Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

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I’ve been sitting on this post for months now—it’s just that after spending so much time hunched over this project, I needed some time off from even thinking about it. But now I’m ready to talk birds again.

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From left: Cedar Waxwing; Steller’s Jay; American Avocet; Purple Martin; Tufted Puffin

Eighteen months, twenty-five birds, six hundred twenty-five individual prints and ten box sets later, my little Flock is finished.

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Mountain Quail; American Bittern; Long-billed Curlew; Hooded Merganser;
Laysan Albatross

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Barn Owl; American Kestrel; Eurasian Coot; Anna’s Hummingbird; Herring Gull

It’s a little crazy to see these all together, like, well, birds on a wire. Each one has been broken down into its own little assembly line for so long that I forget sometimes to see them as a set.

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Western Tanager; Lazuli Bunting; Northern Flicker; Bullock’s Oriole; Belted Kingfisher

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Common Loon; Marbled Murrelet; Northern Shoveler; Harlequin Duck; Brown Pelican

As you can see, what’s represented here is a pretty broad cross-section of Washington birds. There are so many bird species ’round these parts, in fact, that I almost didn’t know where to start—and narrowing the choices down to twenty-five was by far the most difficult task.

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Wait. I take that back. The hardest part was keeping the glue off of the pricey imported Japanese book cloth (glue plus cloth equals death—or at least wailing, gnashing of teeth, and starting all over from the beginning).

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You see, it seemed silly to have a set of prints with nothing to house it. My inner book artist took over (thanks to Jessica’s tricksy enabling), and insisted on encasing the first ten sets of the edition in handmade clamshell boxes.

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Even though the results are always worth it, I don’t have much love for making boxes—what I do love is printing the colophon, or production notes. A colophon (or in today’s hardbound novels, the “note on the text”) is an essential element in any artist’s book; this is where the artist steps outside the book’s content and talks about the making of the book itself. For this I decided to go back to my letterpress roots, and hand-set the text in metal type.

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While I’m rarely able to fit hand-setting into my projects these days (a drawback to all this D.I.Y. lettering I’ve been doing), it’s still my favorite method of getting a block of text onto a page. And this beloved Bembo, cast locally at Stern & Faye, is so beautifully spaced and balanced that it’s a dream to set and a pleasure read.

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Here’s what it says:

The sheer variety of avian species here in the Pacific Northwest is staggering. Nurturing a fledgling love of birding was easy; the hard part was winnowing my list of favorites down to a couple dozen portraits. Here, then, is Flock, a motley kettle of songbirds, waterfowl, raptors, and shorebirds. While they’re not exactly birds of a feather, every member of this brood can be found either as a permanent resident or a passing traveler in Washington state—with just a wingtip of artistic license, that is.

Printed from October 2008 to December 2009 on a gaggle of presses, including Vandercook models SP15 and Universal One, a Craftsman 6.5 x 10 platen, and my little Kelsey 3 x 5—at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle, Springtide Press in Tacoma, the University of Puget Sound, and here at Anagram Press, respectively. The colophon is hand-set in Bembo, and each hand-carved linocut print is hand-painted with Pelikan watercolor (no pun intended). Of a covey of 25 birds, a tweet of 25 prints each, and a parliament of ten box nests, this is number [2].

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Okay, so maybe I went a bit overboard on the avian puns. It’s just that the thought of getting my hands dirty on type drawers again had me all twitterpated.

The ten box “nests” are now sold out, as are several of the individual birds, but about a dozen or so bird designs are still available in the “Flock” section of the shop. And I have a fluttering feeling that there might be even more birds in my future—one of these days, anyway.

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My goodness, how time flies.

I know I’ve shown you pretty much nothing this summer except globe-trotting photo posts, but today I’ve got to stick to tradition. As of this moment, I’ve been a Tacoman for exactly two years. Twenty-four months. Seven hundred thirty days. Seventeen thousand five hundred twenty hours.

And counting.

I’m hoping for several million more, because I’ve loved every one—thanks to you T-town folks. Guys, you’re awesome. And generous, to boot—I think I had a stroke or something when I picked up my copy of this week’s Volcano and found my name printed next to “Best Visual Artist.” Holy moley. Thank you for the vote of confidence—you’re inspiring me to git to work!

