baby epicure

scarfing down a dessert of bananas

There's nothing as much fun for someone who likes to cook as an appreciative eater. The Little Pea is a loud, lip-smacking, spoon-waving, groaning and mmm'ing appreciative eater - I've never cooked for someone so enthusiastic about their three squares a day. She makes it easy to be adventurous in the kitchen.

I've really enjoyed making baby food for her, and thought I'd share a little of the fun with you all. First, a couple of books that we love:

Simply Natural Baby Food, by Cathe Olson
Feeding Baby Green, by Dr. Alan Greene (love love love Dr. Greene!)

The first book is a great little cookbook for babies and toddlers. We were pleased to realize that you can feed a little baby just about anything (natural), as long as you prepare it properly for her. This book taught us how to cook all sorts of veggies and grains to make them safe and appealing for babies who are just starting solids, and well into toddlerhood.

Dr. Greene's book is one of those big advice books written by a pediatrician, but he is very down-to-earth (and all about saving the earth), and we were inspired by his adventurous approach to feeding little ones.

Since babies can't have salt, and since we don't tend to like our vegetables smooshy, the little one isn't eating much of our table food yet. But boy, is she eating diversely. We found that it's fun, easy and cheap to steam up a big pot of vegetables, puree them (when she was tiny) or cube them (so that she can practice feeding herself) and then use ice cube trays to freeze them in individual portion sizes. That makes it really easy to give her a very well-rounded meal full of interesting foods, with very little work.

I have to say that making your own baby food is also far cheaper than buying it at the store, and you get a lot more variety too (not to mention the ability to serve everything organic). We found that depending on the particular ingredients, home-made baby food is anywhere from one-third to one-tenth of the price of store-bought. And of course there's the environmental benefit of less consumption, packaging, transport, production energy, etc.

My partner was particularly inspired by Dr. Greene's book to try to feed our little one something from all 21 plant families before she turned one. The ones in italics are plant families she hasn't tried yet:

1. Mushrooms
2. Amaranths - spinach, chard, beets, quinoa
3. Umbrellifers - carrot, fennel
4. Cruciferous vegetables - broccoli, cauliflower
5. Bromeliads
6. Composites - lettuce (swiped from the garden beds)
7. Bindweeds - sweet potato - the all-time favorite!
8. Gourds - butternut squash
9. Heath plants
10. Legumes - peas and all sorts of beans
11. Lilies - onion
12. Woody trees - banana
13. Sesames
14. True grasses - oats, brown rice
15. Rosy plants - apple, peach, pear, plum
16. Citrus - lemon
17. Nightshades - peppers
18. Grapes
19. Laurels - avocado (best lunch on-the-go)
20. Myrtles
21. Loosestrifes

Hm, seven plant families to go. Perhaps we'll be having mushrooms, pineapple and tahini for lunch tomorrow. Yum!

Shameless Self Promotion!!!

Erp.

I'm a little nervous about posting this here... but I swear that I was told that this is just the place to post this. So if you don't like this, or me (that isn't very nice) I blame Lisa. :)

Tomorrow, Friday, November 30th I'm speaking on a panel for Sustainable and Organic Design at San Francisco State University. The talk begins at 7pm and honestly, I would be honored if any of you could make it. This is the first time I've spoken in public about what it is we do at Del Forte and my experience in Organic and Sustainable design.

I'm going to be talking on the subject of our business (fashion, specifically organic cotton denim) and how this is sustainable specifically and, in a larger sense, what is sustainable for the world and for future businesses. I will most likely also talk about how to go about being sustainable, what sustainable means to me, and how to bring this sort of mentality and knowing to a broader scope.

A University Map may be found on http://www.sfsu.edu/~sfsumap/, The event is on the top floor of the Ceasar Chavez student center, located in the center of the campus. If you are driving, parking is best in the one large parking structure off of Lake Merced Blvd. You can also take BART to Daly City and take the SFSU shuttle to campus.

Again, the event starts at 7pm and there will be three of us talking and answering questions. My fellow panel-mates will be including Gail Baugh, Textile Specialist from San Francisco State and Jeffrey Bletcher, founder Yam Street. If you ever had any questions about sustainability in fashion, textiles etc here is a great opportunity for you to ask them! One of my favorite teachers always said that there were never stupid questions in the world. Only people too stupid to ask. I always liked that.

So yes, that was my shameless self-promotion. I hope you don't mind... and I hope even more that you can all come down if you have the time. Thanks!

