Dishy

Recently, I was reading a green newsletter that I get every week, and a reader had sent in a question. Her family created a mess of dishes, and she was feeling guilty about all the water and energy they used to wash dishes.


Here was the answer she received: I'm sure with a large family you fill the dishwasher to the brim, but if you can cut back on the number of times you run it by only washing very dirty dishes in the machine and doing the others by hand, that will save water.

Actually, that answer is -- ahem -- not correct.

Surprise! Dishwashers are more efficient than washing dishes by hand! Studies show that even when people are very careful, washing by hand is more wasteful.

That's one reason why I'm stoked that my new landlord just put in a brand-new Energy Star-rated dishwasher! New dishwashers are even more efficient than old models, increasing the benefits of using a washer rather than washing by hand.

It's been about five years since I've lived in a place with a dishwasher, and for the last two or three I've known that dishwashers are more efficient than hand washing. Every time I washed the dishes during that time, I've felt annoyed that what I was doing was both harder on me AND the environment.

But no more. I'm now helping the environment and don't have dishes piling up in the sink because I'm too lazy to wash them. It's a win-win. Don't you love those?

A Good Friend in Dirty Times

Photo credit: AdClassix

When my sister was visiting a few weeks ago, she looked in my shower and said, "Ew."


"It's just old," I said.


I DO clean my shower. No worries there. But her remark got me wondering if I could make it a little brighter in a green way.


I usually use baking soda to scour, but obviously that wasn't cutting it, so I thought I'd look for something else. In the Whole Foods cleaning aisle, the choice was clear: Bon Ami powder cleanser for $1.50 or the fancy brand for $5.


I've been reading about Bon Ami on green blogs for years, but until I realized that I needed more than baking soda, I hadn't tried it out. Bon Ami (which means "good friend" in French) has been around for over 120 years -- and its formula has remained similar throughout that time.


Bon Ami is made from feldspar, limestone, baking soda, some corn/coconut-based cleaning agents, and a few other (biodegradable) ingredients. Originally, the feldspar was recycled from quartz mining operations.


Bon Ami is also a favorite of people who are chemically-sensitive. Because of its simple formula, it doesn't impact them the way most modern cleaners do.


So, the price is right, its impact is right ... but can it clean?


The answer is - YES! Of course, it didn't turn my old shower new again, but the tub is now whiter than it's ever been.


A good old friend, indeed.

Getting Cheeky!

My friend Ren, the author of Transitioning, wanted to share something with you lovely Greenies!


Ren is the mom of sweet baby Bea and participated in the same Mondo Beyondo class that I did. One thing that is great about the blog world -- you get to meet friends all over the world. Ren and family live in England, and although we've never met in person, I love reading about the progress they are making in trying to make big dreams into realities.


As a mom who is concerned about not introducing too many chemicals into Bea's life (or creating a world for Bea where resources are used up) Ren discovered Cheeky Wipes. They are reusable baby wipes.


Ugh! You might be thinking. That's gross. That's like... reusing toilet paper!


The people who make Cheeky Wipes knew you would think that. So they didn't just create reusable wipes (I mean, after all, the other name for that would be "wash cloth"). They created a whole system so that you don't even have to touch the used wipes.Here's what Ren has to say about it: The Cheeky Wipe creators even thought of how to organize the wipes and keep them tidy at home, and they supply you with bags to take the wipes with you for when you are out and about. Ah - so impressively, thoughtfully clever!


I think it's especially important for green products to be well-designed and to really WORK. There are so many mental barriers to green living in our mainstream society. If something is inconvenient or doesn't work as well as the "ungreen" product, people just aren't going to believe that green living can be convenient. So cheers to the creators of Cheeky Wipes, and cheers to Ren for sharing this product with us!


(And I checked -- you can order them shipped to the U.S.)

Weird and Wonderful Dr. Bronner

Does your soap share life lessons with you?

Mine does!

For about the last year, I've been using Dr. Bronner's Organic Castile Soap (in lavender). Castile soap is olive-oil based soap, and greenies everywhere tout the fact that it has few harmful chemicals and can be used to clean almost everything -- you, your hair, your baby, the floor, the bathtub, your laundry. (Click here for more about it's many uses.)

