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winning
Here are a couple of wins for the record. 1) The Sunday newspaper came with no plastic wrap, per my instructions. (I forgot to mention it earlier in the week.) 2) I cooked a lot today — all of it without Teflon or the plastic utensils you need to use to avoid scratching the finish. In fact, I took all the plastic spoons, spatulas and sporks out of the drawer and all of the Teflon-coated pans, pots, cookie sheets and muffin tins out of the cabinet, and they are all ready to donate. My family is going to hate me. 3) The 7th-grade picnic went off without a hitch. I wrote a…
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what’s good enough for me —
—isn’t always good enough for others. I think. I kind of failed as far as plastic and procuring food for The Boy’s 7th grade picnic tomorrow (the last day of school, at last!). They were desperate for anything for the kids, and there was low parent participation over this event — the only thing they had was tomatoes. There’s something like 150 7th graders. I looked at the food list and volunteered to take brownies, some beverages, hot dogs and buns, and potato salad. I had some potatoes, and figured I’d just grab a package of hot dogs. It’s $1 for eight, right? Heh heh. Sure, for the plastic-wrapped hot dogs,…
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flea markets and thrift stores
I spent Sunday meandering around the ginormous antiques fair in Alameda and Monday I did research at several local thrift stores. In all of my travels, I looked at how much plastic is discarded and reused, as well as what alternatives there are for non-plastic use in the home. The items in the photo are some of my finds. I’ll name them, clockwise: ice tray, canisters, cheese grater, nut chopper with new red handle, soap-chip swisher, lawn sprinkler head, jar grabber and fireplace bread toaster. The item in the center is a wall-mounted bottle opener (obviously not mounted anywhere yet). As I start to weed out some of the plastics in our…
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and now, this brief interruption
Press Club Award for Alameda Writer Alameda author, blogger and journalist Julia Park Tracey has been honored in the East Bay Press Club 2010 Excellence in Print Journalism Contest. Park Tracey took first place in the multimedia category for her 30-day coverage of “The June Food Stamp Challenge” in 2010. The EBPC announced results of its annual contest at an awards banquet held June 10 in downtown Oakland.Park Tracey, founding editor and former publisher of the Alameda Sun, and her family lived on the amount of money people get on food stamps for a family of five for an entire month as part of a hunger awareness campaign by bloggers…
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what I’ve learned (so far)
1. Plastic bags are easy to wash and reuse. Fill the sink with hot sudsy water. Slip one hand into the bag and then act as if you are washing your hands. Turn bag inside out and repeat. wring the water out (gently so it doesn’t rip) and then find a good place for it to hang dry. A tall spoon in the dish drainer is a good place if you don’t have an outdoor or bathtub clothesline. 2. Bacon and other meat may leak through one sheet of butcher paper. Next time I’ll ask for a double wrap of paper. Otherwise, the paper is just fine. No plastics needed.…
