December 5, 2016
by cablackmar@yahoo.com
Comments Off on How Sustainable is my Bacon Soap?

How Sustainable is my Bacon Soap?

This is the fifth year I’ve made bacon soap. Cold process soap making–which describes the method of making soap through a chemical reaction –uses lye and is not a kid-friendly activity. I skipped soap making last year on account of having a baby, and I ended up really missing the bacon soap. It’s smooth and moisturizing and unlike anything you can buy commercially, probably because many/most people find the idea of lard soap disgusting. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that on one or two occasions I found some unused bars I’d gifted in previous seasons in the homes of relations–and after calculating the likelihood of the bar languishing forever unused, I snagged a few back. The other person who is a big fan of Sunday Best soap is my Grandfather-in-law, who grew up partially in rural Kansas in the 30s and has no hang ups about the making of soap from lard.
I myself am split on the issue, having become a mostly vegetarian “flexetarian” a year and a half ago, most of the lard for this year’s soap came from my aunts who collected it for me. Obviously it would be better for our health (and would be great for slowing climate change) if we all quit bacon… But so long as lard is being thrown out by someone I know, I’d prefer to use it. This especially true because the vegan oils typically used in soap formulations also come at a significant environmental and financial cost.

I got into soap making partially in effort to find an alternative to bottled plastic liquid soaps and the waste they make, but also to upcycle cooking grease. One of the ironies, however (there are always ironies in attempted zero waste living), is that having all the tools to make soap is something of an investment. For the most part I’ve tried to avoid buying separate tools for soap making. Several sources I’ve seen recommend having a fully separate mixing spoons, containers, stick blenders, etc for soap making, which are not used for cooking. This is unrealistic for me from both a cost and a storage perspective. I use my regular stainless steel and Pyrex cooking tools to make soap, and afterwards wash everything thoroughly.

There are a few tools that are essential in soap making, and also do double duty in the kitchen, including:

– a scale– I bought one years ago to determine postage for selling books online. In order to get accurate measures for the chemical reaction needed to make soap, this is essential.

–a stick/immersion blender–also great for making soup! I’ve never made soap without one. It integrates the mixture of lye and lard expediently.

-thermometer: I use a somewhat inaccurate candy thermometer. Someday I may need a better one.

-soap molds: you can use a lot of things in lieu of purchasing silicone soap molds, including heavy duty leftover plastic packaging. Soap should typically be cool enough when it is being poured not to melt most plastic. I bought some silicone molds before I realized this.

Safety goggles and gloves: lye is corrosive, safety and safety equipment are essential.

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I have worked to keep my apothecary-making kit something that can fit easily inside a single 25-gallon Tupperware trug (one I found in the trash without a lid, therefore allowing a little overflow up top). Last year the folks at Root Simple (one of my favorite homesteader blogs) did a great series of posts on their attempts to de-clutter their lives per the Marie Kondo ‘magical art of tidying up’ method. They did a post on the challenges of doing this when you are leading a homesteader lifestyle. The truth is that if you want to avoid single use and disposable objects, one has to keep more re-usable tools around. As an obvious example, I have a large, full size dresser drawer plus another bin or two full of cloth diapers for my baby. This large bin probably saves 16 pounds of plastic garbage per week, and significant amounts of water and energy on wash because I can get away with just one load of diapers a week. But the cloth diapers occupy a larger footprint in my house than a slim pack of disposable diapers would.

As charmed as I am by the idea of a streamlined life with empty, zen-like rooms, this doesn’t reflect my lived experience with the hoarding and resourcefulness that an attempted zero waste waste lifestyle inspires.  All of which is to say that all of these decisions are negotiated. Clear answers on best practices on sustainability are hard to come by, and often shift depending on how much of the product lifecycle you re looking at. For the time being, I hope to use the infrastructure for soap making I’ve developed to continue to make soap for as long as bacon grease continues to be a breakfast byproduct amongst my friends and acquaintances.

