theblogbitme

I found this article tonight on The New York Times and found it quite lovely. The article is entitled Rain Aside, It’s Clear Skies. This piece speaks about a man who runs a bird business that basically uses hawks, falcons and owls to reduce loitering pigeons in the London area. He has gained attention for his work at Wimbledon that was a haven for pesky pigeons until the falcons showed up! I love this solution. No gadgets, no chemicals, no traps, just an innovative way to use nature to solve this fowl problem. I think San Francisco could use one of these businesses.

I found the website No Impact Man on New York Times last week when I found the headline The Year Without Toilet Paper - a title too intriguing to pass by without reading. While reading further into his blog today, I found this great article, Do a dance for yogurt that isn’t in plastic tubs. I have been thinking about how many of our food products have damaging products for a while (I am embarrassed to confess not as long as I should have).

Recently it really struck me when my husband and I were in his hometown that has the *best* co-op with fresh organic local foods. They have great food in bulk and I found out that instead of buying the foods in plastic bags, you can bring your own containers, then weigh your containers before and after the desired food product in order to avoid making more waste from packaging. Brilliant! I am sure that this has been thought of before, but alas, it was an eye opening moment to see it in action.

So, back to yogurt. My husband and I eat a LOT of yogurt - bought in plastic containers - this would be a great recipe to try at home and see how it goes. The recipe looks a lot like making homemade pudding, but with a twist. From No Impact Man:

1) Boil whole milk (for some reason it doesn’t come out right with less than whole milk) in a large pot until it boils and foams at the top. Shut if off before it spills over.

2) Let the milk cool off until you can keep your pinky finger in the milk for 10 seconds without burning it (a temperature reading would have been great for this step but I don’t think they had these back in Greece 70 years ago), so this will be the most difficult step.

3) In a small bowl (that holds about 2 cups) add one tablespoon of live yogurt and beat it until smooth. Slowly add to this starter one cup of the milk from the pot stirring slowly until combined.

4) Transfer this mixture (in #3 above) to the pot of boiled milk slowly pouring it in the pot while mixing the pot of milk the whole time to combine thoroughly (with a spatula or long spoon).

5) Pour into glass or plastic containers and seal them.

6) Arrange the containers together and cover with 2 to 3 towels keeping them in a warm place of the house (and no, you don’t need some sort of a yogurt maker gadget to keep them warm). Let them sit overnight.

7) In the morning place them in the refrigerator and they will get cold. Yogurt is done.

8) Do a dance!

Things to find out include 1) where do you get live yogurt? 2) find reusable containers to use 3) figure out how much yogurt this recipe makes 4) how long does this yogurt last before it expires? I feel another cooking adventure coming on - I will keep you posted.

One thing I like about the end of the year is the slow down of news, publications, and media in general. The result is more end-of-the-year reflections of what has happened during the preceding year. One of these things is the slide show of New Yorker covers for 2006. Click the link and then look for the red link to the slide show under “related links” to the right of the screen. You will find some witty covers that will remind you of some trends of 2006.

See you in 2007. Happy New Year.