Resolution: January check-in, February goals

In January, I had wanted to make my own bread. The sourdough culture failed :( , but instead I grew my own mint!

It was delightfully easy. Just take fresh mint (like you can buy at the grocery), and if you have some left over from cooking, just put it in some water for a few weeks until it sprouts some nice white roots. Then plant it in dirt and keep it watered.

In February, I'm going to make my own laundry detergent. I plan on using this process from The Simple Dollar.

I'll check back in at the end of the month, and let you know how it goes!

new year's resolutions

Just two, to keep it simple.

1. Every month, try making or growing something I usually buy. In January, I'll be making bread! Also on the list: growing hot peppers, making yogurt, and maybe making kombucha or getting a dwarf lemon tree. Other suggestions welcome! For the things I make, I will hopefully find local ingredients.
   
2. Vote in all the elections this year. Like many people, I pretty much ignore elections other than the presidential one, and that is very not good :( So I'm going to be informed about the candidates and vote in all the state and local elections too.
   

Native plants that attract butterflies/bees (Northeast US)

I wanted to get some bee and butterfly plants, but we can't actually plant anything in our yard, because of the "Condo Association." Boooooo.

But I'm still looking at getting some native, butterfly-attracting plants, and just putting them in pots (and then they can live in my room for the winter). I had to do a lot of sleuthing to get both native and bee/butterfly-attracting, so I thought I'd share to make it easier for other people who were interested.

I looked for stuff in MA and PA, and it seemed like it was all the same for the Northeast US

Massachusetts & Pennsylvania:
Butterfly weed
Swamp milkweed
Cardinal flower
Great blue lobelia
Bee balm - good "companion plant", esp with tomatoes
Tussock sedge
Black chokecherry
New England Aster
Spicebush

NOT native:
Butterfly bush - "invasive" in the US, native to China & Japan, categorized as a weed in WA and OR

I also learned that "Lepidoptera" is the insect family for moths and butterflies. neat!



Where I got the info:
http://www.whitpaintownship.org/pdfs/raingardendesign09.pdf
http://www.thebutterflysite.com/butterfly-food.shtml
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/rdsduse/ma.htm
plus lots of extra research on wikipedia...

On rules

In a way, anarchism has always appealed to me, and I could never figure out why. Obviously, it's a bad idea overall because it doesn't really accomplish anything, but something about it always seemed attractive to me.

Last night, I figured out what it was:

In our current system (and most systems), we have to follow certain rules. And we don't have to think about whether these rules are good rules or not, we just have to follow them. It's like the problem I have with some religious people (I said some, not all): they believe what they're told and don't really think about it.

Anarchism appeals to me because you don't have to blindly follow any rules.* Assuming you have any morality at all, you would be required to think: "Is this a good thing that I am doing? Is this the right thing to do?" about everything. This is ideal, because it makes everyone mindful of their actions all the time.

Of course, this makes life harder, because you have to spend a lot more time thinking and not as much time doing. But would that be so bad? However, it also assumes that everyone is intelligent, responsible, and moral at all times. Oh well.

Another question:

Is our current system good about this, in a way? Does it actually allow us to decide our own morality, just a little bit? Since we don't actually have Big Brother policing us constantly, we can actually break some rules that we don't think are good rules. Some people get away with not wearing seat belts. Some people get away with underage drinking. But some people get away with murder (but probably fewer people?).

What do you think?




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*This is the *part* of anarchism that appeals to me. I don't actually think anarchism is a good idea. So don't try to convince me that anarchism is a bad idea, because that's not what this post is about.

Recipe challenge: Crepes!

First of all: Sorry, Dan, for giving you imporssible ingredients last time. From now on, I'm going to approach this as 'think of things that I actually think will be interesting together' instead of 'think of things that will be funny/hard.'

Second of all, thanks for these ingredients, I am going to make this again and eat it!

Lemongrass-honey crepes with sauteed spinach and brie

Batter:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1 cup water (can also do 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup milk for thicker)
3 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp "lemon grass herb blend" (I couldn't get real lemon grass from the grocery; this was the best they had. It's like pre-chopped lemon grass in a tube)
salt to taste

Topping:
1/2 bag of baby spinach
pad of butter
wedge of brie

1) In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, eggs, and water. Add the honey & lemon grass.
2) Heat an oiled or buttered frying pan on med to high heat. Pour a bit of batter in and cook until underside starts to brown, carefully flip it over, and cook the other side til a little brown.
3) In a separate pan, sautee the spinach with butter.
4) Once the crepe(s) are done, put an appropriate amount of spinach on each, then as many small slices of brie as you like (I usually do 3-4), then wrap it up, and enjoy!
**For a slightly sweeter version, you can also drizzle it with a little more honey before wrapping it up

First thought: soup or other Thai-inspired dish. Nope, too obvious. I thought it might be interesting to do a dessert with this. I thought about doing a totally crazy creme brulee, but I don't have that little torch thing you need to carmelize the sugar on top (This might still be a good idea though). Then I thought: breakfast! The lemongrass & honey obviously go in the batter, and the spinach goes on top, but I needed to go with something else on top to balance it out. Thought about cheeses, maybe bleu cheese/gorgonzola, but they're pretty strong. Then I went for brie, because I always want to be eating more brie. Then I made it and it was totally delish'.

For your next challenge: brown sugar, bourbon, flour

Yay, Environment! Goal for December

There are obviously, like, a thousand different improvements I can make to my life to make it more environmentally friendly (and you can too!). I'm going to work on one per month, since they say it takes about 24-30 days to make something a habit.

Goal for December: Make vegetable soup stock out of vegetable scraps before composting

I've already started composting; that was the kind of unofficial goal for November. I save my food waste in a plastic bag in the freezer, then take it to Whole Foods when it's full (Whole Foods has a compost can next to their trash and recycling cans in the eatery). I don't know if this is sanctioned, but it totally works.

But to get even more mileage out of the veggies, I'm going to make soup stock out of the stuff before it goes in the freezer. Here's how: How to make homemade vegetable stock

I'll let you know how it goes!

I want to do this cool thing, but this post turned into kind of a shameless plug

I want to join this group called LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails). They find old-school awesome cocktails and promote them in local bars, clubs, & restaurants. They also host a lot of charity events for women in Boston and things, I guess so people don't think they're just a bunch of drunk ladies (which was my mom's first thought when I told her about the group).

But really, this group sounds totally great. Get to learn all about little-known cocktails and cocktails history! It also looks like a lot of their events are vintage-themed, which means I get to dress up. Cool clothes and cocktails?! Somebody pinch me. Also, charity.

And if you get to be one of the official "Ladies of LUPEC" (I'm still not sure how this happens), you get a cool name that's some vintage cocktail. I've already picked out what mine would be, because come on. Check it out: Brown Sugar.

If you're a lady (or a dude. That's ok too.) in any of these cities, there are also LUPEC chapters there:

• Pittsburgh (the original!)
• Chicago
• Denver
• New Orleans
• New York
• Philadelphia
• Phoenix
• Seattle

Also, the cocktail database they link to is the best I've seen yet: http://cocktaildb.com/index

Check it out shut up!