November 28, 2016
by cablackmar@yahoo.com
Comments Off on Pounding the Digital Pavement in Search of an Ethical Cyber Monday

Pounding the Digital Pavement in Search of an Ethical Cyber Monday

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Ethical Cyber Monday…Is there such a thing? I’m glad that for the most part, my family and friends have moved on from exchanging gifts, and that my eldest child only wants pokemon cards while my youngest is too young to want anything new. That said, the Black Friday/ Small Business Saturday/ Cyber Monday/ Giving Tuesday events are rolling forward, and the pressure to spend is high. While I participate in ‘Buy Nothing Day‘ each year in lieu of Black Friday, and support businesses like REI that have chosen to close their stores that day to give their employees the day off, I confess to doing some retail therapy this Cyber Monday. I’m trying heard to do my spending ethically this year. Here’s the breakdown so far:

The good: One of the major items on my list this year was a set of king size sheets to be given to a veteran at St. Joseph’s Center in Venice. I was hesitant to get involved with this toy/ gift drive– since it runs against my ‘buy nothing’ mantra. But I was at church the Sunday after Trump got elected, and was starting to stew on questions of why we don’t buy American, ethical products when they are available to us. I decided I’d participate in this drive, but would do it on my own terms by buying something made in the US, preferably through ethical means (if possible). Many of the folks on the list had ‘King Size Sheets’ as their request item– and I figured that, with the minimal sewing involved with sheets, that there must be a ‘made in the USA’ option. I also realized pretty quickly that this was going to be expensive– so I committed to buying just one set. Googling ‘made in the US sheets’ I came across this list of US bedding manufacturers from USAlovelist.com. I tried to pick out a company that might have a somewhat ‘value conscious’ product, while still being made in the US. This website recommended “Authenticity 50” which makes sheets sourced “from seed to stitch” in the USA. Checking out their website, they sell only white sheets–and explain that “Nearly all bed sheets are made overseas from stock fabric that is simply re-branded. We are the ONLY ones who use our fabric and in order to run more colors, we need volume.” To buy a set of king size sheets from this company was $189– with a 5% off Cyber Monday discount, the total was $180. The cost was pretty steep, and far more than what it would have cost to walk by Ross Dress for Less and picked up some discounted sheets, but this was the deal I cut with myself so I grit my teeth and went for it.

screenshot-authenticity50-com-2016-11-28-15-14-55

I had initially ordered some sheets from the Company Store, which claims on the front page of it’s website to be ‘made in the USA’ by a company in Wisconsin. After reading the claim about almost all sheets being made overseas and ‘re-branded’ on the Authenticity 50 website, I went back and checked out the sheets I’d bought. Looking carefully at the product description, I realized I’d been fooled– the sheets I’d initially purchased ($200 minus a $50 cyber Monday discount) were actually imported! I actually had to call and cancel my order. This was pretty disappointing.
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Worth noting is that these sheets were made with organically grown cotton– which, given the pesticide-heavy nature of cotton cultivation, may in the great ethical balance make this the better choice– but it doesn’t do much for the disappearance of US jobs, or my desire to try to support non-polluting production practices. Furthermore, the almost intentionally misleading design of the Company Store website does not make me want to patronize their business in any case.

The Bad
Happily, California’s legislative ban on single-use plastic grocery bags was upheld by voters when they approved Prop 67 this year. In celebration, some Cyber Monday discount purchasing of my favorite ‘Baggu” re-usable grocery sacks seemed in order. I LOVE these nylon bags, I use them for my knitting projects, grocery shopping, as a travel bag and on and on…. but it had never occurred to me to research where they were made. On the plus side, the baggu website does have clear information about where these bags are produced: https://baggu.com/pages/eco-ethics . On the negative side, the bags I like so much are assembled in China: “Our factories in China are audited yearly by an independent third party for occupational health and safety. These audits help ensure that humane work hours and wages are enforced, and that the facilities are safe. We also work with factories that minimize the impact of our production on the environment. Our nylon is produced in an ISO 14001 certified factory.” In the end, though I was disappointed that the bags are made in China, I did end up purchasing a few with the Cyber Monday discount anyway. Semi-fail. Hopefully I now have enough bags to last me the rest of my life, and if there are any more that are needed, maybe I can order them from Made in San Francisco “Project Green Bag.”

The Ugly
After watching “the True Cost” I was very energized to curtail my purchase of cheaply-made, ethically-environmentally-costly clothes. It’s been about a year since I saw the film, and for most of the year I’ve been pretty good about not buying stuff from target or elsewhere. I’ve increasingly attempted to mend my clothes, care for the clothes I already own very carefully, and use the fabric I already own to make new clothes. But… I get tired of the clothes I already have. And my wardrobe is seriously limited right now by the fact that I’m still breastfeeding my baby. And so….. guilty as charged, there was a purchase of five (5!?!) new tops, all of them made overseas, none of them made ethically, from a retailer that, for whatever reason, always seems to sell clothes that look good on me and are easy to breastfeed in. Do I feel guilty? Yes. Will I wear the clothes with impunity? Probably, yes. Clearly I have a long way to go on this journey.

