worth the whisk

I've mentioned several times that I'm trying to fill this last month with as much excitement & France as possible. (I'm also trying to take pictures each day. For this, click here.) This morning, I made a traditional French tart called "clafoutis". For the recipe, click over to my other blog.

The excitement I didn't document was the enormous (not kidding–furry, hairy, gross) spider that greeted me in the bathroom sink this morning. It woke me up; my scream woke Joe up & the poor guy (spider, not Joe) didn't live to see breakfast. I'm still afraid to walk into the bathroom.

While Joe recovered from his murderous morning, I walked to get butter & set to work on a really simple brunch tart. I realized while mixing the ingredients together that I have become completely dependent on my whisk (or "fouet" in French).

I used to hate whisks. They leave lumps; they get all clogged up; they are a manual version of a mixer.

Because of our limited kitchen supplies–our kitchen is whisk-heavy, with a total of four, & light on everything else–I've learned to appreciate the whisk & see the mixer as largely unnecessary.

I had a tendency to over-mix things. This results in overly stimulated baking powder, rising before it gets into the oven; flat pancakes, since the lumps actually help the pancakes stay fluffy; flat-topped muffins & a mess on the counter. I've learned to live with lumps (like those in my "clafoutis" recipe, which actually help the tart rise & create three distinct layers). The whisk prevents this. It tires you out before you can whip things into oblivion, & it doesn't stir thing around the way a mixer does. It gets a bit clogged & takes a bit longer to break things apart, which can actually be good for the ingredients.

Over the year, I've tried to embrace many thing about French culture, like being surprised when I see a rubber spatula. When it comes to food culture, I'm embracing the challenge. I'm learning to whip egg whites & whipped cream by hand, which is still largely unsuccessful (due to limited bowls that will contain the mess & help it–no metal or glass in this kitchen)... but watching Top Chef contestants stiffen egg whites in three minutes has me endlessly motivated.

This has all somehow fueled my excitement for returning to the States & living an even more energy-efficient life. I'm not sure how many emissions I'll save over my lifetime hand-mixing on occasion, but it has me thinking about all the other silly things I can eliminate or never consider buying (though I stand by my rubber spatulas).

Joe & I have really begun thinking about what's essential to a home, a kitchen, a commuter's life, & it's these little moments like this that remind me how we can each be taking one step toward living more efficiently, more sustainably & more independently every single day–and at the same time challenging yourself to do something you never imagined you could do. Fix a pair of socks instead of buying new ones. Using homemade dish soap with things you already have around the house.

So, think about your day. What's one thing you used today that you could try to skip tomorrow?

Enjoy what you're reading? I'd love to know that we're on track. Click Follow on the right side of the screen to stick with us.

how we're saving

 Joe & I have high expectations for ourselves. While we can't act on all of our environmental urges at the moment, we're definitely keeping our priorities in check: looking at food labels & shopping for things that don't come wrapped in plastic an preservatives, using our feet more than our bus system, using more cold than warm water.

In some ways, being in our small apartment in our small French city has made many of these things easier. No, we don't have a garden, but we do have a fresh fruit & vegetable store that focuses on French products–and French farms are just inherently smaller than American (industrialized) farms. All of the vegetables are in bins, so  you use their paper bags to take what you want of each thing. We're limiting our waste by bringing home less plastic & bringing home the perfect amount of food for two people.

We're also drinking a lot more water. Instead of buying the bottles, we keep a jug out on the table. Nancy doesn't have the greatest water quality. (A friend told us that for some pregnant women, the amount of nitrates in the water has been a problem.) Keeping it open in the air actually allows the chlorine to evaporate, and a few other chemicals in some water treatments as well. This means that after an afternoon at work, the water on our table is better tasting & better for us than most bottle water. (No BPAs from plastics.)

While we've focused more on saving money than saving resources with our cleaning supplies from the dollar store, we've made sure that the daily products are as low-impact as possible. These are easy thing to look for and easy switches to make like...
1. buying matches (not lighters) made from sustainable farming to prevent deforestation.
2. buying eco-friendly laundry detergent, which is the same price as your fancy name brand (& better for me, since I'm allergic to a LOT of laundry detergent).
3. buying all natural dish soap or making your own!
4. keeping our organic waste (food trash) in a separate bin than the trash can.