I was anxious to try it, but my first encounter didn't go well. It was a grocery-store brand, and it smelled like death.

I swore off castile soap until I visited my friends Sara and Ron, and they had some Dr. Bronner's in their shower. Yum! It smelled delicious. Not like death at all. When I got home, I got myself some.

You may have seen Dr. Bronner's at Target or the grocery store, and you might have dismissed it. It doesn't exactly jump out at you from the shelves. Dr. Bronner's is known for two things:

1) An incredible lather from only 2-3 drops, meaning that a bottle lasts a lo-o-o-ng time; and

2) The labels are covered with teeny-weeny writing. What does that writing say? Well here's a sample:

Yep. That's Rudyard Kipling's poem, If. Turns out Dr. Bronner was a bit of a kook. He believed in the "All-One-God Faith" and something he called the "Moral ABC". He used his soap labels to spread the word. Now, the labels are as famous as the soap.

All I know is, I love my Dr. Bronner's. The castile soap is great, but almost better is the hand sanitizer. While hand sanitizer isn't necessary for most folks (who really needs to contribute to antibiotic resistance in bacteria?) for someone who goes into random classrooms all the time, "hanitizer" is a necessity. Whenever I bust out the Dr. Bronner's, people say "Oh... that smells good!" as opposed to saying, "Oh... are you squirting gin on your hands?" Knock wood, I haven't gotten sick since I started using it.

Interested in hearing more about Dr. Bronner? Watch below:

Why I'm Going to Buy Some Effing Paper Towels

I'm going to buy some F#!*ing paper towels.

I haven't bought paper towels since before December. I transitioned to using rags (torn up T-shirts and towels) for clean up, rather than paper towels, almost a year ago. It took a little getting used to at first -- cleaning up a mess on the floor with a reusable towel is weird in the beginning. In a world where there are disposable wipes, towels, mops, and dusters, using a cloth towel just seems ... well, weird.

But I got used to it. I had come to believe that paper towels, killing all those trees, had no place in this world.

That was until today.

Dateline: Houston, 7 a.m.

I got up and began to make coffee. I'm not going to lie. I'm a clumsy girl. I accidentally bashed the coffee decanter against the sink and ka-pow! glass and yesterday's coffee dregs went flying. Luckily, even though I'd just rolled out of bed and was barefoot, I got only a scratch on the pad of my finger. A fair amount of blood, but nothing serious.

I spent a half hour cleaning up the glass and drips of coffee, thinking to myself that I wished I had some paper towels. But I had a sponge and (yes, very ungreen of me) a disposable mop. Everything clean and spanky by 7:30 a.m.

Dateline: Houston, 8:30 p.m.

I'm doing the dishes after a rock 'em, sock 'em Gleetini Night (2 oz. vodka, 1.5 oz. Godiva liqueur, 1.5 oz espresso, 1 oz milk -- shake with ice and strain into two glasses. It's like an amazing coffee milkshake). I noticed a little drop of blood on the kitchen floor.

Turns out, I'd nicked my toe on a little piece of glass that I'd missed during the morning, and by the time I'd figured it out, I'd trailed blood all over the house (yes, TMI, charming, I understand).

What's a green girl to do? I didn't want to use sponges on the floor, and rags would be stained by the blood. And there were NO PAPER TOWELS.

So I did the next best thing -- got a wad of toilet paper and got to work.

But I'm going to be purchasing a roll of paper towels. Not for every day use, just for the days that begin with an exploded coffee pot and end with the trail of blood droplets, a la some British mystery series.

A Bunch of Randomness

Deep breath.

Ok. I feel like life has sort of gotten back on an even-ish keel. So here are a bunch of random thoughts that have come out of my blog hiatus, some green, some not-as-green.

