just for Strawberries!
My strawberries, if they made it through the winter, are growing in an old wicker hamper. This looks a lot nicer. Or it could house herbs – parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, and who knows what else?
As if we didn’t have enough locavore motivation already, the California drought will push produce prices sky high next winter if not sooner. 2014 might be the summer we give in and buy a second freezer. A freezer full of fruits and veggies bought fresh would certainly beat overpriced, poor quality, imported-from-the-coast foods.
Meanwhile, back at the O.K. Chorale, I feel the need to do something – anything. My to-do list for tomorrow has one pre-garden task on it: bring in the rest of the pots for starting seeds before it snows again and puts them out of reach!
So, readers, join me. What kind of happenings are causing spring fever for you? Comment, please. I’m getting lonely for comments.