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OysterFest 2010 at Waterbar in San Francisco

drakes bay oyster with open shell My friend, GraceAnn Walden, asked if I wanted to join her at OysterFest 2010 this past weekend, an annual event held at Waterbar in San Francisco. She was to serve as a celebrity judge for various competitions at this “celebration of the sustainable oyster,” benefiting the San Mateo Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, an organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of “oceans, waves and beaches.”

Being part of an event that includes me and thousands of oysters on the half shell is the stuff of dreams, so, yeah, I’m there.

So many things in life disappoint. So many things sound good on paper. I told my husband and son, “If I don’t get to eat a ton of oysters I’ll be seriously pissed.” Let’s face it, there are few things worse than being teased by a small qualtity of something you really, really love.

OysterFest at Waterbar in San Francisco on 8/31/10 with view of hills brothers coffee company sign This celebration delivered – and how. The sponsors were clearly generous with money, time and product. Event-goers were tagged with a pink wristband, armed with a stem glass, and turned loose on the oysters and wine.

Before I made my way to the oyster stalls, I took in the whole gestalt.

First off, the weather cooperated. It was breezy, sunny, and not too hot. Second, we were right on the bay with the mightly Bay Bridge almost on top of us.

Under the bay bridge at oysterfest 2010 held at waterbar in SF The setting was ridiculously post card, and made me think how wonderful it is to live here.

They decked out the party space nicely. If you’ve never been to Waterbar, it’s one of two Rincon Park restaurants Pat Kuleto opened a couple years back – near that Oldenburg and van Bruggen monstrosity, Cupid’s Span.

Waterbar and Epic Roasthouse, sister restaurants, one surf and the other turf, sit adjacent to each other with an attractive outdoor space between them that blends into Rincon Park and the walking path behind them.

Maison Beausoleil stall at OysterFest 2010 in San Francisco Plenty of chairs and tables were set out. Even when the crowd swelled at about the midpoint, competition for seating was not particularly fierce.

We got there right at the start, so food and drink flowed freely and there were no lines. I was very happy that the food was all oysters, all the time.

Drakes Bay stall at OysterFest in San Francisco 8/28/10 Oysters were shucked on the fly at stalls representing farmers sponsoring the event. Drakes Bay Family Farms and Maison Beausoleil – the former right here in Marin County and the latter from New Brunswick, Canada – served up God knows how many oysters. Those guys were quick, too.

Nice that both Atlantic and Pacific bivalves were offered – all sustainably farmed.

You could eat as many as you wanted. The smaller Beausoleil oysters are clean, briny and a little smokey-sweet, so I had a goodly amount of those. Drakes Bay are larger and stronger in flavor – also very good – so I didn’t hold back at that stall either.

The idea was also to take five ‘sters over to the sauce station, try all five sauces, and then vote for your favorite. I have no idea which sauce won because I didn’t hear the announcement. I liked sauce 2, but usually don’t want much of anything on a good oyster.

Sauce station at oysterfest 2010 in san francisco Restaurant sponsors (all Kuleto-ville, save one, Nettie’s Crab Shack [closed], unless I missed something) provided small plates starring one or more oysters – with little filler, for the most part.

Epic Roasthouse put out my favorite dish of the day: a killer fried Drakes Bay oyster on a skewer with fried green tomato. This “brochette” apparently had “homemade pork belly.” Not sure how you make pork belly at home, and, if there was some on any one of the four I ate, I couldn’t detect it. I loved the remoulade-like sauce, though, and the oysters were big and fat and perfectly done. The tomato chunks were sweet and plump and coated in crisped-up cornmeal, as were the oysters. GraceAnn picked two up for me when I was holding our table, and I went back later for another two. When I was on BART riding home, I kicked myself for not getting a last one for the road. Sheer bliss.

Waterbar cranked out humongous grilled oysters with pickled cabbage in a light, buttery cream sauce. I think. If there was a card on the table I didn’t see it so I can’t swear to the sauce. I didn’t know what to make of this. It was interesting, but pickled cabbage – sauerkraut, more or less – does not play well with others. The oyster’s flavor was lost in confusion.

BBQ oyster from Waterbar at oysterfest 2010 in SF I was happy the water station was across from the Waterbar booth – and water is mainly what I drank. While there were numerous wine tasting stations, I decided to stop with the wine after my slug of Twomey 2009 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc. It was a drag to deal with the one wine glass I was issued while trying to eat oysters by hand as I walked around.