• If you're a regular follower of this blog, you may have been thinking: wow, that Catfish has been working a lot lately rather than blogging. And you would be right. My friend Kelly recently got me hooked on the British series Torchwood, which is about a secret agency that fights aliens. You can probably infer the level of work stress I've been having in that I completely related to Torchwood's many stories about how alien fighting is incompatible with daily life, just like my work (on the front lines of social justice, natch) is incompatible with daily life. (And if you want a good Halloween scare, check out the Torchwood ep called "Countrycide.")
• I like to shop. But consuming without thinking isn't too green. So, as Tim Gunn (yes, the "Make it work" guru -- one time I saw him at the Houston Galleria and he looks a lot older in person than he does on Project Runway) advises, I decided to take stock of my wardrobe before buying anything new. I spent a couple of hours on Saturday morning going through my closet. Luckily, my closet still retained some semblance of organization from the last time I cleaned it. This closet-organizing frenzy produced five bags for Goodwill (mostly because I'm in a new job where professional dress is a bit more professional than my previous job). It turned out that I mostly need to purchase basics: jeans, underwear, socks, and bras. Not romantic, but it's a lot greener to know what I really need and make strategic purchases than to just buy whatever I feel like.

The closet. So clean!

• Talk about recycling ... for work, I was recently in St. Louis. The conference I attended was held in St. Louis Union Station, which at one time was the world's busiest train station. Though train travel is no longer our main type of transportation, the station was not destroyed to make way for a Wal-mart. It was renovated into a hotel, conference center and ... okay, a mall. But it's encouraging to see how classic architecture can be preserved. This doesn't only save American landmarks, but it discourages sprawl from eating up American countryside.

Here's a 1909 image of the Union Station Grand Hall.

And here's the Grand Hall today, in a picture I took.

• I just like this picture. I took it at the Arboretum.

• And here's a song I like. I realize that this makes me a fourteen-year-old drama-club geek. So, I'm only 20 years off.

Riches to Rags

In the past, I've written about my love-hate relationship with recycled paper towels. Although I know that paper towels use precious resources (not only trees for their production, but energy for transport, packaging materials, resources for disposal ... the list goes on and on) as a pet owner I've always kept a few paper towels around for ... ahem ... (insert your own indelicate mess here).

About a month ago, I realized that I was almost out of paper towels so I put them on the shopping list (yes, it's a paper list. I'm not perfect). I got to the store and ... I don't know ... a whim struck me.

I decided I was done with paper towels.

As I have also written before, being green involves a certain degree of organization. It should not be done whimfully. Yet, going off paper towels has proved to be hardship-free (luckily the cat hasn't cough! cough! on the furniture lately.) Previously, while cleaning my closet, I'd transformed a bunch of T-shirts into rags. I'd used them mostly for dusting. Now they are what I use for all of my general cleaning.

T-shirts, pillow cases, old towels -- all too grungy to be reused. Cut them into pieces and they can be used for all of your cleaning needs.

I've found that a nice, soft T-shirt works best for dusting and cleaning delicate items (and the TV screen), while a stiffer cotton is better for scrubbing.

This green experiment has worked out, but I have one paper towel left.

Just in case.

Apartment Cleaning Smackdown - Rounds 3 & 4

With a week off, I continued my cleaning odyssey, attempting to use as many green cleaning methods as possible, and being honest about how well I fared. Thursday and Friday were my last days at home before my real vacation started, so I had to get the house finished. Here's how it went (I've divided my story up into green, meaning the greenest cleaning methods I know; light green, meaning I used somewhat green, or commercially-prepared "green" products; and red, meaning I used conventional cleaners).

Round 3 - The BedroomHere's my side table. Dust bunnies gone. Dust owls? Hmm ...

The bedroom was really a replay of the living room, so I'm not going to say much about it. Dusting, sweeping, mopping. About a week ago I washed the curtains. And I had a whole rigamarole involving my bedding ... but you will be able to read about that tomorrow. So, without much further ado, let's move on to the bathroom, linen closet.

Round 4 - The Bathroom

This little table was hand-painted by yours truly many years ago, and has traveled hither and thither with me for years, even though it doesn't match anything in my house. Still, it's perfect bathroom storage for your recycled toilet paper (there's a little cubby underneath).

I have a teeny-tiny bathroom that has a lot of issues. The tile is buckling. The floor is painted wood and has cracks in it. The room is unventilated, and so tends to get mildewy. And since Hurricane Ike, when I vacated the premises for a couple of weeks due to lack of power in the 90+ degree September heat, I've had hard water stains in the sink that have been impossible to remove.

