It’s Easy Being Green

Would you like to take a few simple steps to make sure your Super Bowl party is a little friendlier on our environment? Well you can and it’s pretty darn simple just by choosing a few key products that help us all tread a little lighter on our planet. I’m not talking a smörgåsbord of vegan food with a bicycle powered television pumping out the highlights of the game either!

Every Super Bowl party will inevitably have beer. So why not go the sustainable route and pick some beer that’s not only tasty but eco-friendly. New Belgium brewing company, brewers of Fat Tire and a variety of other lip-smacking good beers take pride in helping out our environment. The all employee owned company runs its brewery off of wind power and even takes extra steps like turning the steam generated in the brewing process into even more electricity. I’ve also heard they compost their leftover grains and hops. Frog’s Leap Wine is a great choice if you’d like to sport a little vino in your red plastic cup. The winery uses organic grapes and water-saving farming methods. They’re also 100% solar powered.

But what about chips you say? Pick up some bags of Kettle brand chips. The Salem, Oregon snack food company has restored damaged wetlands at their corporate headquarters where blue herons have now returned en masse. They also operate one of the largest commercial solar power arrays in the Pacific Northwest, saving 65 tons of CO2 every year and they buy wind power for the rest of their electrical needs. Agricultural waste left over in the potato chip process is turned into animal feed or compost and their used cooking oil is turned into bio-diesel, powering a fleet of company cars. That’s pretty cool!

Maybe you need some plain yogurt to make dips. Stonyfield Farms, a New Hampshire based company, supports many organic farms. They have a tree planting program to offset their CO2 emissions and they give 10% of their profit away to environmental causes every year. That amounts to about $3 Million dollars in donations every year.

Want dessert? Try some pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Though they’ve been bought out by Unilever, the company is still doing good. They donate about $1 Million annually and donate to local community projects. The company started an alliance for dairy farmers. It’s a way to keep them in business while improving their environmental practices.

If you need some pre or post game enery, try a Clif Bar. The company’s products are certified organic and are packaged in recycled goods. They moved a bakery near a distribution center to reduce greenhouse gasses, their employees get paid for volunteering in the community and they can get money toward the purchase of a hybrid or bio-diesel vehicle.

Last but not least, when it comes time to cleanup, you can use environmentally friendly cleaners made by Seventh Generation. I’ve talked about the company before. You can read their benefits on the environment and look into other green cleaners by checking out this blog post. Simple steps and easy products to make your gathering greener.

Our night turned interesting rather quickly!  I ran home from work to have dinner with Talina like I do most weeknights.  We had just sat down to a meal of chicken and asparagus when she started smelling something weird, like a burning smell.  Like most guys, the smell didn’t hit me for a few more minutes after my better half already noticed it.  Concerned about the smell, I ventured into the kitchen to see what was going on, expecting that maybe a small bit of food was burning in the oven or the burner on the stove was left on.  I found neither.  In fact the stove and oven had been turned off for more than an hour but yet there was a thin, blue smoke pouring out of the vents on back of the unit.

The fumes were burning my eyes and lungs but I figured simply unplugging the cord that provides electricity to the igniters on the gas stove would solve the problem and get rid of the smoke.   A few minutes later, smoke was still wafting from the back of the stove and filling up the house.  At this point I decided it was out of my hands and called 911.  They told us to evacuate the house until the fire department arrived.  Luckily we didn’t have to stand in the snow and cold for very long because the firehouse is right around the corner from our house!

The firemen were perplexed but decided to shut off the gas and haul the still billowing stove out into the snow in our backyard.  They used their nifty infrared heat device to figure out what was burning inside and began methodically taking the stove apart to work their way into the internal components.  Inside, the firemen found that one of the igniter wires for the burner had arched with another piece of metal or wire and started the insulation burning.  A few handfuls of snow and a couple cups of water later, they deemed the fire officially out.  Whew!  We dodged the big bullet on that one.  There was no damage to the house but it wreaks of electrical fire now and we’re without a stove.  Now we’ll have to get in touch with the property management company to get us a new one.  What fun!