Waterbar stall at oysterfest 2010 in SF and grill full of hot stones and oysters Farallon doled out Vichyssoise oyster shooters, which I believe contained both potato and leek and were finished with celery. The chef rattled the contents off to me but I was already in some sort of coma from the sun, the sea air and many oysters, so I’m not sure I grasped it all. This was a tasty little viand and a good idea for the setting. Rich, though, so I had a total of one.

Farallon stall at oysterfest 2010 in san francisco Nettie’s Crab Shack made little fried oyster po’boys with all the trimmings. The oyster on mine was not as good the one on the Epic Roasthouse brochette, but nothing to kick out of bed. I went back to try another to see if I perhaps wound up with a nonrepresentative oyster on my first sammie, but, sadly, this stall closed up shop early in the game.

In between grazing and hanging out in the sun drinking beer, GraceAnn served as a celebrity judge for the oyster eating and shucking contests.

GraceAnn Walden at oysterfest 2010 in San Francisco judging eating contest Eating contests are always a wonder to me. I don’t really get them, but I must be in the minority. Here there were five people who ate oysters as fast as they could for three minutes. Each of the five celebrity judges tracked one participant. GraceAnn wound up tracking a young woman who entered the contest at the last minute, egged on by the crowd when an empty space at the table was offered up at high volume by the MC. The winner ate over 80 oysters, with the middle ground being in the 40-something range. Most memorable to me was GraceAnn encouraging her contestant by shouting, “Don’t chew, just swallow!” Indeed.

One of the platters made during the oyster shucking contest at oysterfest 2010 in SF The oyster shucking contest included shucking and arranging said oysters on a platter with other seafood under duress. The platters, judged not only by aesthetic appeal but also practical concerns – like ease of getting at crabmeat and shrimp – were sold to the highest bidders at the end of the competition. There were four contestants: three chefs from sponsoring restaurants and one amateur. The amateur won.

The winner of the oyster shucking contest at OysterFest 2010 in San Francisco with celebrity judges

The winner of the oyster shucking contest, Greg Babinecz, at OysterFest 2010 in San Francisco with celebrity judges

Judges Roland Passot, Narsai David, two Alice DJs, Matty and Icky, and GraceAnn conferred for quite some time before making a decision, and the winner was thrilled.

Celebrity judges conferring at OysterFest 2010

The supportive and cheering crowd gathered close around the long tables used for the contest, so it was a blast.

Shucking contest in action at OysterFest 2010 in San Francisco

I could have done without the surf music. The band, Drifting Sand, was good, but I experience even good surf music like a mild toothache: I just want it to stop.

ChicoBag’s “Bag Monster” wandered around the event. He’s a guy wearing a suit of 500 supermarket plastic bags, reminding us how many of these blasted single-use things the average American uses in a year, and that they wind up everywhere they shouldn’t – like shorelines.

Bag Monster and GraceAnn Walden at OysterFest 2010 in San Francisco

GraceAnn and I left shortly before the event ended and were both in need of a nap. We wondered if there was something about oysters that makes a person sleepy.

Like lemon juice in a wound, I had to stand all the way to the East Bay on BART, and then flung myself on the bed when I got home. Steve, my husband, channeling his Mother, said it was “the salt air and the sun.” Matthew, my son, not even looking up from whatever video game he was playing, told me he had “no intention of feeling sorry for someone who just got to eat alot of oysters for free at a fancy restaurant on the water.”

The final word: If you are an oyster-on-the-half-shell kind of person, you should run to this event in 2011. Not only will you satisfy a yen to an unprecedented degree, you’ll help a worthy organization. Just arrive early to avoid the lines, and drink more wine and beer than I did!

Your Basic Fried Oyster Po’boy with Slaw

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I admit to craving oysters every now and then. I would have been happy in turn-of-the-century New York City, I think, where oysters were plentiful and every dive sold oyster stew.

I often see an oyster po’boy—or poor boy, if you want to get fancy—in my mind’s eye as I’m driving or doing laundry. I never know when a strong desire for fried oysters will strike.

The bread in my po’boy fantasy is always an Acme sourdough roll. The oysters are always large, plump and juicy — and there are so many of them they are falling out of the sandwich. The breading on these fried pillows of bliss is a little crunchy and has some spice, but not enough to mask that hint of metallic funkiness. There are slices of the tomatoes I had as a child – huge, red, ripe Beefsteaks from roadside stands in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A little cabbage slaw barely dressed in a sweet-sour dressing peeks out, and there might even be a little remoulade, if I’m getting really unhinged.