What about you? How are you thinking about your shopping this holiday season? Have the issues that came up in the election changed your approach?

November 13, 2016
by cablackmar@yahoo.com
Comments Off on Personal Survival Plan for Trump Years

Personal Survival Plan for Trump Years

A lot of ink and tears have been spilled since Tuesday’s election of Mr. Trump to the Presidency. I’ve been engrossed in the commentaries friends have posted on Facebook, and by opinion pieces in the papers– so many flavors of blame and panic to choose from. As if to underline the gravity of the situation, Southern California has been broiling in unprecedented mid-November heat wave. Climate change this week seems undeniable and irreversible, the forward march of equity that Trump’s defeat would have signaled feels like it is fleeing in balkanized retreat.

I think the multitude of explanations being provided in left-leaning media channels is reflective of the complex reality of factors that led to Trump’s election. The thing that seems less constructive to me is the tone of accusation that seems to increase the click and share-worthiness of the pieces in circulation. Introspection is merited, anger understandable, but many pieces after insightful and questioning introductions decay into accusatory punch lines, that I think work because the allow white liberals the catharsis of wallowing in our own shame.

The feeling of paralysis that takes hold when you feel ashamed is counterproductive in this moment. Maybe others are activated by that feeling, but I feel more inclined to retreat into the corner and lick my wounds. I don’t deny that the feeling of guilt I experience because of my whiteness isn’t good sensitivity training– after all, dealing with a feeling of ‘wrongness’ because of one’s race has been a persistent psychological burden of blackness since the founding of our country. I feel, though, that one of the hazards of our racialized discourse right now is that it feeds divisiveness at a moment when it is imperative for us to work together. We need to play the cards we are left with with cagey flexibility.

I’m going to join the chorus of voices that advocate for local action under these circumstances. We invested an awful lot of attention in the past four years in the election cycle. Come to think of it, we invest a lot of energy every two years in a national popularity contest that, if we are being honest, we have very little control over. This year I dragged my feet on paying attention to the presidential election for as long as possible. I don’t regret it. The outcome wouldn’t have changed if I had. Instead I (and a lot of dedicated people I know) worked on some of our local campaigns here in Los Angeles. I also think that our efforts in this were probably to small to make a difference… But maybe not, because each of these measures–including two tax measures that each requires 2/3 vote, passed. One of these measures will provide significantly more funding for transit, bike and walk facilities and operations. The other provides money for parks improvements. Collectively they endow climate resiliency and equity in a city better known for the inequities and indignities of it s auto-centric infrastructure. In the scope of national affairs our lives are small. If we give too much of our attention over to national discourse, we neglect all the important stuff in between where change really happens.

Local action can be political but also economic. The most rational and hopeful reason given for Trump’s victory was that his rhetoric tapped into the economic grievances of working class people. Though we can easily cast dispersion on the wisdom of electing a dishonest real estate mogul to the presidency to ‘bring back American jobs’, the despair that underpins this turn of events is real. It also transcends race. When nearly 27% of the male and female Latino voters vote for someone who is a notorious racist, it’s probably worth trying to get to the bottom of whatever is going on. Identifying that the current model of slash and burn capitalism has failed almost everyone is the easy part. Trying to figure out what, if anything, can be done to provide a livelihood and purpose for those left behind in our global ‘race to the bottom’ is the harder part. Here, again, I think that local approaches, especially if taken in mass will make the greatest difference. If we want to bring back jobs, we should buy products produced in an ethical way by companies that have adequate worker protections. These products will surely cost more money, and as we collectively earn less, we will be able to buy fewer things. This reasoned scale-back is perhaps the only alternative to a more pernicious collapse, which seems for all the world to be in its early stages.

