Friday, September 26, 2008

Sustainable LA - Is it an Oxymoron?

At first glance, Los Angeles does not seem like a bastion of environmental responsibility - manicured lawns, big cars (and way too many of them), a shortage of water, and over-consumption in the name of trendiness.

However, when you take a small chip out of the hip veneer, it appears that Angelinos are catching on to the fact that being green is not just a passing trend. This became readily apparent to me as soon as I landed. I went to pick up my rental car (economy of course), and the guy behind the counter "encouraged" me to get an upgrade - it is his job after all to up-sell, so I couldn't blame him for that. Our exchange went something like this:

Super friendly rental guy pointing to the photo display of all of their cars: "Wow, you realize you are in the smallest car we offer right?

Me: Yes.

Super determined rental guy: I could put you in something much bigger for not much more.

Me: Actually, I'm an environmentalist concerned with fuel economy - a.k.a. the rental car up-seller's worst nightmare.

Super resourceful rental guy: "I could put you in a Prius for $13 more a day."

Me: (Silence as I calculate gas savings - slowly - mental math is not my forte; my excuse is that I deal with words all day.

Super persistent rental guy: "For $11 more a day - I'll give you the Hotwire rate."

So I got the Prius, and while it is a little like driving a spaceship (keyless starter, streamlined, double-paned back window), considering the fact that I was destined to sit in traffic for the next 45 minutes and am driving to Santa Barbara this weekend, I was really grateful that I had upgraded. Here is my 2 cents on the Prius:

Whose house is that? Why am I shrugging? What does this car run on? The Prius brings magic and mystery wherever it goes.

Disclaimer: I am not a car person. I just want something reliable and fuel efficient to get me from point a to point b. Nothing (except the transmission) on my current Toyota Corolla is automatic, so I enjoyed the automatic windows and locks, and the digital dashboard display. What I especially liked, though, was the central display that tells you exactly how much fuel you are using. Coasting on the freeway or moving slowly through traffic kept the MPG quite high -60-99.9 (99.9 means you are using virtually all battery). As soon as you accelerate enough to require gas, though, you can see your fuel efficiency decrease. It is a good lesson for all of us about how to be more fuel efficient when driving - Prius or otherwise. The other features I appreciated were the many controls on the steering wheel - radio volume, temp control, mirrors, etc. - AND, as soon as you put the car in reverse, you can see exactly what is behind you on the dashboard screen. This is especially nice since I often ask myself, "what was that I just ran over?" While I know these are now common features on many cars, it is good to know that fuel efficiency can still come in the package of a very hi-tech vehicle.

Next stop on my LA sustainability tour was a wine bar and restaurant that my friend Alexis had been raving about. Lou in Hollywood serves a large selection of natural wine (wine grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizer) and food sourced from local farmers. Of course, duty called, and we responded dutifully by trying several of the organic and biodynamic vintages. Some of our favorites were Preston Vineyards Madame Preston Roussanne Viognier, the '06 Clos Roche Blanche Touraine Sauvignon Blanche, and the '05 Collioure "La Pinede" La Tour Vieille.

With a little help from our servers David and Betsy, we enjoyed wine paired perfectly with everything we ate. We dined happily on the burrata with stone fruit (peaches of course since they are in season!), prosciutto, and wild arugula; a farmers market green salad; the fish plate, which consisted of smoked baccala, albacore confit, smoked trout, and house-cured wild salmon gravlax; and a salad of farro, heirloom tomatoes, Dante sheep cheese, onion, and pistou. For dessert, we had a ginger stout cake with vanilla cream.

Yes, the salads actually look and taste this good.

Last night we headed to Silverlake Wine to try a flight of organic whites and then to organic, vegetarian Elf Cafe for dinner. Our favorite organic wines from the Spanish flight were Jose Pariente Varietal Verdejo '07 and the Abad dom Bueno Godello '07.

The pre-wine hangover giggles. Fun while they last.

Of course, it's not all drinking and eating with friends in LA . Today I had to find a quiet place to work. Being a Seattle-ite now, I needed my fix of fair-trade, organic coffee. When I lived here, finding a good cup of coffee was like trying to find public transit, which is to say somewhere between inconvenient and impossible. Winchell's Donuts and Starbucks were the most prevalent purveyors of a consistent cup of joe - times were tough.

No longer, though! In my friend's Echo Lake neighborhood alone, three new coffee shops have opened up in recent years. We chose Fix Coffee, which gets its fair trade organic coffee from Zoka Coffee Roasters, which hails from where else?...Seattle. I even had a nice table to myself.

Apparently, it's not loitering if you have a computer with you.

Fresh and seasonal - my favorite way to eat. Keep up the good work LA! - now if we can only get the city to improve the public transportation system, so that residents can start taking the bus!