As you can see, to me, a po’boy is made with fried oysters. Period. Even though this Louisiana sandwich is perfectly authentic made with other kinds of fried seafood, or even meat, I figure I can have those things any old time. Fried oysters make it special.

Believe it or not, it’s the bread that defines a po’boy. Apparently there is such a thing as Louisiana French bread – something like a baguette – with a flaky exterior and a soft interior. Perhaps this is like banh mi – a Vietnamese baguette. I’ve never had a po’boy in its native habitat, so I don’t know, but I have some time yet.

Matthew at Sea Salt restaurant in Berkeley

The long and short of this story involves Matthew, my son, and myself driving down San Pablo Avenue one day deciding to pop in to Sea Salt (2512 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley) for a po’boy pour moi and fish and chips for his nibs.

Sea Salt is a solid seafood restaurant. I like the fact that they preserve the authenticity of standards like fish and chips and clam chowder. God knows there are enough places in Northern Cali where these things have been deconstructed and reinvented to death.

It ain’t cheap, being an upscale member of the K2 family of eating establishments, which includes Jimmy Beans, Fonda, T-Rex and LaLime’s.

That said, $14 is a small price to pay for your heart’s desire – served in a very nice space with great service, to boot. My po’boy came on a quality roll with slaw and remoulade, and housed a respectable number of oysters. Oh, man, the oysters were good. Not only perfectly cooked, but fresh, given that they were shucking oysters in the kitchen while we were there eating. The breading had texture and flavor, too. Suffice it to say that the whole damned sandwich was slammin’.

I have to mention the hand-cut, house-made potato chips. They were the thickest pototo chips I ever had in a restaurant, and not at all greasy. Crunchy and salty, they were terrific.

Matt’s $14 fish and chips plate was fine, if a bit skimpy in the fish department, but the quality was there. The cod was fresh and nicely cooked. Matt said he’d get the po’boy next time, though.

Fish and Chips at Sea Salt restaurant in Berkeley

I think you should try your hand at a po’boy at home. It can be a bit messsy, and it’s easy to overcook oysters, but the result will be worth it – even if you have to try a couple of times before you nail the oyster-frying process.

If you want to shuck your own oysters, great. I do not. I buy them from a fishmonger who will shuck them for me, or I’ll pick up a high quality, fresh, jarred oyster. Look for sustainably-farmed, and ask your fish guy or gal which local oyster they recommend for po’boys. Make sure you buy oysters at a reputable shop. The last thing you want is food-borne illness from a shady oyster.

Po’boy at chez akitachow

Basic Po’boy
1 quart medium-sized fresh oysters (medium is nice and large – small is OK if this is all you can find)
3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground mustard
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 – 1/2 cups panko (coarse bread crumbs)
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
3 eggs, scrambled with 2 tablespoons water
2 large, ripe, tomatoes, sliced or diced. Use really good tomatoes or leave them out of the recipe!
Canola oil for frying
5 long rolls of some kind. I like Acme sweet or sour rolls. Use good rolls here!
If you have a large, cast-iron frying pan, this would be a good time to haul it out

1). Whisk together flour, Old Bay, salt, black pepper, ground mustard and cayenne pepper in medium-sized bowl. Set aside.
2). Combine panko and salt in medium-sized bowl. Set aside.
3). Carefully – very carefully! – pour your oysters into a bowl. No need to rinse them – just feel around gently for stray shell pieces. I do this by catching each oyster as it transitions from jar to bowl.
4). Arrange your breading station: oysters, flour, egg mixture, panko mixture, receiving plate.
5). Set up a large, heavy-guage, frying pan with about a 1/2 inch of Canola oil on your burner – but don’t turn on the flame yet.
6). Set out a small sheet pan lined with paper towels to place fried oysters on, as well as long tongs.
7). Set out your plates – place a split roll on each and have your slaw on stand-by.
8). Bread oysters like so: Add four oysters to your flour mix, allowing juices to drain through your fingers first. Toss gently. Move with dry hand into egg mixture, and coat evenly. Move to panko, toss gently to coat, and move with dry hand to plate. It’s hard to do the ‘wet hand, dry hand’ thing here, but see if you can keep one hand dry to move coated oysters around.
9). When you are all ready, turn on a medium flame under your frying pan and let the oil get hot. Toss in a couple crumbs of panko to see if there’s a sizzle.
10). Gently add oysters (carefully, by hand, because they will be floppy) so you do not crowd them and thus wind up bringing the temperature of the oil down. You want them to sizzle but not burn.
11). Once they have browned a bit, turn them over gently with the tongs and let them quickly brown on the other side.
12). Get them out of the pan and onto your sheet pan as soon as you’ve done this. If you overcook them, they will shrink and become rubbery. They do not need more than a few minutes over the heat.
13). Bring oil back up to proper heat (add a little more oil if you need to) and repeat with remaining oysters.
14). As soon as your last oyster hits the sheet pan, prep the rolls for the oysters.
15). Arrange tomato slices in each roll and then heap a nice mound of slaw on top.
16). Add 4 – 5 oysters on top and serve right away with lots of napkins! I put the oysters on top of the wet stuff so they don’t get soggy.

