Category: Kitchen Sink

Must-have Meatball Sandwich

Last Thursday I tagged along with Eric on a food expedition in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Kennsington. Just a hop over to the Fort Hamilton Pkwy and there we were at Brancaccio’s Food Shop in search of their meatball sandwich. Lunch time! As we walked in, Chef Joe was just putting today’s specials into the tall fridge… as a rack of ribs came came out of the oven.

Chef and proprietor Joseph Brancaccio gave us a taste of everything. That was quite a list.

The shop is cozy and unassuming, no indoor seating but they do have two benches outside. The regulars shuffled past us as we looked at all the fresh salads in the case. One might ask “Really? Just for a meatball sandwich?” The correct answer would be “Yes, for that meatballs sandwich.” Meet Chef Joe, he offered us samples from the daily menu while we waited — caponata, baked ziti with truffle oil, roasted Brussels sprouts, roasted beet and farro salad… all of it made that morning…

Now back to that sandwich, the portion is of a generous size, the bread is fresh with just enough marinara to moisten. But those meatballs! Moist and savory with pine nuts and raisins, seasoned with fennel and garlic. There’s an old world flavor in every bite.

Eric! Lift with your knees! Can something this big really be that good?

You can taste the home-cooking in every bits. Brancaccio's meatball sammy is carefully stuffed and sauced into fresh Italian bread that just melts in your mouth.

The meatballs are made with pine nuts and raisins, an old-world flavor that I love.

Eric saved half for later, mine vanished. I think I actually ate the wrapper. I was going to save the Broccoli Rabe for later, but it never made it into the fridge.

Broccoli Rabe, the trusty Italian side-kick… look how green this is.

Chef Joe gave us to a little after meal treat: “Snack a Latte” coffee cakes. Chef Joe carries some food provisions. I bought some pasta, farro, and Italian Nutella. You have to check this sweet little shop out, Brancaccio’sFood Shop 3011 Ft. Hamilton Pkwy, Brooklyn NY, 11218.

Snack a Latte

Like Brancaccio’s Facebook page here

July 6, 2010
Solarize a Raised Vegetable Bed

I planted everbearing raspberries from Fedco Seeds in one of my raised beds. My thinking was that in a raised bed, the natural sprawl that raspberries do would be easier to control. I have some planted in the yard nearby, and they love to creep into the lawn and everywhere else.

Here is the raised bed while the raspberries are removed

We have more bear problems now, and the bears love raspberries. The past two years the bears have mashed down my raspberry patch, so I decided this year to give them to a neighbor and reclaim the raised bed for tomatoes.

But how do you get raspberries out of a garden bed? I don’t think you can completely, so I decided to solarize the bed. I dug out all the berries I could, and then covered the raised vegetable bed with black plastic.

the raspberry plants, removed

I discovered some age damage while removing the raspberries. Fixed it.

The black plastic does two things, it keeps the raspberry plants from blooming, and it raises the temperature of the soil. While I did this in late spring, this technique comes in handy in late winter to warm raised beds, giving you an edge. You can watch a video about vegetable gardening in winter here, and using plastic as a season extender our raised vegetable beds here.

I put 6 mil plastic on the raised bed, held down with rocks.

I left the black plastic on for a month, plenty of time to kill off any remaining raspberry plants. I then kept the plastic in place, burned holes in it with a torch for tomatoes.

I torched holes in the plastic after a month for tomatoes.

July 4, 2010
Gardening and Cook Book Review

When I hear about a cook book or gardening book, I feed the title into my local library search page and reserve the book. Last week, I had three books that all came in on the same day. They were, Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening by Louise Riotte, In The Green Kitchen by Alice Waters, and Edible A Celebration of Local Foods by Tracey Rider and Carole Topalian Interestingly there was a showing of the movie Fresh on the same day the books came in and I meet my gardening girl friends at the library.

Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening is a great little book that every back yard gardener needs to check out. Because of space constraints, I need to know what plants go better than others. A lot of the information was stuff that I already knew, but there was some new information. Like Spinach and Strawberries grow well together. Which I find interesting since I’ve seen on a lot of menus spring salads with spinach and strawberries. Could there be a possibility that flavor profiles can follow what is in season at the time.

Alice Water did a very nice, well explained cook book. It’s a collection of lots of different chefs, farmers, writers’ recipes and how to cook them. I had heard about the Thomas Keller Roast Chicken which is included in In The Green Kitchen and is just a good basic recipe. However I like to keep the wishbones and pull them out after roasting the bird. Call it morbid, but I have a collect of wishbones hanging in my kitchen.

