Monthly Archives: December 2008

How we roll

December 30, 2008 – 4:00 pm

how-we-roll

You’ve had a taste of our Feats and Eats, but how about Streets? How do we get around?

Well, we use our legs! We put the pedal to the metal, shake our thangs, and (in a pinch) hop on the bus. We have been offi­cially car-less since Novem­ber 2006. That’s when my car died. Good­bye bur­den and hello endorphins.

Where would we be with­out our bikes? No freak­ing where. Our bikes have really rev­o­lu­tion­ized our lives and made things like this blog pos­si­ble. Going to Farmer’s Mar­ket? Car­ry­ing all of our food? AS IF! We are rest­less crea­tures – walk­ing and wait­ing for the bus gets OLD. So, we ride.

Now this may seem like no great feat. We hear you. How­ever, we live in Los Angles where the con­cepts of time and dis­tance are skewed by cars and edge city syn­drome. The bike lanes/shoulders are scarce, the roads are a sorry mess, and dri­vers are moody. Yeah, peo­ple in these parts think com­mut­ing cyclists are lunatics, but that’s just cause they’re jeal­ous. ;)

We didn’t start rid­ing long dis­tances in traf­fic overnight. We started grad­u­ally increas­ing dis­tances back in col­lege as we moved fur­ther and fur­ther from cam­pus. We par­took in the vin­tage bike club… We rode beat­ers with no lights and no hel­mets… (Ah, youth.) L’s bike was stolen out­side of my house and she had to use an old moun­tain bike… I con­verted to fixed gear. We moved, got mar­ried, time passed and here we are. Most of the time it’s less than 10 miles to get where we need to go (a dis­tance that had once been a lux­ury event) – close enough to make it rea­son­able and just far enough to keep us out of trouble.

The more we ride the more seri­ous we get about bike safety. I couldn’t imag­ine rid­ing with­out a hel­met now (It is scary enough to ride in LA traf­fic with dri­vers who don’t see you or don’t care (or want to bru­tally mur­der you)) and we are con­stantly ques­tion­ing if we have enough lights. We invested in qual­ity bags that will allow us to carry more with our break­ing our col­lar bones. Heck, we are even think­ing about get­ting bicy­cle licenses!

The point is that you can get around Los Ange­les with­out a car, even if you live more than 5 miles away from your job. We do everyday.

By Matthew | Posted in Streets | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Farmer’s Market: December 21

December 22, 2008 – 11:22 pm

csa-122108

  • Baby Spinach
  • Beets
  • Chard
  • Kale
  • Kohlrabi
  • Mus­tard Greens
  • Radishes
  • Romaine
  • Toma­toes

fruit-122108

  • Ha’s Apple Cider Vinegar
  • Ha’s Fuji Apples
  • Ha’s Granny Smith Apples
  • Gin­ger
  • Per­sim­mons
  • Raisins
By Matthew | Posted in Eats | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Eco-billing

December 19, 2008 – 1:38 pm

The truth is that I am a fairly cyn­i­cal guy. I try to be an upbeat opti­mist, but we all know the deep dark truth. As a rule I don’t entirely trust busi­nesses. I think they are look­ing out for them­selves and their profit first and fore­most. I think all of these “green” cam­paigns are based on half assed envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­ity and are ulti­mately just done to pro­mote the brand and not the environment.

For exam­ple, at a com­pany I once worked for, as part of their “green” month they gave every­one a cheap ceramic mug to replace paper cups. But they didn’t actu­ally get rid of paper cups. And the ceramic mugs were cheaply made in China at a fac­tory that prob­a­bly pol­lutes a ton. Nice guys!

With all of that being said, I really liked this mes­sage I got from T-Mobile when chang­ing to a paper­less bill:

restoration-project
Sign up for Paper­less Billing from T-Mobile, and you’re not just sav­ing a tree, you could be doing your part to plant one. As a thank you for help­ing us to be more eco – friendly, T – Mobile will plant a tree on your behalf with the Arbor Day Foun­da­tion. Your tree will be part of the Restora­tion Project, planted where it’s needed most — in dam­aged regions like South­ern Cal­i­for­nia and New Orleans, where trees aren’t grow­ing back on their own.

