Return to Brooklyn

Took a small hiatus from this blog to visit Portland (magical) and my parent's house (cozy). It's my first real day back in Brooklyn, and as I'm still on vacation, I did a little bit of cleaning. I was feeling incredibly frustrated with all of the useless crap we had accumulated in a short while.
"It must be human nature to collect things," I said to Colin. "I keep coming across stuff that I'm wondering why I have it in the first place."
"I can think of many things like that," he agreed.
It doesn't make sense to me that we should have SO MUCH, especially since the two of us think of ourselves as minimalists and work hard to not accumulate items. It must, in fact, involve a lot more concentration and effort to not collect things than we are putting into it. Luckily for us, we have a small apartment with little closet space so we don't have much freedom to become pack rats...
In other news, I took my first bike ride in almost two weeks (!) It was a beautiful day, not too cold or windy, and all the snow from last week had melted. Even though I had gotten slightly out of shape from eating eight too many special treats and sitting around, it was lovely to ride through Brooklyn. Still the best mode of transportation, even in late December!

Mayor Bloomberg Drops Effort to Cut Energy Use

I read an article in the NY Times this morning about how Bloomberg has dropped his effort to cut energy use of property owners throughout the city. I was actually unaware that this proposition was part of his campaign, so I became excited and disappointed all at once. I decided to write a letter to him, expressing my beliefs. What I wrote went something like this...

I believe that by letting property managers off the hook, as it seems you will be doing, is a big mistake. While it may be expensive, we need to send the message to property owners that they must take responsibility for the most efficient management of their buildings. Then once they get new windows, appliances, or whatever their building needs, they will be begin saving money long-term. Whats the point of spending thousands, maybe even millions of dollars towards energy audits that may not lead towards any kind of action taken? I understand that there isnt enough public funds to be loaned out right now, but we must put some of this burden on the property managers. If they can manage a building full of tenants, and collect our large sums of money, they are also capable of making gradual plans to improve their buildings efficiency...

I think it's important to put pressure on the people who make these types of decisions. If the people aren't keeping them in check, they will be running with their own agendas, and who the fuck knows where that will lead us. Not that Bloomberg is suddenly going to change his policies, but we must take the stance that we as individuals DO have power, even if it's one voice among a millions, we must not sit quietly...

Live More Make Less

At the hospital I am interning at, I am eligible to eat $6.50 worth of food from the cafeteria for free. While this is quite a lovely thing for a perpetually pennyless student, I have run into some eco-moral problems. The food is served on styrofoam plates, or more popular, containers. Drinks are served in styrofoam cups, and the fruit salad comes in a plastic container. The thought of going through so much styrofoam and plastic made me cringe-- watching the garbage in the cafeteria fill up with everyone else's waste was bad enough. The first few times I ate in the cafeteria, I ate a salad off a styrofoam plate or got one of the plastic container fruit salads. However, a few weeks ago, I decided it wasn't worth the guilt I was feeling (and yes, I did feel very guilty). From there on out, I have only gotten whole fruits (apples, bananas and oranges) and coffee (in my own cup). I bring my own lunch from the leftovers of our dinners, or make peanut butter and jelly. I've felt a small weight lifted from my chest, and, to be quite honest, the food I bring tastes much, much better.
Sometimes I think about the waste I create each day and feel that there are always ways to make less. Even though we've cut our waste of yogurt containers by making our own yogurt from milk, there is still the milk container to think of. One of the things I would love to be able to purchase regularly is Ronnybrook Farms milk that comes in glass bottles-- only I haven't found a good place to purchase it, yet. Perhaps I will suggest the Park Slope Food Co-op carry it...

Alice + Maira = a Happy Thanksgiving

As a long time Maira Kalman fan and reader, I was delighted by the piece she posted involving a favorite topic of mine: Alice Waters, sustainable eating, and edible schoolyards.

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/back-to-the-land/?8dpc

Sorry, don't know how to insert links in here yet. I've been a fan of Alice Waters since I was nine, when my mom bought me the book Fanny at Chez Panisse.
Since then, I've followed Waters' Edible Schoolyard project, which allows children to grow, cook, and eat their own food (as yet, only in one lucky school in Berkeley, but apparently, one is opening in a Brooklyn school soon). I find this idea miraculous, as many children (and adults) have very little idea of where their food comes from, and growing it yourself is fun and yields much better results than what's found in the average grocery store or school cafeteria. Not sure exactly what kind of funding is needed to start one, but it seems like it wouldn't be terribly expensive as long as the school had room for it.