Nevertheless, it is a happy place, just perfect for my girly routines. The tile is cute aqua, yellow and pink. The linen closet is within arms reach of the sink, so I can get everything I need. The light is great in the mornings. All in all, I can overlook all of those issues.

See the cute tile? And the cute owl soap dish? Have I mentioned that I like owls?

But it had been awhile since I'd given it a good scrub from floor to ceiling. Here's how it went:

Green:

• I've been treating the mildew stains in the shower with undiluted vinegar (Seriously, I think vinegar can do anything). Each day I spray it on the grout where it is getting mildewed. This does seem to be working, albeit slowly. Because the cat loves to jump in the shower (as long as it's dry!) I'm leery of using more heavy-duty chemicals to get rid of the mildew, even though I know that mildew and mold are also bad for you.
• I dusted with my handy-dandy homemade rags!

Light Green:

• I used Seventh Generation Tub & Tile Cleaner to clean the tub, sink, and outside of the toilet. And yes, I've given Seventh Generation a hard time, from time to time, for putting greener products out there that don't work too well (paper towels, laundry detergent), which I think might deter some consumers from using greener cleaning products (Envision Betty Draper, ca. 2009, saying, "you know what, screw Bounty. I'm going to try this 'green' paper towel," then getting it home, finding it doesn't work, and swearing off "green" for the rest of eternity, believing it to be simply a communist ploy to get everyone in America to have a dirty house and begin the slide into becoming dirty hippies. It could happen). All this, however, is to say that the Tub & Tile Cleaner really works. It uses the ubiquitous "plant-based cleaners," and without more research, I can't tell you more even from the material-safety data sheets (and people are never going to go green if they have to do a lot of research before they buy something. They just aren't). The Tub & Tile Cleaner has a pleasant "emerald cypress and fir" scent, which I love because it isn't checmically, and also sounds like walking in a forest. Thumbs up.
• I used Clorox Green Works to clean the toilet. I know that many in the green community are pretty skeptical about the Clorox Green Works family of products, and some of my loyal readers (Thanks Mom and Melanie!) have disputed the effectiveness of the glass cleaner in particular. Treehugger.com has a very thoughtful article about these products. Click here to read it. I feel better about them knowing that the Sierra Club - of which I am now a member, yay! - has endorsed these products in an effort to make greener cleaning more available to more Americans.

Red:

• Here's where things got tricky. While organizing the linen closet, home to all of the health and beauty products I use rarely/never, I came across a conundrum I didn't know the answer to, and being computer-free for a week, couldn't research easily. There were a few bottles I threw away because, frankly, with my weak, post-sprain hand, I couldn't open them to clean them out and recycle. A few others contained medicine. I was going to just chuck the pills and recycle the bottles, but then my brain went into overdrive, thinking about the possums who eat the garbage in Houston, and how they might die from a mouthful of expired Zoloft. So I just threw the whole bottle away. They'll probably end up in some landfill, and the pills will stay in there until Wall-E comes along and decides to see what they are, and becomes a robot drug addict. However, it's what I did. Flog me now.

So, what are the results of the Apartment Cleaning Smackdown?

Greenest Clean: The kitchen! Cleaned almost entirely with vinegar, baking soda, and reusable towels, the kitchen is now Mother Earth's favorite place to come, hang out, and make martinis with organic herbs.

Reddest Clean: The bathroom! Read above to see why.

I enjoyed my super-clean apartment for one day, and then it was off on my vacation, where I will be hitting Spokane WA, Portland OR, and Long Beach WA. As I venture throughout my homeland, the Pacific Northwest, I'll certainly be taking pictures, looking for green happiness, and enjoying time with family and friends. You'll get to read all about it.

Apartment Cleaning Smackdown - Round 2

Round 2 - The Living Room

So, after I spent a day going through piled-up mail and leftover papers from my office, I had piles of shreds to go to the recycling center (I really like shredding ... I have a little thing for destruction, what can I say?)

All that mail was piled up here, on the desk. Much cleaner now! I think I could actually do work here... I don't think I will, but I could.