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Speaking of work, which I’m not quite ready to show you yet, evidence of the past two years has been on the front burner lately. Since I first came up with the concept for my Mt. Rainier book, I’ve covered a lot of miles in our fair state—and even a few down south in Oregon. And above all else (well, except maybe Pt. Defiance, my two favorite markets, or Top Pot), what I love about the Pacific Northwest are the contrasts. From oceans to mountains, rain forests to deserts, farm fields to bustling cities—it’s hard sometimes to remember that all of this is close to home.

So before I get back to a little picture-drawin’ next week, I’ve compiled a smattering of photos taken since my last anniversary post to illustrate what I’m talking about.

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In two years I’ve amassed nearly thirty thousand digital photos of the Northwest—and that’s just of the relatively small hunk of territory I’ve managed to cover in that time.

Here’s to the next thirty thousand photos, and the next seventeen thousand five hundred twenty hours—I wonder what they’ll bring.

All this talk of stolen vacations, and all I had to do was wait another week. Well, maybe not for a vacation, per se, but certainly a change of scenery. My mother called to let me know that my grandfather was entering hospice care, and before I knew it, I was on a plane back East.

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For the first time in my life, it felt like going away rather than going home, but my roots are here nonetheless. This is Exeter, New Hampshire, formerly my grandparents’ place of residence and, for most of her life, anyway, Mum’s hometown.

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Exeter, founded in 1638 (ye olde now-defunct colonial movie theatre founded a little later, har har), is a place where change comes so gradually that much of its past—and the memory of my childhood—is still intact. It’s a classic, the quintessential New England town. So much of what I identify with New England is either here or nearby, and between visits with Bampa, I soaked up all my Yankee favorites.

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The mills. Remnants of the Industrial Revolution are all over New England, and still alive in one form or another—my parents even live in one.

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The churches. From simple Quaker meetinghouses to grand dames like the Exeter “Congo Church,” one can observe an entire colonial history just by exploring a handful of churches.

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The houses. I picked up my fascination with residential architecture from Mum, and she and I have a tradition of taking house-viewing jaunts along the coast. My favorites are the colonials:

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McIntire Garrison House, built either in 1645 or 1707, depending on whom you ask

Postmedieval Englishes,

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Well, Jefferd’s Tavern, on the right, is almost a saltbox

Saltboxes,

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Original or “true” Capes don’t have dormers upstairs

classic Cape Cods,

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Emerson-Wilcox House, built 1745, York, ME

Georgians,

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and Federals/Adams.

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Tuttle’s Red Barn, founded 1632, the oldest American family farm still in operation

The farms. Nothing says New England to me like the barns dotting the countryside—

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especially the steepled ones. They’re everywhere, but I’ve never seen two barn cupolas that are exactly alike.

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The landscape. I love the pockets of meadows and marshes that pop up suddenly between the trees,

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momentary visions right out of Anne of Green Gables,

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and that line the winding country roads, casting a dappled green glow onto every surface.

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The stone walls. Criss-crossing the woods and fields like seams, the walls are some of the oldest remnants of Colonial culture—demarcating property boundaries and connecting living New England with its past. And every time I go back, New Hampshire’s own Robert Frost recites in my head:

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

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Well, if this isn’t a case of “be careful what you wish for,” I don’t know what is. Though for the record, I’m pretty sure I was the only person in the entire Pacific Northwest who wasn’t doing any wishing. (I like the cold.) Monday it was a sweater-perfect 65 degrees; today it scorched out at 93. As I’ve said before, as we so rarely have hot weather and air conditioning is therefore scarce (and totally unnecessary 99 percent of the time)—well, if you want to cool off, you’ve gotta get creative.

In this, my third summer here, a certain set of cooling-off routines are quickly becoming a tradition. Here, then, are my top-5 favorite heat-beating tips, Northwest style:

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1. Grab a friend and get on a boat. Namely, the Bainbridge Island ferry. Since it’s always at least twenty degrees cooler on the Sound, the passage kicks up a deliciously cold breeze that puts every air conditioner in Phoenix to shame.

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2. Take a cue from the seagulls and head for the prow. The breeze is stronger up there—the birds sure love it.

