Eat Your Tree!

OK, maybe don’t eat it, but…you can use your Christmas tree to flavor your food. That’s the message from Denmark, espoused in this NYT op-ed.

I don’t have much experience with Christmas trees, but it sounds like a neat idea. After all, spruce and fir needles seem very rosemary-ish. Why not deploy them as an herb to spice up veggies, seafood, meat or even butter (see the article’s recipe).

Wackier yet, the author suggests drying and processing needles into a powder. Mixing that evergreen essence into cookie dough just might make the perfect winter cookie. I wouldn’t bet on it, but I’m willing to give it a shot (especially if a tree-shaped cookie cutter is involved). Stay tuned…

Regardless of how those culinary ideas sound, you have to admit that the author’s logic is compelling:

Nature takes enormous time and effort to produce something that we use only briefly. Why don’t we make greater use of this living tree, as we make use of so many other kinds of plants on earth, by eating it?

Anyone have any experience using their Christmas tree in the kitchen?

December 27, 2010 | Posted in History and Culture, International | Comments closed

Here’s to a Rotten Christmas!

At least, that’s the message from the folks at MERCURYcsc, a small ad agency in Montana. Watch their holiday-themed, Pollan-inspired experiment here:

Here’s the menu. And here’s a photo-breakdown of how the food broke down.

Thoughts?

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

December 24, 2010 | Posted in General | Comments closed

Edible, not Expendable

Finding a fabulous web site is like wandering into a random restaurant and getting a surprisingly tasty meal. And then not having to pay.

That was how I felt when I came across Expendable Edibles. The site, around since 2004, has a beautiful premise: helping people use food that they’d otherwise throw away.

Expendable Edibles accomplishes that goal through recipes, and it’s organized into six categories of food that might be wasted:

  • Stems, Skins and Stalks
  • Past Peak
  • Once Cooked
  • Negligible Quantities
  • Ill-Fated Creations
  • Nearly Expired

Each section has interesting ideas for utilizing these often-tossed items, and we’re not just talking about making banana bread. Many of the ideas are really fun–like Chinese food takeout rice into rice pudding.

The recipes on the site mostly come from the site’s founders, Nancy and Marlene. Yet, when I spoke with Nancy, she said that they’re reaching out to culinary schools to tap into that ingrained French kitchen ethic of using (and reusing) everything.

Nancy also stressed that they’re seeking your use-it-up or repurposing recipes of all shapes and sizes. You can submit your ideas for any of the categories via the site’s sidebar. So go on–help us help ourselves!

December 22, 2010 | Posted in Household, Technology | Comments closed

A Talk and a Gift

Because Daniel suggested it–here’s a more prominent placement for the video from my Book TV appearance.

So if you haven’t already–check it out!

— —

A little while back I wrote about the Green Egg Shopper app for iPhones. Well, the maker has been kind enough to provide us with some promo codes for free downloads.

You can use one of the codes listed below to snag it. If you do, please leave a comment telling everyone which code you used, as they only work once.

First come, first served…Hope it helps you curb your waste!

FKENPWRM3RYX
7JAP3HMLM7MN
YJ6RKAPKJYLT
6L9AWHFLWX7M
HN7ERE4AJTJA
E9FX9NT7XL6T
PJKAAE3NTA63
ET6RNRAPFL4M
YWY994ETEY4E
YNFHXNR3M7N4

December 20, 2010 | Posted in General, Household, Personal, Technology | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

The Composting World Cup?? Australia will host it in April. I guess that’s some consolation for missing out hosting the real World Cup in 2022.

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It’s definitely that time of year where pantries are busiest. Yet this year, they’re really struggling to keep up with rising demand:

The Cleveland Foodbank has provided 50percent more food during the past two years. As of Nov.30, Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank had distributed 38 percent more food than in the first 11 months of last year.

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Only five more days to help send a copy of “DIVE!” to every Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods in America.

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UCSB just announced that Marborg will collect and compost all campus food waste. Somehow, all I can think of is a Terminator-like composting cyborg.

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Finally, if you’re curious what one of my book readings looks like, you can watch one via Book TV.

December 17, 2010 | Posted in College, Composting, Personal, Supermarket, Waste Stream | Comments closed

New York Minute

I just returned home from an energizing visit to New York City. While there, I got to take part in two book-related events, appear on the Leonard Lopate Show, talk shop with many fascinating folks (including a Freegan spokesperson) and even catch up with some friends.

My first event was part presentation, part panel discussion. My fellow panelists, Elizabeth Royte (Garbageland) and Elizabeth Meltz (the sustainability czar for Mario Batali’s empire ), did a fabulous job bringing the issue to life, answering questions and tying it to New York.

The organizers, Kerry from Eating Liberally and Paula from Civil Eats, were the night’s true heroes, wearing many hats–including toques. They even convinced Marion Nestle to attend.

In addition to those all-stars, I got to meet some old e-mail buddies in person: Chris of Meatless Monday, Daniel of People’s Garden NYC, Gary of AmpleHarvest.org and Elizabeth from Egg in a Box.