I was ready, then, to begin cleaning the living room. Here's a rundown of the green/light green/red cleaning methods I used:

Green:

• I dusted using my homemade rags.
• I swept the floors using green energy (my own elbow grease)

Light Green:

Not dusty anymore! Thanks, old T-shirts.

• Zero - nada - none. I was not light green in the living room. I was either super green or totally ungreen.

Red:

• I used the random floor cleaner and a disposable mop for the floors, but I did use the disposable mop head for much longer than standard.

Speaking of green vs. red cleaning - I've been thinking a bit about green guilt lately. Of course, I read a bunch of green blogs to get ideas for things to try in my own home/life. I occasionally run across statements such as, "I would never ... (insert non-green lifestyle choice here)."

I sometimes wish I was as committed as these folks, but I think that we, as a movement, should be careful that our "I would never -" statements don't alienate people who are still as light green as new leaves in spring. They'll get to be a darker green as the days pass - if they, like leaves, receive lots of sunlight and love. However, if they feel like they can't be good enough to be "green" then the leaves might shrivel up and die (like the extended metaphor?).

The fact is, there's no official definition of what it means to be green. I try to be as green as I can, with the time and money I have available. I use a disposable mop head. I have air conditioning (I live in Texas!). I sometimes go through the Starbucks drive-thru. And sometimes I feel guilty about these things, and sometimes I don't. But I'm doing the best I can, and I hope that we can support all of the little changes people make.

Apartment Cleaning Smackdown - Round 1

Round 1 = The KitchenLook! The galley is shiny-clean!

As I mentioned the other day, I am transitioning to a new job soon, and am blessed to have a few weeks to chillax before that job starts. Of course, being the person I am, which is the sort of person who likes to give herself projects and goals, I set a big goal for my first week of "freedom."

Each day this week, I plan to clean one room of my small apartment - but not just clean. Deep clean. Organize, do the floors, take everything off the shelves and scrub them. I figured one room per day would give me the opportunity to do other things each day (of course, I have goals for that "free time" as well).

Each day, I'll be blogging about how I wrestled dirt and germs to the ground, using cleaning methods of a variety of shades of green. I'll be labeling them Green, meaning I used the least environmentally-harmful methods I know; Light Green, meaning I was used methods that were somewhat green; and Red. Red means traditional cleaning. I hope you'll be able to try out some of these methods as well, and if you have any suggestions for my Red cleaning options, let me know.

Green:

• I cleaned the cupboards, shelves, stove, fridge doors, and pretty much everything else with undiluted vinegar, spraying it just as I would a store-bought cleaner and wiping with a wet sponge.
  
• I used a combination of vinegar and baking soda to clean the sink. First I filled the sink with about an inch of vinegar to cut the mineralization, then rinsed it and scrubbed using the baking soda as a mild abrasive.
• I used homemade rags (cut up T-shirts from my closet-cleaning adventure) to dust and dry.
• I recycled a bunch of containers and cans, and found some reusable stuff for Goodwill.
  

Light Green:

• I washed the dishes with Mrs. Meyer's dish soap, which uses plant-based cleaners.
• I used about 5 paper towels. They were a recycled brand - Small Steps. They work well, I've found, as compared to some others I've tried (see below).
  

Red

• I washed the rags, rug, and towels with Tide Essentials with Baking Soda. I don't think it's really any different than Tide, because it has the same material-safety data sheet. It doesn't, however, have the uber-chemically fragrance of regular detergent. When I have tried more environmentally-responsible detergents, such as Seventh Generation, they have not worked AT ALL. I actually had to wash my clothes again after using Seventh Generation, because they were still stinky. What's the point of buying "green" products if they don't do what they're supposed to? (Seventh Generation is on my bad list for this particular reason, after their paper towels also failed me.)
  
• I used some floor cleaner that I had under the sink to mop.

Tomorrow: The living room!

Revenge of the Paper Towels

You may remember that in March, I reviewed Seventh Generation paper towels and toilet paper. And I was not a fan. But, because I have been using fewer paper towels, I didn't run out of them until this week! They have just been sitting there for almost 4 months, annoying me and waiting not to absorb things. I've cut down on paper towels a lot, but I find that for things like cat vomit, it's invaluable to have a few around.

