In a move that apparently makes me horrifically old-fashioned (if any of my peers are indications), I admit to being quite attached to cleaning my counters with actual dishcloths. If I spill something that is a bigger job than a cloth can handle, I grab an old tea towel and soak it up. Everything tosses into the washer. To me, this makes perfect sense.
For whatever reason, it seems like most people I know use some version of a freakin' babywipe to sweep down their counters. And god forbid a glass of wine upends on the counter or kitchen floor...out come the paper towels - a whole roll in the service of mopping up something that could just as easily have been sucked into washable, reusable towel.
When did we become such creepy germophobes? Has anyone ever seen any studies that show that moms who use bleach-infused wipes have kids with fewer bouts of sickness than those who use a dishcloth - maybe even a cloth that is a day past its prime and might need to head to the laundry? (This isn't rhetorical - if you know of a study, let me know...I've never found one.) Is it really more convenient to go to the store to buy a plastic package of countertop-babywipes, find said wipes under the sink, rip out seven or eight, use them to clean, and then recycle the plastic package when they are all out, than it is to wash and fold a few cloths and towels?
Really?
-Heather...off to stop feeling sanctimonious, but still puzzled...
For whatever reason, it seems like most people I know use some version of a freakin' babywipe to sweep down their counters. And god forbid a glass of wine upends on the counter or kitchen floor...out come the paper towels - a whole roll in the service of mopping up something that could just as easily have been sucked into washable, reusable towel.
When did we become such creepy germophobes? Has anyone ever seen any studies that show that moms who use bleach-infused wipes have kids with fewer bouts of sickness than those who use a dishcloth - maybe even a cloth that is a day past its prime and might need to head to the laundry? (This isn't rhetorical - if you know of a study, let me know...I've never found one.) Is it really more convenient to go to the store to buy a plastic package of countertop-babywipes, find said wipes under the sink, rip out seven or eight, use them to clean, and then recycle the plastic package when they are all out, than it is to wash and fold a few cloths and towels?
Really?
-Heather...off to stop feeling sanctimonious, but still puzzled...
Here in the middle of Week 3 of nonstop business travel, I have to admit to feeling a bit burnt out. I need a vacation.
Bizarrely, my thoughts keep turning to my ex's family's summer home. They owned these little islands in the middle of one of the Great Lakes in Canada, where they built lovely sleeping cottages and a large living-dining area - sort of like a small-scale, high-end summer camp. Nearly impossible to explain, but the place was idyllic and tranquil and dreamy - no consistent electricity or running water, so we lived on candlelight and fresh air.
One of my favorite things about time spent there were the raucous, delicious dinners we'd chef up in the dining hall...and the fantastic all-natural chandelier suspended from the ceiling. We'd take sheets of honey-combed beeswax and roll our own candles, and fit them into that chandelier. Hoisted up, it gave off a sweet scent and even sweeter light.
-Heather...off to plan for a real vacation in a month or so...
Bizarrely, my thoughts keep turning to my ex's family's summer home. They owned these little islands in the middle of one of the Great Lakes in Canada, where they built lovely sleeping cottages and a large living-dining area - sort of like a small-scale, high-end summer camp. Nearly impossible to explain, but the place was idyllic and tranquil and dreamy - no consistent electricity or running water, so we lived on candlelight and fresh air.
One of my favorite things about time spent there were the raucous, delicious dinners we'd chef up in the dining hall...and the fantastic all-natural chandelier suspended from the ceiling. We'd take sheets of honey-combed beeswax and roll our own candles, and fit them into that chandelier. Hoisted up, it gave off a sweet scent and even sweeter light.
-Heather...off to plan for a real vacation in a month or so...
There's only one arena in which these great sugar alternatives can't compete, and that is the heavenly realm of cinnamon toast, best eaten before bedtime IMHO. (And yes, I'm fully aware that cinnamon toast and bedtime snacks are usually associated with 12 year olds. Ahem.) The cinnamon mixture that I liberally apply to heavily buttered, perfectly golden toasted white bread simply requires pure cane sugar - that's the one. So there it is, in the glaring light of the Ideal Bite blog: I have a little box of C&H sitting in my cupboard for those moments when only cinnamon heaven will do.