The book reading the next night was intimate and interesting. I’d never done an event at a restaurant, but the Half King, a bar that serves food, fit that description. I considered doing a plate waste “show and tell,” but eased up on the attendees. After all, they had come to the event.

While in New York, I saw some fascinating food-waste-to-energy news from Sweden and got to see my name in The New Yorker (in David Owen’s piece, page 80–the whole thing isn’t available online).

One thing I gleaned from the trip is that there are a number of like-minded people in NYC bent on reducing waste and/or composting it. Yet, after all that activity, it’s now time to recuperate. Normal blog service will resume on Friday…

December 15, 2010 | Posted in Freegan, Garden, General, International, Personal | Comments closed

Weekend Buffet

Want to eat a gourmet, dumpster-procured meal? How about having a film director come to your town and rail against food waste while wearing a speedo? Donate some money to help Dive! director Jeremy Seifert’s campaign to send a copy of his film to every Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods in the U.S. of A.

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Having 100 percent of a town separating and composting food waste is quite an ambitious goal. But’s a reality on the small British isle of Anglesey.

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This week we saw the possibility of an anaerobic digester in NE Portland? I wasn’t sure what’d happen in the Rose City, because while digesters do have a small footprint, the trucks delivering loads of food waste don’t exactly smell like…roses. But sure enough, it looks like it’s a go.

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Finally–I’ll be doing events in New York on Sunday and Monday. If you’re in the area, come on out to say hello. You can find links with the details on my fancy new book site.

December 11, 2010 | Posted in Anaerobic Digestion, Composting, International | Comments closed

A Grand Example

I’ll be attending my grandma’s funeral today. In addition to being an exceptional, loving woman, Ethel Bloom was a major inspiration for this blog. That’s why I thought it only fitting that I share a few things about her here.

From my Grandma Bloom, I learned:

  • When life gives you bruised apples, you make apple sauce. (And hers was always the best–courtesy of a Foley Food Mill, I’m told.)
  • When your kids pick a pint or two of wild blueberries, you make a blueberry pie. (Especially when you’ve sent them out to collect the berries.)
  • On the rare occasions you treat yourself to a lobster (usually her New Year’s Eve party with two adoring grandchildren), you darn well better get all the meat out of that crustacean–even the legs.
  • And, as I wrote in the introduction to my book, eating a chicken drumstick meant finishing with a clean bone.

Based on the above, it came as no surprise when my aunt told me today that my grandma used to make her own pickled watermelon rinds. The idea of finding a use for watermelon rinds is beautifully sensible, but pickling your own takes it one step further.

We had it good with Grandma Bloom. She expressed love through food–often Toll House Cookies–but also through words, hugs and kisses. Her fridge was always filled with leftovers (because nothing was too small to save), but her heart was ever more full.

December 10, 2010 | Posted in Personal | Comments closed

TED Talks Waste

TED Talks are almost always captivating, but here’s one that’s actually related to food waste. Very related.

British chef/restaurateur Arthur Potts Dawson discusses his approach to sustainability–both with food waste and otherwise–at his restaurants Acornhouse and Waterhouse.

Some highlights, for me:

I basically created a menu that allowed people to choose the amount and the volume of the food that they wanted to consume. Rather than me putting a dish down, they are allowed to help themselves to as much or as little as they wanted.

You can’t get rid of waste. But this story’s not about eliminating it, it’s about minimizing it.

On that last point, it’d be great if all restaurants could compost their veggie scraps on-site and grow food in containers w/ the resulting soil amendment. And have a worm bin. And a dehydrating desiccating mascerater!

Be sure to stick around for the People’s Supermarket part toward the end. At around the 7:25 mark, Dawson pledges that the co-op will have ” zero food waste.” (While still fabulous, this almost always means that they will compost their waste, not that there won’t be any.)

And Dawson ends his talk nicely by raising a neat notion: ‘Nature doesn’t create waste. In a closed cycle, waste is the end of the beginning.’

Amen.

December 8, 2010 | Posted in Composting, International, Restaurant, Supermarket | Comments closed

Trash Cops?

It’s a bit of a leap from ‘Recycling Ambassadors’ to ‘Trash Cops,’ but that’s the very jump made in this AOL column.

At issue here are the Los Angeles city employees–whatever you want to call them–who make sure Angelinos are recycling correctly, including mixing food scraps in with the yard waste.

The ‘Trash Cop’ outrage seems a bit much, given this paragraph near the end of the piece.

Offenders are first picked up on the sanitation department’s radar by trash collectors, who note when blue and green bins don’t contain proper waste. Next, an ambassador is dispatched to look in the bins on a future date, and if a wrong mix of trash is found, the resident will be counseled. Further noncompliance results in the above notice and then bin confiscation.

This piece focuses on the potential waste of taxpayer dollars–a supposed $1 million–to pay 8 recycling cops/ambassadors. That amount seemed a bit steep and indeed clicking on the link in the article shows it to be about half that. Still, that’s real money in this economic climate.

But the other issues embedded here are privacy and big government. And certainly they’re worth discussing.If they create cleaner recycling streams, are these employees warranted? Is better recycling justification enough to pay workers to dig through people’s trash?

December 6, 2010 | Posted in Composting, Waste Stream | Comments closed