That's why my annoyance has grown. Over the past week, I have attempted to buy paper towels several times, but have found no recycled options at any of the three grocery stores I normally frequent. Green products are all over the place these days. I even noticed organic cotton at Target, and clothes with recycled fiber content in Old Navy. Is a recycled paper towel too much to ask for?

If green products are too hard to find, then people's excuses grow: "Well, I was going to buy recycled, but they didn't have any, and I didn't have time to go to another store." Let's make it easy to be greener, grocery chains!

Luckily, the cat has not vomited this week.

My Friends Wrote This Post For Me

Friends have been filling me in on lots of eco-friendly goodies for the blog, but I haven't had time to conglomerate all of the fun into a post. So here we go, a whirlwind round-up of what some other Light Greenies are doing and seeing in their quest to keep the planet a bit nicer.

• Sara, in Oakland, sent a couple of items. First up, when we were walking in Rockridge, we saw a house with a LEED "Platinum" certification plaque on the front. LEED (Leadership in Energy-efficient and Environmental Design) is program that environmentally-friendly building projects go through. There are a variety of levels of LEED certification, but platinum sounded like an A+ to me. I'm ashamed to admit that Sara and I both agreed that someone with a LEED Platinum certificate would probably be insufferable... well, I can't vouch for the personality traits of anyone involved, but Sara sent an article she found stating that this house is the "greenest" in America -- or at least the greenest that LEED has certified. I think it's especially cool because they took a beautiful old home and simply updated it, so it retains its character.


• Sara also sent me a link to Natural Home Cleaning, a company in Oakland which is sweet because a) it is a worker-owned co-op (sounds Commie, I know, but co-ops are cool!); and b) they clean homes using only safe and natural products. Sara wondered if Houston might have something similar -- and a quick google later I turned up Organic Home Cleaning. Now, I haven't tried them out -- ahem, I do all my own cleaning ... sometimes -- but it's nice to know that Houston can be green just like those folks out on the left coast.


• Other Sarah, here in Houston, recommends biodegradable dog waste bags from Simply Out!. Her dog Nicky gives them two "un-opposable, and unopposed" thumbs-up.


• Also in Houston, Melanie gives an (opposable) thumbs-down to Green Works Natural All-Purpose Cleaner. Green Works hasn't gotten the best reviews from my amigas, although the toilet cleanser seems to work fine. It seems that sometimes green products coast on being green, without also working. Many experiments with organic shampoo have borne this out. Hopefully, Clorox will continue trying ... wouldn't be amazing if someday a chemical company transformed into an all-natural company ... ah! we can only dream.


• Darci, in Spokane, WA, is a fan of Fresh Abundance, a small grocery selling local and organic products. They also deliver weekly produce boxes with a surprise assortment of vegetables and fruits, which allows participants in the program to experience produce they might not otherwise try.


• Finally, Maritza came to our birthday party bearing another brand of ecologically-responsible partyware - dispozables, by iPack.

And over at My Charming Kids, baby Stellan is doing a bit better today -- keep praying and sending good wishes to Stellan and his family.

Re-Purpose: Baking Soda + A fish taco recipe

The Many Uses of ...

Baking Soda

Use #2: Air Freshening

Everyone knows baking soda absorbs odors. For years Arm & Hammer has been advertising the odor-busting powers of baking soda - "naturally."

Remember this ad from 1980?

I didn't really buy it. I couldn't imagine how placing an open box of baking soda in the refrigerator could make any difference in stinkiness.

Until last night.

There are all kinds of constantly-improving products meant to freshen the air you breathe. I'm migraine-prone, however (such a nerdy ailment, I know) and so I'm not a big fan of commercial products. Their perfumes trigger headaches. Plus, after the air freshener-ingestion incident I'm not down with air freshening products.

But, last night, I had an air freshening emergency!

I made fish tacos -- the world's best fish tacos -- and then went to visit my friends Sarah, Trae, and my adopted nephew Eli. Upon returning home, the house reeked of "eau d' poisson." In other words, it stank of fish.