I don’t propose these actions as an adequate surrogate to functional national policy, or that we need to organize a true left coalition in the wake of this election. These things need to happen also, and I will work where I am able to support these broader changes. But these national policies are only as functional and possible as people’s local experience makes them to be, and that local area of action is the only area where I feel any sense of efficacy at this juncture. When I started this blog in 2005, it was in response to the feeling of hopelessness I felt in the midst of the George W. Bush Presidency, the War on Terror, and the early sense of disaster looming in the wake of Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ In some regard the ‘change a light bulb’ pacifism/ environmentalism of that moment seems like a placebo, but in another way, it continues to be the only light we are left with as we enter another dark time.

mermaid

November 7, 2016
by cablackmar@yahoo.com
Comments Off on November 8, 2016: Day of Opportunity!

November 8, 2016: Day of Opportunity!

I submitted my ballot by mail last week– and I have to say that despite this being a horrible year in national politics, that there is actually a lot of great opportunity for positive change on my local California and LA County Ballot. Here’s a roundup of how I voted, with some of my favorite social media posts/campaigns on each.

President: Obvious! Hillary Clinton-Tim Kaine! I love this clip from Louis C.K.– “we’ve had 240 years of fathers– it’s time for a mother!”


CA Ballot Initiatives:
Proposition 51 (school bonds): No (this one was really tough– ultimately, we voted ‘no’ based on assessment from Gerry Brown that this bond would essentially be used by developers to rationalize sprawl development, and that school bonds are better managed at a local level (see YES vote on CC, local community college bond for LA County).

Proposition 52 (Medi-Cal hospital fees): Yes– info here: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/ballotbrief

Proposition 53 (revenue bond voter approval): No

Proposition 54 (legislative transparency): No (I personally wanted to vote for this, it would make it easier for me to follow what is going on in Sacramento–which is important to my work– but I have concerns about the reasons behind the bill and that it might put undue burdens on the already insane legislative process).

Proposition 55 (income tax extension): Yes!

Proposition 56 (tobacco tax): Yes

Proposition 57 (criminal sentencing and parole): Yes

Proposition 58 (bilingual education): Yes

Proposition 59 (Citizens United constitutional amendment): Yes: meaningless, but sending a message

Proposition 61 (state prescription drug purchases): Yes

Proposition 62 (repeal death penalty): Yes


Proposition 63 (gun regulation): Yes. This is the one ballot initiative I gave money to this year. I promised myself after Sandy Hook that I would take action on gun violence. I sincerely hope this passes. http://safetyforall.com/

Proposition 64 (marijuana legalization): Yes?

Proposition 65 (carryout bag fees): No

Proposition 66 (accelerate death penalty): No

Proposition 67 (plastic bag ban referendum): Yes

COUNTY MEASURES

Measure A (L.A. County parcel tax for parks): Yes

Measure M (L.A. Metro sales tax for transportation): Yes This is the first time I’ve ever held a sign at a street corner for a ballot measure.

A great explanation of the equity benefits of Measure M here was produced by Investing In Place and can be seen here.

LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT

Measure CC (L.A. Community College District bond): Yes

LOS ANGELES CITY MEASURES

Measure HHH (L.A. City homelessness housing bond): Yes

Measure JJJ (L.A. City affordable housing mandate): Yes

Find your nearest polling place and vote #YesOnJJJ tomorrow! http://www.lavote.net/locator

A photo posted by MCM (@mcmhandles) on

LA County Department of Public Health did an Health Impact Assessment on JJJ here. Though there appear to be concerns that it would ‘make the affordability crisis worse‘, I think the protecctions it proposes would set up good groundrules for devlopment around our transit investments, and that we need to come up with financing solutions to make it happen at a state level.

Measure RRR (L.A. DWP reform): Yes

Measure SSS (L.A. City airport police pensions): Yes

And finally, because I care about San Diego’s ballot measures too: here are two great local guides:
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/politics/ultimate-guide-local-ballot-measures/
and
http://votersedge.kpbs.org/

Be sure to vote NO on prop B. http://sandiegofreepress.org/2016/09/measure-b-ballot-box-planning-at-its-worst/ and http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/editorials/sd-no-measure-b-lilac-hills-flawed-20161006-story.html

November 4, 2016
by cablackmar@yahoo.com
Comments Off on Between Day of the Dead and Thanksgiving

Between Day of the Dead and Thanksgiving

It’s November 4 in the City of Los Angeles.  Even though last weekend was edged with little chill in the air, this week bounced back to the hot, dry, yellow-tinted skies that often visit us in our Southern California version of autumn.  Ravens caw and circle, you can feel the nitrous oxides and the sulfides from traffic get trapped and bloom in the heat.  Everything feels browned, burnt and dusty.