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3. When you arrive on Bainbridge, stroll down to Mora for a cone. I’m a believer in Dessert First.

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(Use a spoon as necessary to stay ahead of the melting.)

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4. When you get back to the mainland, duck into an air-conditioned restaurant and follow up that dessert with a light, cold dinner and an icy drink. Do this European style, and take your sweet time.

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5. When you finally finish dinner, take a walk in the evening air and watch the sun do spectacular things on its way out. That’s the best part, and the most solemn promise of hot-hot days in this neck of the woods.

Please ’scuse the absense. The Tailor and I have been in and out of town lately (mostly in the woods, far away from computers and civilization), and I’m still going through the mountain of photographs. Travel details this week, pinky swear. In the meantime, today felt like a whole vacation all by itself—just plain old good for the soul.

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This is Carol, a fiery Sicilian kindred spirit and one of my favorite-est people on the planet. She and her fabulous husband, Jeff, hosted a Fourth of July shindig in their garden today, threats of rain be darned.

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There was a little music,

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a healthy dose of croquet,

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(heaven help you if you hit the ball into the fig/rhododendron tangle, or launch it over the wall and down to 30th Street far below)

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a whole lot of laughter,

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and a walloping smörgåsbord that included plenty beyond your typical Fourth o’ July fare. Hey, hummus goes great with stars-and-stripes cake!

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We contributed our ice cream crank, plenty of mashed strawberries, and our upper body strength.

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I’m glad there were plenty of people to share the job of cranking, because I like to cut to the chase.

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Namely, this. My favorite part is when everybody grabs a spoon and helps clean off the dash,

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though I’m sure the novelty alone was the highlight for some. Sure, it was a little cold for ice cream (we’re not exactly known for hot summers here, but this year we’ve been sporting March temperatures for months), but everyone just threw on another clothing layer before digging in.

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After we had all eaten ourselves silly, everyone gathered on Carol and Jeff’s porch, which faces the Sound and provides a front-row seat—

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first for the warm-up act,

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and then for the main event.

And judging by the snap-crackle-popping still echoing through the neighborhood, I’d say the party ain’t over yet.

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Happy Independence Day!

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If I ran the world, there would be a national holiday to celebrate the first strawberries and cream of the season. This is worth the closing of stores, school cancellations, paid vacation time. I would send greeting cards for this. Happy Berry Day!

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We’re omnivores. I know that many people interested in food ethics and sustainability choose to be vegetarians or vegans; but we made the conscious decision to continue eating dairy, meat and fish. Developing and keeping habits that support our Responsible Meat ethic is the most difficult part of living the way we do, and probably required the most research to get started. Since we moved to the Pacific Northwest, though, this has become a whole lot easier.

Here is the big secret to why we can go six to eight weeks between shopping trips: we get our milk and butter delivered. We buy organic milk from Smith Brothers Farms, located 20 miles away in Kent, WA. Not only is their milk delivered every week, but we don’t pay for delivery! Because their milk is only available by delivery (you can’t get it at a store), we only pay for the milk itself ($3.99 for a half-gallon; comparable or a little less than organic cartons at the store). And we don’t have to drive to the store every week to buy it. That’s a pretty good deal, if you ask me.

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We’re very lucky to have milk delivery available here, and I know it’s not something that exists everywhere. It seems, though, to be making a comeback around the country; a quick Google search turned up milk delivery options in 30 states, and many of them are listed here.

The demand for local, organic, family farm-raised meat seems to be increasing as well. Many farmers markets (including the St. Paul market we patronized when we lived in Minnesota) have meat stalls, and plenty of independent farms have shops on the premises.

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We buy our meat from The Meat Shop of Tacoma, a certified organic farm just a few miles south of town. The Meat Shop is the oldest USDA Certified Organic meat shop in the country, and has been run by the Markholt family since it opened in 1963.

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So as to minimize our trips to the farm, we buy meat every three to four months, and store it in the freezer. This is our most recent haul—yes, that’s a lot of meat on that table, but that’s four months’ worth. We eat on average about 1.5 pounds of meat per person, per week (that’s the pre-cooked weight, including bones, skin, and other inedible stuff; it’s about a pound a week of edible, cooked meat).