-Jenifer Morgan...off to do some more Z Sweet experimentations...
-Jenifer Morgan...off to do some more Z Sweet experimentations...
You people. You know who you are. You remember birthdays and send a card. You compile great photos from shared experiences and pop them in an envelope accompanied by a perfect slip of stationary. Magically, you even manage to send out your thank you before it seems you have even had time to open the present…
Me? You’re lucky if I even remember to dash off an email to you sometime during the month after your birthday.
-Heather…off to get some Sappycards to have on hand for the perfect occasions…
Me? You’re lucky if I even remember to dash off an email to you sometime during the month after your birthday.
-Heather…off to get some Sappycards to have on hand for the perfect occasions…
Whenever I called my dad and told him I was feeling stressed, his answer was the same: "Just go play some tennis."
-Jenifer Morgan...off to work on my follow through...
-Jenifer Morgan...off to work on my follow through...
After wasting hundreds of hours of my life driving around in circles looking for street parking (parking spaces in downtown San Francisco run in the $300-$400 range per month), I decided to become a real urban girl. I sold my car, signed up for FlexCar, and invested in a few versatile pairs of walking shoes and some MUNI passes. The carbon I emit during my commute is from breathing alone. To boot, Ideal Bite is offsetting my plane travel this year. Not too shabby.
As the video we included in today's Personally Speaking points out, offsetting alone isn't the end all be all solution to our global-warming problems, but it's a start, and it sure feels good.
-Jenifer Morgan...off to walk past people driving around in circles...
As the video we included in today's Personally Speaking points out, offsetting alone isn't the end all be all solution to our global-warming problems, but it's a start, and it sure feels good.
-Jenifer Morgan...off to walk past people driving around in circles...
Our friend Adam Browning at Vote Solar turned us onto a new bargain: low-hassle solar installation from Sun Run. The CA-based company handles all the hard stuff (design, installer screening, maintenance) while you pay reduced setup fees and get tiny electricity bills as soon as your system's running. Starting with pilots in the Golden State (it's not yet national - which is why we didn't include it in the Daily Tip), this kind of program is set to bring solar to the masses.
-Toshio...off to stare at the sun...
-Toshio...off to stare at the sun...
I miss Trixie. Trix was this biodiesel '76 Benz I bought on Craisglist so I could tool around in her after I first got to SF last year. She was a lovely broad - sort of past her prime, but blissfully unaware of that fact. (She was insanely fun to drive, albeit a bit cranky about things like shifting into the right gear or starting at all.) But she drove like a dream once started, and she ran on biodiesel.
Then that pesky vixen Jen Boulden rear-ended me during a company retreat, bashing in the Trix's backdoor and locking up her trunk, and I couldn't afford the bodywork, so I donated her to help fund a women's shelter. Figured that was a good way to continue Trixie's grand good-girl/bad-girl, girl-power karma.
I don't know what karma is gonna do to the evil, trunk-bashing Jen.
-Heather...off to think of all the ways my Prius just isn't as much fun as my biodiesel was...
Then that pesky vixen Jen Boulden rear-ended me during a company retreat, bashing in the Trix's backdoor and locking up her trunk, and I couldn't afford the bodywork, so I donated her to help fund a women's shelter. Figured that was a good way to continue Trixie's grand good-girl/bad-girl, girl-power karma.
I don't know what karma is gonna do to the evil, trunk-bashing Jen.
-Heather...off to think of all the ways my Prius just isn't as much fun as my biodiesel was...
Keeping It Real: I have a backyard the size of a postage stamp, on top of a huge hill made out of bedrock. I am NOT digging a hole to China to tap into the earth's energy core.
So why the tip, you ask? Because some of you might just live somewhere like Yellowstone. You might just have 100 acres and a spare wad of cash lying around, and you might just give it a shot.
And the rest of us can simply drink geothermal vodka and plan our next vacation to Iceland...