I wracked my brain to think where I might have some kind of air freshening product hidden. To no avail. That was when I remembered the amazing powers of baking soda and thought I would give it a try.

I placed a bowl of baking soda in the fridge and one on the stove, the two places where the fish stank seemed to have centered. In the morning, I woke up, sniffed, and ...

... all was relatively fresh.

By the time I got home from work, the house smelled normal, and I was sold. Baking soda absorbs odors "naturally", as the commercial says. It's pretty amazing that a bowl of white powder can just sit there and magically take away smells (if you're more interested in the coolness of baking soda, a.k.a. sodium bicarbonate, check out the Wikipedia article. Ancient Egypt... who knew?).

Air fresheners are expensive, and baking soda is cheap. Air fresheners are poison, and baking soda is a part of bread. It seems pretty clear to me ... baking soda is the answer to all life's little stinkies.

Now ... A fish taco recipe

The cause of all the stinkiness was the fish tacos. But don't hold it against them. They were delicious, and usually smell just fine. Here's the recipe, for all my pescetarian friends (and those who just wish they were in Baja).

This is how you make them:

You want tilapia, cod, or other mild white fish. It can be fresh or frozen. Prepare according to package directions or common sense. I like to use frozen fillets (1 per person, from Costco) cooked with a generous sprinkling of some sort of fish rub. Salt, pepper, thyme, and a squeeze of lemon would also work.

While the fish is cooking, finely chop some tomatoes (one 1/2 per person), avocado (1/4 per person), and lettuce (as much as you desire).

With a fork, stir together 1 tablespoon olive oil, a 1/4 tsp. garlic salt, and a squeeze from 1/2 a lemon (that's per person, once again) and drizzle the goodies all over the veggies. Toss.

When the fish is ready, flake it with a fork. Transfer the flaky fish to the veggies and toss everything together. Then, spoon the mixture into a warm tortilla. Corn, or flour, whatever is your pleasure.

Now, enjoy, secure in the knowledge that you can de-stinkify your home with just a little baking soda.

Random Things

Hey! I'm vacationing in beautiful Oakland, California this weekend, but wanted to take a moment to pass along 4 Random Things (not 25, all Facebookers might expect). Here they are, in no particular order:

• Oakland is a really great city! Though much-maligned by the popular imagination, it has great old buildings, parks, and some cool vintage signage. Pictures should be following.
• Loyal reader Frances, aka: My Mom, sent in the following reports about some green products:
  • Green Works Natural Glass and Surface Cleaner by Clorox. Two thumbs way down. The product smears on glass and leaves streaks and a residue. And it smells awful -- kind of like sick Seven-Up.
  • Orange Plus Natural Orange All Purpose Everyday Cleaner by Earth Friendly Products. Safe and reasonably effective. Especially good for counter tops, stove top, lightly soiled floors and other surfaces. Not a powerhouse cleaner for really greasy or heavily dirty areas but good for, as they say, everyday. Fresh smell that doesn't linger.
• And finally, one more plastic bag solution for you parents out there, discovered on a Safeway trip with my friend Sara and her little guy, Desmond. The bottom of the stroller - the place where you might stash a jacket or purse, can also fit a small number of groceries. Not a solution for "big shopping" - as my mom called the weekly grocery trip- but for a quick, eco-friendly walk to the store it works great.

Tomorrow, DIY Friday: Knit or Die!

Re-Purpose: Vinegar

The Many Uses of ...
VINEGAR

Uses #2 (Killing Insects) and #3 (Washing Produce)

It's handy to keep a spray bottle filled with a mixture of water and distilled white vinegar. I have one next to the sink. Here are two of its uses:

A Natural "Insecticide": Living in one of the buggiest places in, at least the U.S. (I won't claim it to be buggier than, say, the Amazon) one sometimes needs to get a little nuclear on some insect-ass. Most insect repelling products, however, are filled with toxic chemicals that I certainly don't want around my kitchen or my cat. When sugar ants invade my sink area as they sometimes do, or when we have one of our semi-annual fruit fly infestations, a blast of vinegar + water takes care of the pests.