Edible is a guide book to good local food providers with beautiful pictures. The recipes listed in the book were good. There is a nice mention of the Chicago Green Market. Even though this is a newer book, there are so many more providers which I think could be mentioned.

My local library sent me a nice email reminder to get In The Green Kitchen and Edible back since they are newer books. Check out books at your local library. If you want to buy the book, after checking them out, hit your local book store.

June 6, 2010
Garden Visit, the Start of Summer

Garden Report 6/04/2010

Eric and Mike had talked about seeding some stuff early and I fully agreed with them. Chicago had an early spring and then a nasty frost. I got excited and planted Carrots, Radishes, Beets on March 30th. Well. At least seeds are cheap. There was little activity until the middle of May and the only thing I’ve harvested are some radishes. The beets are fairly leafy, but the carrots are itty bitty. I think the ground was too cold for the seeds to germinate and should have tried to be patient and waited to plant.

Gardening is about experimenting. In the five years that we’ve lived in our house, I’ve found that containers and raised beds work best for me. Along with lots of fencing to keep the dogs out. The hardest thing to learn is that less is more, sometimes. With containers and fast growing plants like beans, you can crowd the pot a bit. In a 24 inch pot, I have four petite peas, three scarlet runners, and three fava beans. They need to be in full sun, so I have to water often. Which is why we have 3 rain barrels. The cucumbers, which I also grow in a 24 inch pot, did not like being crowded by romaine lettuce. I had to resow some cuke seeds, harvested and ate the lettuce, but the new plants look good.

In the open spaces of our yard, we have lots of flowers. Mike learned that boy dogs like to have a target to pee on at the park, well Max does like to pee on things. We don’t plant edibles where the dog may pee. I really crowded a bulb bed this year with tulips, allium, and lilies. So far, the spacing and timing of the bulbs has been good. The tulips came first and as they died back, the allium bloomed. I’m concerned that the allium may be crowding out the lilies. We just have to wait and see. The bulb bed is framed by a small leafy shrub that looks japanese maple ish and a super tall thick grass. The grass is allowed to go to seed and dry out in the winter. I’ve also planted two kinds of lemon verbena with in the shrub and grass. More for possible mosquito rep-lent properties than edible, but I will harvest some leaves outside of Max’s aim zone.

The side garden, well was going to be more formal. That’s not happening. This is a 20 foot by 18 inch space between the walk way and the neighbor’s fence and is full sun. Last fall, I split up the major clumps of peonies, phlox, and yarrow and evenly spaced them. Between those flowers, I planted lots of sunflowers, quiona, for the birds, and bachelor buttons. Originally, I wanted a space that was filled with big blooms and I may still get that next year when the peonies are more settled in their spaces. Now we have a bird feeder paradise. I put a feeder near the garden and the birds just love it. Max and Kora have very little interest in the birds and the birds have learned that.

We need some serious help in the front. It’s very neglected. We have some overgrown shrubs and a beautiful ginkgo tree, but the grass on the parkway is just dead. The space under the shrubs is dark and even though we’ve had some good rains, it’s so covered that it says dry. One major bright spot it that a lavender bush returns to the corner of our lot ever year. It’s small and scraggly, but it’s mine. I’ve also had sages, thyme, fennel, tarragon, and of course mint, return. Radicchio returned, but was eaten by rabbits.

What I’ve been most impressed with is the lettuce table. The lettuces that I planted haven’t suffered in the heat like the lettuces in pots have. The radishes have been very nice. I need to replant the rosemary because it needs a drier environment. We’re even having good luck with basil started from seed.

The only thing I’m partly disappointed in is the pepper patch. Marigolds and amaranth are growing well around the patch, but the four types of pepper seeds I’ve planted haven’t come it and it’s been warm and wet. I’m thinking that I’m going to have to buy some plants and toss them in the bed. I do have two very nice tomato plants growing.

In general, so far I’m super happy. Jim and I got the green house up last week and he’s pushing me to do all edibles in there so I don’t have to fight the elements. I’m partly for that. The containers work really well at keeping the dogs, bunnies, raccoons, what ever, out of some of the edibles. Last summer we had a real scare with Kora and a virus transmitted from “wild” animal urine. Kora was vaccinated for the virus, but still caught a random strain.

Hope all of your gardens are doing well too!