Separating the trash means we can use small bags, like our plastic bags from shopping, for organic waste and save the large black bags until their really, really full since there is nothing to stink up the apartment in them. It's a bit of a tight fit at times, since the apartment is small, but it's a huge help and even fun to see how long we can make it last. If one couple can have no trash for a year by simply watching what comes into their home, we can make a trash bag last a month. (Big money saver too–those bags are pricey!)

The other big thing we're doing to save is not something that I honestly expect a lot of readers to start doing for themselves, though you'd be surprised how much it saves. In France, laundry is a very expensive service: 4 euros to wash a SMALL load, and most times the same amount to dry. Some places are nice & let you dry for free... but they're few & far between. The laundry mats tend to be a bit, um, rougher than a gentle cycle as well. We don't want to buy a new wardrobe, so we're doing as much as we can to save our clothing & our budget. Eight euros for one load of laundry or for two pints at the bar? Come on.

So we've started washing our laundry in the bathroom sink. If we do a small load each day–rinse, wash, rinse & really squeeze them dry–we stay pretty much on top of it. We alternate days, so I haven't even gotten blisters or calluses like I did when I studied in France last time & washed my laundry by hand. So far, we've spent 4 euros on laundry detergent & 4 euros on a drying rack. We can hook the drying rack to the end of our bed (since it was designed to hang in an RV window), and from their the clothes hang in front of the heater to dry. We're already paying the electricity for the heater to be on, so voilà. Low energy, low water & low effort for clothes that are clean & dry by the next morning.

While we don't particularly love doing laundry, we didn't look forward to going to the laundry mat back home either. It's a fair trade for the savings, and we're much more confident in our "gentle cycle" than any washing machine. When we get back to the states, I expect that we'll continue washing the more delicate pieces & our "unmentionables" by hand to continue the savings.

So now your turn. Look around your house. What can you nix? What can you trade out without really noticing? What can you turn that savings into? A date with your loved ones? More money for fresh produce? The movie you been dying to see?

The environment is a big focus for me–as are efforts to bring more "domestic" tasks home to reduce our impact & really see what we're consuming. I'd love to hear what you what kinds of projects you're up to, what kinds of things you do to save. If you have a fun story, send me an e-mail or draft a post. I'd love to share your stories, too. meganveit @ gmail . com (Remove the spaces.)

17: sunblock

So it's still going. I'm still casually packing, telling myself that this will make the end mess of big packing and cramming easier.

While with Joe, we picked up some more natural products Trader Joe's, and I was excited to see their (again, not completely but more) natural sunblock. I have serious issues with slathering white chemicals all over my body.

Granted, I haven't been the greatest at using the stuff. I was in high school. It was more important for me to be tan. I went tanning. I used tanning accelerator. Now, as members spread throughout my family struggle with cancer, I realize that there are more important things.

Like loving the way I look all year.
Like preventing skin cancer.
(And let's face it. Like not becoming one of those leathery old dames that spent too much time dipped in iodine and baby oil.)

I looked into making my own sunblock. I knew it wouldn't be as easy for our year in France (because I am afraid to translate all the ingredients correctly), but I wanted to know what that process would look like. I will spare you the re-typing and explaining. I will instead send you to instructables.

If you don't feel like jumping into making the whole thing yourself, eHow had a great idea. (Instructables mention this too, but I saw it on eHow first.) The active ingredients in store sunscreens are either zinc oxide or titanium dioxide (like I said, scary-sounding things to put on your skin!). Both are in powder form, so you can add the stuff to your favorite (all natural) lotion in a ratio of one tablespoon powder to one of cup lotion.


So if you have a kitchen of your own (wow, calling Woolf to mind) and a bit of time, try it out. The initial investment can get a bit expensive, but once everything is in stock, you're set for more than a summer.

