catbird.org

Samba writes a blog about, well, overdevelopment in West Orange. Specifically the (in)effectiveness of the town council in protecting trees by adopting a tree ordinance.

Instead of keeping all these links tabs open in tabs and losing them every time I have to restart, I thought I’d make a list:

Guitar:
Children’s Songs for guitar
more Children’s Songs for guitar
A Guitar Teacher’s Lesson Notebook
Guitar strumming patterns
How to Play Guitar for Newbies
Freedy Johnston tabs

Ukulele:
Alligator Boogaloo ukulele songs
Ukulele lessons online
Super-cool Beatles ukulele site

A good online ukulele tuner.

Steve is on a Quest for the Perfect Cup of Coffee. It’s been going on for about 6 years now, and I’m just here for the ride. Believe me, if it was my quest it would be more like the Quest for the Perfect Porter or the Quest for Eight Hours of Uninterrupted Sleep.

But no, it’s Steve’s quest for a home-brewed cuppa joe that’s consistent and hot from first sip to last and from first cup to last, as well as convenient to make and environmentally friendly.

It started when we switched from a regular old Mr. Coffee machine to a Krups machine with a built in carafe in order to keep the coffee hot from first cup to last. This stage also dictated the end of spoons to stir since the metal spoon created a “heat sink” that cooled the coffee to an undrinkable temperature.

After four years, this system was deemed unsatisfactory. Our second (and third) cups were too cold and we were wasting a lot of coffee and water on full pots that got thrown away. (Let it be noted that during this stage we had kids, so I only get one hot sip of coffee followed by room temperature dregs an hour later anyway.)

So now we have a Keurig single cup brewer. This meets most of the criteria — each cup starts off hot and fresh. But the k-cups are anything but environmentally friendly. When we first got the machine I had visions of a growing pile of k-cups in a landfill somewhere resulting from my caffeine addiction. So we used a filter with our own coffee. For each cup of coffee, we had to clean and fill the single use filter. Talk about inconvenient. We could use fair trade coffee and compost the grounds, but making coffee became a tedious chore and if the coffee wasn’t ground just right or filled to the optimal amount, the result was, well, less than consistent in taste from cup to cup.

Steve still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. So now we have this thing called a pod holster (yes, I’m still talking about coffee) in which we can load a coffee pod. Pods are fully compostable. So it would seem we have met all the criteria. Each cup is consistent, hot, convenient, and green.

Except, I said to Steve, we can’t get Fair Trade pods. In fact, it’s hard to even get organic pods.

So what’s next you ask? Why, a Perfect Pod of course! So now we’ll buy our own Fair Trade coffee (from Grounds for Change, by the way), make it into pods, use the pods in our pod holster, and conveniently create the perfect cup of hot coffee every time.

Hopefully.

My new go-to cookie recipe is this banana cookie one that Steve sent to me. What an easy and super delicious way to use up our ripe bananas!

I’ve added a new twist to my pancake repertoire. Instead of just adding finely shredded zucchini, I’ve been mixing it up with carrots and pumpkin pie spice. I shred carrots and zucchini (or sometimes apple) into vanilla yogurt and blend (using my hand blender). Then I add it to the dry ingredients along with one egg. In addition to the cinnamon in the dry ingredients, I add a bit of pumpkin pie spice. Not too much, maybe half a teaspoon. The pancakes come out a nice orangey color and taste very similar to pumpkin pancakes.

Nate and Van think they are yummy.

Jon Bream from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune is a bit of an idiot. And I’m being generous. His article about music in New Jersey is full of backhanded compliments.

Mr. Bream notes that “Per capita, the fertile Garden State has probably turned out more big-name music stars than any other state.” (including Count Basie, Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra, Lauryn Hill, Queen Latifah, and even, apparently, Eddie Rabbit) Why? he wonders, when the state is merely “Miles upon miles of industrial smokestacks, the filthy turnpike through the wastelands, two NFL teams that won’t even take the name of the state in which they play.”

Oh, here’s why, says Bream:
1. Being between NY and PA give us Jerseyites an “inferiority complex.”
2. In his words: “Those pollution-spewing factories do have a positive impact by helping to instill a strong work ethic in Jerseyites.” What is NJ part of a Dickens novel?
3. Gosh, this guy is an ass. Apparently, we have an “underdog mentality that comes from being the butt of jokes and living in a culture-deprived state that, unlike New York and Philly, had no pro sports until the 1970s.” What the heck do pro sports have to do with music?