When we did the math that seemed like an awful lot, so I tried to compare that to the average American’s meat intake. I tell you what, it sure was hard to find that data—at least from a reliable source. I finally unearthed a spreadsheet from the USDA Economic Research Service website, and it listed the average per-capita consumption of retail (that is, the meat right out of the store—before cooking, boning, skinning, etc.—that’s comparable to what we buy) beef, veal, pork, lamb and chicken in the United States was 198.3 pounds in 2008. That’s 3.8 pounds of meat per person, per week, or just over half a pound a day. It took me several minutes and 5 recalculations to believe that number could possibly be true.

Now I’ll admit: organic happy meat is more expensive than the conventional stuff—sometimes considerably more. But between eating less than the half the amount of meat of the average American, saving the pricier cuts for very rare occasions, and our other shopping habits, our total annual grocery spending comes out just about even. And besides, we like being able to shop directly from the farmer, rather than having half of that money go to the grocery stores in the middle of the chain.

Anyway, nevermind the ethical/environmental/health reasons—the Meat Shop’s nitrate-free ham is hands-down the best dang hunk of meat I have ever tasted. I’m salivating now, just thinking about it.

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Seafood, on the other hand, is a whole different conundrum. I grew up around fish—I even have fishermen and fishmongers in my New England family—so seafood is a must-have for me. Since we live so close to sea water we don’t so much have to worry about the price of fish (it’s cheap!), but the sustainability of seafood is an issue that confronts us daily.

It’s not enough that we shop at a local fish market (that’s Northern Fish above; this is their 98th year that they’ve been owned by the same family, and they’re located just blocks from our house. It doesn’t get any more local than that)—our main concern is avoiding species that are overfished, illegally caught, or unsustainably farmed. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has an excellent consumer guide called Seafood Watch, which analyzes nearly every edible fish species and gives recommendations on which to buy and which to avoid. This unfortunately precludes some of my old preferences (including Unagi, the broiled eel dish I always ordered at Japanese restaurants), but learning more about the alternatives to overfishing have led me to discover new loves.

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My new favorite, and a purchase we make regularly: Dungeness crab. It’s local, it’s been well-managed for over fifty years, and it’s one of the tastiest delights I can think of (even better than my beloved New England lobsta, in my humble opinion).

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Finally, eggs. To be honest, eggs have always been low priority for us. We always bought cage-free, vegetarian-fed, organic eggs at the co-op (as opposed to ones labeled “free-range”—a vague legal term that only means that a door needs to be open somewhere near the chickens, which are far too stupid to figure out how to use it), but it wasn’t until we moved here and found out how chicken-friendly our region is that we considered other options. Now we buy our eggs from a friend who keeps chickens right in his residential Tacoma neighborhood—these girls are served vegetarian feed, and feast on bugs as they wander around his back yard. They’re happy, and since the eggs are so beautiful and tasty, we’re happy, too.

Whew. That’s it. You’ve seen pretty much everything that’s in our cupboard, root cellar, attic, refrigerator and freezer. These posts may only have served to demonstrate just how weird we are, for all I know, but my intention was merely to show that eating sustainably doesn’t have to be expensive, or insanely difficult.

And judging by everything I’ve read and everyone I’ve talked to, maybe it won’t be too long before it isn’t weird at all.

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As I explained last time, filling our shopping cart with vintage Tupperware and thrift-store tins might prove we’re crazy, but there’s at least one element of buying organic food in bulk that’s decidedly sane. My favorite thing about shopping organic, and the absolute best-kept secret of the food co-op world, is the spice section.

Just like the grain, pasta, bean, nut and flour bins, our store (as well as most other co-ops and many natural food stores) has almost every conceivable herb and spice in bulk jars, tidily arranged in alphabetical order.

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The idea is that you bring your own jars (or use the paper or plastic bags provided by the store; we bring old spice jars saved from our old shopping days, or discarded by friends and family), and pay only for the weight of the spice itself—not for packaging or branding. Just like with our other jars and tins, we mark each spice jar with the tare weight and PLU number, and fill ‘er up. This way, we only buy what we want—that’s great for spices we might only use for one recipe.