I may choose to navigate that mess one day, but for not I'm sticking with Alba Organics' green tea sunscreen. Don't go getting all snotty on me. You know you pay too much for your Banana Boat or your Coppertone. You know that shit's overpriced. You don't know (and I don't either. Another post perhaps?) what it could be doing to you besides blocking a few rays.

So if we're already protecting ourselves with a pricier product, why not spend the extra $2 to get one that will truly wash off or let botanicals instead of chemicals seep into those tanned arms and legs?

27: gardening update

 It's been months now since I started the five little pots on the window in my college rental. Since then, the basil has really outdone itself to make me feel like I can keep something alive.

I had been ready to throw in the towel on the chive. Its five thin blades were like a piece of the saddest lawn ever. Then, suddenly, they thickened, split and became a deeper shade of green. The almost olive shoots come up three from a single root at this point.

All I can think of when I look at the thin–but now in a seemingly healthy way, sturdy and slender–lines in the earthen pot is a hot baguette and chêvre. Scissor-cutting the chive over goat cheese and smearing the mess together with a smidge of garlic before slathering it onto the spongy interior of fresh bread.

I admit that the leaves on the basil look a bit sad at this point. That is because I've recently pinched back the top bit. I was told to do this by a woman Dad and I did work for, a fellow Francophile with an enormous pot of basil. Pinch it back or it will outgrow itself. The lower leaves were yellowing. I pinched back the top, tiny leaves. I harvested the good leaves (and cooked them into some sautéed onions and mushrooms for dinner).

I've learned that a bit of yellow isn't a bad thing–it's not always a baby crying. Instead of throwing everything at it–water, pinching-back, shade–I give it a chance to correct itself. Basil survives in the wild, without man. It can survive on the deck, on a hot day with a little wilting, green itself back up with a little water at night and shoot out new leaves by morning.

This is my tangible success, waiting for me each time I walk onto the deck. The front porch is a different story.

I have tried to convince myself that this is not death. But if that isn't the worst cancer a plant has ever had, then I don't know what. Mom thought the leaves were yellowing due to a bit too much water. I cut back the watering. We thought the spots came from a plant spray. It hasn't been sprayed.

This isn't helping. Each day as I check the mail, I notice that the dahlia is one rattling breath closer to death. I try to ignore how symbolic this feels for several aspects of my life. I try to focus on how symbolic the last bloom could be.

34: a night in the kitchen

To celebrate July 4, my parents went for a visit to one of Mom's sisters. To celebrate our parents being out of the house, my sister and I pulled out a cookbook I got at my bridal shower and went to town.

Joe's Aunt Paula and I frequently discuss our eating habits, our reasons for vegetarianism, and our attempts at feeding ourselves, so it was no surprise that her bridal shower gift would put us in the kitchen. Her gift, Deceptively Delicious, (+ Honey Moon beer among other things–yum) is a cookbook that adds vegetable (or fruit) purees to each of its recipes, ranging from mac & cheese to doughnuts. The goal is to trick unsuspecting children into eating their vegetables.

There are tons of comfort foods and traditionally frozen, processed foods in this cookbook. I love the idea of bringing these recipes home, making them yourself and adding a bit of health to them. And what better person to test it on than my sister, who would subsist on meat and potatoes alone (literally, maybe some cheese added in) if we let her?

So we sat down and picked out our recipes: chicken nuggets (with broccoli puree), mozzarella sticks (with cauliflower puree), doughnuts and coffee cake (each with butternut squash puree).

Things were going well until the cauliflower starting steaming. The stench spread throughout the kitchen, and I can't blame Chloe for being a bit nervous. She got a bit more nervous when it came time to fry up the chicken nuggets (conveniently made with pre-cooked, pre-cut fake chicken strips). They were dipped in a mix of egg and broccoli puree.

"You can take that one," Chloe said. It was a bit more green than the others, a bit lumpy–signs of extra vegetable clinging to the thin chicken strip. I agreed to eat the lumpier nuggets.

But when it came time to eat, we both forgot about the vegetables and gorged ourselves on homemade, fried deliciousness.

