CT Green Scene

A Blogger For Any Diet

by James Simpkins

Last week I wrote about a pizza place in Avon and no one said a word. Over the holidays I penned two articles expressing my displeasure about shopping at Discount Food Outlet in Canton; and readers are still writing in droves to expressing their displeasure about my perspective, even attacking me personally. More than one comment suggested that I leave town since I didn’t like it. I was both confronted and amused by such responses. The confrontation part is obvious, I hope—no one likes being openly despised, especially by people they are unacquainted with. Unfortunately, humans seem all too willing to express malice towards those people with opinions that do not match their own (see our current political climate). In my mind, this is akin to hating the guy next to you because you don’t like the color of his tie. Ties, like opinions can, and do, get changed. The life that wears that tie or has that opinion, however, is no less precious, and we are all hard-wired to preserve it. Fortunately that is not all us humans are born with. Laughter, they say, is the best medicine.

In another sense, I was very much amused by all the uproar realizing people’s anger was not because of an unpopular stance on abortion or gay marriage, but a grocery store. Now that is funny!!! I had no idea that people were so attached to where they bought their food. Shame on me, though, as food is always chock-full of intimate meaning for people. Lesson learned.

In the wake of the fallout from the DFO articles, this week allow me to offer a more personal piece that I hope will establish a context for what I write, and why I write it; a kind of road map to my inner gastronome.

The first item on the colloquial menu is the term “connoisseur”; this is what I consider myself in the food arena. Think of it as the “who does this guy think he is?” part of my writing. The second proffering is the usefulness of critique and analysis. While criticism nearly always gets a bad rap, I think we need critics and critical understandings of any subject, food included. As subjectivity is common to all of us, being critical can actually help us appreciate even our least favorite ideas by allowing us to see there is always another side to any story. But first, the connoisseur…

If They're Always Sad, Who Cares When Authors Speak of Food?

by James Simpkins

I realize that the very title of my article this week may be an open invitation for the snarky reader who may want to take the cheap shot for the clear path to the ironic it leaves open. You know what? Go ahead. After the past couple days, I think food writers may deserve it every now and then…especially novelists. 

This past Monday at the Instituto de Cervantes in New York City Four European writers: Christoph Peters (Germany), Agnès Desarthe (France), Jesús Ruiz Mantilla (Spain) and Clara Sereni (Italy) came together for an evening of readings and discussion called "Eat Your Words: When Authors Speak of Food", moderated by highly acclaimed American writer Mark Kurlansky, a guy who has written a lot of books I won’t bother to name aside from Salt. Being someone who writes about food (and who lives a scant two hours from NYC) I thought I would go. Besides the lovely wine and passed hors d’oeuvres that were served in the garden and the Spanish government’s gorgeous real estate on 49^th and 3^rd, the event did next to nothing to inspire me, let alone inspire me to buy anyone’s book. It turns out these ‘paperback writers’ are based more on Proust than Lear, and that, in the opinion of this writer, is not a good thing.

It's a nice day for a 'green' wedding: Eco-chic wedding show debuts in Stamford

Stamford Times

Posted on 05/06/2009

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<a href="http://www.thehour.com/story/468965/">It's a nice day for a 'green' wedding: Eco-chic wedding show debuts in Stamford</a>

By A.J. O'CONNELL

Times Staff Writer

STAMFORD -- Kate L. Harrison and Heather Burns Demelo are hoping more brides will make green part of their wedding color scheme.

The two women hosted the Eco-Chic Wedding & Home Show Event at The Hotel Chesterfield in Stamford last Saturday. The show -- which hosted earth-friendly businesses ranging from caterers to spas to jewelers specializing in rough-cut diamonds --

featured an "eco-chic" fashion show by "green" designers and seminars for the eco-savvy bride and groom.

According to Mia Schipani, spokeswoman for the Hotel Chesterfield, it is Connecticut's first such bridal show.

"It's not just another wedding show," said Harrison, author of "The Green Bride Guide" (http://www.thegreenbrideguide.com).

Harrison wrote the book after she married her husband Barry in 2007. She wants brides to know it is possible for them to go green on their wedding day and save $10,000 at the same time.

"This is the thing about going green today," exclaimed Harrison. "It's not hard!"

Burns DeMelo started her Web site, http://www.ctgreenscene.com, after seeing Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth." She had her first Green Scene event in Westport in early 2007. This is her first foray, however, into the wedding industry.

"There is an immense amount of waste produced (at weddings). It's a throw-away event. But weddings are also a $70 billion a year industry," she said. "If you can imagine shifting even one percent of that over to green businesses."

Burns DeMelo says that finding green companies for weddings was more challenging than she anticipated. She was surprised at how easy it was to find eco-friendly caterers, while green florists were nearly impossible to find.

"Florists were really tough," she said. "Most flowers come from South America. It's tough to be green when you're shipping thousands of miles in refrigeration."