Maybe I’m a sucker, but I kind of believe them. Granted this is a ploy, but I am happy to 1) not get a bill in the mail and feel guilty about the paper used, and 2) for a tree to be planted on my behalf.

“But Matthew!” you say, “I don’t have T-Mobile!” Well, maybe you should pres­sure your mobile car­rier to fol­low suit. Stan­dards are cre­ated by demands.

By Matthew | Posted in Feats | Tagged , | Comments (6)

Farmer’s Market: December 14

December 16, 2008 – 8:22 am

csa-121408

  • Baby Spinach
  • Beets
  • Chard
  • Kale
  • Kohlrabi
  • Mus­tard Greens
  • Radishes
  • Romaine
  • Toma­toes

fruit-121408

  • But­ter­nut Squash
  • Fuji Apples
  • Gar­lic
  • Jerusalem Arti­chokes
  • Per­sim­mons
  • Raw Honey
  • Sweet Pota­toes
  • Tan­ger­ines
By Matthew | Posted in Eats | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Today Laura is 23…

December 12, 2008 – 9:11 am

onemonth

And I couldn’t be any hap­pier. I’ve know Laura for 10 years now! Since I first met her, I thought she was the coolest, most intel­li­gent per­son I would ever meet. And did I men­tion that she is adorable too? Her freak­ing tiny hair? Man!

Laura, you are the most sin­cere, tal­ented per­son. You don’t f around, you mean busi­ness. You put 100% of your­self into every­thing you do. You laugh at my weird dances. You are made of good. You are always con­cep­tual and esoteric.

And this is for you (on your cañada):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Happy Birth­day Lover!

weirds

By Matthew | Posted in Feats | Tagged , | Comments (2)

MIY Tooth Powder

December 9, 2008 – 3:02 pm

I am a firm believer that most things are bet­ter for you if you make them your­self. I like know­ing every ingre­di­ent and it’s func­tion within the prod­uct, how it will effect my body… things like that. I am also a sucker for quirks. Unusual tastes or gen­eral cringe-factors? NBD. In fact, most of the time I will pre­fer said prod­uct to it’s far less endear­ing counterpart.

M is not as eas­ily wooed. I have a feel­ing some of you are the same way.

So, what’s wrong with reg­u­lar toothpaste?

1. Appar­ently store bought tooth­pastes block your enamel from recoat­ing itself while you sleep at night (which might explain my sen­si­tive teeth). What about organic ones? Glyc­er­ine is in all tooth pastes and is so sticky that it takes 27 washes to get it off. Teeth brushed with any tooth paste are coated with a film and can­not prop­erly re-enamelize.

2. If you are using a flouride-free tooth­paste with­out SLS and other yucky ingre­di­ents, you are likely pay­ing a lot for tooth­paste. (If you don’t under­stand why some­one would want tooth­paste with­out flouride, then you may want to check into it. When I found out that Swe­den, Nor­way, Den­mark, Ger­many, Italy, Bel­gium, Aus­tria, France and The Nether­lands have banned flu­o­ride, I fig­ured it was some­thing worth look­ing into. Here are a few arti­cles to get you started: Weston A. Price Foun­da­tion arti­cles and Dr. Mercola’s site .)

3. You didn’t make it!

The best part of about Make It Your­self Tooth Pow­der is cus­tomiza­tion through exper­i­men­ta­tion. Here is a basic recipe with a few sug­ges­tions for mod­i­fi­ca­tions. Got any other ideas or a fun story? Please share.

MIY Tooth Pow­der
1/4 cup Bak­ing Soda*

1 tsp Salt (we use Himalayan pink salt)

2 – 20 drops essen­tial oil (experiment!)

optional: coconut oil for creamy con­sis­tency, myrrh pow­der for super­pow­ers, ground lemon peel for flava, hydro­gen per­ox­ide to kill the bac­te­ria, ste­via for sweetness

Now all you have to do is wet your brush and dip it in your con­coc­tion, brush, and then feel like you just had a pro­fes­sional clean­ing. Easy enough, yeah? If you’re not into dip­ping, try using a scoop­ing device to brace and smear your creation.