The nuggets turned out great. They were golden, warm, popping in the pan and so good we burnt ourselves trying to eat them too quickly. Our technique needs a bit of work. Some of the nuggets did look a bit too green (though the flavor was great), and some were a bit naked.

The technique for the mozzarella sticks definitely needs to be adapted too... but again, with no change to flavor. These were Chloe's favorite part of the night; I'm trying to decide what I liked best. This recipe frustrated us the most, because the cookbook was definitely lying. Cook in 1 T oil? To get them golden brown and perfectly fried like in the picture? I'm calling bullshit on that one. That picture was deep, deep fried. But we tried to stick as close to 1 T as possible, adding a bit when the pan seemed too dry.

We froze for more than 20 minutes, but looking back I may leave them even longer... and let the cheese mix set a bit before rolling them in bread crumbs. Moral of the story: if you follow this recipe exactly, you'll have mediocre-looking cheese sticks that fall apart on you (as seen above), but you will eat them in less than five minutes anyway because they are delish.

So our dinner had been made. Chloe had mixed up homemade pizza sauce to dip our yummies in, and the sauce and cheese sticks were put into our margarita glasses (genius, Chloe!). We sat down to enjoy our picnic while watching Fried Green Tomatoes–a favorite movie and food of mine and a perfect match to our fried dinner.

Then it was back to the kitchen for another our hour of baking... then an hour of MASSIVE cleanup. The hardest part of the night? Deciding whether we liked the dougnuts or the coffee cake better, which resulted in stomach aches from eating too much batter. (So much that we got frustrated with spatulas and switched to spoons.)

I mean, look at that perfection. Both breakfast treats are flavored with butternut squash (a small change we made), cinnamon and brown sugar. They seem very fall-ish, but these doughnuts are so light and airy (just like the cookbook says) that they're easily eaten year-round. They'll be a great, light breakfast tomorrow before heading to Put in Bay for a day of family escapism.

(photo credit: Chloe)

As for this morning, it's time to get going. We're cooking up some eggs and sausage to have with the coffee cake, which is so heavy and so full in the pan that we thought it would explode in the oven.

35: dish soap

Blogkeeping note: (I'm better at housekeeping.) I like the countdown as my titles, but we're getting really close to the wedding and into more material that can be helpful to look back on. I'm going to go back in and add some text to some titles, to be a bit more helpful. Resume blogging.

As I mentioned yesterday, I am not interested in having a ton of chemicals in my life. When looking for homemade window cleaner, I was frustrated that so many of them threw dish soap into the mix without considering the chemicals in the cleaner.

(Okay, most things call for liquid, but these bars look awesome!)
I decided to go on a search for a solid homemade dish soap. The main component I found in each of the recipes was Castile soap. With a bit of research (cheater), I found that it's a soap made of olive oil from the Castile region of Spain. It's all natural–leaves and fruit (olives)–and not too expensive. You can find a Castile soap to match your budget, from peppermint (average $3 for 16 ounces) to hemp seed oil ($15 for less ounces). You can find it online or in a lot of health food stores.

I found a blog called Tiny Choices, which is pretty cool. (We're a lot alike... surprise, surprise.) And they hosted this recipe from thrifty fun:

2 bars shredded Castile soap 
1 cup baking soda
1/4 cup washing soda
1/4 cup lemon juice

Melt the soap in 5 quarts of water on the stove. Removed from heat and add other ingredients, stirring. Cool and put into containers. Warning: not as sudsy as Dawn or Joy :)

You could cut this in half, if you don't feel like having 5 quarts of dish soap, or you could try it this way:
1/4 c water
1 cup liquid Castile soap
a drop of essential oil (take your pick) for a nice scent

I think I'll opt for the second one, because it's a lot less work and because I got a great little oil bottle at my bridal shower, which would hold it perfectly, as seen here.

36: window cleaner

I spent Thursday working with Dad, cleaning windows and trimming bushes. Let me start by telling you that I absolutely loved hedge trimming.

