Organic Dairy, Organic Meat, Organic ... Beer?

True story! According to the Green Guide (here), the next big organic product is beer. Well, I might be exaggerating. But Anheuser-Busch, Miller and New Belgium have already brought out organic products. There are also a number of microbreweries and smaller labels that brew organic beers.

Read a pretty thorough article on why one should drink organic alcoholic beverages (yes, it includes wine and even "teetotalers"! Also has a section on buying local beer, as opposed to imported or mainstream American labels.

Read this article (also by the Green Guide) for more information on buying local and the reasons to drink organic when you want to get foxed. Or buzzed, if you're like me. This article includes some pretty creepy and unsettling facts about non-organic beer and other spirits.

Here are some things I learned: Reasons to drink organic include saving birds and fish that die after ingesting pesticides and fungicides sprayed on fields. If you're democratically minded and would like to see small family owned and local organizations gain more business, instead of financing large corporations (which are rarely well-read on ethical behavior, IMO), buying local, which can also be organic, wins. Lastly, they taste good! Perhaps it's similar to the difference between tap water and filtered water. Though last I checked tap water doesn't cause cancer...

To Do List: Taste organic beers.

Read these informative articles and enjoy, maybe with an organic brew in hand!

Rediscovering "Family Time" at Dinner

There's something about eating with friends and family that just equals comfort. Comfort food on another level, if you will. Growing up, we always had dinner together as a family. Now that I live on my own, it happens far less frequently. Not all the siblings can gather together at the same time, because sometimes one is really busy and another is on travel or on the other side of the country. Only once have I lived with flatmates in a situation where we ate together most nights, because we alternated cooking dinner. All of us enjoy cooking, and they had a talent for it, luckily for me.

But I'm rambling. As a young adult, living on my own, eating together happens very infrequently. Last night, for the first time, my newish roommates and I finally got around to having a "roomies dinner". And I discovered how much I miss cooking for people. Not that I'm exceptionally talented, nor do I have the time or inclination to cook for people every night, but once in a while I do really enjoy it.

So last night I cooked a chicken, which I haven't done since I first moved in. It all started with the usual debate about what kind of chicken to buy, the choices being chicken (not free range, unfortunately) not given antibiotics or fed bits of other animals, and preserved without immersing it in water (evidently the Europeans do it differently) and then organic. Look at Green Guides for an article on different safety/environmental labels for beef (not sure if they have one specifically for chicken). I went for the cheaper version, because it seemed healthy and at the same time was $4 cheaper than the organic birds. Of course we were running late, so had to rush a little in the eating, but it's not even so much the eating with others I enjoy as the cooking part. A glass of wine; chopping veggies; putting the bird in the oven; mixing the cookie dough; occasionally munching on the food that's supposed to be cooked; and chatting all the while.

Who else can't wait for Thanksgiving?

The Trials And Tragedies of Growing a Vegetable Garden: Story of a Pumpkin

This year, at the Navy Museum, I participated in a children's program on Earth Day, whose purpose was to create "victory gardens" (click the link for Wikipedia's definition). Victory gardens began during World War II, as efforts to reduce pressure on the public food supply. Families were asked to create their own vegetable, fruit and herb gardens so canned and other goods could be sent overseas to the sailors and soldiers fighting in the war.

Out of all the seeds we had available, I decided to grow a pumpkin. Though I must admit, I decided in part because I expected it to fail. Ironically, it succeeded beyond my expectations, and to make a long story short, I now have a pumpkin plant growing in my backyard. Along with tomatoes and bell peppers, but that's another story.

Before long, I noticed my pumpkin had a disease called powdery mildew. Not fun stuff. Spreads fast, and according to the gentleman who helped us at the garden center, also always in the air. So I'm growing this mini-vegetable garden, which reduces my dependence on packaging and emissions while increasing oxygen production and other good natural things, while at the same time, produces free produce for me to enjoy! (Hopefully, eventually we'll get that far).

Also, at the store today I was shown a chemical spray to help get rid of the mildew. Fortunately the gentleman I mentioned above happened by just about the same time I asked what damages the product might have on the environment, and he pointed me toward a brand called Safer, whose active ingredient is sulphur, which also gets rid of the mildew, and is organic! Yay!

So now I'm fixing the mildew problem, I need to get started on rodents. Something ate my only pumpkin. Yes, I had a pumpkin, it was bigger than a softball but smaller than a basketball, and I came home one evening, and it was gone. This was only two days after I discovered it, mind. So the next project is a fence of some kind. I think we're going to re-use the bamboo we're trying to get rid of, as stakes, and wrap some wire mesh around it. But if any knowledgeable gardeners happen to read this, I would appreciate suggestions of better methods.

So far, I think the bell peppers and tomatoes are doing alright. Gardening is harder work than I thought! Turns out it's not just digging, planting and weeding.