Reducing our amount of trash is only half of it—the real virtue of bulk spices is the price. To give you a little comparison, I compared the prices of what we bought at the co-op with what’s for sale at a conventional grocery store not far from our house. I’m comparing the co-op prices with non-organic spices at the grocery store, because not only is that what most people buy, but the sticker shock is crazy enough without comparing organic to organic!

Now, while I was researching this post, I discovered that grocery stores (including our co-op) are extremely touchy on the subject of price—carrying a camera with me must have made me seem like a secret shopper or something, because I had to answer to a co-op employee for what I was doing. So to protect their “anonymity,” I’ll just say that the local conventional grocery store has the word “Safe” in its name. Ha. (I have to say, though, that no fewer than twelve different employees there asked me if I was finding everything okay. Either jotting prices down with paper and pen and leaving empty-handed looked suspicious, or they were just very helpful folk.)

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Anyway, here’s a snippet of our most recent co-op receipt. If you look closely at the per-pound price, the spices seem expensive—but look again. We paid $3.42 for 0.29 pounds (just over 4.6 ounces) of organic whole black peppercorns. A 4.25-ounce bottle of McCormick’s conventional (non-organic) peppercorns at the regular grocery store goes for $5.49. So we saved a little bit there, and got an organic product out of the deal.

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Now for the real magic. Peppercorns are relatively heavy, so the price comparison to packaged spices isn’t spectacular—but take a look at some common powdered spices and dried herb leaves, like this organic parsley, priced at $18.69 a pound.

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We paid 37 cents for that parsley—0.02 pounds or 0.32 ounces of it—and that jar is a reused McCormick’s jar (those fancy-branded glass ones). A slightly larger, 0.5-ounce jar of name-brand (i.e McCormick’s) non-organic parsley? $3.49. That’s $111.68 a pound! I don’t know about you, but to me that’s completely nuts. And let’s not forget that some herbs and spices, especially dried parsley, don’t stay fresh for long. We almost never get through our jar of parsley before bugs get in there (and they do, let’s face it). I’d rather have to waste 37 cents’ worth of parsley than three-and-a-half bucks.

How about some other examples? Let’s run down our grocery list.

Co-op: Organic thyme leaf, 0.05 lb (0.8 oz): $0.49, at $16.39/lb
Grocery store: Non-organic: $4.09 for a 0.37 oz bottle, or $176.86/lb

Co-op: Organic rubbed sage, 0.03 lb (0.48 oz): $0.82, at $16.19/lb
Grocery store: Non-organic: $4.59 for a 0.5 oz bottle, or $146.88/lb

Co-op: Organic rosemary, 0.06 lb (0.96 oz): $0.62, at $10.39/lb
Grocery store: Non-organic: $4.79 for a 0.35 oz bottle, or $218.97/lb (!)

Co-op: Organic whole bay leaf, 0.02 lb (0.32 oz): $0.39, at $19.29/lb
Grocery store: Non-organic: $3.39 for a 0.12 oz bottle, or $452.00/lb (!!)

Holy cow. Forget any debates about organic farming—let’s talk about highway robbery.

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You can also buy many baking supplies,

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or hey, even coffee and tea in bulk, if it floats your boat. (Tea will likely save you some money, but the various baking ingredients probably won’t. We buy our coffee and tea elsewhere, so I won’t get into that.)

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And there’s one more juicy secret about the bulk section: liquids.

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Not every co-op has this, but if you can find a place that sells bulk liquids (maple syrup, honey, extracts, vegetable oils, etc.—though I’ve never seen peanut oil in bulk, and I don’t know why that is), you’re golden. Buying maple syrup in bulk will usually save you a huge bundle, compared to those little glass bottles that can go for up to $30 a pint. This time we happened to stock up on vanilla extract (the real thing, not the fake stuff), so I’ll compare that to what the “Safe” grocery store has to offer.

