Blame it on the hippies I went to school with in New Paltz. They were way ahead of the Green Movement. They built a house on the campus with leading-edge environmentally sound design. Very cool. There was actually an Environmental Studies major at New Paltz.
Yes, I was one of those who read Frances Moore Lappe and yes I was, briefly, vegetarian. It made sense for me at the time, until I went to Germany and couldn’t find anything to eat but cheese and potatoes. Story for another day.
When I dropped out of sight a bit ago with the monster migraine from hell, I wound up missing the deadline for an in-flight magazine’s Green Issue. They had an entire issue dedicated to going green. In an in-flight magazine. Only I didn’t see any indication of how to buy carbon-offsets for the flight. I did see tons of things to buy to “go green”. Perhaps they forgot about the first R. REDUCE. then, RECYCLE, then RE-USE.
I urge you to ignore anyone trying to sell you something to prove your green cred. Remember the ridiculous NBC candlelight football analysis? Sometimes, a purchase can help. My new appliances use far less energy than my old ones did. And, they have greater capacity and better functions. I also recycled at least two or three of them – “free to good home” kind of deals. (More on the kickass kitchen later.) Most purchases are not of the truly balanced. The best purchase often is the one you don’t make.
In Culinary Travel Meets Slow Food I explore the interesting confluence of two trends: Slow food and culinary travel. We want to be environmentally good citizens, but we also want to take fantastic vacations where we learn to cook with top chefs (not those top chefs; real ones.) Slow Food urges us to eat local, organic, buy fair trade products, etc. Ballymaloe Cookery School and the Allen clan (Darina runs the school, is being honored at the Cooking for Solutions event; her mother-in-law was one of the first to bring back Irish artisanal cheeses, local farm products, etc.) in County Cork are pioneers in reclaiming Ireland’s agricultural and culinary history. and practice.
The school sits on a 100 acre organic farm and students really learn what farm to fork means. Students who fly to Ireland to take the courses, I mean. One of the articles I was planning to submit to Sky Magazine was going to be a tongue-in-cheek kind of walk through a day making “green” decisions. Awake in organic cotton sheets, put feet into slippers made from….fair trade coffee..turn lights on, but wait flourescents trigger migraines, but they’re much more energy efficient…One could go mental…
The concept has some potential, don’t you think? Maybe I’ll get to it.
Anyway, both the Balllymaloe school (carbon offsets or not) and Kingsolver’s book (recycled paper or not) are bursting with ideas, recipes, resources and more.
And I bet you’ll never look at a turkey baster the same way again.
~~~
- Our Boston Red Sox are Going Green – Take a look at Can Fenway Get Any Greener?
- ARAMARK (Fenway’s Concessions Partner) Signs on with the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program. Read about it here: Green at the Gills in Nola and Fenway Gets Greener, Too.
1 Response to “Putting the “mental” back in Environmental”