Happy Earth Day!

It IS Earth Day, right? Kind of snuck up on me.

I totally forgot to pose the family for our Earth Day cards.  Guess we won’t be sending them this year.

Actually, in all seriousness, one of the reasons I don’t send holiday cards is the wastefulness of the paper involved.  A lot of people I know are going paperless with their cards and the online options are getting fancier and classier.  There’s an Earth Day tip right there!

Kim thinks I’m relatively conscientious about this stuff because I compost.  It’s so easy to impress her.  (I will say that there’s a disgusting aspect to composting that does test your commitment).  I’m happy to report that our recycling waste now far outpaces our regular waste, and between that and the composting, we’ve definitely cut down on icky bags of goo going out to the trash can.

And of course I made a vow to be a vegetarian this year (and maybe on into the future) for strictly environmental reasons.  If you’re a faithful reader of this blog, you’ll remember that I “went” vegetarian on New Year’s Day, which makes it roughly four months now since I’ve eaten meat or fowl.

(Okay, confession time: I had a few mouthfuls of chicken at a literary festival where I had JUST spoken and was sitting back down, still shaking from having been up in front of hundreds of people, and found lunch waiting on the table in front of me.  Without thinking, I had devoured a bite or two of chicken salad before realizing what I was doing.  I cried out, “Oh, no!  I just ate chicken and I’m a vegetarian!” which raised some skeptical eyebrows among my tablemates, since most vegetarians know not to eat chicken. Also: once I nibbled on my daughter’s leftover pizza and she pointed out to me it was barbecue chicken pizza.)

Overall, though, I’ve found it surprisingly easy to stay the course, even when we were traveling all over the place for spring break.  Of course, I made it easy on myself: I’m not a vegan, so I eat eggs and dairy–can’t imagine doing this without cheese–and I also eat fish which pretty much solves the “what do I get at a nice restaurant” problem.  I try to focus on types of fish that are environmentally sound, like anchovies, sardines, and tilapia, but when I branch out from those, I can’t always remember which ones are best, so I may have made some mistakes in that area.  (I should carry one of those lists around–I know you can get them online–that tell you which fish you shouldn’t order because they’re being overfished or are toxic or are caught in ways that harm other species.)

Anyway, the point is: I’ve had no problem sticking to this diet when it comes to what I eat, but since I’m happy eating crackers and cheese for dinner with a glass of wine and a chocolate cake chaser, that’s no surprise.  What’s significantly harder is cooking healthful meals for the family.  My husband and two older boys all are eating meat freely (and they also all have to eat gluten free which adds another complicating factor but I won’t bore you with that).  My daughter says she’ll eat chicken but nothing else (not sure why she won’t allow turkey in there, but she won’t.)  And my youngest son is trying very very hard to be a vegetarian although sometimes the flesh is weak . . . and delicious.  Because of him, I’m reluctant to cook meat or chicken–it would be nice to make something we can all eat together.

Of course, I could mix (rice) pasta with cheese every night, sprinkle bread crumbs and butter on top, and bake it in the oven until it’s crunchy on top and gooey in the middle and everyone would be happy.  How HEALTHY they’d be is more of an issue.  I do that often enough, but there’s probably a limit to how often we should eat that.

That’s where the Moosewood cookbooks come in.  I suspect that anyone in this country who’s ever tried to be a vegetarian, even briefly, has spent some time with a Moosewood cookbook.  For those living on another planet, Moosewood is a vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, New York, that was founded in 1973.  I know that the first and original Moosewood Cookbook was published before 1983 or so (it was actually 1977–I just checked) because my college roommate discovered it first and I learned about it from her.  It’s a friendly, jaunty cookbook (hand-lettered by the author and then-restaurant-owner Mollie Katzen), and everything in it is delicious.  And smothered in cheese and cream.  The desserts are awesome too.  There’s a poppy seed coffee cake in there that I still dream about but never make in my current life because none of my kids would go near a cake that had SEEDS in it.

Anyway, since that brilliant early cookbook–my own copy is missing the cover and the pages are falling apart from overuse–the Moosewood Collective has published a bunch of other good vegetarian cookbooks, some of which include fish, some of which don’t, and some of which are dedicated to a lower fat diet.  I have most of them and they’re my “go-to” books when the organic vegetable delivery company I use has dropped off a ton of kale and I don’t know what to do with it.  For pure entertainment, I recommend Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant which has different members of the collective exploring their ethnic roots by creating vegetarian versions of the foods their families have made for centuries. It’s fascinating and inspiring.

So thank you, Moosewood Collective, for always being there for me as I try to make meals that will we can all eat without compromising our health or protein levels.

I have eight more months to go and then I’ll decide whether this is a permanent life change or not.  Meanwhile: turn out your lights when you’re not in a room, close or turn off your computer when you’re not using it, recycle anything you can, avoid using plastic wrap and tin foil, don’t drive if you can walk, and try to eat grass-fed beef if you have to eat beef at all.

Got that?  Lecture is over.  As you were, people.