Today I got to go downtown to the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration–a modernist, 50s building with robust air conditioning and the opportunity to take escalators up all ten floors to the wood paneled top.  Staid and solid, I was there for a meeting where government teams from across the county were being trained on how they could advance racial equity.  Nobody brought coffee, but it was okay because the conversation was powerful, and there was a mini-bodega on the third floor that with salsa music and lukewarm but surprisingly good coffee offered for a dollar to those with their own mugs.  There was also a line of pay phone booths, each in its own private niche—a weird, wonderful mash up of nostalgic and progressive.  Within this grandfather building, good things were percolating.

So here I am, tongue tied by my whiteness and privilege.  I’m surrounded by  these incredible men and women I work with—most not white, not from privileged backgrounds, who manage to be both pragmatic and hopeful about how we can end racial disparities—even on November 4—what feels like day 10,000 in the longest, most bitter presidential election ever.  This is the fifth or maybe sixth time I’ve done the ‘lay it on the line’ exercise, where you stand up on a spectrum with others to demonstrate whether you believe (or cannot believe) that we will end racial inequities.  Each time I stand somewhere different on this spectrum—today many people were in the middle ‘in a funk’ thanks to Trump.   But there were still a few—many who were not white, who stood on the side of belief that we could do it.  This leaves me with admiration, and makes me search my own heart for that optimism.

Popping out of the air conditioning and into the smog at the end of the day, I took a turn through Grand Park to walk my legs before heading home—and I was taken in by #DowntownDia—the annual collection of Dia De Los Muertos Altars curated by Self Help Graphics and Art and scattered throughout the park.  Of course I was lured in by all the orange marigolds—but when I looked closer, I noticed each altar was designed and built by a different individual or group, honoring something, or someone that has passed on ahead.  This is where I have to be so grateful for the infusion of the Dias tradition into the culture of LA.  Even my protestant, Presbyterian Church had an altar this year, and celebrated a specific service for ‘All Saints’ day on Sunday, inviting congregants to come forward and light a candle for the ‘saints in their lives.’   There is a re-infusion of the meaning around loved ones and remembrance into the carnival aspect of Halloween, a great mix of intention and celebration, death and decadence.

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The altars were wilting and beginning to rot in the November heat.  Ants were slowly marching away with crumbs of the pan de los muertos, marigolds petals were puckering and receding.  But the meaning of each was still very much present, amazing celebrations of some of the lives and tragedies that are often silent in these public spaces.  There were several altars commemorating the lives massacred at Pulse Night Club.  An altar to mental health and lives lost to suicide and other deaths on LA Metro’s Blue Line train.  An altar from the office of Hilda Solis in rememberance of the disappeared women of Ciuadad Juarez, and the students who disappeared in Iguala, Mexico.  A very powerful altar from Multicultural Communities for Mobility commemorating the black and brown lives lost this past year by people who were simply driving, walking, or commuting.

One of the ones I found most moving—probably because it is closest to home, was an altar with no marigolds—with a metal baby crib and chair with fronds of Swiss Cheese plant strung through, and bowls of provisions inside—the traditional seeds, chiles, but also lemons and dirt.   It was made to honor the artists’ matrilineal line—a sliver hand rising from the earth, a bowl of water.  Something about this is so powerful to me, an honoring of the incredible, tough, and historically invisible labor of women in nurturing family.  A visual reference to the sleeplessness, the dedication, the rootedness of this pursuit.  I feel deeply grateful to Jenifer Gutierrez Morgan for making manifest a feeling of gratitude I have deep in my heart to the grandmothers and great grandmothers whose names I do not know, but whose efforts I know I could not be here without. 

And I guess that sums up about how I feel in life right now, in this transition between  macabre festival  of the dead and Thanksgiving.  I feel so grateful.  So much right now seems damaged, squalid and tarnished.  Oil spilt, lungs burned, blood stained.  But at the same time I feel the incredible irrepressibility of this movement to make visible sacrifice too often hidden, and to right the persistent injustices in our system—these altars and marigolds and bright, strong people whose light I can stand in.  It’s overwhelming to experience this duality, but  I feel so grateful to be here and to witness it.  Rather than a hard stop to one season and a start to the other, it feels right to stand in this place of confusion and rot, beauty and toil and let my mind drift from sadness to thanksgiving.