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Co-op: Non-organic (that’s all they have) vanilla extract, 4 oz: $1.96, at $7.84/pint (16 oz)
Grocery store: Non-organic vanilla, McCormick’s: $7.19 for a 2 oz bottle, or $57.52/pint
Grocery store: Non-organic vanilla store brand: $4.49 for a 1 oz bottle, or $71.84/pint

Deceiving Interesting that the generic store brand was more expensive than the name brand. They even had a 4-oz jug of organic vanilla for cheaper, at $9.99 a bottle ($39.96 a pint)—I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt, and tell myself it was on sale or something. Still can’t touch the co-op, though.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but if you’re wondering whether it’s worth the effort to buy spices in bulk, go ahead and bring a calculator the next time you go shopping. For us, it’s a no-brainer. The money we save every year on spices is plenty enough to justify the larger budget required for the certified-organic meat we buy—that’s the subject of the next post.

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Thanks for all the comments and emails in response to the last post. One email asked how to find a co-op in one’s region; I did a little digging, and it seems like they’re all over the place. Visit www.coopdirectory.org to find information for hundreds of co-ops around the country, and even a few internationally.

Minnesota comes in first, with a staggering forty-one food co-ops (forty-two are listed, but the North Country Co-op went out of business a couple of years ago)—far more than both New York and California, the seemingly “obvious” states. We’ve got twenty-three here in Washington, and even tiny Vermont has fifteen. The only state that wasn’t listed as having a co-op is Alabama.

The fact that so many of these things (not to mention all the natural food stores and conventional markets with bulk sections) exist means that stores are listening to their customers, and providing more and more choices for all of us. I think that many stores depend on the fact that many people shop out of habit, simply trusting stores to have reasonable prices and healthy items. And co-ops face not only the huge marketing budgets and competitive tactics of corporate grocery chains (I don’t shop at Trader Joe’s because they moved in right next door to our co-op—eat it, Trader Joe’s!), but also the perception that organic always equals expensive. But between the variety of bulk foods now available and the heightened awareness of many shoppers armed with calculators, I really think this is beginning to change.

And that’s a heartening thought.

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I’ve been working on this post for days—when I finally realized it was Tuesday and I hadn’t surfaced for over a week, I decided to break this down into several parts and show you what I have so far. But before I get into just how nutty we are, let me give you an update on our winter food storage. As of today, March 16, we still have about 20 pounds of potatoes, 5 pounds each of carrots and parsnips, a pound of garlic, 10 apples (which we use for cooking, since they’re now too mealy to eat raw), 6 beets, 20 onions, 12 pomelo grapefruit (some friends from California brought them up here, in season, for Thanksgiving), 10 winter squash, and 3 pumpkins in storage, uncooked. And there are plenty of cooked, leftover beets and squash in the fridge. Our only casualties were two or three suicidal squash, and the Proctor Farmers Market opens a week from Saturday. We made it! I’m not even sick of squash yet (sure am sick of beets, though), and not one time did I break down and buy California strawberries or Argentinian spinach at the grocery store—a personal best.

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As a footnote, there are a few things we buy that can’t be bought locally or stored seasonally. The things that can’t be grown here, but can come from California (Valencia oranges for juicing, mostly), we’ll buy occasionally. We can’t make soup stock without celery (part of the celery-carrot-onion Soup Stock Triumvirate), and since it won’t keep in the root cellar without an elaborate dirt-and-burlap system, we buy that year-round, too. Dried herbs, spices, tea, coffee, and chocolate are in, but tropical produce—bananas, pineapples, papayas, mangoes, etc.—no matter how much we love it, is usually out (mangoes are a once-a-year treat), because of the fossil fuel required to transport it.

The produce, though, is only part of the sustainability equation. We do most of our shopping, except for meats, dairy, and seafood—more on that in another post—at Madison Market, a member-owned food co-op in Seattle (Tacoma doesn’t have one yet, though we’re working on it), where we can be sure to find a wide range of organics, where the place of origin for every item is labeled, and where we can support local, non-corporate business. We’ve found, though, that even at the hippiest of co-ops, we still stick out like a sore thumb, because our cart looks like this:

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That’s because with the exception of some specialty items, we buy nearly everything in bulk (even some household supplies like shampoo and soap), using our own odd mish-mash of salvaged, vintage, and reused containers.

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This is the incredible bulk section at our co-op, which we’re lucky to have. But even if we didn’t have a co-op in the area, most natural food stores and even many conventional grocery stores have bulk sections. For us, this is the secret to why we can afford to buy organic for our entire food supply.

