The green Christmas theme continues

When I worked as a reporter, when it got near the holidays everyone was required to write an "evergreen" story that could run between Christmas and New Year's when staffing was light and news was hard to come by, so pages could still be filled with content. The evergreen was so named because it was a story that could run at any time. This year, there's a new family of green features: stories about how to have a green Christmas. I liked this article in the Long Beach Press-Telegram, probably because it's my local paper. I now want to check out Bella Cosa Boutique, a Long Beach store mentioned in the article that sells items made from recycled materials, like cups made from discarded wine bottles and bowls made from melting down discarded glass. I like that it's not a store claiming to be environmentally friendly but still selling new items because even if something is made of bamboo or organic cotton, it's still using resources.

The article also talked about not using wrapping paper, which seems to be gaining popularity as our society becomes more conscious of the resources we're using. I've blogged about using used paper bags as wrapping paper. At my office Secret Santa gift exchange, we all used newspaper instead of wrapping paper. Laura even decorated her newspaper with holiday images cut out from a Trader Joe's paper bag (a girl after my own heart). She wrapped Mike's gift for him, taking tissue paper that had been in a gift we got from a student and twisting it so it served as ribbon. It was beautiful and rustic.

You can never have too many reusable bags

It was down to the wire, but I got my free bag. The frugal environmentalist in me is happy because today I got a reusable grocery bag thanks to the Brag About Your Bag campaign. The deal was: bring five plastic grocery bags to participating Ralphs, Albertsons and Top Valu stores and get a free reusable bag.

Last week my co-worker Mike gave me a few plastic bags because I didn't even have enough since I always have reusable bags with me when I shop. I forgot about it over the weekend but I stopped at the grocery store tonight, the last day of the campaign, to buy ingredients for the bread I'm making for back-to-back holiday parties on Saturday. I thought the cashier knew what I was talking about when I gave him the plastic bags. But all he was doing was scanning a barcode giving me "green points" for bringing me own bags. After he handed me my groceries, I didn't get my bag. So I asked again and he was about to give me one of the green reusable bags for sale at the register when another employee went behind a nearby counter and handed me a bright red bag. There were no signs that I saw of the campaign and I wonder how many free bags were handed out. I hope lots.

A quickfire-inspired sardines meal

I'm bummed that I'm not watching the Top Chef reunion on TV right now. The show, one of my favorites, usually comes on at 10 p.m. so after getting home from the gym at 9, I cooked dinner. When I finished eating I was all ready to watch my favorite chefs rehash the superb Season 6. But it came on at 9 instead of 10 tonight. So while the Top Chefers were reminiscing about surviving quickfire challenges and cooking with unfamiliar ingredients, I was doing the same in my kitchen. On a much more amateur scale.

And what was the secret ingredient in my quickfire challenge? Canned sardines.

Tonight I finally cooked the canned sardines that have been sitting in my cupboard for more than a month. I bought them after reading about the health benefits since sardines are full of omega 3s. I also had recently read about sardines being a good environmental choice because they aren't overfished or high in mercury. So I bought a can but was too afraid of what was inside to actually eat them.

Canned sardines, like canned tuna or salmon, are great in a pinch. Well, that's exactly how I used them tonight. I didn't have much to eat and wanted something quick. My first surprise was that they weren't slimy. They looked like canned tuna and smelled slightly like tuna too. When I first bought them I typed "how to cook canned sardines" into Google and there was no consensus. They could be eaten right out of the can (um, no thank you) or warmed up on the stove; remove the bones or leave them in because the bones are small and soft and therefore edible; eat them on a cracker with mustard or mix them up with mayonnaise like tuna fish. With that in mind, I threw them in a pan with some oil and their own juices. Then I put the warmed sardines on a toasted tortilla with mustard, topped with grape tomatoes and fresh basil (from my herb garden!). I pulled all the vegetables out of the crisper to see what I had and quickly cut up a carrot, zucchini, red pepper and celery to be steamed. Everything was done in 10 minutes. If this were a quickfire challenge I would have plated before the buzzer but talk about an uninspiring meal. 

The sardines weren't bad. They just weren't good either. They didn't have much taste. I felt like I was eating a dry white fish -- like tuna but with a less distinctive smell and taste. Thank god for the spicy mustard or else the whole meal would have tasted really bland. I'd buy them again because they're cheap and convenient. But I don't see any Top Chef wins in my future.

My finished meal. Think Padma would want to try it?

Green v. Consumerism at Christmastime

"In a world where people want to continue to aspire to middle-class consumption patterns, but they are also wanting to feel like they are responsible citizens who care about social and environment issues, how do they reconcile that? They go shopping for something that declares itself to be ecologically friendly."

Sadly, that quote from a UC Santa Cruz professor is true. It's from a Los Angeles Times article about retailers offering eco-friendly gifts for the holidays as a way to make money. The story says that according to a recent poll, nearly nine in 10 consumers identified themselves as "conscious consumers." Wow, that's a lot. More than I would have expected considering how few people I see using resusable bags at the grocery store (with the exception of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods shoppers, who have been on that bandwagon for a while now).