October 29, 2016
by cablackmar@yahoo.com
1 Comment

Low-Waste, High Fun Halloween Giveaways: Friendship Bracelet Kits

As part of my ongoing effort to redefine Halloween Giveaways, this year we are giving away friendship bracelet kits.  I had a large amount of leftover orange embroidery floss from past projects– the kind of random craft supply that may never get used.  Making up the kits was pretty easy– unlike the dark, pre-Internet age when I was young, and you had to rely on preternaturally crafty friends or camp counselor to teach you the mysteries of friendship bracelet fabrication, we now have hundreds of online tutorials and videos.  I was looking for something I could print out and include with the kit as a tutorial.  I liked these ones from www.artistshelpingchildren.org/


I opted to make half of the bracelets extremely easy 3-strand bracelets, imagining that young kids (5 year olds) could simply braid them, while older kids might be advanced enough to do a simple 3-strand knot work bracelet.  The other half are more complex 6-strand v-pattern bracelets.  Again, a younger kid could braid and an older kid could attempt the knotwork. After counting and cutting the strands, I knotted and pinned the ends and then wrapped each bracelet kit around a tutorial sheet.


No telling if kids will like this– I know the child-me would have been super excited–but then, I’m me!  I hope they enjoy.

October 26, 2016
by cablackmar@yahoo.com
Comments Off on Don’t Forget to Eat the Pumpkin

Don’t Forget to Eat the Pumpkin

https://www.facebook.com/olioex/videos/1820953131496615/

 

This video makes a great point:  it takes 5 months to grow a pumpkin from a seed to a large gourd, and a lot of resources.  In the ever-diminishing window of time between ‘fall decor’ and ‘winter decor’, (it must be down to milliseconds), a lot of those hard-grown pumpkins wind up in the regular old trash.

Now, I love pumpkins, because they represent the ultimate in earth-based, non-plastic, beautiful seasonal decor.  But the enormous resources that go into growing them just to have most of these food items end up in landfills is a sad drawback.  This video suggests that the remedy should be to eat your pumpkin after you carve and light it.  While I couldn’t agree more, I think there are some good reasons why it doesn’t usually go down this way:

Our typical ‘carving pumpkins’ are not good eating pumpkins:  The most common variety of pumpkin grown and sold for carving is the ‘Connecticut Field’ variety.  According to Amy Goldman’s The Compleat Squash, the Connecticut Field variety has been around in America since before European invasion, and became popular in the 19th century because of its high yields.  You can grow 20 tons per acre on manured land in California.  On the flip side, the fiberous, sturdy texture that makes this pumpkin a fast grower and good for carving does not make it a good eating pumpkin.  To remedy this, we could expand our carving palate to include better tasting pumpkins.  Some of these eating pumpkins, especically the Cucurbita moschata or ‘Cheese Pumpkin’ varieties (such as the Musquee de Provence) shown in the bottom left quadrant have very thick walls and can be a bit difficult to carve– but it’s  still do-able.  Cindarella varieties such as the Rouge Vif de’Etampes shown bottom right are truly delicious, but because they tend to be large, some freezing of the cooked pumpkin could be involved– and you might need to think of a carving design that works on a squat squash.  For those that find it acceptable to have a smaller jack-o-lantern, there are several varieties that are delicious, including the rare ‘Winter Luxury Pie’ pumpkin shown top left, and the ‘Lakota’ Squash shown top right.

 

pumpkinvarieitesforeating

clockwise from left: Winter Luxury Pie, Lakota Squash,, Rouge Vif de’Etampes, Musquee de Provence

Sugar pie pumpkins, which are ubiquitiously sold at grocery stores for pie making, (and are also the ones that you get if you buy canned pumpkin) are probably the way to go if you are looking for something both carve-able and edible,and easy to find.  You will have a smaller Jack-o-Lantern, but there is some charm to that for sure.

Is it really okay to eat a pumpkin after you have carved it? 