June 5, 2010
A Hive Prepares to Swarm, photos show how

I was watching our hives last week, and thought Hive #1 was looking less busy at the entrance. I was thinking it had swarmed. So we opened up the hive, and found our marked queen, which means the hive had not swarmed. ( When a hive swarms, the original queen flies off with half of the honeybees ) But we did find lots of drone cells and 3 queen cells that are being built. We removed the queen cells, but I know we can’t stop them from swarming that way. We are going to do a split to reduce the hive population, and remove any more queen cells.

We just received the queens we ordered from Jennifer Berry, so we have to do this quickly. Its best to do splits in May, I understand, but this being early June I think we’ll be ok.

Our original queen is still in the hive, so it has not swarmed yet. The queen is the bee with the blue mark.

the beginning of a queen cell among drone cells

here are 2 queen cells being built at the bottom of a frame

June 3, 2010
My Low Tech Green Roof Project

Green Roofs are a great thing. They shade the roof a house, thus lowering the cooling bill, and add greenery to the city. But they are a lot of work to install and can be costly.

So here is my low tech green roof project.

The idea is to place large planters around my flat roof in Brooklyn, drill holes in the bottom of the planters, and plant vine vegetable plants in the holes. I have a water timer and soaker hose system that will water the containers. Then plants will sprawl over the roof and shade the roof while lowering our cooling bill. And we get food from our roof at the same time. neat. Here are some photos to demonstrate the low tech green roof idea.

Large Planters are placed on rubber roofing material

I use a hole saw to open up the bottom of the planter

Here are some winter sqash and cucumber plants I started.

This is the start of about 6 large planters on the roof. Manhattan is on the right in the background.

June 2, 2010
Why I own a @fordtrucks F150 : dirt

my raised beds seemed to have lost about 1/3 of their soil. Not sure why. It may be when I weed them some soil always comes with the roots of the weeds, or the soil is settling slowly.

Getting garden soil can be a logistical pain. And expensive. You have to order it and have it delivered, dumped onto your driveway, and then you move it.

BUT, if you own a Ford F150, you just drive down to the gravel yard, pay them $22, and get a huge load of soil.

The GardenFork.TV F150 gets a load of soil

The front loader operator but a bit too much dirt in, so we're looking like a low-rider

The bedliner makes it real easy to shovel out soil and gravel

May 27, 2010
Washington DC Botanical Gardens

My step mom and sisters were in Washington DC on Mother’s day and we went to the Botanical Gardens. It was just perfect! From what I hear, Chicago was a little cold and damp.Not the bright and beautiful day DC had.

Those arch ways made with coir baskets were in the front of the building. They had sprinkler units through out, but no plant yet. So I don’t know if they will be filled with flowers or food.

There was a beautiful display of orchids. One room was dedicated to orchids which had a small fountain and faux fallen tree. There were so many different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some had smooth petals and some ruffled. It was just amazing.

There was a children’s garden where kids could water some Gerber Daises and run through a small bamboo grove. It was very sweet for the kids.

Oh Roses. We have a wild rose that I pull out all the time. All the thorns and fickleness just don’t do it for me. But when I see a Rose Garden that is well put together, I just mush. I love them. These pink pretties smelled just what you would expect from a rose.

What we did not see was a vegetable garden. There was a section of medicinal plants that consisted of mostly herbs and edibles. Like this little pineapple.

I did expect to see a vegetable garden. Especially for kids. At least there was a display for kids and it wasn’t all formal gardens. There was plenty of places to rest and reflect on Mom! I really enjoyed it.

May 15, 2010
GardenFork.TV is featured on iTunes. WOW.

how cool is this? a big thank you to the iTunes podcast crew!

May 4, 2010
Salad Coffee Table

I love this. It turned out so much better than I thought it would. Jim found this melon crate at one of his stops. As soon as he saw it, he thought small, raised bed. When I saw it, I asked for more to share!

Jim screwed some 8 inch legs from left over lumber on the bottom of the box. I lined the box with a new product I’m trying out. Hydro cloth. I got it from Gardeners.com. Then came the fun. We planted marigolds, lettuces, radishes, basil, and a cherry tomato that I hope cascades down from a clay pipe.

Most importantly, and what makes it a coffee table as opposed to salad table, are five “tiles” made from a broken ceramic pot. Each one big enough for the largest of cups or bowls. I’m hoping that in a few weeks, all the plants will take off and this little table will just be the jewel of our back yard paradise.

May 3, 2010
Dandelion Identification: is it Edible?

Yes, dandelion is edible. There you go. Below the video here are a bunch of photos and info, scroll down after watching!