Looking forward to seeing how the one in Brooklyn turns out. Might be worth paying a visit...

Back to the Nature

Well, we hadn't left the city since Yom Kippur. It was two months later and our short visits to Prospect Park and the community garden were no longer satisfying our desire for trees and grass-- we needed to leave the city. After searching for a B&B in New Paltz and surrounding areas that wouldn't cost more than 1/10th of my student loan (not possible), we decided staying at my parent's house in West Nyack, NY would suffice. Part of being sustainable in the city, it turns out, is making trips outside of the city to maintain your sanity, even if said trips do not fall under category: sustainable. Such as driving a car all over the place. Which we did, in order to go for a hike in Bear Mountain, which somehow involved more cars and more money, but we'll leave that story undocumented on this blog. Overall, it was a very relaxing and enjoyable stay and we had some quality time with my parents as well as some reconnection with our friend, nature.

In other news, I found this article enlightening: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/nyregion/23neediest.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=brooklyn%20green%20job%20daughter&st=cse

Sick days are more fun when you leave the house

1) Colin's homemade yogurt turned out amazing. Thank you, Kris.

2. The Brooklyn Botanical Garden is free on Tuesdays and certainly worth a visit.

The Green Scene in TriBeCa

I've been doing some babysitting lately for an extremely wealthy family living in this ridiculous loft in Manhattan. The mother makes a conscious effort to stay "green", maybe even ecological, but it's a very limited effort. It mostly shows in the groovy/green/organic products that they purchase, but apparently her efforts go further. The other day I took the oldest boy (Alex- 6 yrs) to the Laurence Hall of Science in Queens, with a friend of his. Half way through eating lunch in the cafeteria, Alex looks directly at me and says "I'm done eating this pizza." Then pauses as if he's waiting for me to respond.

"I guess I could eat it then..." I said.

"Yea, that would be good," he replied. "Then I wouldn't have to waste it. It's bad to waste food..."

I must say that I was shocked by his thoughtful attitude, as he's typically only concerned for his own well-being, but clearly somebody has been sprouting little eco-friendly seeds in that rapidly growing mind of his(he's some kind of baby genius).

I feel conflicted about those "all natural" groovy products that are too high of a mark up for the average American, but inconsequential for the elite. I try to stay away from major corporate products, so as to support smaller, (and hopefully) more thoughtful companies. So in that sense it's really nice to see them eating Barbara's cereal instead of Kellogg's or using Ecover dish soap instead of Palmolive. But for those millions of people who can't afford the extra couple bucks to buy the groovy dish soap (that doesn't even keep the sponge soapy!), what's a brother to do? Being green is the thing to do right now, so of course our consumer marketing culture is taking advantage of it. But it my be turning into this elitist, snobby culture that raises their nose to those who don't buy organic produce for their kids.

Did you know that the person who discovered how to genetically modify plants earned a nobel peace prize because he confronted world hunger by discovering how to grow more than twice as much produce using the same amount of space? Here are some tough questions that I've been asking myself lately... How do I know it's better to eat organically? What the hell does it actually mean when it says the fruit has been "minimally treated"? Should I really spend the extra few bucks to buy the "green" product? Are these "green" companies really doing better things with their proceeds? Or is it just a get-rich-quick scheme on the newest fad?

If any of you have answers, thoughts, insights, or more questions, I'd love to hear em...

(Post) Midnight Bike Ride

Last night, Colin and I broke our in-bed-by-10:30 rule and went to go see the Roots- a show that started at TWELVE-THIRTY AM. Honestly, I couldn't believe I was going to be out so late, but we made Americanos on (Colin's) new espresso machine and we were off-- on our bicycles. Originally, I had no intention of biking there; I had subway directions to the bar we were hitting up beforehand (2 for 1 Rolling Rock! Free pool!), and I figured we'd suck it up and spend 2 hours getting home. However, once Colin pointed out that the weather was fantastically beautiful, I realized how silly it was to do anything but get there by bicycle.
The ride there was quite nice; it was about 11pm, not too many cars out and a handful of bikers were crossing the Manhattan bridge with us. After the show (or rather, at 2:15am when we realized we weren't enjoying the show very much) we hopped back on our bikes. I was reminded of the movie I Am Legend, where Will Smith is the last person alive in NYC and wandering the streets with the zombies. It was DEAD. And beautiful. It helped that the weather was abnormally warm for a November evening, but the lack of cars, bikes and people meant that we could zip through Manhattan, over the bridge and through Brooklyn without so much as one or two stops. Six miles of straight bike riding in this city is quite a feat- and to think we turned what could have been an excrutiating wait for the subway into a 40-minute trip. Even though the show was a disappointment, we played three fine games of pool at the bar, made friends with the nice couple whom we beat at pool, and had one of the most enjoyable bike rides of my life. Not bad for NYC.

