Climate Challenge Day 16: canning jars and plastic bags

Canning Jars

When I started canning, I discovered an excellent general food storage container. We use canning jars for everything—leftovers, extra cooked veggies and grains, yogurt, all of our dried goods.

Why use canning jars:

1.       They do not leak, even upside down in a backpack.

2.       They come in three sizes, half pint, pint, and quart.

3.       A pint is the perfect size for soup for lunch.

4.       They are easy to clean, even if something rots.

5.       You can see what is inside, lined up in the fridge.

6.       They are cheap and easy to find.

7.       They are infinitely reusable. We have jars from 1976.

8.       They can go into the freezer with pesto or cooked squash.

9.       Old blue jars from the 1930s store all sorts of beans, grains, and dried fruits and look beautiful.

10.   They store neatly.

11.   No more annoying plastic containers and mis-matched lids. This one is HUGE!

Plastic Bags

We also reuse our plastic bags. Despite my efforts, they do wander into the house from the autumn CSA, from our tortillas, from an occasional sliced turkey purchase. A few years ago, Mark’s mom gave us a shirt sized box full of various ziplock bags and we are good for the rest of our lives. We wash the bags and hang them to dry in the back hall. Some have been around for years.  When we bring home a plastic grocery bag, we use them to cover larger items, like a casserole left over in the pan or a big bowl of fruitcake prep. We never buy plastic wrap. When the bags die, we gather them into an old chicken feed bag for recycling.

Think Globally-- Act Locally

                It has been a little lively on Twenty First Street this June—one neighbor had THREE issues requiring police intervention this month and the police were out, investigating our neighbors, for several hours last Sunday. Add the usual people wandering around as students leave, poking through the trash (something I also engage in!), and its’ just been a little weird.  My friend who studies astrology assures me that the planets are shifting, however, and things are going to calm down by the end of the month.  We are all glad.  

                Despite the constant flux of short-term residents, Twenty First Street is a neighborhood. We watch out for one another, quietly, in a live and let live manner. We exchange gossip and tidbits of local information and the occasional knitting pattern. We roll our eyes collectively at the fraternity on the corner, who went through a phase of thinking everyone wanted to hear them all the time, every day. (They learned—we don’t.) Food moves up and down the street—eggs and plums, breads and cookies, tomato plants. We know each other’s pets; a few days ago, a ten year old boy showed up at my door. “Do you have a bunny?” he asked. I do. “Well, it’s in the neighbor’s back yard.” He told me. He was right. Bunzilla had escaped, once again. I herded her back.  His cousin feeds and waters the animals when we are gone for a few days.  We live here; Mark and I moved in 18 years ago, and most long term residents were already here. Although a few have left (several died) we are a stubborn lot. We stay. We like it here.

                I call our house a “homestead” because of what it evokes—a combination of moving into a challenging place and transforming it from barren to prolific, and the idea of a self-sustaining piece of land. I know enough American history to know that a self-sustaining farm is and always has been a myth, although it is one we, as a culture, love to embrace. But the dream of transforming a piece of land---we have done that. The back yard was a sea of false dandelions when we moved in. Now it produces much of our fruits and vegetables during the growing season and functions as the center of a complex network of community connections. Goods, ideas, and information flow in and out of our home every day. We are deeply rooted in this community and on this street.

                And this rootedness seems to me to be an essential component in our struggle against Climate Change. We all need to claim our homes, to value our spaces, even if they are not perfect, to take a stand and say—no, you are not going to destroy this street, this town, this planet.  Greed knows no boundaries— we need to recognize that the motivation which tears down affordable homes to throw up expensive student housing, destroying neighborhoods is the same motivation that is tearing off mountain tops in West Virginia, pushing for oil trains through the Pacific Northwest, and lobbying against any sort of carbon tax in Congress. Greed is greed. Extraction of resources is extraction of resources. It is all connected. We can fight this—and we need to start by protecting our own homes, streets, and communities.

                Think globally—but act locally.

Humus: The perfect summertime spread

Cook a couple of cups of garbanzo beans. I usually through three or four cups of Sunbow’s beans into the crockpot and let them cook all day. What I don’t use for humus will find their way into soups or pastas in the next few days. They need to be really soft!

Throw the garbanzos into the food processor along with three pealed cloves of garlic, about a quarter cup of olive oil, half a cup of tahini, some salt, cayenne pepper, juice from one or two lemons, and some parsley, if you have it. Process. Add some bean cooking water if you need it. Taste, adjust, and store in pint canning jars in the fridge. Humus and flat bread, along with some garden salad, make an excellent summer dinner.