Slaw for Po’boys
Makes enough for about 5 large sandwiches
2 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup good mayonnaise (see my post on this)
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
A little salt & pepper
1 pound shredded cabbage or cole slaw mix

1). Whisk everything but the cabbage together in a bowl until the sugar is dissolved.
2). Fold in cabbage well.
3). Leave on counter for an hour, folding the mass together every so often.
4). Place in fridge until ready to use.

If you want to serve a remoulade*, there are many recipes on the web, but you can’t go wrong mixing a little chili oil, white pepper and salt into some good mayo.

*A remoulade is often something like thousand island dressing, but it can also be akin to tartar sauce, depending upon the recipe.

frying oysters for po'boys Plate of fried oysters to be used for po'boys

New Grocery Outlet in Pinole

Make gravlax at home – it’s easy!

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Plate of sliced gravlax

Although I enjoy cooking in all its forms, I do have my niche – as all cooks do.

What made me love garde manger, which means, loosely, “guard of the pantry,” and involves the cold kitchen, I’ll never really know, but my Northern European roots are probably to blame. I was fed smoked and cured proteins pretty much from birth, and knew a high-quality aspic well before Kindergarten.

When you find yourself daydreaming about the cross-hatching and radish roses on the chopped liver at the appetizing counter at Waldbaum’s during 4th grade geography, you know you have issues. When you’re planning Christmas Eve hors d’oeuvres and it involves a trip to Fortunoff for a fondue set when you haven’t yet reached your full height, well, I think you have to face facts.

If you’re not in the cooking trade, you may not know what “the cold kitchen” is. It’s cures, molds, terrines, pates, galantines, confits, sausages, smoked meat and fish products, salads, decorative flourishes, ice and food sculptures and cold soups and sauces. The part that inolves all the work with pork falls under charcuterie.

While chef de garde manger is now often referred to as an entry-level cooking position – it involves the salad station and small plate prep, requiring limited experience – a true garde manger is a highly-skilled chef in a specialty with gravitas. This profession dates back to pre-revolutionary France and is considered seriously old-school. In high-end kitchens, this is the position responsible for numerous classical dishes and presentations.

Garde manger has evolved over the years to accommodate changing tastes, eating patterns and lifestyles. I think most cooking school graduates will make one chaud froid for every 10,000 sides of smoked salmon they produce during their careers – unless they’re banquet chefs!

While certain things that fall under this genre are best learned in a formal cooking class, there are some that are quite easy to make at home – but most people don’t know that.

Today I want to pass along to you my simplified recipe for gravlax, aka gravad lax, which is dill-scented cured salmon served with a mustard sauce. Often an appetizer, it’s great as a full summer meal served with crispbread, like Wasa, and a big salad.

Gravlax is akin to lox, which is cold-smoked, in its silky smoothness and rich mouthfeel. It looks like lox and is sliced thinly in the same manner. Gravlax is not exposed to any heat, however, rather just cured in a salt and sugar mix.

It’s expensive and not that easy to find. If you want to have it out, go to Ikea. Buy a whole package of their crispbread before you go into the cafeteria, then get several gravlax plates. You can feed 3 or 4 people gravlax this way for under $20. This is a serious bargain. I tell you to get the package of crispbread in advance so you don’t have to pay the per-piece price for extra in the cafeteria – which, at something like 35 cents per piece, is the only insanely-priced item in the whole store!

No need to have it out, though. You can make it at home a couple of days before you need it.

If you want to use my traditional gravlax method, look here, but I needed to find a way to minimize the amount of refrigerator real estate I used to prep this, having been downsized from a double-wide unit recently. Long story involving a lemon of an LG that my appliance store, Galvin, took back after two years. It looked nice, had a bottom freezer and French doors, but the ice maker was wreaking havoc. In exchange, I got a GE with a side freezer. The ice maker on this one is a problem, too. Don’t even get me started with ice makers. I never had one. Never wanted one. Was convinced to get one. Had nothing but problems since then. Ice is all over my freezer – again. I get ice and frost on the floor when I pull out the ice bin. Why? It does not stop making ice. Ever.