-Heather... off to carbon offset yet another cross-country flight
Every energy source has its drawbacks. With wind, one of the biggest issues with windmills are bird and bat deaths. Rooftop windmills don't pose much of a problem, but the big ones, according to this article in Audubon Magazine, kill tens of thousands of birds each year. Read the article, though, and it's clear that there are bigger, badder threats (housecats, for example, which kill as many as 100 mil wild birds each year). Compound that with the fact that nobody seems to know how many birds die from nongreen power sources, such as pollution from coal, and it's hard to know what to believe.
In spite of the deaths, the two biggest bird organizations in the country, the Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy, support wind power as long as birds are taken into account during windmill design and construction. Read what that means here and here, and always mind your housecat.
-Toshio...off to call a bird (in the British sense of the word)...
In spite of the deaths, the two biggest bird organizations in the country, the Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy, support wind power as long as birds are taken into account during windmill design and construction. Read what that means here and here, and always mind your housecat.
-Toshio...off to call a bird (in the British sense of the word)...
Hey – at the very least it will convince you to take out the
trash, no?
-Heather… off to plan my Burning Man 2008 camp…
trash, no?
-Heather… off to plan my Burning Man 2008 camp…
Years ago, I lived in an English dorm that was not only modeled after a Swedish prison, but also built on top of a former graveyard. In truth, the prison part is what kinda got to me (you try sleeping on a wafer-thin sheet of foam glued to a sturdy board for a year). The graveyard bit, well...I won't say I didn't have the occasional vision of Jacob Marley floating through my wall, but If you take a look at some of the oldest graveyards in the world, you realize that ultimately, most gravestones wear away, break up, get covered over by vines and roots...and prison-like dormitories. In the end, you can't preserve death, only the memory of life, and that can happen whether you plant someone in the ground like a tree or in a marble tomb.
-Jenifer Morgan...off to bury a hatchet...
As the Personally Speaking of today's tip mentioned, when I was a sophomore in college, I was so into fake jerky that I bought a 10-lb bulk bag of Stonewall's Cajun Jerquee. After a few months, a fake jerky stench pervaded my dorm-room, and I was regrettably forced to chuck the bag, half-eaten, into the dumpster.
I'm not as addicted these days, but I can't stop eating this new Cactus Jerky stuff. It's made in California from a very renewable resource and isn't nearly as malodorous as the Cajun tofu. Note to Heather: Chewy can be a good thing.
-Toshio...off to get wasted...
I'm not as addicted these days, but I can't stop eating this new Cactus Jerky stuff. It's made in California from a very renewable resource and isn't nearly as malodorous as the Cajun tofu. Note to Heather: Chewy can be a good thing.
-Toshio...off to get wasted...
At Ideal Bite, we strive to bring you the eco-best of the best for both ladies and dudes, but we tend to run more female-oriented tips than male. (It might be a function of having a female-to-male ratio of about five-to-one.) We're planning a Biter Boys Theme Week in a few months as a show of goodwill to all the XY Biters out there.
Masks, in spite of the way they're marketed, are a unisex product. Women, metrosexuals, and everyone in-between can enjoy a nice, glowing complexion.
Personally, I already have a regular skin regimen that includes a facial moisturizer with SPF, plus a little benzoyl peroxide to ward off acne, but rest assured that the XX Biter teamsters gave all our Wanna Trys rave reviews.
-Toshio...off to bask in my own glow...
Masks, in spite of the way they're marketed, are a unisex product. Women, metrosexuals, and everyone in-between can enjoy a nice, glowing complexion.
Personally, I already have a regular skin regimen that includes a facial moisturizer with SPF, plus a little benzoyl peroxide to ward off acne, but rest assured that the XX Biter teamsters gave all our Wanna Trys rave reviews.
-Toshio...off to bask in my own glow...
When my dad was in charge of collecting eyeglasses for his Lions Club, we always had a big bin of glasses in one of our closets. As with most health care issues, he was a self-diagnoser. He never went to an eye doctor, but instead tried on old pairs until he found a good fit, then put his old pair into the bin to pass along to someone else. Vanity had no part in it, and not only did he occasionally turn up in a pair too small (or way too big) for his features, but his ears were uneven, so they often sat lopsided.