While bak­ing soda cleans teeth and removes stains with­out dam­ag­ing tooth enamel, salt helps draw out agents that con­tribute to decay, lessen the reac­tions of sen­si­tive teeth from hot or cold, and curb gum bleed­ing. Bak­ing Soda also acts as an anti fun­gal agent and neu­tral­izes plaque acids.

Yes! We can now check off num­ber 3 of our ten things.

*Other cool uses for bak­ing soda

By Laura | Posted in Feats | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Where does our recycling go anyways?

December 8, 2008 – 6:43 pm

Although I would def­i­nitely call Laura and I avid recy­clers, I have for the longest time been very con­fused about how our recy­cling gets sorted (or if it even gets sorted). In Azusa, they appar­ently sort the recy­clables from the trash (which I’ve never believed). And I remem­ber in Florida, they had sep­a­rate bins for news­pa­per, cans, and bot­tles. But now we put all of our recy­clables in a big blue bin with our neigh­bors. What’s the deal? Well, I will tell you.

I recently came across a video by Recy­cle­Bank that answers all of our ques­tions. The video out­lines the process of how our recy­cling is sep­a­rated and processed. I sug­gest you click through and learn about it. It is as com­pli­cated as you would imagine.

By Matthew | Posted in Feats | Tagged , | Comments (0)

South Central Farmers

December 8, 2008 – 6:36 pm


Image from Wikipedia

We’re eas­ily excited. There’s just no hid­ing it. So, you can imag­ine that we are quite a site to see as we race up to the CSA booth all sweaty and smit­ten, stuf­fin’ our bags like ban­dits behind the tents at the crowded Hol­ly­wood Farmer’s Mar­ket all gig­gly about ALL THE GREENS!!! Hey, it’s our deal. It has changed us. It tells us what we will eat for the week (fun!) and it keeps us in touch with the earth around us.

The South Cen­tral Farm was orig­i­nally cre­ated from the ashes of the L.A. riots in 1992. It was the largest urban farm in the United States until its destruc­tion in 2006. The farm­ers strug­gle exposed the fault lines in Amer­i­can soci­ety, rais­ing cru­cial and chal­leng­ing ques­tions about lib­erty, equal­ity, and jus­tice for the poor­est and most vul­ner­a­ble. The farm is now located in Bak­ers­field. Cur­rently there is devel­op­ment of a For­ever 21 ware­house and dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter on the orig­i­nal plot.

Although we would love to grow our own food, sup­port­ing urban farm­ers feels as close as we can get.

If you live in the Los Ange­les area, you should order the CSA.

By Laura | Posted in Eats | Tagged , | Comments (3)

Ten Things

December 8, 2008 – 12:59 am

Inspired by These Days in the French Life, 40 steps on the per­sonal path to green, and 10 things we decided to cel­e­brate the rebirth of w.b.t.e.o. with some­thing we can all sink our teeth into. That’s right, folks, we’re givin’ you the facts. Ten of ‘em. It’s your job to think about the greater impli­ca­tions. Here’s a few to whet your whistle.

Fact: We live sand­wiched between Bev­erly Hills and the La Brea Tar pits.

Fact: We don’t own a car.

Fact: We walked through a crowd of peo­ple laugh­ing at us as when we were car­ry­ing a pack­age of toi­let paper home from CVS.

Ready for some more? Good. Here’s a list of ten things that we are doing and ten things that we would like to start doing (as the good lord tar­ries). Check it.

We do:

  1. Eat locally and sea­son­ally
  2. Buy thought­fully
  3. Use our legs
  4. Carry our load
  5. Make things
  6. Hang dry
  7. Not waste
  8. Buy in bulk
  9. Eat in
  10. Cut hair

We would like to:

  1. For­age
  2. Grow food
  3. Make tooth­paste
  4. Get our sewing machine fixed
  5. Assem­ble self water­ing containers
  6. Save and exchange seeds
  7. Com­post for reals
  8. Uti­lize pub­lic spaces
  9. Become experts
  10. Use net­work­ing resources to exchange and barter goods and services

They say that when an activ­ity is fun, good for the envi­ron­ment, and also affects per­sonal health or well being it’s much eas­ier to main­tain. We agree.

We do what we like. We do what we care about. It works. You in?

By Matthew | Posted in Feats | Tagged , , | Comments (8)