Dandelion can fall under the subject heading of urban foraging. It is ubiquitous in yards in America. Just make sure it hasn’t been sprayed with anything if you are pulling it up out of someone’s yard.

I was weeding the mesclun salad greens bed, which i have covered with our Hoop House Cold Frame ( you can get plans for our hoop house and video here )

A lot of dandelion has already come up, and I was surprised at how large the tap root was for such small plants. wow. look at the picture below:

Dandelion has a large taproot. Both the leaves and the tap root are edible, and are used in herbal medicines.

Dandelion is edible. It tastes a bit like arugula, it has a tang to it, if the leaves are mature, it can be a bit bitter.

But bitter can be good in a salad! It offsets raspberry vinegar really well, and it goes well with blue cheese. So stop pulling those weeds and instead harvest them for your dinner plate.

I pulled bunch of dandelion out of our mesclun bed

The younger plants are better, I think, after dandelion has flowered the leaves get tougher, but you can still eat them. Best way for tougher leaves is to saute them in some olive oil with garlic.

Dandelion is super healthy, according to the USDA, Dandelion is high in Vitamin K, Carotene, Vitamin A, and Lutein. neat. And this grows in your yard.

When weeding a garden bed of dandelion, I try my best to pull out the tap root along with the top of the plant using one of my weeder tools. If you snap the plant off at the top of the taproot, the plant will send up new leaves. This is a good way to harvest if you have an area of dandelion which is a designated growing area for the plant.

You can buy dandelion seed. I buy a kind called Italian Dandelion, which I believe is not a true dandelion, but it grows really well in my garden, and we like it.

Dandelion after running it through the salad spinner

After I harvest the dandelion, I snap off the taproot, and shake as much dirt off as I can. I then put the greens in a salad spinner and fill up the bowl of the spinner with water. I slosh the greens around, pull up the basket and dump the water. I do this twice usually, then spin the greens. Then I eat them.

Do you eat dandelion? How? Tell us below:

April 8, 2010
Rain Gutter Repair

As part of my family visit, I am always repairing my sister’s house. First was the motion sensor light repair, and now on to the rain gutter repair.

The hanger bracket and nail. Screws work better.

Her rain gutters were starting to pull away from the house, so I climbed up to find the gutter hangers had been nailed in instead of screwed in, and the nails were now pulling out of the wood behind the gutters.

Be careful on the ladder, don't over-reach.

I picked up some rain gutter screws ( more like lag bolts, actually ) that I used on my own house. Once you put these in, the gutter doesn’t come off, unless the wood behind it does. The plastic sleeve keeps the screw from compressing the rain gutter.

These screws work well

With these gutter screws, I’ve found it best to drill a pilot hole in the front lip of the rain gutter. Then I use a powerful cordless drill or a corded drill to sink in the screws. You have to put some weight behind this, so make sure the ladder is secure, and don’t over-reach, you’ll fall off the ladder – a bad thing.

Be sure to position the spacer in the gutter before screwing in the screws.

The gutter screws reconnect the gutter to the house.

Have you done gutter repairs? Tell us your solutions in the comments section below:

April 6, 2010

The Allison House Weather Station Update

A while back on GardenFork Radio I was saying how much I’d like one of those weather stations that sit on your roof and you can hook up to the internet.

Then Allison House, a weather data company, sent us one. ( I like how this works )

We assembled the weather station, which is an Oregon Scientific WMR968. It has an anenometer, wind direction, rainfall, temperature, humidity and barometric pressure sensors, which are all solar powered and connected via wireless to the central display in our house.

here is the inside of the rain guage. always wondered how that worked

This display is then connected via USB to our internet router, and bang – our super microclimate weather data in our yard is on the web and on my iPhone. We use WeatherUnderground to post the weather data, this site aggregates weather info from a ton of personal weather stations. You can search by zip code to see if there is a weather station near your. You can use the smartphone version of their site for remote check-ins.

AND the best part is the graphs and historical data is collects. I can go to the site, and see graphs for the past 24 hours, past week, past month, etc. This has been good to have with our bees, as I can tell when the bees have probably been leaving the hive during the late winter, early spring. Its also great for gardening, when we have a few years of data, we can see the average frost date for our yard. One of our neighbors down the hill has a weather station as well, and I can check his now for frost dates , though his date will be earlier than mine, as he is lower in a valley.

This daily graph tells me the Honey Bees were out in the afternoon. And its interesting to watch the barometric pressure drop.

