The following is a guest post from Howling Hill. If you’re interested in guest posting on The Greenists, e-mail Courtney at thegreenists dot com for details.
Back when I worked as an EMT in Massachusetts I had this one partner named Gary. He was an awesome partner to have. He was motivated, smart, educated, and funny as hell.
While there may be a fairly large Jamaican population in Lynn (or, at least there was a decade ago. I don’t know if there is one now) there weren’t a lot of places for Jamaicans to shop for Jamaican food nor were there many Jamaican restaurants. There was, however, this one place in Lynn which Gary used to go to regularly, when he was missing home something fierce. At the time I was a vegetarian so I didn’t sample too much of the cuisine because it was mostly meat based. I did try goat though (it wasn’t bad) and ginger beer. I came away from our partnership with a lifelong love of ginger beer.
Ginger beer gave me such a hassle though. Finding it in white suburban Boston wasn’t easy and when I did it, it was expensive — finding it in rural New Hampshire was damned near impossible. Certainly I found Goya but it didn’t fit my criteria to ingest. That is, as I got more ingredient savvy I realized how unhealthy ginger beer could be: lots of sugar and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It became a treat I didn’t get very often because of the expense and the HFCS.
Over the last decade I’ve tried to find ginger beer without HFCS and, while I was successful, they tasted awful or, worse, bland. Ginger beer, you see, needs to burn on the way down. It’s the best that way! So the organic ones I found were either to bland or just yucky and the non-organic were filled with HFCS. I was sad.
I was sad until last weekend when Melissa stopped by and brought some ginger beer. It’s good. It burns.* It has no HFCS and, AND it’s local. How could I get any luckier? Maine Root is the name. It’s a microbrew, if you will, that uses organic cane sweetener and bio-diesel to deliver its product. How effing cool is that?
So if you love ginger beer (or root beer, or sarsaparilla, or orange, or lemon lime, or blueberry) give Maine Root your business. If your local place doesn’t carry it ask them to or buy online. You palate won’t be sorry!
*It could burn a smidge more! Just a smidge though.
Howling Hill blogs from central New Hampshire where she dreams of living on a farm raising meat,vegetables, and fruit to feed the community. She had no idea to be progressive she had to become very regressive. She’s becoming adept at knitting, canning, and generally be more greenly self sufficient.
This time of year it’s very easy for me to get bogged down in the blahs of winter, this is especially true this year when here in Maryland we’ve had 53+ inches of snow in the past two weeks. Give me 4 or 5 inches at a time and I’m a complete snow person, but give me snow taller than my daughter, and well not so much! But with the return of the sun, despite the fact that more snow and ice are in the forecast for this week, I’m starting to think about spring planting and growing my own food! It all started when a seed catalog arrived in my mailbox.
Look for a romantic and environmentally responsible restaurant to take your Valentine’s date.
My favorite fancy restaurant in Rochester is Lento, which focuses on seasonal and local foods. They list the local farms they work with, and even hold events to connect diners with farmers. And, even though they aren’t usually open on Sundays, they are open for Valentine’s Day (hint, hint, J). 
Where do you go for sustainable meals?
It’s January and at the first of the year most of us are looking at new starts and new beginnings. I have to admit I’m not much of a resolution person, but I do like to make certain goals to strive for and one of those goals for this year was to make my own bread more regularly. Just think of all the plastic bags and twisty ties you can cut out of the picture, and keep out of landfills, by making your bread at home, and don’t worry, making bread doesn’t have to be hard!
As an environmentally-minded person, one of the biggest decisions you must make is whether or not to eat meat. Here at The Greenists, we’re aware that a vegetarian diet is much less taxing on the planet than an omnivorous one, and we know how much better it is to eat locally-grown food, but we do not judge others if they choose to eat meat. Heck, I still eat meat, though I’ve cut down my consumption of chicken and pork to only a couple of times a week. I do stay away from red meat, partially because of cholesterol concerns.
Anyway, I just finished reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, a popular and somewhat controversial book by Michael Pollan, and I recommend reading it if you’re curious about where your food comes from, or about food in general. In the book, Pollan narrates his quest to track a meal from start to finish, from the live animals to the slaughter to the processing to the plate. It gave me a lot to think about when I visit the grocery store, to say the least.
But it was the last part of the book — the part where Pollan goes hunting for his own meat — that stuck with me the most. Read more…
I know we all have the best intentions when it comes to recycling and composting. I tend to recycle everything I can get my hands on at home … until the recycling bin gets full (my roommate and I are top-notch procrastinators when it comes to taking the recycling to the the appropriate drop off.) I like to compost … until it gets so cold outside that any extra opening of the door seems wasteful.
So what if you brought the compost pail inside? I know it might sound crazy or smelly, but stick with me.
It’s the end of the semester. Certain things go by the wayside in the frenzy of grading papers, writing recommendations, and handing out tissues to failing students whose most creative work all semester is a sob story worthy of a Lifetime Movie. I haven’t had time to shave my legs in almost a week. On the bright side, I no longer need to wear long johns to walk to work. I’ve also found that the stubble keeps my socks from falling, thus preventing those nasty blisters you get when the heel of your sock bunches at the back of your shoe and rubs, rubs, rubs all day. I would say that not shaving this week has been a win, but my cat, Not a Dingo, has found another use for my gorilla like leg locks — scratching posts. Sometimes the Dingo household can take the whole recycle/repurpose mantra too darn far! But I digress. What I want to talk about is food.
Read more…
Actress and activist Alicia Silverstone makes a case for the vegan lifestyle in her new book, The Kind Diet. Her enthusiasm shines from every page as she exposes the known negatives of the modern meat and dairy factory farming industries and the damage they do to the environment and our health. One would expect a vegan author to include such information in support of her cause and she does so intelligently, if a bit naively as even she admits, choosing to focus on the benefits to personal health and well-being. Read more…
Now that Thanksgiving is over my mind immediately jumps right over to Christmas. As I have gotten older my view of the holidays in general have changed, and Christmas is no different. Where it used to be more about material things, now I appreciate handmade or homemade gifts instead. Let’s face it, we all have more than enough of most things and more of something doesn’t do anything, but make our footprints bigger and give us more stuff to have to keep up with. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not. Why not make the holidays a little simpler, and a lot more heartfelt. Isn’t that what the season is all about?
Is it really Thanksgiving already? Boy, this year’s gone by fast. At any rate, Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays because it means family, football, and most importantly, food. Any excuse to stuff my face is welcome in my book.
Here are some ways to enjoy your Turkey Day responsibly: Read more…
We may have more winter ahead of us, but I’m starting to get spring fever. The other day it was actually sunny here for a few minutes (a rarity). The sun illuminated the splatters on the walls from wet dog shaking off, the dust in the corners of the bookcases, and the dirt crammed in the cracks in the floorboards. It may not be spring just yet, but it’s time for me to clean like it is.