What's better for the environment? Buying gift wrap made from recycled materials or wrapping small presents in used sandwich bags you have lying around your house, cutting out the energy-using step of recycling the bags into other paper products? (I'm doing the latter.)

Buying presents I understand. It is Christmas after all and who doesn't want to do that? But I've been turned off by the Sunday circulars and TV ads that are pushing their great bargains on wrapping paper, gift bows and all that other crap. Sure, it made sense in the pre-global warming era to decorate our presents to the nines, but aren't we living in a more conscious time now (according to that poll, yes we are)?

Sure, use the wrapping paper you already have from years past, but let's not buy new bows and ribbon. And if you run out of wrapping paper, look around your house for something to use instead, like the Sunday comics, old paper bags and glossy pages from magazines. Have fun with it. If it's a clothing item, wrap it in the LA Times Image section. Heck, you could even use old pillow cases if it's a larger present (and then the recipient can cut up the linen into smaller cleaning rags for a gift that keeps on giving).

I've had fun wrapping my office Secret Santa present. I blogged earlier about how I planned to use paper bags to wrap my gifts this year, but would have to think of ways to make the presents look good despite my lack of artistic skills. So what I did was cut up a brown paper bag I already had, wrapped it in ribbon left over from a past Christmas and attached an old Christmas ball I bought this year at a thrift store. Then I wrote "Joy" in pen and, in a flash of brilliance, found a way to make use of those pesky circulars that inundate our mailboxes at this time of year. I cut out a cute bear from the Trader Joe's flier and glued it to the brown paper to make it look more festive. I knew any attempt at drawing something would look as bad as those terrible ornaments we made for our parents in elementary school (because my art skills haven't improved since then) so this was a way around that.

Let's think outside the proverbial Macys sweater box this holiday season to not just say we want to live green, but actually do it.

My Secret Santa gift, wrapped in a paper bag.

No second life for my energy bar wrappers

Talk about timing. While driving into work today I was listening to KPCC's Larry Mantle talk to the esteemed Dan Neil about the LA Auto Show. They were waxing poetic about the new generation of alternative fuel vehicles that are on display at the convention center. Then I caught a white van out of the corner of my eye with the Clif Bar logo. It said it was a biodiesel vehicle. I've got Dan Neil's voice coming out of my radio telling me about the technology of the future and I've got an example of that future two lanes over. Except I'm not ready to applaud Clif Bar yet. Why should Clif Bar get credit for being good to the environment when their wrappers are filling up landfills?

Energy bar wrappers aren't recyclable because of the inner foil lining that keeps the bars fresh. So Clif Bar has its Energy Bar Wrapper Brigade, an "upcycle" program in which used energy bar wrappers are used to make new stuff. I once tried to sign up but the trial program was full. Still, I was slightly hopeful because the website said they'd be expanding. I figured the best way to help the environment was to not eat energy bars at all so I drastically cut back. But when I did eat one, I kept the wrapper, hoping to one day be able to send them in so they could be used to make backpacks and purses. Well, here we are more than a year later and still no luck. I just checked the website again and there still are no open slots. I'm glad the company is committed to doing something, but the number of wrappers collected (about 650,000 so far, according to the website) is a drop in the bucket compared to how many are sent to landfills (millions every year). I understand that they have to cap the program because if everyone sent their wrappers in they'd have more than they could use. But it would be nice if they could pour the same enthusiasm they have for reducing their CO2 emissions into finding other uses for their wrappers. For a company that touts its environmental record all over its website, it seems disingenuous. The only other solution is for everyone to stop eating so many energy bars but I don't think Clif Bar will embrace that suggestion anytime soon. In the meantime, I'm having a funeral for all the wrappers that came with me when I moved but I've finally had to accept are destined for a landfill.

I collected these wrappers for more than a year but now they're in the trash.

My own little apartment herb garden

A month or so ago a friend asked if I wanted to get a place with her. I was open to the idea because apartment living had me wanting -- dreaming of really -- outdoor space and all the things I could do with it. But as fun as it was to look at a house with a huge backyard with a garden already started, after thinking about it for a few days I had to accept that I preferred living by myself -- the whole "I can do what I want when I want" thing. But it was a wake-up call that instead of always looking for something better, I should work with what I have. A full garden brimming with tomato and squash plants was out of the question but apartment be damned, I could grow my own herbs.

I did research online and then headed off to a nearby Armstrong Garden Center, where I bought four baby plants: basil, thyme, oregano and rosemary. I planned to put them indoors on a windowsill but an employee said the 3-inch pots  I was going to buy wouldn't be big enough as the plants grew. So I ended up planting the herbs in two pots I already owned that are about 8 and 10 inches in diameter. I put them downstairs just inside the entrance to my apartment building. It's not as convenient as having the herbs right in my kitchen, but hopefully they'll fare better outside. I don't consider myself to have a green thumb so the test will be if I can keep them alive long enough to actually use them.

I was told that rosemary grows big so it should have its own pot.