It can really only mean one thing: pancracks! This lonely yogurt was hanging out at the back of the fridge - leftover from a work breakfast, I'm sure. I was thinking I'd have to wait until the end of the pseudo-freegan challenge to go buy some yogurt and try these babies, but it turned out I got to skip the PB&J and have something delicious for dinner on the last night. These pancakes are super-fast and easy to make - a big plus for a poor cook like myself. Singles, note: you'll be perfectly stuffed if you use the 6oz yogurt and multiply all the recipe's measures by .75.

I used another savory pancake recipe earlier in the week to clean out my freezer. From the great Vegetarian Planet cookbook, I'm renaming these the Anti-Food-Waste Pancakes, as you can literally use any leftover vegetables in these, as well as a whole cup of leftover rice. I had some spinach that was going bad so I cleaned it and steamed it for a minute and stuck it in the freezer - it went right into the batter and tasted great! I also had some carrots going south so I grated 'em up; zucchini would work well, too. The only veggie that doesn't seem negotiable is the green onion, but I'm sure a creative cook could come up with a good substitution.

Anti-Food-Waste Pancakes

1 egg

1 1/3 c. water

1 c. unbleached flour

1 c. glutinous rice flour (or additional cup white flour)

1/2 t salt

1 c. cooked short-grain brown rice or 1 cup glutinous rice (any rice is fine, IMO)

8 oz. firm tofu, cut into small cubes

2 large carrots, grated

6 scallions, green and white parts chopped fine

3 T canola or corn oil

Whisk together the egg and water. Stir together the flours and salt, and then add the egg mixture slowly. Add everything else - and your extra veggies (diced or grated, cooked already could work). I also like to add sesame seeds to the batter. Cook pancakes in a skillet using the oil. Spread the batter with a spoon - it takes about 5 min per side.

Meanwhile, make some dipping sauce:

3 T soy sauce

1 garlic clove, minced

1 t dark sesame oil

1 t apple cider vinegar (or rice vinegar or lemon/lime)

1 pinch chile flakes or hot sauce

1 pinch sugar or honey

This is kind of approximate - it should be sweet, salty, spicy, tart in the relationship that you happen to like. It is important because the pancakes can be a little bland on their own. The batter will keep for a couple of days so you can keep whipping yourself up some fresh, tasty, veggie-laden pancakes. (Appx 3 filling servings)

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The challenge has been great in getting me to clean out my fridge and use up the stuff in there that has been lingering unnecessarily. I found a pasta recipe that uses bread crumbs, something I have by the ton in my freezer; I also made some veggie burgers out of some beans, bread crumbs, and rice that had been sitting around. The truth is, I have about another month's worth of food in there - I may have to continue trying to eat freegan indefinitely!

Or Coffee.  Or Movies.  Once upon a time I was doing well on this challenge but no longer.  I mean, it's summer and I really need ice cream.  Especially if all I'm eating is PB&J.

Actually, this weekend wasn't so bad in comparison to my June or May spending, but still I spent more than I thought I might.  I took a friend out to a movie and met some other friends for brunch.  And I took the subway a whole lot, mostly because I wanted to continue reading my book.  I skipped the bike a couple of times last week and it's been a little tough getting back into the habit.  I also realized this weekend that I forgot to cancel my Netflix!  I had been using a gift subscription but decided I should probably put my account on hold for awhile.  It's time to get real and use the library - I haven't watched a movie since April! 

What would you like for a prize, Arduous?

Keeping it light for the summer?  I recently tore my way through these three, which loosely qualify as 'environmental' but definitely qualify as fun.

A Year Without "MADE IN CHINA," Sara Bongiorni

Bongiorni's book is what it says it is: a chronicle of her family's year boycotting goods from China.  She doesn't have any major revelations, just neurotic obsessing about China and funny anecdotes about her two kids and husband.  It's a lot like Not Buying It, arranged by the months of the year but lacking Judith Levine's subtle pathos and pointed philosophic moments.  I was astonished by the amounts of crap (Chinese or not) she and her husband declared they absolutely had to have, especially for their kids.  Plastic Halloween decorations?  Squirt guns?  Either her freelance writing job and her husband's academic position are unlike any other in America, or they're in a mountain of plastic-induced debt - every time they go to Target, they walk away with a huge pile, seemingly everything in the store that's not from China.  Despite her un-selfawareness about this fact and others, Bongiorni is funny and very readable - I couldn't put it down!

