organikal

Free Range Winners!

Free Range Studios are truly a tremendous company.

So many of us talk one game and live another. I'm quite convinced these guys must have the cleanest conscience ever ...

Anyway - I just received in my inbox notification of their 2008 Gratitude Grant Recipient - Green For All.

This from the Green For All About Page:

Green For All is a national organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

By advocating for local, state and federal commitment to job creation, job training, and entrepreneurial opportunities in the emerging green economy – especially for people from disadvantaged communities – Green For All fights both poverty and pollution at the same time.

Fighting poverty with green initiatives - I love it! "Green Collar" jobs  - inspired!

Can you support them? Sign up today and make a difference to the world.

Organic Gardening Tips on Squidoo

Organic gardening is so simple, you really want to give it a shot.

Nature really does give you a head start, so if you think you have no time, take it from me - I'm working about 12 hours on the computer every day, with general house and family duties outside that. But, I am still managing to grow organic veg for the summer.

You can see our pitifully small sweetcorn here just after planting.

All I did was to prepare my bed with good organic compost and fertiliser and buy some organic plants to stick in the ground. I also grew lots from seed, and most of them have actually appeared to hopefully blossom into strong and healthy plants - and what with the price hikes in food this year, we hope that our house-swappers will find the extra larder beneficial! (we won't be here - instead, we're spending the summer in France, with our house-swappers spending their time here).

If I can do it, with so little space, and so little time - and in the unreliable Scottish climate - there really is no excuse for you. At the very least, you can grow some salad leaves in pots on your kitchen windowsill.

Looking for more tips on gardening? Visit this great Squidoo Lens on Starting  a Garden.

Congratulations to Grow Wild

Hearty organic celebrations and congratulations to my veg box supplier Grow Wild.

At last - a shiny new website - and I can subscribe to RSS feeds :o)

Ditch your supermarket produce and treat your family to some honest fare.

www.growwild.com

Leftovers for Lunch

We work from home, and it really is the best.

Lots of folks say they couldn't do it. They'd be tempted not to work and spend their time watching telly or doing housework...

I'm happy to report I do neither! And I really do love what I do for work, so have no problems getting into my office and getting on with things.

I do love cooking and spending time in the kitchen tho' - and use this as zen time mostly.

It does mean I usually cook too much, and always have leftovers. Most days that means that we eat leftovers for lunch. It's one of our fave things about working from home and something we get excited about - as we mix up different recipes to create weird concoctions. Like the meal in the photo above. That was a broccoli pasta dish combined with some leftover tomato and rosemary stew (made with soya sausages). It's like a tombola - you're never quite sure what you're gonna get - but you're sure to get a tasty prize :o)

Flock - The Eco Browser

Have you heard the news? There's a browser designed almost especially for us green types, and it is called Flock.

Flock is based on the geek's browser of choice* Firefox and is designed to allow us trendy types to manage our social media goings on more easily.

I'm lovin' it. I really am. Sure, it isn't perfect (I've had a wee bit of trouble with the link to my Del.ic.ious account and my Facebook link went haywire for a day or so, but in almost every other way, I diggit big.

"What does it do?" I hear you scream ask. Well, it gathers together all your social networking type accounts in one place. For instance, I have a "People" sidebar that imports updates from my Twitter, Flickr, You Tube and Facebook accounts in almost real time. This saves me having to check in to each of the site's web pages to see what's going on in the world around me (saves me oodles of time, as I like to keep track of all my "tweeps", "friends" and such.

If you've no idea what I'm talking about, you'd probably be as well to stop reading here - the social media references are gonna come thick and fast...

My gmail account is also linked to my browser and the icon tells me when I have new mail - quite handy as I tend to forget about email these days, as I get most of my updates via Facebook, Twitter, Skype IM etc...

What else, now let me see - there's so much! Yes, my del.ic.ious account is linked, so that I can easily save favourite pages to it, and access the links alongside my local browser faves - all in one place (in the sidebar).

Yes - I can create blogposts directly from the sidebar also, and upload pages to any of my linked accounts ( so when I see a page I'd like to post on Facebook, I just click and there it appears on my profile!) - and well, there's more, I'm sure there is.

Feeds. Yep - RSS feeds. I've stopped using Google Reader altogether and now monitor all my RSS feeds in Flock. The clever people there made it so that when Flock detects a feed on a page, it automatically asks you if you'd like to import it into your reader.... (of course, now I really need for it to read all the articles for me and pick out all the interesting stuff because i never seem to have the time).

So what makes Flock an "eco-browser"? Well, they're going to donate 10% of all their search proceeds (I admit, I'm not quite sure what that will amount to) to a charity of the Flock/eco users choice. And, your version of Flock/eco will come pre-loaded with feeds from Alltop/Green. Alltop aims to gather all the top feeds from all the top sites into one place. In this case, all the top green sites...

If you're using social media tools, then I do suggest you give Flock at least a try. You don't need to delete Internet Explorer or Firefox to get going, and you can always return to them if you don't like it.