Money saved not buying a new pair? $200. Entertainment unwittingly provided for daughter? Priceless.
-Jenifer Morgan…off to dig up that pair of hand-me-down LAPD sunglasses…
We here at the Bite are nothing if not responsive. After two years of being asked and asked and asked to do a local edition of our tips, we're launching our first two with New York City and San Francisco later this month. After all, acting locally is one of the very best ways to get your green on, so it's only appropriate that we turn some of our Biting eyes to our own backyards.
We plan to follow SF and NYC with launches in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and DC, so keep an eye out. In the meantime - if we aren't in YOUR backyard just yet, spread the good word to your NYC and SF friends. Because, let's face it...small changes add up.
-Heather... off to taste test some more eco-dishes at SF restaurants...
We plan to follow SF and NYC with launches in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and DC, so keep an eye out. In the meantime - if we aren't in YOUR backyard just yet, spread the good word to your NYC and SF friends. Because, let's face it...small changes add up.
-Heather... off to taste test some more eco-dishes at SF restaurants...
There are decent, inexpensive places to get pizza, burritos, chow mein, pupusas, sushi, burgers, and falafel within a one-block radius of my house, but I try to cook a night a week - usually a stir-fry that's big enough to last for a few dinners.
Call me a bad Biter if you want, but I always store the leftovers in my roommate's big, fat plastic Tupperware container with a locking lid. I wouldn't buy one myself (though I'll save and reuse the occasional plastic margarine container), but as long as it's there or until someone gifts me a greener container, I have no plans to give it up...yet another case of cheapness and laziness trumping health considerations.
-Toshio...off to eat out...
Call me a bad Biter if you want, but I always store the leftovers in my roommate's big, fat plastic Tupperware container with a locking lid. I wouldn't buy one myself (though I'll save and reuse the occasional plastic margarine container), but as long as it's there or until someone gifts me a greener container, I have no plans to give it up...yet another case of cheapness and laziness trumping health considerations.
-Toshio...off to eat out...
Ever heard of anyone not liking pizza? Sure, most peeps are picky about the toppings, but by and large, no one really complains when they find out they'll have the opportunity of biting into a triangular sheet of dough with cheese on it.
And yet, there are pizzas that are a pizza-cutter above, namely:
Best NY Pizza: Grimaldis in Brooklyn; thin crust with pepperoni and grease
Best Chicago-Style Pizza: OK, so I've never been to the supposedly windy city, but in the Bay Area, there is a clear imposter-winner, and it's Zachary's; stuffed with pepperoni, artichoke hearts, and black olives
Best I-Guess-You'd-Call-It-Pizza Pizza: the Girl from Ipanema from SF's Pizza Orgasmica
Best Frozen Pizza: Amy's Kitchen Margherita Pizza
Tell us your pizza secrets...where does your ideal bite come from?
-Jenifer Morgan...off to eat some, no matter how they slice it...
And yet, there are pizzas that are a pizza-cutter above, namely:
Best NY Pizza: Grimaldis in Brooklyn; thin crust with pepperoni and grease
Best Chicago-Style Pizza: OK, so I've never been to the supposedly windy city, but in the Bay Area, there is a clear imposter-winner, and it's Zachary's; stuffed with pepperoni, artichoke hearts, and black olives
Best I-Guess-You'd-Call-It-Pizza Pizza: the Girl from Ipanema from SF's Pizza Orgasmica
Best Frozen Pizza: Amy's Kitchen Margherita Pizza
Tell us your pizza secrets...where does your ideal bite come from?
-Jenifer Morgan...off to eat some, no matter how they slice it...
Staple-less staplers are great for a few reasons. They save resources. They don’t take up much space on your desk. They’re so simple you wonder why nobody thought of them before.
I have to say, though, I’d give mine up – without any tears - for a Jelly Stapler.
-Toshio...off to vandalize company property...
I have to say, though, I’d give mine up – without any tears - for a Jelly Stapler.
-Toshio...off to vandalize company property...
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