The Gospel According to Larry, Janet Tashjian

Someone posted about this one on Colin's blog, and I decided to check it out, however embarrassed I might be to carry around a YA novel.  It's a great story, about a senior in high school who isn't into buying and brands and celebrities.  He's got funny friends and funny habits, and the structure of the tale is quite clever.  I'd recommend it for young teens or an adult who wants some low-impact reading. 

After looking up the author's name again, I found a blog and Facebook page dedicated to Larry - a very canny marketing strategy for this particular book.  It appears as if a couple of sequels have come out since.

The Monkey-Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey

Sex, drugs, destruction...and environmentalism?  Yep.  Long before we got all smug on these here eco-blogs, Edward Abbey was out in the desert causing all kinds of mayhem, in the name of conservation/preservation and general antiestablistmentarianism.   This work of fiction chronicles the adventures and misadventures of four eco-terrorists in the Southwest in the 70s.  His charming caricatures get caught up in increasingly more dangerous scrapes and take you, the reader, on a Hunter S. Thompson-style ride.  

Something I hear a lot, and that I'm particularly sensitive to - on eco-blogs and in my regular life - is that things were better the way they were before.  Before what?  Before women could vote?  Before penicillin?  While I agree that the self-reliance and simpler values of the past were pretty neat and perhaps worth emulating, there were a lot of things about the past that frankly sucked.  For example, when my neighbor gets all nostalgic about how rad NYC used to be in the good old days, I think to myself, "yeah, easy for you to say, burly dude, but I couldn't have lived with the same kind of freedom that I have for the last 10 years."

Of course it all depends on whose perspective you're looking through, and even with the feel-good vibe of the personal environmental movement, there is occasionally hostility towards people incapable of making the changes so celebrated on our blogs.  OK, maybe they're lazy or distracted and you don't want to carry the lazy on your back.   But maybe they're sick, maybe they're disabled, maybe they're poor.   And when you're sick, disabled, or desperately poor, you probably can't ride your bike or grow/buy/prepare local food.  Or maybe just I can't.  I was given plenty of time to think about this over the weekend, in bed for a couple of days.  I was too dizzy and weak to ride my bike when the work week started, and too hot and tired to make anything for myself after not having eaten for a couple of days.  And I was super glad that the modern conveniences of the bodega, the subway, and Haagen-Dazs were readily available.  

I started the weekend by going upstate to a party; when I asked the hostess if she wanted me to separate the watermelon rinds for composting, she wistfully noted that her parents had given up on taking care of the compost heap in their old age. (Being old - another reason not to be an environmental super-hero.)  We celebrated a bride, a good reason to spend during the July Pseudo-Freegan challenge.  But the whole wedding thing is so mysterious to me - this is one instance where I generally let the marketing get the better of me.  Unsure about "traditions" and people's expectations, I usually spend a ton of money (though generally on experiences rather than stuff) and hope that I haven't come off terribly gauche or otherwise insensitive.  Ick.

I can't think of a worse buzzkill than blossom-end rot.  I've tended my tomato plant carefully, watched the magic green babies appear, only to see them literally rotting on the vine as they grow.  So depressing!   This happened last year, and I chalked it up to my housesitters missing some waterings.  But I've been really careful this year and the same thing is happening all over again. 

Anybody have any suggestions?  I'd rather not have to buy some chemicals, but I'd love to end up with at least one home-grown tomato this year.  I trimmed all the rotten babies and I'm slowly watching the new ones turn grey on the bottom...Boo hooooooooo....

