Japanese sweet potatoes -- a great farmers market find

One of the reasons I like shopping at the farmers market is that I don't need a list. I just see what's in season and what I end up getting drawn to. Then when I get home I look for a recipe that matches my in-season bounty. Today I was drawn to Japanese sweet potatoes. I love sweet potatoes but I'd never heard of this purple variety. The seller said they were dryer than regular sweet potatoes, which I noticed when I chopped them but they cooked up nice and soft. Then another stand was selling different vegetables for $2.50 a pound so I filled up a bag of small carrots, parsnip, onions and these cute little ozette potatoes (more varieties I've never heard of!).

When I got home I found this roasted root veggies recipe on another blog. I mixed olive oil, maple syrup and soy sauce in a baking dish. I didn't have ginger so I used garlic instead. After all the chopping, I cooked the veggies for 25 minutes and then added some Trader Joe's chicken sausage I had in the fridge, cooked it for 10 more minutes and that was it. It was really simple and wow, it turned out good if I do say so myself. The veggies are soft and the sweet potatoes are really sweet and full of flavor. I'll have to buy them again while they're in season. As long as I go back to the farmers market, because I won't find this kind of variety at the grocery store. 

Who needs phone books these days?

I didn't make it my New Year's resolution to start blogging again, but here I am on Jan. 2 in my first post since August. Not because it's a new year and new start, but I've had the past 11 days off and I have time to blog.

I got new phone books on Saturday. Great, I thought, just as I'm purging old stuff to make room for my new clothes, I've got more crap I don't need. I wasn't totally sure that I could put my old ones in the recycling bin. Then today I got an "Eco Guide" from the city about its recycling programs. And there was my answer. Under the heading "Are you recycling all that you can?" was a photo of a telephone book (and a dirty pizza box with the description "clean pizza boxes." I hope people read the fine print because that could lead to some confusion). 

And then there was the really helpful info -- a website for opting out of getting phone books. I went to the link and was able to opt out of the little Yellow Book, but the brick from Verizon wasn't listed as a choice. But at least it's a start. And I'm currently looking through the Verizon book to find a number to call to opt out (hey, there are local maps in here? I remember when I used to like looking through the phone book for information about where I lived. Sigh, another casualty of the Internet).

The kindness of strangers

Sometimes a little act of kindness does go a long way. My neighbor gave me fresh veggies from her garden today just to be nice. Little did she realize they were totally what I needed. It also made me feel just a tad guilty for being annoyed that she parked in my spot!

I got home from rugby practice tonight tired, sore and hungry. While driving home I was putting together my very late dinner in my mind. It was slim pickings because I'm going out of town and didn't bother going grocery shopping this week. I knew I'd have warm brown rice from the rice cooker I'd put on timer this morning and I had hummus, which could be my protein. But all I had in the vegetable department was a week-old farmers market green pepper. It wasn't terribly exciting but it would work. So I was really happy when I got home and looked inside the paper bag she left for me on top of our mailbox: two tomatoes and one giant zucchini, all fresh from her plot at the community garden, I assumed. Perfect! Fresh veggies!

So I ran upstairs (OK not literally, I was still sore) and sauteed the zucchini, adding fresh basil my coworker Robyn had given us last week from her backyard garden. I ate one of the tomatoes while the zucchini was cooking and then when it was done, mixed together the rice, tomato-basil flavored hummus and sauteed zucchini. There you have it, a well-rounded dinner that tasted like it was meant to go together.

This totally hit the spot because I had been feeling overwhelmed. It was late, I wasted five minutes looking for parking and still had to pack for my trip. But now I feel much happier. Thanks Silvana!

It's never too late to recycle your shoes

Yes I'm alive. It's been a long time since I've blogged, so long that I'm too ashamed to look at the date of my last post to know just how long it's been. Let's just say it's been "a while" and leave it at that.

I'm writing tonight partly to get back in the habit, and partly to share that I dropped some old running shoes off at the Nike store to be recycled. I wrote about Nike's shoe recycling program when I first learned about it (so for all my "regular readers," this may be old news). But I figured it was worth mentioning again because it's such a cool thing. It's hard to know what to do with old running shoes because they're too worn down to be donated. I always felt bad throwing them in the trash. Nike's program is the biggest one I know of, and they take any brand, not just Nike. Their website says the rubber, fabric and foam is used to make running tracks, basketball courts and tennis courts. If you want to recycle your shoes, go to Nike's Reuse-A-Shoe website to find a recycling location.