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This particular bulk department has all of the standard staples (flour, sugar, cornmeal, whole grains, etc.),

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many unusual items (like kamut or mung beans) and fun stuff (popcorn, chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, etc.),

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even many varieties of pasta (I love the spaghetti and lasagna drawers).

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My favorites? Grind-em-yourself organic nut butters, at a price comparable to the commercial stuff ($3.99 a pound for peanut butter). A jar of crunchy JIF at our local conventional grocery store goes for $3.49 for an 18 oz. jar, and adds the following ingredients: sugar, salt, molasses, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and fully hydrogenated vegetable oil. Lovely. The organic hippie peanut butter ingredients? Just peanuts. It’s so good we usually just eat it right out of the jar, by the spoonful.

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Another bonus is that each product is labeled with nutrition information, location of origin, and preparation instructions. But the best part, other than the organic bit, is that all of this bulk stuff is either comparably priced or even cheaper than packaged food. The huge savings comes with fancy-pants items like dried cranberries, wild rice, and arborio rice (since risotto is a staple for me, we buy a lot of this stuff).

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Here’s how it works: we save every usable container that comes our way (tins, mason jars, old spice bottles; we try to use only metal, wood and glass, but there are a few exceptions, like our ancient Tupperware canisters), and stick a piece of masking tape on each one. At the co-op, we have each container weighed at the deli stand—this is the really important part, because each item is sold by weight. If your glass jar weights 1.5 pounds, and you buy 3 oz of something expensive, you don’t want to be overcharged for it! So we write the weight (called the “tare weight”) of the container on the tape. Then, above that, we write put the PLU (item) number of whatever is in that container. This is mostly done on the honor system, but they can certainly check your items if you say your container weighs 27 pounds, or if your jar contains macadamia nuts and you labeled it as flour. If you aren’t insane like we are, and don’t come to the store with three dozen tins and jars (and since people always comment when we go, and I never see anybody else doing this, I’m guessing most people don’t), there are paper bags to put your bulk items in. We reuse containers not only to cut down on packaging and waste, but also so that when we get home, we can just put them right in the cupboard and we’re done.

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Because we have to do most of our shopping in Seattle, we usually only do this every six to eight weeks. So of course that makes us The Weirdos with the Tupperware, and creates a bit of a spectacle at the checkout counter. But the employees always tell us how happy they are to see us doing this, so I don’t think they mind entering in all those tare weights.

As I said earlier, it’s possible to do this at lots of stores, and not just co-ops—but I should add that it’s not always as easy at those places. The biggest reason for this is that at high-end grocery stores like Metropolitan Market and Whole Foods, the vast majority of their customers use the store’s plastic and paper containers for their purchases—so their check stands aren’t usually set up to handle heavier, reusable containers. So unless you remember to teach the cashier how to do the math manually, you risk being overcharged. I’m somewhat dismayed that these “green” grocery stores haven’t gotten with the program yet (in my book, further evidence that their “green” claims are a bunch of marketing hooey), but if people like us continue to be a pain in the rear end, things will change.

I realize that people without cars or co-ops might not be able to shop only every couple of months. But since we started doing this several years ago, we’ve seen some very positive side effects—including a huge drop in impulse spending, and the ability to make spontaneous meals for unexpected guests. Also, since if we forget something we have to go without it for two months, we’ve gotten very good at planning meals and keeping track of what we have. Another benefit of shopping at these intervals is that as members, we receive a 10% off coupon every month (you don’t have to be a member to shop there, though), and with larger orders that translates to a big discount.

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Whenever we tell this story to others, they invariably say, “I’d buy organic food, too, but I can’t afford it.” Yes, organic convenience food is very expensive, but since it’s also processed, it’s really no better for us than conventional junk food. The key lies in sticking to ingredients, rather than store-bought meals. I’m going to get more in depth into our household economics in the next post, but since we only buy staples, and very rarely eat out, we don’t spend nearly as much on food as people think. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American household spent $6,443 on food alone in 2008—$3,744 eating at home, and $2,698 eating out. For our household, that would come out to be about $8.82 per person, per day. We added up all of our food expenses from last year, and between buying all-organic groceries, cooking from scratch, and eating out about once a month, we spent about $8.22 per person, per day in 2009. Slightly less than the national average. That’s pretty darn good.