Happy Eco Flocking :o)

* I have no idea if Firefox really is the geek's browser of choice - I do know that most geeks I know use it, so in my book that makes it (almost) official....

Spring Shout

Here's a shout to some interesting resources for you - and they're not all about food:

Complementary Therapies
Do you live in Scotland? Give Dave McGhee, Reflexologist and Auricular Acupuncturist a call. He has magic fingers :o)

Harmonic Living
Products and Resources for Living in Harmony! (hint: I heart the 100% organic chocolate). Free ebooks, downloads and teleseminars.

MoodFood
The online food store for healthy body and mind. Choose food to make you feel passionate, energised, happy, focussed, healthy or relaxed. Fair trade, organic, free delivery.

Envirowonk
I love a bit of politics. You can find US politics from an environmental perspective here. It's out of  the ecogeek stables, so comes with high pedigree.

What's in Your Veg Box?

Wednesday = veg box surprise! Actually, not everything's a surprise - I've customised my box to ensure some basics are included; bananas (we freeze them mostly for smoothies), apples (kid loves them), carrots (also for kid), potatoes (we're Scottish and couldn't live without them), celery (for breakfast!) and some non-veg items including eggs, bread, soya milk and dairy milk....

Here are the contents of this week's box (from Grow Wild):

The next step is to turn this glorious pile of organic produce into a menu for the week. This is last week's. Didn't get round to some of my plans... (veggie disclaimer: the tuna sandwiches are for the kid and of course the sausages are made from vegetables).

There's certainly a wheen of planning to get on with, so the next step after unloading my glorious pile of vegetables is the most important of all...

How to make a panini-style sandwich at home

This is definitely a day for food blogging ...

Ever fancied a toasted-panini style sandwich at home and find yourself with no special equipment? This was a tip I gleaned from the finger-licking cook Nigella Lawson.

Take your sandwich (in this case a tortilla filled with Emmental and roasted peppers), oil both sides, and place on a hot griddle pan. Put a plate on top and a big bowl and some heavy cans to act as a press.

Wait a few minutes and turn the sandwich over to  toast the other side, and in a few minutes, you'll be greeted with a delicious deli style hot panini-type sandwich - perfect for a quick snack!

Vegetable on Fire!

Do organic potatoes taste better? Of course they do - except, when you burn them...

I burned dinner twice this week - I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of the roasted vegetables.

A symptom of my hectic working life, I'm afraid... 12 hours a day and most of the weekend on the computer, and this is what happens...

Avaaz Petition to China calling for Restraint and Dialogue

Dear friends,

After decades of repression, the Tibetan people are crying out to the world for change. The spotlight of the upcoming Olympic Games is now on China, and Tibetan Nobel peace prize winner the Dalai Lama is calling to end all riots and violence through restraint and dialogue--he urgently needs the support of the world's people.

China's hardliners are lashing out publicly at the Dalai Lama--but we're told that President Hu Jintao may believe dialogue is the best hope for stability in Tibet. China's leadership is right now considering a crucial choice between repression and dialogue that could determine Tibet's--and China's--future.

We can affect this historic choice – for President Hu, China's global reputation matters. He needs to hear from us that the 'Made in China' brand and the upcoming Olympics in Beijing will succeed only if he chooses dialogue over the hardliners' repression. An avalanche of global people power is moving to get his attention. We're closing on our goal of 1 million signatures and the largest global online petition in history - click below to join the global outcry, and then forward this email to friends and family right away:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/34.php?cl=65796221

China's economy is dependent on "Made in China" exports that we all buy, and the government is keen to make the Olympics in Beijing this summer a celebration of a new and respected China. China is also a sprawling, diverse country with much brutality in its past, so it has good reasons to be concerned about stability -- some of Tibet's rioters killed innocent people. But President Hu must recognize that the greatest danger to Chinese stability and development today comes from hardliners who advocate escalating repression, not from those Tibetans seeking dialogue and reform.

We will deliver our petition directly to Chinese officials in New York, London and Beijing, but it we must reach our goal of 1 million signatures first. Please forward this email to your address book with a note explaining to your friends why this is important, or use our tell-a-friend tool to email your address book--it will come up after you sign.

The Tibetan people have suffered quietly for decades. It is finally their moment to speak--we must help them be heard.

With hope and respect,

Ricken, Pascal, Graziela, Iain, Paul, Galit, Milena, Ben and the whole Avaaz team

Here are some links with more information on the Tibetan protests and the Chinese response:

Crackdown in Tibet, but protests spreading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/19/tibet.china
and
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/crackdown-on-protests-widens/2008/03/17/1205602289349.html

Dalai Lama calling for dialogue and restraint, and an end to violence:
http://www.dalailama.com/news.216.htm
and
http://www.agi.it/world/news/200803191258-pol-ren0032-art.html

Leaders across Europe and Asia starting to back dialogue as the way forward:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7300157.stm

Chinese Prime Minister attacks "Dalai clique", leaves door open for talks:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/18/content_7813194.htm

Other Chinese signals:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/China_looks_at_India_to_talk_to_Dalai_Lama/articleshow/2875142.cms