When I dropped off my shoes the first time I told my rugby team about it since I figured they might have some old running shoes lying around. One of my teammates gave me two pairs of shoes, and then a few months ago I bought a new pair of my favorite Adidas Supernovas so I now had three pairs of shoes to recycle. Except that even though the Nike store is about a half mile from my office, I never got around to going. It's kind of a pain to go because it's at the Grove, a busy outdoor shopping mall near my office with parking you have to pay for. So I was only going to go if I could walk there and I always seemed to be too busy running after work (ah, the irony) or too tired and just wanted to go home. So the shoes have been languishing in my trunk for months. But tonight I decided to do some sprints after work at the park across from the Grove, so I brought the shoes with me and went to the Grove afterward. Finally, they were out of my car.

I'd been feeling bad lately about my lack of environmentalism (hence, the lack of blogging). I've been driving to work even though it's summer and the longer days make it easier to take the train. So this felt good. And tomorrow I'll be taking the train to work since I'm meeting my dad after work to go to the Hollywood Bowl. Maybe that will kick-start my public transportation habit again.

But taking the train means waking up early so now I've gotta go to bed. At least I can fall asleep feeling satisfied that I've crossed something off my to-do list!

Electric vehicles coming to a street near you

A state legislative committee is meeting in Long Beach tomorrow. I know, sounds like a bore. But the topic actually sounds interesting. They'll be talking about whether California's infrastructure is ready for plug-in electric cars. Will the state have enough charging stations for the Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs soon to be hitting the pavement?

When I read about the meeting, it reminded me of a video I recently watched on latimes.com and now have a reason to share. Times reporter Susan Carpenter  experimented with driving an electric vehicle, using energy generated by solar panels installed on her roof, to be truly emissions free. It made me want an electric car even more, although first I'd need the house and roof on which to install the solar panels.

 

I'm curious about how driving an electric cars works. Would owners charge their cars at home, like Carpenter? Or at public charging stations like they do at gas pumps? And, more importantly, is it really better to be fueling your commute with electricity instead of gas? That's why Carpenter's experiment is so intriguing, she's using just the sun to power her car. Along with the video, she wrote this fascinating column about the intricacies of installing solar panels on her roof to charge an electric car, which answered some of my questions (you can charge them using a standard 120-volt outlet that you'd find in any home, although it's much faster when you use a 240-volt charger that charging stations would have).

I'm hoping I'll learn even more after tomorrow's meeting. Not that I'll be there because I've gotta work, but there should be news coverage of it. I know I'm not the only one who's clueless and curious.

Blue line blues

This Column One story in the Los Angeles Times, Blue Line cuts across L.A. County's invisible boundaries, takes a spectator's view of the Blue Line. As the reporter says, "Five bucks gets you a day pass to one of the most unpredictable shows in town." Wow, how offensive to the people who take the train every day. The reporter describes confrontations, pirated DVDs, people hawking water and gamblers -- "poverty porn" as one commenter aptly called it. It's an unfortunate example of reporting that skims the surface instead of immersing itself in the community it's allegedly covering. I think it's too bad because the paper missed an opportunity to respectfully show its readers, most of whom are probably unfamiliar with the light rail system and have never taken a train in LA, how important it is to many of the people who ride it.

That's what struck me when I first started taking the Blue Line a few years ago to save on gas. I sadly hardly ever take public transportation now since it's faster to drive, but I had never realized how heavily used the rail line, which connects Long Beach to downtown LA and is intersected by the Green Line, is. I saw young people taking the train to classes at Trade Tech. There were workers who presumably didn't have cars and those with cars who chose it's convenience, many like myself with packed lunches. Some of what the reporter describes is true -- people begging or selling candy was an almost daily occurrence. I also occasionally saw people talking to themselves or acting aggressively. But many were probably mentally ill and not a freak show to be made fun of. He may not have intended to make fun of them but that is what his tone implies. The first anecdote is of someone urinating on the train, something I've never seen. And I wonder if his descriptions were from several days of taking the train or one long day, rather than one commute, since he saw more than what I experienced in weeks of taking the Blue Line. On most rides, people mind their own business, are polite and things go smoothly. To the rider, it's not constant theater, as he puts it:

In a place dominated by freeways and the automobile's numbing isolation, the 22-mile light-rail line — the oldest in L.A. County, marking 20 years of service this summer — is a rolling improvisational theater where a cast of thousands acts out a daily drama that is by turns poignant, sad, hysterical and inexplicable.