As I’ve said before, these are simply choices we’ve made, and we feel it makes our lives healthier and better. Plus, buying in bulk with reused containers has the added benefit of producing zero waste—I was shocked when it dawned on me that what I used to throw away was almost entirely made up of packaging! The amount of non-recyclable, non-compostable trash we produce now amounts to one small grocery bag or less—some weeks we don’t even take out the trash, because there’s nothing to take out.

We’re not out to convert anyone, and we’re not completely puritan about it—we eat conventional food in restaurants, we still go out for (local!) ice cream, we make compromises for things like citrus fruit, and we’ll never refuse a meal offered at a friend or relative’s house. I’m not writing about this because I want to change anybody else’s habits (although I’d love to change some things about the American agricultural industry)—but because people ask. All the time.

And I also write about our food choices because this really wasn’t such a hard change to make. Slow, yes, but not difficult. I find now, a few years later, that I get sick far less often, that when I’m hungry I crave nutritional foods instead of junk, and that my palette is more refined (no small feat, considering that I have almost no sense of smell), just because I gave up processed food. The amazing thing is that for the most part, I don’t miss my old habits.

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I’d do it all again in a heartbeat—I only wish I’d done it sooner.

Okay, so this post isn’t actually about Turkish Delight, but it does contain a delightful Turkish recipe, and it’s what real Turkish Delight would be if I ran the world.

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This exotic dessert is another favorite dish of ours—a recipe from the Tailor’s friends in Istanbul. I crave it pretty much all the time, and come January I’ll start bugging the Tailor incessantly until he finally hauls out the scale and sugar. But since it’s fairly labor-intensive, and depends on the seasonality of the pumpkins we store in the attic, we usually only get to enjoy it a couple of times a year. Trust me, though, it’s well worth the effort, and is one of the most elegant, flavorful and visually appealing desserts I’ve ever tasted (just look at that gorgeous translucent pumpkin!). Try it next time you have a special occasion and you want an alternative to pumpkin pie (no disrespect to my favorite pie, of course!).

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Candied Pumpkin

You’ll need: one small-to medium sugar pie pumpkin, one scale, and a whole lotta sugar.

Wash and peel your pumpkin (I’m not going to lie: peeling ain’t fun).

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Cut it in half and remove the stem and innards.

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Weigh the pumpkin; get as precise a measurement as you can, because this is important. Note: since our scale is metric, and since the original recipe is written in metric (those Turks!), we don’t bother to convert back. So all the measurements in this post are metric—if you need to convert to the English system, there are lots of online conversion calculators. And the ratios in this recipe are pretty straightforward, so conversion really won’t be difficult. A word of caution, though: double- and triple-check your converted measurements! If one of your proportions is wrong, you’ll have gone through a lot of work (and pumpkin) for a failed mess.

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Now it’s time to make your algebra teacher proud—get out a pen and paper and write up a little proportion equation. You will need 750 g of sugar (we use that raw organic cane stuff) for every kilogram of pumpkin—that’s a 3:4 ratio (by weight, remember, not volume!), if you’re converting.

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Slice each half of the pumpkin in half again, and then slice each quarter into strips, about 1 1/2 inches wide.

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Place the pumpkin strips in a heavy-bottomed stock pot and pour your carefully-measured sugar over the pumpkin.

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Cover and let sit overnight (or at least six hours). The sugar will draw the water out of the pumpkin and shrink the slices, resulting in smaller pumpkin pieces floating in syrup.

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Over low heat, bring the sugar/pumpkin mixture to a simmer. Stirring gently every 15 minutes or so, cook the pumpkin for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until all the pumpkin pieces are translucent—this finishes the candying process. The thicker the slices, the longer this will take.

Turn off the heat, and allow the candied pumpkin to cool to room temperature. Transfer to a covered refrigerator dish and chill. Serve in small portions, sprinkled with chopped pecans for a nice contrasting texture.

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Candied pumpkin will keep in the refrigerator for at least ten days, but it doesn’t freeze well, so serve it fresh and enjoy it while it lasts! Try to refrain from sticking your face into the bowl to slurp up every last drop of syrup—but I’ll understand if you can’t.