In addition to the fact that our standard carving pumpkins are not delicious, there is the simple barrier of whether or not it’s gross to eat a pumpkin after you’ve carved it/ painted it/ let your children sneeze in it/ etc.  I have some possible concerns about this– I mean, you let your kids go at this thing with disgusting hands, scraping bacteria all over the inside of the fruit, and then you essentially culture the bacteria overnight by putting in a nice warm candle and letting it slowly warm.  That said, I have eaten many pumpkins after carving.  Basic logic applies:

  • If you use a real candle, choose a beeswax one  rather than a comercially-scented parafin one that could contaminate the flavor of your pumpkin
  • Remove wax prior to roasting
  • If you paint your pumpkin, try washing off the paint prior to roasting.  Scoop out the flesh and avoid using any paint-tainted skin.
  • Roast the Jack-o-Lantern as soon as practically possible– this is especially important in warmer places where mold and rot sets in quickly after carving.
  • Cut out yucky parts prior to roasting.

How to Roast: Follow these guidelines for roasting pumpkins: Cut pumpkin in sections, roast on oiled pan (skin up or skin down) at 350- 375 degrees F for ~ 45min to 1 hour or until it is soft when poked with a fork.  Scrape out flesh.  If you roast a standard ‘Conecticut Field’ pumpkin, consider pressing roasted flesh into a seive to squeeze out excess moisture before using.

Pumpkin Roasting and Recipe Links:

Finally, if you don’t manage to eat the pumpkin this year, compost it!  Just remember to take out the seeds first (and eat them instead!)

October 11, 2016
by cablackmar@yahoo.com
Comments Off on Craft Refuge

Craft Refuge

wreath Based on the mirror provided by my friends on social media, I can now articulate that this presidential election is making me (and a lot of others) feel horrible. With the release of the Inside Hollywood tape as the final straw, the fact that we were still asked to dignify this process with our attention on Sunday night to another debate was too much.

Wallowing in the awfulness of it isn’t my thing, though, so I got myself a mindless diversion in the form of this pre-made Halloween Wreath from Paper Source.  My husband and I sat down on Saturday night and painstakingly punched out and assembled twenty paper flowers.  I felt a lot better afterwards, and I feel better every time I see it on my way to my apartment door.

Incidentally, I feel like this is the perfect thing for an indoor apartment front door– it might be too delicate to do well on a real outside front door (even here in mild mannered Los Angeles).  The hall in my apartment building is a lot like the inside of a mid-range hotel chain.  Normal Halloween stuff often looks a bit over the top in this situation– you don’t want anything to make you feel creepier than flourescent hall lights and the faint smell of garbage from the trash chute already make you feel.  This wreath elevates the situation, adding something pretty and yet still retaining some Halloween flair.

August 18, 2016
by cablackmar@yahoo.com
Comments Off on 08.16.16 This Week in the Garden, Begin Again

08.16.16 This Week in the Garden, Begin Again

Rust Spider Mites on Tomato Stems

Returning to the garden after two weeks sans irrigation things were looking pretty desperate.  It’s been a horrible year for tomatoes– sporadic watering, dry hot conditions, and dust blown up from the adjacent residential neighborhoods ‘mow and blow’ gardening conspired to create the perfect conditions for spider mites (I believe these are ‘rust’ spider mites).  The mites weave a spidery web around new growth (see the gossamer sheath on the green area above) and then suck the growth dry.  Immature tomato fruit falls off as the stems of the plant collapse and turn brown.  Short of installing some kind of irrigation system to prevent water stress (not going to happen), I expect the mites to return next year.  I’m quite disappointed, since tomatoes are my favorite home garden crop..

Yesterday being the first day of school, I got a new start at the garden, pulling back the hay mulch, uprooting up the dead, mite-infested tomato plants, and turning in some fresh compost and chicken manure.  I am planning to plant winter crops in the coming week– deliberating whether to start them from seed or from starts.  It’s hard to keep the soil in these beds moist enough to start from seed this time of year without using a heavy (and seed stunting) mulch, so I may go with starts.

The crowning glory of this year’s summer garden was the pumpkin volunteer.  Now that it is finally grown I believe it is a Fairytale pumpkin, Cucurbita moschata, a French variety also known as Musque De Provence, that seeded itself from a pumpkin I bought (and must have cooked and composted) last year.  It sustained a few injuries from rodent gnawing, but in the end may be one of the best pumpkins I’ve ever grown.  I was happy to put it up on display in the spirit of Hogwart’s Hagrid to welcome the students back to school.  After Halloween, I will hope to cook it up for the students, and save its seeds in the hopes of another round next year.  Looking back, the pumpkin got started remarkably early, sprouting in March— so I assume seeds will need to be in the ground by February if we want to try to do this on purpose next year.  Given my intense love of pumpkins, it’s nice that one came magically out of the garden this year.