At the beginning of the July experiment I had to pay .75 for air for my bike tires - totally ridiculous - because that's what the gas station closest to my house sells it for. Since then, I've been on the lookout for free air. Last week, I remembered that my local bike shop gives away air when it's open (which requires a little planning). Last week I also went riding with a friend who has all the bike gear: a great bike, clips, shorts, water bottles, etc. He was giving me a hard time about my tires, indicating that I might be able to keep up with him if only I had more air in my tires. With his words ringing in my ears and perhaps feeling a little bad about my beater bike, sneaks, and secondhand gloves, I stopped at the bike shop for the free air. Now listen, I didn't think my tires were really flat, but since he's got all the gear and obviously knows all about bikes, I filled my tires as full as I could and rode away. Later that night, I'm working peacefully in my apartment and of course one of the tires explodes! So now I've got to change the tube - lucky for the Pseudo Freegan Challenge I had one kicking around - and go back to the .75 place!

All for a little free air. Serves me right.

Yeah, so I might have been winning the July Pseudo-Freegan Challenge last week but this week I am a goner.  Like Arduous, I was in an unsustainable city having a blast eating, drinking, and driving, with a little swimming, biking, and shopping thrown in.  And lots and lots of ice cream.  I kind of forgot that when people go to new places they go shopping, I guess to see if the tacky crap they have is different from the tacky crap they sell at home...?  My friend and I were no exception, which is funny 'cause usually I can't stand shopping.  Luckily Austin has some great thrift stores and one that sells clothes and gifts by local designers only.  I managed to walk away from the mainstream sexy shoes and designer jeans I tried on and stick with a goofy belt, new sneaks, and some pants that I'll probably end up cutting into shorts, all from a thrift store.  As for the rest, the only durable goods I bought were a catalogue for an exhibition I saw and a newspaper.  Oh, and I bought the sunglasses before I left, partly as a way to ward off a big splurge over the weekend.

A goofy couple of days not thinking about consumption kinda makes the rest of my low-impact life possible.  It's not that I hate living on nothing or resent trying to make conscious habits unconscious, sometimes it's just nice not to think about it so much.  Of course it's all about the journey, but rewards are nice, too - why go to all the effort if there's nothing to enjoy at the end of the day?

JFK Airtrain - $10
Hotel & car - $210
Food - $85.56
Beverages - $50.75
Things (thrift store, catalogue, newspaper) - $21.64
Experiences (pool, museum) -  $11

Total trip: $388.95 (excluding the airfare - I paid for that a long time ago!!)

Usually I try to stay away from the exact things Colin Beavan blogs about, knowing that a lot of our readers overlap.  But I'd like to add my two cents here, on the Sunday NYT article discussing the use of marketing strategies for social/humanitarian causes.   It's pretty fascinating, providing a good primer for marketing strategies over the last 20-odd years, and it brings up some interesting possibilities.  I absolutely agree with the article's conclusion that positive, non-stuff movements have got to make use of every strategy that works -- and if the advertising people spent a ton of money figuring out how to get people to do things, then that money should be put to good use, shouldn't it?  

I do get a little freaked in the details, though, and feel like Cassandra for having whined for a year about how advertisers make us habitually need stuff we don't with claims of things being "good" and "healthy" for us.  More to the point, I'm disturbed by how it is by making an entire nation of people feel "icky" that the advertising campaign mentioned in the article can get people to wash their hands.  How disappointing that people need to feel shame and dirtiness in order to make a change.  I think there's a translation to efforts to cut back on consumption, but I'm not exactly sure what that means - do we have to make other people feel bad about it?  That's what I've been trying to avoid!

Finally, did anyone notice that "consumers in North America alone spent $650 million buying Febreze [in the most recent fiscal year]"?  And people are starving, dying of treatable health problems, and living in boxes!  But one woman's Febreze is another woman's designer jeans.  Or sunglasses.  Or meat.  (Austin update tomorrow.)     

I'm off on an adventure this weekend, where the money (and probably margaritas) will flow freely, so I wanted to post something to record my pre- fall from grace.  So far I've spent $46.74 - on food, gifts, entertainment, laundry, and air for my bike tires.   I find that number shockingly low for my usual tally, but when I examine the items, I certainly could have gone without all of them comfortably, except maybe the 75 cents for air. 

