OTRTG Roadshow 12.08.11

Today I’ll be speaking to a friendly audience up the hill at the Yale Divinity School. The topic? Finding Your Own Way to Greenness: Tips and Tools for Greening Up Your Holidays. I will have a slideshow in Keynote, and business cards with a QR code to this page. Following is a summary with links to some of the topics I will cover.

SOME OF MY INSPIRATIONS

• First Earth Day 
• First Macintosh 
• Steven Chu 
• Michael Pollan 
• Renewal 

BUY NOTHING CHRISTMAS/OCCUPY CHRISTMAS

Buy Nothing Christmas was started by Mennonites on the Canadian West Coast in 2001.

Occupy has morphed this idea into a campaign to support local businesses and alternatives to corporate retailers. Check out the movement's Facebook page for more. One suggestion is to support local, independent businesses.

Etsy is another way. Etsy is an “online marketplace” to buy and sell things handmade, supplies, and vintage items. Etsy's mission is “to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.” Its vision is “to build a new economy and present a better choice.” Its tagline is “Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade.” Buyers and sellers come from 150 countries, and Etsy sellers number in the hundreds of thousands. 

Here are some of my suggestions:

LOCAL MERCHANTS

• Atticus Bookstore and Cafe
• CitySeed Farmers Markets
• Devil’s Gear Bicycle Shop 
• Elm City Market Co-Op
• Foundry Music
• Group W Bench
• Hull's
• Katahdin Furniture
• Knit New Haven
• Trailblazer
• Willoughby’s Coffee and Tea

SHOPPING TOOLS

Good Guide 

Yelp 

A NIGHT ON THE TOWN

Farm to Table Restaurants

• 116 Crown
• Caseus 
• Claire’s
• Kitchen Zinc

Entertainment

• Criterion Cinema
• Long Wharf Theatre
• New Haven Symphony Orchestra
• Shubert Theater
• Yale Rep

Check out Info New Haven for current promotions for shopping downtown.

SHOPPING FOR GOOD

• 10,000 Villages 
• CAW
• Peabody Museum
• Yale British Art Center 
• Yale University Art Gallery
• Albers Kits 

REPURPOSING/VINTAGE SHOPPING

• English Building Markets
• Fashionista
• Helping Hands Community Thrift Store & Furniture Bank 
• IKEA Hacking
• Wiki-How

GIFTING FOOD

• For the scoop on chocolate 
• Local Harvest

FOR THE PERSON WHO HAS EVERYTHING

• Heifer International
• KIVA: http://www.kiva.org/
• Oxfam America
• Check out my last year’s post on 10 Worthy Causes. 

FOR SOME OF MY OWN PERSONAL GIFT IDEAS

Check out some of my other 10 Things Thursdays on a variety of topics from stocking stuffers, mementos for those who live far away, gifts for kids.

• 10 Random Things
• 10 Things to Stuff in a Stocking
• 10 Things to Wear
• 10 Useful Things
• 10 Things to Buy for the Cook
• 10 Things to Buy For Kids

CULINARY ADVENTURES

Check out this great tool: Google with recipe view 

And tales of my culinary adventures with:

• Hakurei Turnip
• Kohlrabi
• Nettle Soup
• Ramps

FOR MORE ON WASTE

American Wasteland: How Americans Throw Away Nearly Half Their Food 

CREATIVE WRAPPING IDEAS

Check out these and these

And for shipping something heavy, or to a rural area, learn more about If it fits, it ships!

In conclusion, as a new Seafood Watch Advocate, I handed out the Northeast version of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch pocket guide as stocking stuffers. Here is the link to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Advocate Program.

Thanks to everyone who joined me on the road!

Meatless Monday: Yelping Our Way to the Cape (and Home Again)

Things have changed. I recently switched to a smartphone, and then I discovered Yelp. There’s simply no going back. No way.

Life doesn’t always go as planned, especially on a road trip. Traffic ties up. The sun is bright. The car gets hot. And you need a break sooner than the one you planned at the place you already know.

With Yelp and a smartphone, a world of new adventures opens up. There are so many tools you can use (not while driving, please). Park somewhere or assign the task to the person riding shotgun. Turn on your GPS. Then go to Yelp and search for coffee or restaurants or diners, or whatever you crave, nearby or down the road. You can filter for price or distance. Then read reviews and descriptions to learn whether the beans are fairly traded, the ingredients are locally sourced, the service is quick, the bathrooms clean, or whatever it is you most want to know. Then click for distance and precise driving directions in Google Maps and if you have Google Maps Navigation a voice will magically guide you there. 

That’s what we did on our way to the Cape (for needed breaks), once we arrived there (to see what was new), and on our way back (when we were hungry and then thirsty). And we’re still Yelping now that we are home again. One of us has even found the time to set up an account and start Yelping his own reviews. 

Here are some of our discoveries:

• Bean & Leaf in New London, CT. We never would have pulled off the road in downtown New London without a destination and clear directions. While on I-95, I searched for coffee nearby, read a description, and we decided to give the place a try. It was easy off and easy on. If not for Yelp, we would never have discovered this pleasantly funky café with fairly traded organic coffee roasted on the premises, delicious and reasonably-priced sandwiches, and a relaxed atmosphere.
• The Lazy Lobster in Chatham, MA where we had sublime clam chowder and crab cakes on a foggy day. We’d driven past this place for years, but the owners don’t advertise heavily and you can’t tell much about the restaurant from the outside. Without yelp we would never have realized that the only reason the parking lot is empty at night is that the Lazy Lobster only serves breakfast and lunch! What a find!
• On the way back to CT, we found the South Coast Local (Diner, Dinner & BBQ) in Mattapoisett, MA a farm-to-table restaurant which opened in May.  We had the opportunity to compliment awarding-winning chef and co-owner (with his wife Sherry) Wayne Gibson on the delicious ale-battered cod sandwiches we enjoyed. (So happy to have local fish one more time before returning to the Have). This gem of a restaurant is housed in a Mountain View diner, but diner fare it is not. It features food described by food writers and diners as, “fresh” and “inspired,” and a BBQ menu that has been called “perfect.”  
• We became thirsty just before the RI/CT border last Saturday and I had a craving for Del’s Frozen Lemonade (introduced to us by friends Carl and Polly a few years ago). I found a spot in North Kingstown, a little place with a large shade tree in the parking lot, a nice spot to chill out before the last leg of the trip. Once again, easy off, easy on. Never would have found it without Yelp.

Now, why am I telling you this in my Meatless Monday post? With Yelp you can search using any term you like and thus is a valuable resource in aiding you to honor your Meatless Monday pledge. In honor of MM, I entered “vegetarian” and then “vegan” restaurants within two miles from here. I had no idea just how many choices there are within walking distance. Now I know where to go on Mondays when I don’t feel like cooking.

Give Yelp a try, wherever you are. Here’s hoping you, too, will be pleasantly surprised.

Have a good week, and please come back soon for more food facts, recipes, and my latest edible discoveries.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal  health and the health of our planet.”