Maybe this guy was dumped by a Jersey girl, I’m not sure. But I do know that he has never spent any real time in this beautiful state, which is full of diversity both cultural and natural. I’m 20 minutes from NYC by train, but in a 10 minute bike ride I can be in South Mountain Reservation surrounded by trees and wildlife. Beautiful beaches, mountains, farmland, rolling green hills, and the history of Washington’s Crossing — just the tip of the iceberg. On any given night in my neighborhood, you can smell Caribbean food cooking at the neighbor’s house (yum!), walk down the hill for Spanish or (authentic) Mexican food, head over to the pub for a pint, or go into Newark’s Ironbound District for Portuguese. Not to mention Cecil’s Jazz Club right down the street.

Have I mentioned that this guy is an idiot, or an ass, or maybe an idiotic ass? Not just the music, baby, NJ’s got it ALL!

So our kitchen waste/yard waste composting is going okay, but not great. We can’t seem to keep a good balance. Plus, squirrels chewed a hole in our composter. (Note to self: don’t compost pumpkins until squirrels are completely finished snacking on them.)

But our dog poop composting is going great. We read about it on this gardening site. We’ve been doing it all winter and have some good soil for growing some plants in the back — non-food, of course. Pet waste composting (along with the gDiapers) has really cut back on our garbage output, too. Our yard is pretty small, though, so our neighbors might appreciate us taking a break from poop composting during the hot summer months. Wow, that could be stinky.

Maia shared this news story from the NYT about how the government thwarts small farmers who provide local produce to people who really want to buy local produce. What it says isn’t surprising, but it is super disappointing.

The author of the article is Jack Hedin, a small organic farmer in Minnesota. He explains how the government penalizes corn farmers for growing anything else, including renting land to other farmers. It seems that an empty field is more desirable to the government (and various lobbyists) than growing other vegetables and fruits.

“Farmers need the choice of what to plant on their farms, and consumers need more farms like mine producing high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables to meet increasing demand from local markets — without the federal government actively discouraging them.”

I just want to prepare and eat real food. Local (and preferably organic) fruits and veggies and pasture fed meats. Why is the government subsidizing corn and soybeans anyway? The last thing we need is more high fructose corn syrup, soy isoflavins, and processed crap food-like substances.

Art class last week was Diego Rivera and murals. Nate, Van, and Nate’s friend Delia painted a three part mural on our walls. Well, on paper on the walls (I’m not completely crazy, yet.)

There are three rules to mural painting in our house:
1. Share the paints
2. Only paint on the paper
3. Have fun
Van forgot rule #2 and painted a whole fourth segment on the wall. Later, he also painted himself.

What a great collaborative painting! Plus it covers the plaster patching that we haven’t painted yet from where Nate’s head cracked the wall.

I bought Steve a pair of Born shoes last year. After about only six or seven months, the sole cracked completely in half. Maybe if I had bought a pair of cheapo-joes from some random discount store we would have just tossed them, but Borns… really, we expected more. I contacted the company, expecting that they would have us send them back for a replacement. Instead, the rep that replied to my email, Ilario Altamura, sent a form to fill out and return. The form noted that the process could take 3-5 weeks. So I completed the form, sent it back on Oct 19, 2007, and we sat back to wait. And wait, and wait, and wait.

Finally on January 4, 2008, what, like 10 weeks later?, I emailed Mr. Altamura again, asking for an update. Today is the 17th and I haven’t heard anything.

How disappointing! I wanted to like this company with their super comfortable shoes. Instead, I’m left feeling like they don’t care about their customers and that they produce a shoddy product. If they believed in their product, it seems they would have not hesitated to replace the shoe, or, at the very least reply with a reason why not.

Let’s contrast Born to a company that cares and stands by their product: LL Bean. A pair of winter boots, several years old, had soles that started disintegrate due to dry rot. LL Bean took them back, no questions asked. Because the soles shouldn’t dry rot after such a relatively short period of time, because they believe in their products, and because, most importantly, they want me to continue to purchase things from them. Which I will.

UPDATE 1/25/08: The day after my post above, I received an email with a request to call Born. Mr Altamura said he never received my form. How odd he must have thought it was that I emailed him saying “I have attached the form” and later “Do you have any information for us?” If he had emailed me with his confusion, I certainly would have promptly responded to clear things up. I emailed my form again and also called (Mr. Altamura was “on the phone or away from his desk” so I left a message. I love my caller id, too.) I guess the form got through this time because a few days later I got an email to send the shoes back for a replacement pair. Thank you Ilario Altamura!

Better late than never, I suppose. Although I could certainly have done without the drama.

Everyone in the house loves pancakes. Really, who doesn’t? I like to make them as nutritious as possible so I can serve them for dinner. Here’s my current favorite recipe. I don’t measure spices, though. Which makes life pretty exciting around the Hatch household at meal time.