Talina posted some pictures of the mayhem on her blog.  Check it out!

So our huge winter storm is in the process of moving into the mountains of Arizona this morning.  We got about an inch of snow and now it has switched over to rain.  It’s all part of what’s expected to be a gloomy day here.  I’m already considering plans for dinner tonight and I think one of my favorite bloggers, The Pioneer Woman Cooks, triggered my desire for a nice warm roast enjoyed by the fire tonight.  If you’re not sure how to cook a really good pot roast, check out her recipe.  That’s the technique we use and always seems to generate the best results.  You could pair the roast with some of her Buttery Thyme Bread too.  Yum!  I’ll have to see if there’s any bison roast left at the natural food store when we run into town today.

Why not just buy beef you’re saying?  Well, bison meat is better for your heart because it’s low in cholesterol and fat but high in protein.  It’s also high in iron and other essential minerals or vitamins your body requires.  And, if it’s grass fed bison that’s even better because the meat wasn’t fattened on nasty fillers and feed lot grains.  If you Google search for natural buffalo meat or natural bison meat you’ll end up with several different web suppliers.  Your local natural food store should also carry a selection of bison meat in the butcher department.

Ok, time to get ready for the slow, slushy drive into town.

Now is the time that Arizona citrus is reaching its peak harvest season. When I lived down in the valley, there used to be citrus everywhere you looked. In the area of old Scottsdale where I lived, the home subdivisions were actually carved out of citrus groves in the 1950’s post-war building boom. The developers did a nice thing and tried to leave as many citrus trees as possible while they were building.

The neighborhood I grew up in used to be a grapefruit grove. So consequently at the high point of my childhood home we had 12 grapefruit trees surrounding us. It was a daunting task trying to figure out what to do with so much fruit. As a kid I used to sell brown paper bags full of grapefruit for $5.00 and the best days to sell were days when you knew there were a lot of tourists in town (Fiesta Bowl, Super Bowl, Parada del Sol, etc.)

We definitely couldn’t eat the fruit of 12 trees and there wasn’t much inspiration surrounding grapefruit either. Sure we would end up eating a few as a “breakfast treat” or at least that’s what my dad would try and convince us of the supremely sour fruit. I do miss the intoxicating scent of all the citrus blossoms in the spring though and the sight of hundreds of bright fruits adorning trees in your own yard. Now that I’m older, I do have to say that I’m a fan of citrus and miss the plethora of the harvest sometimes. And, since I’m on my quest for sustainability I’ve also discovered a lot of different uses for the warm weather fruit.

The December issue of Sunset magazine had a great recipe for homemade Rosemary Limoncello. Limoncello is an intensely flavored liqueur typically served as an after dinner drink on Italy’s Amalfi Coast and adjoining Sorrento Peninsula. This is the perfect time of the year to make this homemade liqueur in the desert southwest because of the availability of lemons. If you don’t happen to have good access to lemons in your neck of the woods, you can order direct from some citrus orchards out here. The recipe recommends using Meyer lemons because of their fragrance. But you can also achieve excellent results using Eureka lemons. A local Arizona citrus orchard is McClendon’s Select. The Limoneira Orchard in Southern California offers Meyer lemons through their mail order business. Ojai Citrus also does mail order with mixed boxes containing a variety of citrus choices. You could also get a nice variety of swing-top glass bottles to put your limoncello in for giving out to friends and family once it’s matured. To me, it sounds like a great and different way to enjoy this year’s citrus harvest. If you have a favorite recipe using the refreshing flavors of citrus, let us know about it!

Rosemary Limoncello

Courtesy: Sunset Magazine, December 2007 edition

You will need:

18 lemons (washed and dried)

one 4-inch rosemary sprig (washed and dried)

2 bottles of 100 proof vodka (750ml bottles of Stoli or Smirnoff)

4 1/2 cups sugar

1) Peel lemons with a sharp vegetable peeler, taking only the zest (top layer) and avoiding any white pith. Put rosemary in a 1 gallon glass or ceramic container with a tight seal. Add zest to jar.