I'm not sure what the point of the article was. Because of the anniversary? But I'm sure there are better stories to tell, stories of people who are often overlooked in society and by the mainstream media.

A step toward banning plastic grocery bags

Good news on the environmental front. The day after I blogged about a bag ban, the state took a step in that direction. The Assembly on Wednesday approved a bill that would ban plastic grocery bags. The part that makes me a little hopeful that this attempt will become law, unlike ones in the past, is that the governor has said he would sign it.

Click here for the Los Angeles Times story about the bill, AB 1998. It says that if shoppers didn't bring their own reusable bags, they'd have to pay at least 5 cents each for recycled paper bags. 

Heal the Bay sponsored the bill. The environmental group says plastic bags harm marine life and pollute the city's rivers and beaches. Los Angeles County uses more than 6 billion (yes, billion with a 'b') plastic bags a year, with a measly 5 percent being recycled. It's not the first time Heal the Bay has supported a bill to reduce the number of plastic bags. Back in 2008, the group supported a bill that would have charged customers 25 cents for plastic bags. (I found this 2007 op-ed from Heal the Bay that is still relevant and echoes the same arguments against plastic bags being made today). 

I like this bill because it's an outright ban on plastic bags while still giving shoppers the option to buy paper bags, so they won't feel like the government is intruding into their lives as much. But I think the cost for each paper bag should be 25 cents so shoppers feel it in their pocketbooks a little bit. Just 5 cents a bag doesn't seem to be enough to change behavior. Because really, people should be bringing their own reusable bags because paper bags aren't that earth friendly either. They use a lot of energy and water to produce and distribute, so they're not necessarily a better option. 

Heal the Bay has information about the bill on their website. I also learned a lot from Warren Olney's interview yesterday with Heal the Bay's Kirsten James.

In the meantime, I'll be keeping up with what happens with this bill in the Senate. My fingers are crossed.

(No) paper or plastic please

I made the mistake of going to Trader Joe's after work today and it was packed. Everyone who'd put off their grocery shopping over the holiday weekend was there, many with kids with no spatial awareness in tow. It was a madhouse. The lines were long so I spent several minutes with nowhere else to look but at the person in front of me. She was an older, fit woman dressed in workout clothes with an oversized green purse hanging off her shoulder. Maybe she'd just come from a yoga class because all she was buying was a Greek yogurt and an organic banana. When the cashier was done ringing her up, he asked if she wanted paper or plastic, a ridiculous question for several reasons. If you're only buying two things you don't need a giant paper bag. In fact, you don't need a bag at all. Yet she said "plastic please." I would have given her the benefit of the doubt and assumed she was walking, but she still wouldn't need a bag because she had a giant purse!

This is why we need to stop giving away bags for free. The state should pass a law requiring stores to charge for bags or ban them altogether. I haven't decided which one I think is better, but I'm leaning toward charging a fee or tax because that still gives people a choice so they can't complain about government controlling their lives. And it works, as proved by Washington, D.C. They started charging a five-cent tax for bags and drastically reduced the number used. 

This article in the Los Angeles Times looks at why California of all places has yet to pass a statewide bag ban. Only San Francisco and Malibu have bans on plastic grocery bags, even though many other cities, counties and even the state have considered them. One reason is the powerful plastic bag industry, which has been waging war against these types of laws. Among their arsenal: They claim that making paper bags releases three times as much greenhouse gases as plastic bags.

OK fine, lets assume that's true. That argument is a red herring anyway because that's not the issue. We shouldn't be using single-use bags at all, whether paper or plastic. Their life span is so short. Seriously, how much do those bags get used? A one-minute walk from the grocery store to the car, then a short drive home, followed by a brief journey into the house where the items are unloaded. And that's it, that's the life of your bag. Then off it goes, most likely into the trash. The L.A. Times article says 19 billion plastic bags are dispensed each year at supermarkets, drugstores and retailers, and that just 5 percent are recycled.

The government and individuals need to be thinking about the way we use disposable items and asking if there's a better way, instead of automatically answering "plastic please" in the checkout line. Paper or plastic? Don't forget the third option: "No thanks, I brought my own."