Plastic Bag Ban in Montgomery County, MD

It’s actually, happened, though I can’t quite believe it…a ban, or actually a tax, on single-use plastic bags, has been instituted in Montgomery County, Maryland.  For all retail stores. Which means people will either start paying for their bags (and I imagine folks will generally cough up the extra less-than-a-quarter without that much complaint rather than bring their own, but there’s always hope!) or remember to bring their own from home…

A few articles here with links to information:

Wealthy D.C. Suburb Adopts Sweeping Bag Tax (Forbes)

Montgomery County Bag Tax to take effect with New Year (Washington Times)

Marc Gunter’s “In Defense of the Plastic Bag” 

Stiv Wilson’s “In Defense of Plastic Bag Bans”

I personally think it’s a great idea–it’s not that much money per bag, and if it helps people remember to bring their own–hell, to just double up a few single use bags from the last time you shopped and stuff ‘em into your purse, if nothing else–it’s a step in the right direction.

Getting Ready for Christmas Breakfast…(Pumpkin Eggnog Bread Pudding and Spiced Cranberry Compote)

I think last year we hit on the perfect make-the-night-before, stick-in-the-oven-the-morning-of Christmas breakfast: Pumpkin Eggnog Bread Pudding.  I definitely want to try it again. And I definitely want my husband to make it.

But I’ll still make the cranberry compote–this recipe in various forms is flying all over the internet, but this is what I’ll be doing:

Spiced Cranberry Compote Recipe

In a small pan, combine:

• 12 oz. or so cranberries, frozen or fresh
• 1 tsp ground spices, either cinnamon and nutmeg or pumpkin pie spice or whatever sweet spice blend catches your fancy
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1 tsp. orange zest (opt) or a few drops orange extract

Heat at medium high just to simmer; heat a few minutes more over medium or just until berries start to burst and get all compote-y. Chill up to a few days. If you don’t eat it all over the bread pudding, toss some into oatmeal or make a spice cake or something.

I can’t wait…Thank you, Bakerlady!

Rum Balls (or Brandy Balls, or Whatever…)

I discovered a new-ish recipe for these, mostly because I wanted something that doesn’t require purchasing a whole jar of light corn syrup in order to use 3 tbs. or whatever. And because I don’t really much like to bake.

(Although, by the way, you can do a fairly one to one substitution with honey or maple syrup from one of the typical recipes you’ll find with any ordinary search…)

These are not much like most of the rum balls you’ll find. They are also more decadent and, IMO, tastier. On the other hand, they do not have all the nice dried fruit goodness, and are generally less “good for you” than the typical recipe…

I adapted it from this recipe, but it’s honestly going to be really flexible…

Chocolate Rum Balls (recipe easily doubled)

• In a large bowl, mix: 2 cups ground vanilla wafers, graham crackers, or gingersnaps (About a 9 oz. box worked well for this) and 1 cup ground nuts such as almonds, pecans, or walnuts
• In a Pyrex-type measuring cup, put half a cup sweetened condensed milk and half a cup semisweet chocolate chips. Melt on half power a minute or two, just until they can be stirred smooth.
• Pour chocolate mixture and 1/4 cup rum, brandy, bourbon, amaretto, or other spirit of choice over cookie-crumb mixture and stir well.
• Chill at least half an hour, or better still an hour or two.  Find something else to do during that time so you don’t keep picking at the bowl while they are chilling.
• Shape into small balls and roll in confectioner’s sugar, ground nuts, or coconut.

You can try two different cookie/nut/booze combos to use up the full can of sweetened condensed milk, or just double the one you have.

Delicious.

(UPDATE: I tried these a second time, with chocolate cookie crumbs and frangelico for the booze, and they were spectacular. )

xkcd cracks me up.

 

A few weeks ago I had to go to the regular grocery store, for probably the first time in a year or two. I purchase about 11 items. They sent them home with me in 8 bags. Two of the bags were doubled.

Insane. Absolutely NUTS.

Granola Time!

When the rest of the world is whipping up cookies and candies and all kinds of indulgent sweets…I break out my favorite “Best Ever Granola” recipe. Makes a great gift, and it’s the kind of thing you can munch on fairly guilt-free in between cookie binges.

So I offer the recipe here–give it a try! Make up a batch, either for someone else or just for your own nibbling! And enjoy the season!

Fever as its own best medicine?

I have long suspected this, but check out this article in Science Daily about a study giving evidence that fever is part of our body’s way to battle infection, not just a symptom.  Apparently there’s a particular type of white blood cell that functions better at slightly higher temperatures, and when our body increases its temp by a couple of degrees, it goes to work.

Sort of cool.

It also makes me think about my son–he rarely gets sick, but he’s had a couple of “illnesses” where he rides a high-ish fever (102-ish) for a couple of days, with no other symptoms. He feels crummy, but nothing else. Then the temp returns to normal and he’s fine. And usually, then, the adults in the household promptly get sick.

It makes sense, when you think about it…

(By the way, the articles I’m reading about this also are quick to point out that when a temp gets up into dangerous ranges like 104 and up, it needs to be brought down…they are talking about those mild-but-uncomfortable fevers most of us get from time to time.)

Mondays at the Booth: Back from Disney World (review)

Got in late last night. Very late. Am completely knackered, exhausted, wiped out. But it was an awesome week, seriously. We had a great time. It’s really cool to discover that the three people you know with whom you most enjoy traveling happen to be your nuclear family. I’m sure that’ll change as my kids hit teenager-ness, but it was still a wonderful gift for the moment.