Washing Produce: While I'm certainly not above rubbing an apple on my shirtsleeve to clean it off, it is probably better to be a little more pro-active about cleansing chemicals/ E.coli from produce. The vinegar + water solution can be used for this purpose as well. Just spray the solution on the produce. Rinse the produce with water and rub.

Vinegar is awesome! Ask the tiny ants!

Re-Purpose

The Many Uses of ...

VINEGAR

Use #1
Cleaning mineralization from your sink drain

During Hurricane Ike, I stayed with friends for about two weeks. When I returned home, Houston's hard water had formed a rusty ring in the sink. Because that is my cat's very favorite place to get water, and I don't want to poison him with rust removers, I hit the web to look for alternatives.

What I ended up trying was distilled white vinegar. Here's how it works:

Step 1: Plug the drain in your sink.

Step 2: Pour vinegar in to cover the hard water stain.

Step 3: Let it sit. My drain doesn't seal well, so I just let it sit until it had all drained out, probably about 30 minutes. I think longer would have worked better.

Step 4: Drain the sink. Using a lightly-abrasive sponge or towel (or baking soda, but more about baking soda in another post) scrub the remaining stain.

As I've said before, once you move into green cleaning territory, you need to re-adjust your idea of what "clean" is. The stain was not 100% gone, but it was MUCH better. I will probably need to use a more heavy-duty cleaner at some point, but this was a great non-toxic alternative.

Product Review

Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Liquid Dish Soap - Lavender Scent

Basic Cleaning Power: **** (out of 5)

Deep Cleaning Power:**

Scent and Appearance:*****

Recyclable Packaging?: Yes, Code 2

I found it at: Spec's

Other stuff: Packaging states that it is biodegradable and cruelty-free

See below for the scoop.


I bought this because I was at Spec's, which is a gourmet-food-wine & liquor utopia, when I realized that I was out of dish soap. Spec's doesn't carry a lot of household goods, but they did have this dish soap. So ... what's the verdict?

First of all, the lavender scent is amazing -- like running through a field of lavender in a white dress, seen through a soft-focus lens, hair blowing in the wind. I don't like sweet smells, being dorkily scent-sensitive and migraine-prone, but this has the astringent tang of actual lavender.

However, we don't buy dish soap to sniff (at least, I don't). We buy it to wash dishes. I have no dishwasher and only a single sink, and so use a dish tub to do the washing up. I found that Meyer's Clean Day was pretty good with the basic clean up. I soaked my silverware in it, and washed up the plates and cups. All clean and happy. There were a couple of plates that had been dusted with flour during a bread-baking episode, and they felt a bit gritty when I put them away.

For deep cleaning, I found Meyer's Clean Day didn't cut the mustard. Or the grease, as the case may be. Cookie sheets that had been sprayed with cooking spray felt sticky, even after a second wash with maximum elbow grease.

Would I buy it again? Despite its limitations, I have to admit, I might. That lavender scent is just so addicting ...

Green Clean - This is my Story

I'd like to say that my journey into the world of green cleaning products began because I'm so darn environmentally-conscious, but that would be, you know, a lie.

The truth is, I love bleach.

I like the way it burns all of your nostril hairs when you breathe it in. I like the way it clings to your skin and seeps out of your pores when you've been swimming all day. I like how scary it is. Those who know me, know that I secretly hope that our modern exposure to chemicals and radiation will lead us to develop super-powers.

So, it wasn't virtue that made me clean my sink with vinegar and baking soda last weekend.

It was this guy:

This is my cat, Wily.

When he was a kitten he fell into the toilet and got Vanish all over himself, requiring a 2:00 a.m. bath in the punch bowl. As he grew, he became more like a dog than a cat, chewing on everything he could. He is now particularly fond of licking the faucets and around the drains. These factoids led me to believe that I should start looking for cleaning products that wouldn't poison a small animal. It's become a bit of a project for me, trying out different combinations.

I can't say, however, that I'm always happy about it.

When using green cleaning products, one has to accept a different standard of clean. That sparkling, bleachy goodness is no longer to be found. I know it's better for Wily and for me (no super powers for me, damn it!) but it definitely takes a mental adjustment. I'll be updating the blog with product reviews in the future.