Interview with David Tracey::author of Guerilla Gardening

Hello sew greens!
Today I wanted to share with you an interview I recently did with the author of the new book "Guerilla Gardening", David Tracey. He is a journalist and environmental designer living in Vancouver, Canada. His book is all about taking your surroundings into your own hands and beautifying it in the most earth loving way. He was kind enough to take some time to talk about himself and the book. Below is our friendly chat, enjoy!


Ashley:
Ok, so first why don't you just tell me more about yourself and what you do for a living?

David:
It's a bit of a complicated question, actually. I'll make it short as I can: I'm a journalist, also an environmental designer.

Ashley:
What do you do as an environmental designer?

David:
Well I studied landscape architecture in grad school, so I learned to do eco-restoration, site design, edible landscaping... a variety of things. I'm also now working on a project to help get more community gardens in Vancouver, particularly among vulnerable populations. We're working with provincial health and city officials. Also, I'm the executive director of Tree City, an ecological engagement group that gets people involved in their own environment through trees.

Ashley:
That's wonderful, do you feel like Vancouver is accepting of the work you're doing?

David:
Yes, mostly. It's a good time to be here and doing green things because there's a convergence going on, but it's a struggle too... the conservative elements and profiteers are no less voracious here.

Ashley:
So what inspired you to go into "guerrilla gardening"?

David:
I got interested in engaged ecology, the idea that people in cities were losing their sense of place. I wanted to find a way to help everyone get back in touch with the land, and a lot of the people I'm thinking of are not landowners. It's not just low income -- even modern condo dwellers may have expensive places but nowhere to put their hands into the earth. I was also interested in the changing notion of public and private. We're now in an era of intense privatization of everything. I see it more and more, not just with gated communities and private security firms which now outnumber the public police in most north American cities. It's also happening in our minds. We're being encouraged to accept corporate advertising as the arbiters of style and beauty. So to combine a way to get people back in touch with their own shared environment, and to think about what public really means, guerrilla gardening seemed an ideal fit.

Ashley:
I get a sense that to be a guerrilla gardener you have to do a little sneaking around, do you feel this is true?

David:
I don't think it is true about sneaking, although that can be a big part of the appeal. A lot of the best work can be done after you get permission. In the book I define it as "gardening public space with or without permission." I tried to take as open-sourced an approach as possible... even that definition I wouldn't claim as definitive. I wanted instead to make the point that because guerrilla gardening is autonomy in green, everyone should be able to discover what it is for themselves... and no one should be discouraged from doing a guerrilla garden just because the landowner (city or private or whomever) agrees...

Ashley:
I would be slightly intimidated by it. I was glad to read in some of the marketing for the book that "handling officials" has a section. Plus, I would think you would want people to overcome any fear of legalities.

David:
The legal part is more of a fear than a reality, though. It's highly unlikely you'd be arrested for flowering. Although I do have a story of a guy in Montreal who did get busted for graffiti work involving public space issues.

Ashley:
So basically everyone has a right to the earth.

David:
I think so. We all create the city, we all share the air, water, etc. So whose kids don't have a right to breathe clean air?

Ashley:
So what are some other benefits to guerrilla gardening other than visual gratification?

David:
That list can go on and on. It's fun. It can be a community building thing, good exercise, a political lesson in public space, increase biodiversity, lesson in storm water runoff and an environmentally educational tool for green propaganda.

Ashley:
So is there anything you would expect your readers to know before reading the book?

David:
No, not really. I wrote it to be a "manualfesto" so it's a combination of a rant and some practical advice for anyone whether you're a beginning gardener or a pro.

Ashley:
Are you an avid gardener?

David:
Yes, I've loved gardening since I was a kid. I only wish I had more time to do it...the usual excuse. It's almost more of a need than a desire. I know if I don't do at least something every year I get this gnawing sense of regret like...there's a growing season gone. I love plants of all kinds, and am still fascinated by the whole process -- photosynthesis is astounding -- but if I can grow stuff AND eat it too? That's as good as it gets.

Ashley:
So I'm assuming there are guerrilla gardening groups? How would someone get involved with one of those?

David:
There are, some that put the word out and want members, some you never hear of. You and your two friends can go out tonight and plant a parking strip and create a guerrilla gardening group. One example of how to do it is the group that just started up in Vancouver through meetup.com... they're now holding monthly meetings, doing workshops, and sound like they're off to some great stuff.

So hopefully this has given you, our readers, a little inspiration to go out and put your hands in the earth. Plant on!

That concludes our little chat. Please check out the new book Guerilla Gardening and if you would like to know more about David, here is his website::Davidtracey.ca

Related links that David is involved with worth giving a look:
Eco urbanist
Tree city