Temps above 50F means the honey bees are out working

Hooking up the weather station to the net took a bit of work, it was not plug and play, but not too hard either. The enclosed instructions are good, and there is an active community of users online.

A big thank you again to Allison House for providing the weather station. You can follow them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/allisonhouse

Do you have a weather station? Let us know, be cool to compare equipment and uses.

March 26, 2010

Replaced Doorbell

Doorbell repair by Mike

My doorbell stopped working. While it was nice that I didn’t hear sales people ringing my doorbell, occasionally friends or family would feel ignored.

A doorbell is a pretty simple circuit. There is a transformer that steps the electricity down from 120 volts to somehwere between 13 – 18 volts. There is a wire going to a momentary switch (doorbell button) and to the doorbell itself. When someone presses the button, the circuit is closed and the bell rings. If it’s not working it can only be one of a few problems. Broken wire, broken button, broken doorbell, broken transformeer, or no power at all!

Warning! Even though we should only be seeing low voltages here, locate the breaker or fuse for this circuit and shut it off whenever you will be touching the bare wires. Clearly, if you are testing voltages the circuit should be on, but if you are replacing any of the bits (transformer, doorbell, doorbell button, doorbell wiring) the circuit should be turned off. Even a 12 volt short can cause a fire and you never know, something may have been wrongly connected to a 120 volt line.

Above is a picture of what the transformer looks like.

A quick test with an inexpensive multi-meter shows here that there is 18 volts coming off the transformer. So there is power, and the transformer is OK.

This particular doorbell switch has visible leaf springs that make contact. Inspect the springs to make certain they are not broken. You can see here that the wire was showing a little bit of copper. There is no charring so I don’t think it caused a short, but this should be fixed.

Do a quick voltage test here to make sure you’re getting electricity through the circuit. This way you know the wire isn’t broken somewhere in the circuit.

I’ve wrapped some fancy blue electrical tape around the wire to cover the small bare spot. There’s no significance to the color of tape, I just happened to have blue handy.

Here is the old doorbell on the wall. Notice where the last person missed with paint. Wasn’t me!

I removed the cover (the cover just snapped off) and unless you make it a habit to dust the inside of your doorbell, this is what you’ll see. Ick. You can see that something isn’t right just by looking at it. The doorbell has a solonoid in it, which is basically an electromagnet.

When electricity flows through the magnet, it makes a steel plunger pop out of it. When the electricity is stopped, the spring returns the steel plunger into the solonoid. You can see that something is wrong with the plunger. I checked it closer and it was frozen in place, this is clearly broken and for $18 I can buy a new one.

All you need is a screwdriver. This is the flippy screwdriver thing Eric and I discussed in the “Pinball is 50v” episode of GardenFork Radio.

It’s six tools in one! I can almost dismantle my whole pinball machine with this tool.

Just to be certain that this did not break because of a short. I test the voltage at the coil. If it was showing any voltage, I would know that there is a short in the line and that would have caused my problem. Here there is no voltage so I know the doorbell probably just broke after 15 years of use.

I sent my daughter outside to press the button while I was checking the voltage. You can see that it is now registering 13.4 volts, so the circuit is good and I’m certain that this doorbell isn’t working properly. I read the manual on my camera after this blurry picture to figure out what I did wrong. I need to have the little picture of the flower on the LCD when I’m up close like this.

Here the new doorbell is in place. I just reused the same screws. One slotted and one phillips. It’s good I had the flippy screwdriver thing. Normally I’m more meticulous about things like this, but I didn’t have a phillips electical box screw handy and I have no slotted drywall screws. Someone will be complaining about me in 15 years.

Done! (I have a video of it working but I haven’t figured out how to post that yet!)

March 20, 2010

The latest GardenFork.TV @Ford : an @FordTrucks F150

Not sure if I told you this, but I tore the rear end of my 82 Ford F150 off towing Bill’s car out of a ditch, and after that my favorite truck was no longer the same. The shackle brackets were broken, the rear half of the exhaust system was gone… you get the picture.

So I picked up a 93 Ford F150, in black of course. I drove it to work in the city, and already got a parking ticket. Thank You New York City.

March 19, 2010

How to make yogurt : more info and use

Inspired by my friend Brian, I have been making more of my own yogurt. And after making our How To Make your Own Yogurt video, and our Solar Oven Yogurt Maker, i was thinking of how you could use at hand items to make yogurt.

Then I saw one of my neighbors had thrown out a styrofoam cooler, the kind that Omaha Steaks uses to ship people their frozen steaks. I took it home and saw that a heating pad blanket fit in it quite well. I cut a notch in the wall to allow for the cord.