Back to the fish.

A few key pieces of information:

1). Buy fatty salmon. Your gravlax will not work with salmon that is lean. You have been warned. If you can’t get wild, fatty, king/chinook salmon, buy a sustainably farmed version – of some kind of fatty salmon. Keta salmon, which is all over the Bay Area as I write this, is too lean. Steelhead salmons – which are actually sea-faring rainbow trout, believe it or not (or, I should say, rainbow trout are salmon that never leave home) – have a medium fat content and are OK.

2). Buy a boneless side of salmon with the skin. Or a piece of a boneless side with the skin. Ask your fishmonger if the pin bones have been removed. If not, ask that they be removed. If you need to remove them, look here.

3). Buy good fish from a market like Monterey Fish – or Berkeley Bowl’s fish counter. The fish will be fresh, and these people care about sustainability. Do not buy crappy salmon from a supermarket in a package with all kinds of goo. You know exactly what I mean.

4). Work clean. You should always do this, but take extra care when you cure or preserve something.

Honestly, gravlax alone justifies my two years of culinary school given how often I make it.

Gravlax with Mustard-Dill Sauce

1 side of salmon with high (or at least medium) fat content with no pin bones (see above)
1 lemon (a fresh lemon!!!)
1 ounce plain vodka, gin or aquavit
1/2 cup Kosher salt
1/2 cup raw sugar
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
1 large bunch of dill, washed and absolutely dry. It must be dry!! Reserve a small piece of dill for sauce.
Aluminum foil
Paper towels
2 pastry brushes

1). Make cure mix. Whisk together salt, sugar and pepper. Set aside.
2). On counter, lay out a double thickness of foil that is about 6 inches longer than your side of salmon.
3). Fold about 6 paper towels in half and create a bed that is about the size of the salmon.
4). Lay side of salmon, skin side down, on the paper towel bed.
5). Squeeze the lemon over the flesh, and then brush it onto the entire surface.
6). Brush the booze onto the entire surface with the other brush.
7). Sprinkle the cure mix over the fish, making sure you cover the entire flesh, applying it more thickly to thicker parts. Don’t touch or rub it in. Use all the mix.
8). Cut a couple of inches of stem off the dill and arrange the rest on top of the cure mix without disturbing it.
9). Fold ends of foil over, then sides. Cover the top with another large piece of foil. You want to wind up with a rectangular foil-covered package. Keep fish perfectly flat at all times and do not bend fish!!!
10). Lay fish packet flat in back of fridge on a few paper towels or another piece of foil – just in case there is a little seepage. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t.
11). Allow to cure for two days. Three days is OK if you have a very thick fillet.
12). Remove from fridge, open packet and move fillet to a cutting board that has a couple of paper towels on it. Discard dill. If cure does not come off easily, it’s OK to quickly rinse fish under cold water and then gently pat dry, bottom and top.
13. Using a clean cutting board and a sharp, thin knife, cut long, thin slices, holding knife almost parallel to the fish. See photo. This takes some practice, but you’ll get the hang of it. I use a serrated knife – even though a serrated knife is generally not the tool for this job, but it works very well because it’s so thin and holds a razor-sharp edge. A slicer, if you have one, may be your best bet. A good boning knife, too. Depends upon you and the knife.
14. Arrange slices in lovely circular pattern and serve with a cup of cold mustard-dill sauce in the center.

Mustard-Dill Sauce
Whisk 1/2 cup Dijon mustard, 1/2 cup good honey, a little chopped dill (remember that you were supposed to save a little?), and a couple dashes of sea salt and ground white pepper. Allow to sit in fridge for a couple of hours so flavors meld. Note that there’s no dill in the sauce in the photo because someone threw out my reserved dill.

Piece of salmon ready to be made into gravlax

gravlax with cure sprinkled on

gravlax with cure and dill ready for fridge

Gravlax foil packet ready to go into fridge

slicing gravlax

On being green

1 Reply

I sometimes have to take good-natured ribbing from friends back home in NY about the culture in California, the SF Bay Area, and Berkeley and environs – in that order.

The stereotype of the “California yahoo” seems to increase in magnitude with that progression, reaching its apex smack-dab in Berkeley.