I loved being trusted to take a power tool to someone else's property. I loved watching smooth lines appear. I loved carving rounded edges into the newly shaped shrubbery. I loved thinking about our home, and how I'll be able to care for it... and how our neighbors will be frightened or impressed that the Woman of the House is trimming and not Her Man, because let's be honest, a lot of us are still back there.

Now as I said, Dad and I spent a good part of the day (four hours) cleaning a woman's windows inside and out. The recipe for that:
2 rolls paper towels
1 squirt bottle glass cleaner
2 buckets of wadded paper towel and cardboard rolls

So that got me thinking. How much money could we save–how many chemicals could we save spraying–if we made our own window cleaner? Answer: a lot.

There are a million and one recipes out there for window cleaner, but many of them involve dish soap. This is adding all of those chemicals back in there (with the exception of soaps like Seventh Generation).

I was reading along and had settled into using alcohol, vinegar and water when a professional window cleaner names Steve chimed in on a post. He argues with the common idea that newspaper print is good at preventing streaks... he goes on to say that we should buy professional cleaning tools, or better yet hire a professional.

Well I say that people should buy newspapers written by journalists instead of reading shit by citizen "journalists" that didn't study the art, and no one listens to me. So, here's tip #1: use newspaper instead of paper towels. I know, I know. You think the ink's going to go to town on your window, but no. It all works out. You buy a paper; you read it; you fill a squirt bottle up and clean your windows. Everybody wins.

Now for tip #2. the average of the recipes I've found for window and glass cleaner looks something like this, found with a few others in Tipnut:

1 part alcohol to 4 parts water
splash of ammonia

I'm standing by that recipe, newspaper and some elbow grease to get the smears out, but if results are satisfying, I'll opt for a teaspoon of dish detergent, one free of harmful chemicals. Hmm... I bet we could make that, too.

42: cleaning & laundry detergent

On Thursday, my sister Chloe and I did some Spring cleaning in our bedroom. It brought me face to face with just how much stuff I have... not including the life I have in boxes, packed away in my parents' attic.


70 pounds? I kept repeating it to myself as I found books, sweaters, sewing kits, yarn and binders of French notes that I wanted to take with me to France. But when we get on that plane, my life can only weigh 70 pounds: 50 checked under my seat and 20 stored above my head.

I had a list of things to buy before heading over there: industrial-sized shampoo, razors, camera film, socks. Then I saw some dresses I'd forgotten about, wedged in the back of my closet. I found some shoes that would look great with those dresses. So we'll be buying those items in France. Hello, Monoprix! Ditto for my new yoga mat... I've been really wanting one since Baby peed on and chewed all corners (and most edges) off of the poor pink mat.

In an effort to save us packing space and money all around, I'm looking into money-saving, earth-saving do-it-yourself projects. For example, Kittenish posted this great recipe for making your own laundry detergent, which I already have memorized:

2 bars of soap run through the food processor/cheese grater, Borax, and Washing Soda.

Use one tablespoon per regular load. CAKE!

This works out great, because while cleaning I found a ton of those little hotel soaps. Chloe's been saving them for the end of the world, so I stole them from her. Those will go to France with us and will become our detergent.

So, in honor of this new laundry detergent discovery, I am starting a "Do It Ourselves" (DIO) series. There are tons and tons and tooooons of ways to eliminate chemicals that find their way under your sink, then drained into your water supply. I can't wait to look into them and share them here. Some will come primarily from:
The Good Housewife's Encyclopedia
bits of Real Simple  that I've saved
Mom & Grandma
E Magazine

While cleaning and having all of these thoughts run through my head, I added more cleaner to the bucket we were using to wipe everything down. It was Murphy Oil Soap, a product that's been around for more than 100 years... and is made of earth-friendly vegetable oils.

It's companies like these (actually owned by Colgate) that make me confident in a (mostly) chemical-free lifestyle. It wasn't until about half a century ago that we changed our lives and our impact on the earth–post WWII when we didn't need to endlessly make bombs. This used to be common sense. These now odd seeming home remedies used to be essential; they were all that we had. Now, they're essential for our safety. For preserving our water supply. For getting ourselves healthy again, getting the chemicals out of us. For saving a bit of environment for the coming generations.