It works really well.

AND, I bought some yogurt starter, Yogourmet is the brand, to see if it was any better than just using some leftover store bought yogurt. And it is much better. The yogurt is much firmer, and i think tastes better.

Yogourmet works better than just using yogurt as starter, i think.

Wikipedia tells us about the origins of yogurt:

There is evidence of cultured milk products being produced as food for at least 4,500 years. The earliest yoghurts were probably spontaneously fermented by wild bacteria Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus native to and named after Bulgaria.

The oldest writings mentioning yogurt are attributed to Pliny the Elder who remarked that certain nomadic tribes, including the Bulgars, knew how “to thicken the milk into a substance with an agreeable acidity”. The use of yoghurt by medieval Turks is recorded in the books Diwan Lughat al-Turk by Mahmud Kashgari and Kutadgu Bilig by Yusuf Has Hajib written in the 11th century. Both texts mention the word “yoghurt” in different sections and describe its use by nomadic Turks. An early account of a European encounter with yoghurt occurs in French clinical history: Francis I suffered from a severe diarrhea which no French doctor could cure. His ally Suleiman the Magnificent sent a doctor, who allegedly cured the patient with yoghurt.Being grateful, the French king spread around the information about the food which had cured him.

What are your yogurt recipes and tips? how do you make yogurt? please tell us below:

March 11, 2010

Great Cook Books from the Library

Eric had posted a while back about how using the library is green and it reminded me to renew my library card. I love my Forest Park Library. It’s rather small, especially against our neighbor’s Oak Park Library which is just beautiful. I can order books or DVDs online and they are delivered to the library. It close, convenient, and makes a nice dog walk route.

One of the main reasons I use the library is cook books. There are only so many celebrity cook books that I want on my bookshelf. The New Arrivals shelf is loaded with some great ones. I picked up David Chang’s Momofuku and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. Talk about two beautiful books. The Photography from both books inspire me to take more pictures. They provided me with some great ideas and recipes, even may try ghetto “sous vide”, slow cooking in a pouch in water.

I would recommend either book. Jamie Oliver’s book is more practical. Really great recipes that are written clearly. I really like that some of the individual steps are laid out in photos. Where are David Chang book was more food fantasy for me. I love fancy food. Homey food redone with delicious flavors and colors.

March 1, 2010

Your dishwasher and indoor pollution

Seventh Generation, the company that makes all sorts of eco-smart and recycled products for your home, asked me if I’d like a box of their products to check out.

We already use Seventh Generation products, so why not say yes to some free stuff?

Charlie likes to eat paper towels and tissues.

Seventh Generation is rolling out new natural disinfecting wipes, and as part of their goal to get the word out about these wipes, they sent some to me.

It had not occurred to me to think about what might be in regular disinfecting wipes. I still don’t know exactly. But knowing this company, their wipes don’t have mystery chemicals in them.

Seventh Generation's new disinfecting wipes

What I like about Seventh Generation is that their products work and make sense. I think I first bought a roll of their paper towels, and what got me to buy them was some of the info on the wrapper, such as:

The natural color of these paper towels comes from the mix of colors in cardboard, office waste, and other paper materials recycled into this product. These materials often end up in landfills because there is insufficient demand for them. By reusing them in our products, we put them to work, not in the ground, and we help ‘close the loop’ to encourage more recycling less waste….

I wouldn’t use these, or write about Seventh Generation here, if I didn’t like their stuff.

The company also sent me a copy of Naturally Clean, The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe & Healthy Non-Toxic Cleaning. The book is chock full of footnoted information. I learned some things I was not aware of about my dishwasher:

…Researchers at the EPA and the University of Texas recently documented the dishwasher’s role as a leading cause of indoor air pollution. Pollutants released by dishwashers, include chorline .. chloroform.. radon .. and other volatile contaminants… When these materials are exposed to the piping hot water that circulates through your dishwasher as it cleans, they are easily ‘stripped out’ and evaporated into the air.

OK. Did not know or think about all that last time I turned on my dishwasher.

This book is full of info like this. Its almost too much. The modern home has lots of stuff in it that is not great for us to breathe or absorb. Makes me want to go live in a yurt. But the book does give you pause about the sorts of materials we have in our home, and what they might be doing to us.

What I like about the book are all the footnotes, most ‘green living’ books don’t cite sources.

One of our Real World Green shows talks about recycled toilet paper, and it features me juggling toilet paper. Check out the video and tell us what you think below.

February 28, 2010