Activist shout out to my LA peeps - get in touch with your local politicians (phone call, email, letter) and ask them to advocate for a better public transpo system - given the price of gas now, the current economic crisis, and the ever-present traffic issue, they will probably be receptive. Remember to remind them that you vote!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Green Jobs Now - Find an Event Near You!

What is going on with the economy? It seems that everyone can agree that things are really, really bad, but they are having a much harder time agreeing on a solution.

Okay, politicians, show us that you mean it when you say that you are ready for "change", "reform", or whatever platitudes you are using today, and start taking steps to solve the environmental and economic crises by creating green jobs now.

With the majority of the nation saying in polls that the greatest issue of concern in the upcoming election is the economy, there is no better time to send a message to politicians, businesses, and communities that our future depends on sustainable economic development.

This Saturday is the Green Jobs Now National Day of Action. Visit the Green Jobs Now website to sign up to host an event, to find an event near you, or to sign the petition, which is reprinted below:

"I urge our elected officials to invest in creating millions of green jobs and a Clean Energy Corps. We can't drill and burn our way out of the current crisis. We can invest and invent our way out. We can create new pathways out of poverty and curb global warming at the same time. We will do this by retooling our factories, rebuilding our communities, and repowering America with 100% clean and renewable electricity. It's time to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty."

It's time to stop panicking or complaining about the economy. It's election season, and the politicians are paying attention. Let's tell them that our energy crisis and economic bailout plan must amount to more than "drill, baby, drill"; rather, let's start with something that is sustainable for people and the environment...green jobs...now.








www.greenjobsnow.com/

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Yes, We Can!!

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I have set out on a quest to eat locally whenever possible. For the month of October, I have joined the Eat Local Challenge, which is encouraging people all over the country to enjoy local bounty this fall. (Yes, that was me with the six enormous avocados in my carry-on bag on my flight back from LA).

Right now in Seattle, I have found myself surrounded with an abundance of blackberries and tomatoes, so what better way to celebrate this abundance than to preserve it? Besides, canning dates back hundreds of years, so how hard could it be? Oh, what hubris! What naivete! Clearly, we needed a mentor. I made a call to an Italian friend of mine who "puts up" many bushels of tomatoes a year (we're talking hundreds of pounds, here). I mean, this woman is a force; people invite her over as their special consultant.

A quick and easy bounty

First, my friend Anne and I picked several quarts of blackberries at Discovery Park in less than an hour! One of the lessons we learned from our haul was that if you are willing to make the time (and in this case brave the spiders that like hanging with the berries as well), you can gather enough fruit for months in very little time and for free! We also picked tomatoes from our gardens and supplemented with a box of "seconds" from a local farmer.

Loaded down with ingredients and ambitious plans, and armed with advice from my canning guru, Anne's knowledge gained from a canning class at Culinary Communion, and a book called The Busy Person's Guide To Preserving Food, we headed over to Anne's house to embark on some adventures in canning.

Let's see: Danger of fatal explosions. Possible death by botulism. This project had it all!

Let's start with the good news - we learned a lot. Here are the most salient nuggets:
  1. Head into your adventure with a positive outlook: Like many skills, canning takes a little practice, or in our case, trial and lots of errors. Remember, in order to succeed, it is imperative to have can-do attitude.
  2. Be sure to have a canny canner as your guide: Because there are not a lot of absolutes to canning - you need to know how much space to leave, how much salt to add, the right moment to take the jam off the stove or it will burn and become brown sludge (yup, learned the hard way) - it is a good idea to can with someone who has done it before.
  3. Don't be too ambitious: For our first time, we clearly tried to do to much. What's too much? Let's see... making jam, freezing berries, canning sauce, and canning whole tomatoes...that would be too much. We started at 1:30pm and were not done until 3am. (Keep in mind that this included support staff, in the form of husbands, who came to help at around 10pm). I had to sleep it off the next day, and I hardly had anything to drink! I would say for first time preservers, two projects will ensure that your experience is much more canjoyable.
  4. Have all of your recipes ready and understand directions from start to finish: Since we were trying to use both a pressure canner and a boiling water bath to preserve our concoctions, we had a hard time transferring directions and figuring out timing. We also did not have exact recipes for everything; in short, "winging it" on your first time is not advisable!
Note on cooking berries: purple=good - brown=waste of three hours

Despite the burned jam, questionable space at the top of the jarred tomatoes (those little suckers shrink!), and the "in need of doctoring" tomato sauce and salsa, in the final analysis, we both agreed that we would do it again. Preserving food is an excellent way to eat diversified, local food year round. Up next, more tomato preservation (this time I'm trying roasting and then storing in oil in the fridge and freezing) and some potato and beet root cellaring...can't wait!

Woefully underprepared for a nuclear winter, but well stocked for a power outage or snowstorm; we gave ourselves a B-, overall.