So check out my Back from the Mouse House at the Green Phone Booth today–That’s the review of the trip I did from a “green” perspective; the short version is that if you work really hard and bring a lot of your own stuff you can cut a lot of cost and processed-food-eating, but the sheer energy consumption of the parks in general is sort of unbelievable and may kind of blow you away. And at the same time, it’s so spectacularly cool, I found it impossible not to enjoy myself. (I mean, I did mean to enjoy myself, I wasn’t going there to be a green martyr or anything, andI had a great time!)

From a not-necessarily green perspective, just as the mom of a 6 and a 9 year old: it was awesome. I wished that Hollywood Studio’s late nights had coincided with one of our visiting days, because that’s a park I would have enjoyed a few more hours in. Magic Kingdom was somehow less magical for me than I’d remembered; the whole amazingness of the developing technology over the years has bypassed a lot of it, since it’s the oldest park, but they are apparently opening a whole new “Fantasyland” section next year that will be double the size of the one they have now. At Hollywood and Epcot both, with 3d and all the virtual technology they have now, rides can seem to cover a huge amount of space without actually going very far, which is both awesome from a viewing standpoint and consumes a lot fewer resources to create.  The Epcot ride “Soarin’” is just this big flying-in-a-swing ride with gorgeous visuals in a giant curved screen in front of you; the Toy Story Mania and Star Tours rides both use a lot of screen time without a lot of actual moving very far (Star Tours doesn’t go anywhere, your platform just bounces around a lot). Being there around Christmastime was neat, with all the decorations everywhere. (There was also some kind of national cheerleeding championship going on somewhere in Orlando. We joked about it–what could possibly be perkier than Disneyworld? Disneyworld full of cheerleaders. At Christmastime.  I thought, if we can get us all on the It’s a Small World After All ride together–cheerleaders in Disneyworld at Christmas on “Small World”–that would be the ULTIMATE PERKY EXPERIENCE.) The fireworks were spectacular enough that I cringe to think about the energy and resources expended to create them–but not while I was watching them, because they were amazing. And they can do so much now with projection and lights–those were almost cooler than the fireworks themselves, in a lot of cases. (Like adding meat to mostly veggie dishes–the fireworks are almost becoming a “condiment” for their big expansive high-tech shows. Or heading that way, anyway.)

As anyone who reads my blog regularly at all knows, for me a huge part of health and sustainability is about food, and theme parks in general are really tough places to eat good stuff unless you bring it in yourself, which we did as much as we could; I talk about that a lot in the Booth post linked above. Mostly what’s available there is heavily processed and high in salt and who-knows-what-all-else.  But if you look, there are places to find good stuff, as well as opportunities for momentary splurges. (Like ice cream sundaes at Beaches and Cream. Dinner of champions.)

My kids were beside themselves with excitement the whole time.  By day 4 they were beginning to flag, and on that day (our last full one) we did bail from the park for a few hours to rest in our hotel room before going back for the parade and final fireworks show, but aside from that they just soaked it all in and had a ball.

Oh, and the other thing I forgot to say at the Booth post–don’t underestimate the “free play” zones in favor of high-tech movies and thrill rides. Especially at Epcot, a lot of the little ride things ended up in a big room where they could run around and just explore various interactive games and stuff–the Imagination Station area was great, and there was a gameplay area outside the Mission to Space ride (another good example of a ride that seems like it takes you really far but actually stays in one place and takes up comparatively little park space), and another just beyond the Spaceship Earth one in the Epcot globe…those are the ones no one ever really tells you about, and they are awesome for kids, especially if said kids just need a chance to move around on their own steam for a bit. And if the parents need to find a quiet spot to sit down and breathe. (We usually found ourselves playing right along with them, though.)

We had an amazing time. It was awesome. We’ll never be a go-to-Disney-every-year kind of family (even if we could afford it, we probably wouldn’t), but to have done it this once was a really wonderful gift for our family, and I’m really glad we went.

Conspiracy theories?

When I don’t have time to deal with my computer over a long-ish space of time, I tend to leave a bunch of tabs open, of articles I don’t want to lose track of.

Interesting what’s open right now?

The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?

Flu Shots Could Actually Be Increasing Your Risk of Developing the Flu

Aluminum Vaccine Adjuvants Appear To Contribute to the Rising Prevalence of Autism

HPV Vaccine Risks

These are all articles about the tendency to leap to pharmaceutical solutions for problems that may not be best served by going there right away.  And it’s a real pattern, I think.

To be clear: I am not anti-vaccination.  I believe, actually, that at its core the principle behind vaccination is very scientifically sound. (To the sort of “well, duh” extent.) I do not believe, however, that this necessarily means the solution to all communicable disease is mandatory vaccination of entire populations with whatever version of a vaccine some for-profit company creates, nor that asking questions about what’s in them and whether they are safe means I am a reactionary crazyperson. I also believe that mental illness is real–but again, I don’t necessarily believe that means leaping to medication as a first line of defense is the best option, especially when the doctors leaping there may have very little knowledge of all the details of what they are recommending. (And they don’t. Very often, they don’t.)

The current climate of conversation out there concerns me. A lot. It’s become this huge polarizing issue, where each side seems to think the other is wholly and completely crazy/stupid/sheep-like/greedy/complacent/insert adjective here, and there is no middle ground from which to have real discussions.

Bugs the heck out of me.