Kitchen

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There are a couple of people in my family who are pretty tough to buy for. They also tend to be the types who will say “nothing” or “I don’t know” when asked what they want for Christmas. Since I’ve turned over a new leaf this year and plan on doing little to no shopping for the holiday, that’s not as much of an issue. But I imagine it is hard for some of my wonderful readers. So here’s my suggestion: Think about what that person likes to do rather than what they would want. If they like to cook at all, they will appreciate this beautiful set of kitchen knives and utensils from Bambu.

Lately, my household has been focused on our water consumption. Our bill jumped up significantly this month, with no obvious culprit. We only use the dishwasher every other day, use bath and cooking water to give our plants a drink and do our laundry in larger loads. So we’ve decided to try finding all the small ways we can conserve water.

This is also motivated by the fact that we live in the metro Atlanta area, and most of our water comes from Lake Lanier. The lake’s levels have been extremely low for more than a year, prompting water restrictions in some counties.

Once I start to find one product that I really like in a particular category, the snowball effect comes into play. I start finding them everyone, online and off, everywhere I turn. Since I featured the organic Basil and Parsely kitchen towels a few weeks ago, I’ve found lots of alternatives. But these beauties from ferm LIVING really caught my attention.

I read somewhere that the only way to guarantee that your food is organic is to grow it yourself. That’s definitely a statement I can get behind, particularly since my hubby likes getting his hands in the dirt. But the funny thing about living in a rural county with a back yard that’s not fenced in is that the edge of the backyard is a thick grove of trees. Planting anything outside would be an open invitation to the deer, rabbits and who knows what other animals make their home back there.

A few weeks ago, I wrote up the Starfrit Eco-Chef frying pan for its green qualities on paper. It has all the hallmarks of a great green product, using recycled, sustainable and non-toxic materials in its construction. The folks at Starfrit took notice and sent me one of their pans to review.

When I was a little girl, I always wished I could fly, or at least defy the forces of gravity for a little while. I would hang upside down, and even shimmy across a ledge that went around the back of my neighbor’s 2-story house. Stupid? Most definitely. I could’ve easily killed myself had I fallen, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. (I can say that about a lot of things in childhood).

One of the early decisions I made when my family started going green was to stop buying and using paper towels. Easy change, I thought. Well, what I found out was how much we really relied on paper towels, and making the change took a look more adjustment than I thought. I didn’t help that I had a very small supply of kitchen towels, which quickly became the workhorses of the kitchen. They were being used to clean up messes, dry hands, as pot holders and for everything else you could think to use a towel for.

My husband thinks I’m crazy, but I mean it when I say you can find a greener alternative to almost any product on the market — from underwear to light bulbs and everything in between. So I try my best not to buy any new products without first investigating whether I can find one that is easier on the Earth.

As wonderful as it is that so many companies are adding truly green products to their rosters, it is equally as disturbing at the number of companies who are selling the same toxic products they have always sold, but with newer, more eco-friendly names and redesigned packaging complete with green color schemes, leaves and trees. This type of deceptive marketing has made me skeptical of any product calling itself “Eco-Something or Other.”

As much as I love bamboo for its sustainable qualities, if you look at it as often as I do, it tends to lose its luster. So many bamboo products look the same. The same colors, the same standard bamboo grain — it can get a bit tiring. So its great to find a company that is making bamboo products that are different.