A Trip to the Farm

When Colin and I first moved to Brooklyn, we had a conversation about farms in the borough. "There's no farms in Brooklyn," I said "this is Brooklyn." Colin, however, was not convinced. As it turns out, he was right. Yesterday, we visited East New York Farm as part of a volunteer trip of Sustainable Silver, the greening initiative group I am a part of through my school. East New York Farm is located in the place of its title, about five miles east of our apartment. It turned out to be a sunny but chilly morning, and we biked over with our friend Shane, also of Sustainable Silver. As it turns out, the farm is really more of a large garden, but it is admirable in its community involvement and environmental justice promotion. A tour of the farm revealed teh various vegetables and fruits grown there through the season as well as a large compost pile, a rainwater collector, and two honey bee colonies. As it was the end of the season, our job included pulling the long beans off the fence that they had weaved themselves on and removing the weeds in the path. Despite the destruction aspect of the job, I thoroughly enjoyed the work and found it meditative and productive- and it made me very excited to have my own garden in the spring. When we took a break for lunch, we wandered over to the farmer's market where a few stands were selling homemade Caribbean food. We tried some patties, which were like miniature pot pies, rice and peas with barbecue chicken, and a fish fry- a sandwich of fried fish. The food was new to me, and tasty, if a bit heavy. After lunch, we completed the long-bean-taking-down, and Colin single handedly removed the fence. Then, a full-tummied ride home.
I really enjoyed the community aspect of the farm and hope to have more volunteer days there in the spring.

Early Bird Special

Thanks to daylight savings time, I have been waking up earlier than usual. The weather has been unusually beautiful, so I decided to take advantage of it this morning and go for a run in Prospect Park (I might or might not be training for a half-marathon). Prospect Park is a haven for me; I feel so lucky that we live close by and are able to have a small piece of nature in this beast of a city. When I got home, I had plenty of time to shower, make a latte, hang out with Colin and bike to class, which started at 11. AFter classes ended at 3:45, I had an appointment at the Apple Store, since my iPod stopped working and needed some doctoring. As it turned out, they simply replaced the iPod on the spot, free of charge. As excited as I was, it made me wonder what was happening to the old iPod: did they take it apart and use the parts for something else? Did they simply chuck it? I love the idea of an iPod: compared to owning hundreds of CDs, iPods are much more sufficient. But it makes you wonder about all the old versions of iPods that are tossed when new ones come out...
By the time I got home, it was getting dark, and Colin didn't have time to go to the co-op, so I was going to go. I was dreading the trip until I saw that our bike panniers had arrived! We'd been waiting about a month for them. I immediately put mine on my bike, and was suddenly thrilled to have a chance to use it right away. It is quite a life saver, and I can't wait to use it with my school books as well.
It is 9pm and I am just about ready to go to sleep...

The Beginning

The idea to write a blog about sustainable living in NYC has been on my mind since Colin and I arrived here. Living in Portland was easy: everyone has a garden, everyone composts, everyone rides a bike, recycles, shops at farmer's markets, brings their own mugs to coffee shops, uses cloth napkins, and so on. Furthermore, everyone seemed to enjoy what they were doing and it wasn't very difficult. Before moving to NY, I knew that this would not be the case. Yes, there is very much a sustainable movement happening in the city, but day-to-day living proves otherwise. Colin and I have witnessed (on multiple occasions) people eating out of styrofoam containers and upon finishing, dropping the container in the street. Coffee shops don't always have ceramic mugs "for here", even if they have ample seating for customers to sit and drink their coffee. People are fond of plastic bags, it seems, and there are always a handful of people with a variety of them on the subway, each containing a separate item from their shopping. I could go on, but there isn't much need for that. The point of this blog is to record the positive: what we HAVE found that is green, sustainable, eco-friendly. And if something isn't working, what we are doing to try and change that. To end this post on a positive note, here are some things we love about this city:

*The community garden a block away that we can bring our compost to (and have a garden plot in next summer)

*The biking! bike lanes are plentiful, hardly any hills, and some pretty awesome bridges to cross.

*Park Slope Food Co-op, which has an awesome, cheap selection of produce, cheese, and other delicious foods (the bulk section is a bit lacking...)

*Our lovely little kitchen which we cook dinner in (almost) every night.

*Certainly more to come...