2) Pour 750ml. vodka over rosemary and zest; seal container. Let sit undisturbed in a cool dark place for about 40-days.

3) On 40th day, in a saucepan, bring 5 cups of water to a boil and add sugar. Cook, stirring, until sugar has dissolved. Let sugar syrup cool to room temperature, about 1 hour.

4) Pour syrup and remaining 750ml. vodka over lemon-vodka mixture, stir and seal container. Let sit in a cool, dark place for another 40 days.

5) Pour limoncello through cheesecloth into a large spouted pitcher and divide among gift bottles. Limoncello will keep indefinitely in the freezer. Recipe makes 10 2/3 cups and will fill ten 8.5 oz. bottles.

I have a lot of extended family that lives back on the East Coast. They’d never really traveled west of the Mississippi before let alone to the Grand Canyon State of Arizona. That I could believe because to this day, I’ve really only seen nine different states. I guess I’m doing better than some now that I’ve taken a count. What I couldn’t believe about those relatives though was their vision that everyone in Arizona must be a cowboy. I have to admit it is a pretty romantic vision of what life in the west is really like. If only every day could be an amazing trail ride, cooking over a campfire and sleeping under the stars.

I once had a penpal in France that toyed with the same romantic notion that everyone in Arizona lived in the wild west. I was often asked what it was like to have to ride a horse to school and to not have any paved roads…just dirt. It made me laugh on a number of occasions just picturing the visions these people must have of me living in the wicked desert of Arizona. For some reason I think they took the celebrations of the Parada del Sol (what’s said to be the world’s largest horse-drawn parade in Old Town Scottsdale), the Hashknife Pony Express and the Prescott Rodeo and rolled them all into one great idea of what life in the west was really like.

Living in Arizona, the sport of rodeo is around almost constantly. It seems to take a small break during the fall and early winter months but runs the rest of the year. It’s pretty amazing to watch cowboys and cowgirls strapped to the back of bucking bulls and broncos, roping calves, and the “mini-cowpokes” riding on the back of a crazed sheep. If you’ve never been to a rodeo before you should try checking one out sometime. The rodeo circuit really just kicked off this month with everyone now competing for the National Finals Rodeo that is the culminating event at the end of the year. In fact, you know a sport has a following when they can get a couple hundred dollars for NFR Tickets! Even if you can’t afford tickets to the NFR in Las Vegas, I’d recommend checking out a local rodeo near you. For a schedule of events you can head over to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association website and click the 2008 Schedule of Events on the left side of their page.

It looks like we’ve got another massive round of winter weather heading our direction here in the mountains of Arizona.  The sun has been out the last two weeks but temperatures have been super cold and we still have a ton of snow left on the ground from the last storm!  It’s good though.  Our parched streams, rivers and lakes all need water and it will help to delay wildfire season a bit this year.  I knew it was going to be a good day…even a good week though when I opened the blinds in the bedroom to see the ice crystals forming feathery art on the window.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

If you haven’t already read my post below on the Mortgage Meltdown and Credit Crisis you should.  This is an illustration of what amazes me about American’s current financial status and the desire for more.  We were watching TV this morning and an ad came on for “cashcall.com”.  They were advertising small consumer loans, presumably to pay your house payment or other items you’ve already fallen behind on like bills and stuff.  Then, the fine print pops up for less than one second at the end of the commercial.  I was able to freeze frame it thanks to my DVR and took a picture using the digital camera:

It’s a little hard to read but let me break it down for you.  The fine print says a typical loan of $2,600 has an APR of 99.25% with 42 months of payments at $216.55 per month with a $75 origination fee.  If you break that down, you’re paying $10,070.00 for the whole loan spread over three and a half years.  That means you paid $6,495.00 in interest alone on a $2,600 loan.  That also assumes you don’t make a late payment or get hit with other fees in the process.  What a bunch of crooks!  I hope consumers steer far away from companies like this!