Monday, August 31, 2009

Saison...review to come

Because I'm battling through a mild, wine-induced hangover from my incredible dinner at Saison last night while trying to catch up in the office after a week of field work in Ohio, my review of last night's amazing meal will have to wait another 24 hours or so. But, until then, you can at least check out our menu. It was worth every penny.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

LocalHarvest

Question: What's one way to eat like a king, save money, and be green all at the same time?

Answer: Dust off your pots and pans and cook the amazing food you bought this weekend at your local farmers' market.

Check out LocalHarvest.org to find a farmers' market near you, and spend your Sunday morning tasting the wares of local farmers while mingling with your neighbors. The food is guaranteed to be fresh and local, and because many farmers' markets remove the middle man from the equation, you're getting the best of the nearby farms for much less than you would at the grocery store. The salsa you make from the $5/15 lb bag of tomatillos you bought will taste WAY better than the store-bought brand, and I bet you'll have a lot of free fun making it as well.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Time to rethink your shampoo

This is quite an eye-opening article from Salon about the ingredients in our shampoos. In a nutshell, the article claims that there are only 3 necessary ingredients in any hair cleaning product, and everything else in your shampoo is unnecessary or even toxic. The author even finishes his article by stating that he uses Sunlight Dish Detergent to wash his hair...it has only 4 ingredients, and he uses 1/10th of the volume that regular shampoo requires. He states that one bottle of detergent will last him a year...compared to $8 a bottle for Pantene ProV and the like (that only last a month or two). If you're not down with using dish detergent on your head, consider Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap (and Hair Rinse). They're made for use on your body but lack most of the extraneous ingredients, and since you dilute them, they last forever.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

No Brainer

Libraries, people! Libraries!

It's books for free. What else is there to say? Sure you have to give them back in the end, but how many books do you read more than once anyway? Save trees, save money...go get a library card.

Also, the excuse that "they never have what I'm looking for" is no longer valid. Most libraries now allow online book reservation, and you are notified by email when your request shows up at your local branch. I picked up two last night that were available a mere five days after I posted my requests (though a third is going to take a while to show up, but it's a new release). In the meantime, I'll keep myself busy with less popular but equally as satisfying oldies but goodies.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Splurge Alert

Sometimes it's worth blowing your well-earned cash on something special, and on August 30th, I will be spending mine on a fabulous dinner at Saison with Eric. Saison is a new restaurant located in the Mission that "is a place where one can come and dine on the finest local bounty and where wines are poured with the same care as a Michelin starred restaurant yet be totally at ease in a casual environment. We have decided that we should remove the unnecessary frou-frou and provide what is most important to us in a dining experience." The food is all local and organic, as are the wines. I'm SO excited, and a review will definitely be posted on the 31st (I'll be in a food coma until at least Monday).

And actually, compared to what we would pay for a similarly amazing meal at almost any other highfalutin restaurant here in SF, $90 for a four course meal with wine paring is a straight-up deal.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

GoodGuide: Your Guide to What's Good

I happened upon a great new website today, GoodGuide.com. The story of how I happened upon it will have to wait, but the effect that GoodGuide can have on your life should not. According to the NYT, Newsweek, and may other sources, GoodGuide provides the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home...FREE! Using criteria tied to three overarching performance areas (health, environmental, and social), GoodGuide assigns scores to consumer products, deeming them good, iffy, and/or bad choices based on their criteria. The results can be surprising. For instance, who would have guessed that a Kashi cereal would be at the bottom of the cold cereals list, while plain Cheerios are near the top (the complete list is here). See, you're already learning things... So next time you're thinking about changing shampoos or buying your nephew a present, you can look at GoodGuide to assess the impacts of the products you're about to buy. You might rethink that Nerf Rocket Pass you were eying.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

It's official: Save money, reduce carbon emissions...Go veggie

Since the Copenhagen Climate Congress in March, there has been a fair amount of hubbub about the climate benefits of changing one's diet. The bottom line, as put by Treehugger, is that a vegetarian diet, or one at least that radically reduces meat consumption, can have massive climate change mitigation benefits. According to a presentation at the Congress/Treehugger, if this transition of dietary norms was started in 2010 and completed by 2030, and that pasture and cropland was allowed to regrow as forest, it would soak up such large amounts of CO2 that, in combination with the resultant reduction of methane emissions due to the animals themselves, the costs of climate change mitigation would drop by 70% by 2050, as compared to a business-as-usual scenario.

In addition to reducing carbon emissions/climate change mitigation costs, being a vegetarian saves you SO much money (I can speak from experience). I don't need to go into the cost-savings of cutting meat from your diet...we all know that veggies cost way less than meat. So, even if you aren't going to full-time veg, think about cutting meat out of your diet a few days a week. You'll be doing both yourself and the environment a favor.