Using Arduous's methodology, comparing last month to this month, last month I spent $11.41 on food per day (times 10 days that would have been $114.10).  I also spent $11.49 on health/beauty; $4.50 on entertainment (shows, drinks, etc.); $21.99 on travel, gifts, and etc. -- these numbers are all per day.  With this (albeit a little crazy) logic, by June 10, I would have spent $493.90.   That means I've reduced my spending by 90% - not too bad.  Putting the Pseudo in the Pseudo-Freegan Challenge, I'd say.  This weekend it will be nuts in comparison: I haven't yet paid for the hotel or rental car, so that will be a considerable amount of cash.  I'll also be paying for meals and drinks and shows, with some thrift stores thrown in -- I may be up to the $493 by the time I get back...

The biking is a terrific success, putting me in a great mood by the time I reach the office each day.  I have noticed something, though: I'm whizzing by a bunch of amazing smells on an empty stomach...normally I would (seriously!) stop and grab something delicious (a coffee, bakery item, egg sandwich, etc.) but had to remind myself of the challenge this week.  There is plenty of perfectly edible food available once I get to work.  Food was one of the things I allowed myself to buy during Fix (in moderation), so it's almost like a knee-jerk reaction to treat myself...last year I wrote a lot about how buying is really related to our rewards systems, making it a much more psychological beast than it might seem at face value.  This just cements the idea even more for me, particularly now that I (unconsciously?) hooked buying to a real physical desire - hunger.  Sure am looking forward to that barbeque and ice cream this weekend!    

Last night I went to a community meal hosted by some folks in Brooklyn, something I've been wanting to check out for some time.  From their site:

We are a small group of people who do a lot of other things in New York, like decorate subways and throw parties in the streets. At Grub we're just offering dinner. Whether you are active in other collectives, your neighborhood, your backyard garden, or just new to town, we invite you to our table. To get a little squishy, we are looking for practical ways to build community. We are particularly inspired by weekly dinners served at squats in Amsterdam and Berlin, where you can get a cheap, tasty meal and catch up with friends in a cozy room. We like parties as much as anyone, but we think there should be places to talk without a pounding sound system. 

 

Some of the other listings I've seen for the event mention that 99% of what they serve is freegan, collected from dumpsters behind supermarkets and other sources.  I liked the community idea and the freegan idea but felt way too shy to go by myself.  One of my faithful readers, Julia The Wounded Chef, who is newly mad about cooking and sustainibility, generously offered to accompany me.  Thus began a series of firsts and a bike ride on a beautiful Sunday evening.

I wasn't sure what to expect.  I had a general idea who might be involved, but hadn't met any of them myself.  I went to one of the aforementioned dinners in Berlin, as part of a magical wine-fueled evening that ended on the Night Bus, one of the most hilarious European inventions.  That seemed less intimidating somehow -- more Left Bank and less gutter-punk -- even while my Berlin friend was telling me about it.  I guess I've been to enough Critical Mass and Time's Up events to be afraid of having my faux-freeganism to be taken to task by someone who hasn't had a job or apartment in several years.  I took the copy of Newman's Own Guide to a Good Life (thanks Student Doctor Green!) out of my backpack and replaced it with a Brooklyn-produced art magazine, lest my bag fall open mid-dinner and I lose all of my cred.

Turns out I needn't be worried: these people were friendly and fun, mostly talking about food and aparments and other non-militant topics while we looked out over the BQE from the roof garden.  My vegetarian dinner, pictured here, was terrific - salad and cooked greens and zucchini flowers and frittata and bread and "weird pasta" and chocolate-beet cake.  One of the girls who helped prepare it said that the food had come from someone's garden (the flowers), a CSA share (bought for this purpose?), behind a grocery store nearby, as well as some leftovers from a local Food Not Bombs group.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I paid $5 but probably could have gotten away with contributing nothing; their sign mentioned that the organizers had spent $36 on the meal, which served approximately 40 or 50.  I noticed only two unwashed khaki-and-black-clad guys with big packs, who bolted right after the food.  Everyone else looked like most of the other people I've encountered in Brooklyn - maybe even less bike-ey and more art-y and garden-y.  As we were leaving, the hosts begged us to take from this pile of vegetables - they had too much and were going to compost whatever didn't get grabbed.  I walked away with a bunch of sunflower sprouts and a head of lettuce.  Thanks, Grub!