Category Archives: Household

Post-Turkey-Day Buffet

Happy (de facto) National Leftover Day! Join the crowd and enjoy the world’s best sandwich–the turkey-stuffing-cranberry goodness. Gravy and mayo are optional, but at least one is recommended. — — Don’t throw out that carcass! First, you can make a great soup with it. Then, if you’re in Rhode Island, you can compost it via […]

November 25, 2011 | Also posted in History and Culture, International | Comments closed

Be Thankful, Not Wasteful

Thanksgiving celebrates plenty. Yet, for many of us in America, every day and every meal don’t look don’t look all that different from Thanksgiving. Given that reality, it’s all the more important to be mindful of our good fortune on Thanksgiving. And while we should certainly enjoy the day, we don’t honor anyone or anything […]

November 23, 2011 | Posted in Household | Comments closed

Gobble, Gobbrrrrr

Maybe this goes without saying, but: don’t cook a turkey frozen since the 80s. An admirably waste-averse New Yorker wrote in to The Times Dining staff asking whether he could serve a Butterball abandoned in his relative’s freezer since the Reagan era. And he wasn’t even kidding. As we learn, the turkey experts at Butterball […]

November 21, 2011 | Posted in Household | Comments closed

Presto: Pesto!

When life gets cold…make pesto. With the night air approaching freezing in North Carolina, my backyard basil recently began browning. I picked all remaining leaves with some two-year-old help. Of course–much to my chagrin–I was a little too late for some of the basil… After harvesting our year’s pine nut crop procuring plenty of pine […]

November 2, 2011 | Also posted in Garden, Personal | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

California, not content with having achieved the goal set in 1989 of recycling 50 percent of its waste stream, just passed a bill requiring the state to keep 75 percent of its trash out of the landfill. Way to set the bar high, Cali! — — The Occupy Wall Street gang gets plenty of donated […]

October 14, 2011 | Also posted in Friday Buffet, International, Supermarket, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

The BBC caught wind of the study profiled here on Wednesday and interviewed the researcher and a TV chef, posing the slightly sensationalistic question: Do Celebrity Chefs Cause More Waste? — — “Were you eating this apple” he asked a moment later. Yup, he was pointing to my apple. I nodded. “Come on down, pick […]

September 23, 2011 | Also posted in Friday Buffet, International | Comments closed

Great Expectations

Everybody loves having their theories confirmed. This bit of qualitative research from the University of Manchester did that for yours truly. I’ve long believed this formula to be true: Heightened expectations for cooking homemade meals + Busy lifestyles = More waste. Now I have some sociological support for that theory, along with some interviews that […]

September 21, 2011 | Also posted in International | Comments closed

Date Labels Dissected in the UK

Late last week, the UK Government scrapped “sell-by” dates. Food items will no longer be allowed to carry that date label that’s aimed at retailers but confusing for consumers. At the same time, the Government, in the guise of the Dept. of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), offered authoritative guidance to distinguish between “use-by” and “best-before” labels. In […]

September 19, 2011 | Also posted in International, Supermarket | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Hot off the press: New data on retail and home produce waste from our friends at the USDA’s Economic Research Service. I’ll break this down further in a future post, but in the meantime, take a gander. — — Exciting News: The NY Times Online reports that The Grocery Manufacturers Association is planning a three-year initiative to […]

September 16, 2011 | Also posted in Composting, Energy, Friday Buffet, Personal, Supermarket | Comments closed

Kitchen Reading: Wildly Affordable Organic

With Wildly Affordable Organic, author Linda Watson communicates that organic/sustainable isn’t necessarily synonymous with expensive when it comes to food. As the subtitle puts it: Eat Fabulous Food, Get Healthy, and Save the Planet. Hard to argue with that. WAO carves out a neat niche in the crowded cookbook world. That’s partly because it is a […]

September 8, 2011 | Posted in Household | Comments closed