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
salt (not too much)
cinnamon (enough to make the dry ingredients a nice cinnamon-y color)
bran (optional)
zucchini or yellow squash shredded really fine (how much, you ask? ha ha ha.)
2 eggs (or two egg-sized globs of vanilla yogurt)
2 cups milk

Stir up the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients. Stir until just blended then let sit for a few minutes. The kids like syrup, but I prefer yummy homemade pear sauce. Super easy, too. Before starting the pancakes, just peel and chop some pears, toss them in a pot with some water and cinnamon, and simmer until the pancakes are all cooked. As Nate would say, delish.

This recipe is both sneaky and deceptively delicious. No one sue me.

I’m not ambitious enough to try all seven; two is more my speed. And one came straight from a can.

The menu: baccala, stuffed artichokes, poor man’s pizza, pasta with primavera sauce, meatballs, antipasta with carrots, celery, olives, bread, anchovies, roasted peppers, and cheese. For dessert, fruit bowl and cookie tray. Apparently I can’t cook for four so we have been eating leftovers all week.

The schedule: (I forgot to include “soak the cod” and almost blew the baccala):

11:00 prep and soak artichokes

11:30 make pizza dough

11:45 cook cod (~30 min.)

11:50 stuff artichokes

12:15 cook artichokes (2.5 hours)
[Nate sprinkled his own yogurt for lunch]

12:30 make baccala

12:40 - 2:30 random tasks: cookie tray, fruit bowl, set table, make antipasta
[Nate made the cookie tray]

2:45 artichokes out of oven

2:50 sauce on, pasta water on

3:00 cook pizzas (20 min. each)

3:30 cook pasta

4:00 eat! (Okay, we really ate around 4:30, but I was close.)

[Van loved the pizza] [Nate gave the feast the thumbs up]

Oooooh yeah… Finally, I can get it January 1 (well, on the 2nd, I guess) and find out what I can eat. And if I was as cool as John, I could get it for just $9.99 and read it on my Kindle.

1. Cookie negotiations start at dawn.

2. Could Van’s bout of insomnia have been anything else but sugar o.d.?

3. Two words: cookie smugglers.

4. Nate thinks if the cookie has raisins, it’s growing food.

5. Van learned how to climb up on the dining room chairs. His motivation: the cookie tray.

6. Part of every day is spent spinning in circles.

7. Van had green sugar hands for an entire day.

8. I thought it was separation anxiety, but it turned out Van just wanted another cookie.

9. My sofa is smeared with chocolate.

10. “Mommy, that gingerbread man is asking me to eat him.”

Last weekend, Nate wrapped gifts for his friends. With kids, I don’t believe there is such a thing as waste when it comes to art supplies, which is why I don’t even flinch when Nate uses gobs of glue and two foot pieces of tape. We’re always rewarded with fabulous and creative creations. This project was no exception. I don’t believe anyone has ever received such uniquely wrapped gifts:

Your “It’s like preschool on TV” tagline is ridiculous. Passive TV watching, even with “educational” segments, is nothing like preschool. At preschool, kids run around, play, imagine, interact, and learn by doing, not stare at a screen that tells them what a hexagon is. Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true.

At Thanksgiving, Moose A. Moose showed us the Turkey factory farm, then yesterday, he introduced a segment about a chicken farm with a barn the size of two football fields and and farmer happily shoveling sawdust for the “special delivery” of thousands of chicks. I turned off each segment before they could describe the “happy” life these birds will have, living inside, over crowded and never seeing sun or feeling grass under their feet for the few weeks they have to live.

Hey Noggin, what’s up with that?

Okay, I was really super pissed when my new Keens finally arrived from LL Bean with two right shoes. Returning mail order stuff is a pain in the neck. I called to make sure I would send everything back correctly and, what do you know, when they heard the problem, they offered to send me out a new pair that I’ll have by the end of the week. Then I can send back my two rights with a prepaid shipping label. Plus the customer service people were very personable. Thanks LL Bean. It’s still a bummer, but you made as painless as possible. What more could I ask for, except maybe, better QA.

When I was little, Mom always let me lick the beaters and taste the cookie dough. (Not to mention all the raw pasta dough I ate.) Yum! When I make cookies with my kids, they never get a taste of anything with raw eggs in it. Oh the delights they are missing out on! The sugar cookie dough that tastes like solid, crunchy vanilla ice cream; the chocolaty brownie batter; the sweet chocolate chip cookie dough the, well, doughy pasta dough…. In this case, ignorance (of salmonella) really would be bliss.