I’m asked regularly if I’ve replaced my roof with cow dung and am growing organic crops up there.

I’m told that we Californians talk out of both sides of our mouths, namely driving everywhere and then dumping on others for not buying organic.

Well, I may concede a bit about the driving. When I lived in NYC I did not have a car. Public transport is very good there, and having a car is of negative value in most areas. I tell them I tried living here without a car for 5 years, but it was impossible given how spread out things are and how difficult it was to shop for food. Supermarkets are not on every corner.

I further justify myself by pointing out that I bought a Honda Civic new in 1999, it has less than 50,000 miles on it, and continues to serve the needs of 4 people.

I suppose the bottom line is that I do what I can, and try to do more all the time. I make choices based on information I may not have been cognizant of 10 years ago. Now, the more I know, the more I want to learn. Where food is concerned, I read labels and seek out information before I buy. If that makes me a yahoo, then so be it.

I’m happy to say that many of us here in California and elsewhere are making incremental changes.

Some things are harder than others. For example, until organic, grass-fed beef takes over a larger part of the market share and prices drop, I cannot afford to purchase it exclusively. We don’t eat very much red meat, perhaps once a week, so I try to buy it 50% of the time. Chicken – pretty much the same program; every other chicken I bring home is organic. With pork, I buy Niman Ranch as often as possible. Issues here are complicated, particularly with beef. People in the US are accustomed to the flavor of grain fed beef – mostly in the form of feed lot beef – but are not knowledgeable about its production. Many say they don’t care, but I bet they would if they saw things first-hand.

I made a full transition to organic eggs. They taste much better and I feel good about not increasing demand for the crueler product. I’m happy to say that a non-organic egg has not entered chez Renate for 5 years. Even Costco now carries organic eggs in 18-egg packs.

I try to buy local, organic produce, whenever possible, and shop for fruits and veggies almost exclusively at farmer’s markets and stores that are careful about what they offer, like Berkeley Bowl. This is a no-brainer. If you don’t want synthetics in your fruit salad, then buy organic, or from local farms that use natural pesticides and fertilizers, even if they’re not certified as organic. Ask!

There are some “green” things I started doing that actually save me money and make life easier.

I buy in bulk and store in air-tight, food-grade, NSF approved, plastic containers. You have no idea how much easier it is to work in the kitchen when you don’t have to futz with bags of flour and sugar. Costco, Smart & Final and 99 Ranch serve me well. I was even able to buy a two-pound package of Red Star active dry yeast at S&F for $5.49. Hello! Those little 3-packs can go for $2.50! Not only will you save money, but there will be less packaging for the environment to have to contend with. Here’s a photo of a portion of my pantry. Popcorn, brown sugar, raw sugar, bread flour, AP flour, whole wheat four, brown Jasmine rice, iced tea bags, yeast – all there.

Food stored in plastic containers - bought in bulk

We also use hot and cold travel cups that look disposable. The hot cups are porcelain with silicone tops and sleeves, and the cold cups are non-BPA plastic with a screw-on lids and plastic straws. We take home-brewed coffee and iced tea out the door and save a small fortune without generating plastic trash from take-out iced lattes. Sure, we buy coffee out sometimes, but as a treat. The Eco-First cold drink cup is from Copco, and costs about $7.99. The Eco Cup for hot beverages is from Decor Craft Inc., and sells for about $10.

enviro cups 5-10

You might also want to start using some of the phosphate-free, enviro-friendly products for your dishwasher (and clothes washer, for that matter). Not only are many of these fully biodegradable and biorenewable, they’ll help prevent suds-lock. My Costco now even carries Ecover dish tablets, a product I love.

box of ecover dishwasher tabs

I also stay away from disposable wipes, and use one of the “green” spray cleaners and a cloth that resists bacteria, which I wash along with the rest of my laundry. You can pick up a container of Costco’s version of a friendly cleaner, if you want the most bang for your buck. It comes with a spray bottle and you can dilute it. Just shy of 1 and 1/2 gallons, it’ll last forever. If you’re a purist, and want little more than pure soap suspended in water, look for products at a place like Berkeley Bowl. Sometimes you do want something like this, as I do for my stall shower, which my dog visits daily to lick water off the tile.

costco multipurpose enviro-friendly cleaner

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that we should all think about this stuff and do what we can. Start with a few easy things and go from there.

Not destroying the environment, not running through every natural resource we have, and keeping harmful things away from and out of our bodies are always good, no matter what you think about global warming.

Akitachow.com: A food site and a big dog

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