The small green things people do

By Robert Miller
Staff Writer - The News Times
Updated: 01/31/2009 01:59:00 PM EST

The green revolution can start with simple annoyance.

"I was tired of bringing all those plastic bags back to recycle,'' Marla Duffy said, explaining why she was loading her groceries into fabric bags at Caraluzzi's Bethel Food Market last week. "Plus, these hold a lot more.''

But Duffy, who lives in Bethel, said her family has taken on other new habits -- reusing water bottles, doing the laundry and dishes after 8 p.m., sending the kids off to school with snacks packed in reusable plastic containers.

The same sentiment holds true for Sandie Delany of Redding, who was also shopping at Caraluzzi's last week.

"I hate those plastic bags,'' she said.

Mary Ann Kulla has taken to using the fabric bags as well, although, she admits, she's still getting used to the idea.

"Its a very hard habit to unlearn,'' she said of loading her groceries into throw-away bags.

But on other fronts, Kulla's in the lead. Her family switched to using compact florescent light bulbs several years ago. As the bulbs have finally begun to burn out, she's brought them to the local Home Depot.

"They're the only place around here that recycles florescent bulbs,'' she said, pointing out that those florescent bulbs, while energy savers, contain mercury that should stay out of the environment.

And, like it or not, it's these small things -- small personal things -- that may be carrying the Green Revolution. Especially in hard economic times, when people may have to put off buying new Energy Star appliances, or trading in their old car for a new Prius, the small things become increasingly important.

And, because, often, one small green decision leads to another, they can snowball -- using compact florescent bulbs can lead to thinking about the best way to recycle them. For people trying to promote green habits, it's all for the good,.

"It's going great,'' said Heather Burns-DeMelo of Woodbury, founder of CTGreenScene, a Web site that provides viewers with a cornucopia of ideas on better living through environmentalism. "There are more ideas out there than I can keep up with.''

For example, Burns-DeMelo said, some parents have moved beyond thinking about reducing the waste paper used to wrap their kids' lunches to working with PTOs to do the same on a school-wide basis. Others want to bring locally-grown produce into school cafeterias.

"There's a woman who hopes to establish a leaf composting site for Fairfield County,'' said Burns-Demelo. "Another parent, in Westport, is looking at the use of pesticides and herbicides there.''

Burns-DeMelo said that often, one deed leads to a chain reaction of others. She is also the founder of Fairfield County GreenDrinks, a monthly meeting that allows people interested in the environment to meet socially to discuss their ideas.

"The more people do these little things, the more things get moved up a notch,'' she said.

And it also gives people a sense of involvement.

Editorial Credibility in an Online World

by Elizabeth G. Howard

I was recruited by MomCentral.com to take part in their blog tours, when the subject was appropriate for my blogs. I have two blogs -- Letters from a Small State, which reflects on my life in Connecticut, and Honk if You Compost, my eco-humor blog.

I am on a mission with these tours: to write great reviews and thoughtful pieces for whatever I sign on to. I take the job seriously, even if the pay isn't much.

Recently I committed to review Clorox's Green Works Natural Biodegradable Cleaning Wipes. I am seriously curious about this brand-- I particularly wanted see if Clorox could sell me on this disposable product.

They didn't ... the wipes, although compostable weren't amazingly useful enough to make them worth adding to the cleaning products that are tried and truly low-impact.

Everyone's Truth is Out There
Curiously, my negative eco-humor-review was not too overly adored by the MomCentral crew-- I was asked if I didn't want to tone it down just a little bit? This has indicated to me what I have been suspecting about this far-reaching and influential website (and others like it): online reviews can often be more about promoting products than they are about giving serious consideration to the product and its impact on the audience. In the case of MomCentral, I fear this may be the case.

It is certainly true that with online writing, the lines between advertising and editorial are gone. As is illustrated by contextual advertising (ie. Adsense), where once there was a firm division between the ad and the ed, we now decide precisely what we advertise based on the page content.

The result? The more niche reporting becomes, the more difficult it becomes to evaluate the credibility, objectivity and even the usefulness of information we find online. Everyone has an opinion--and that opinion is backed by an agenda that becomes more and more hidden.

I have one recommendation, and that is awareness. For more information about how to evaluate what you read on the web, have a look here.

Fairfield County GreenDrinks in EARTHTALK!

From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Photo: Bruce Feldman

Dear EarthTalk: A friend of mine in Connecticut raves about the “Green Drinks” events she attends there every month to meet up with other eco-interested locals. How can I find out if there are any such gatherings in my area?                  -- Janet McIntosh, Dubuque, Iowa

Every month green-minded people in 460-plus cities around the world meet up at informal social gatherings called Green Drinks. Started in 1989 in London by Edwin Datschefski and friends, the concept has spread like wildfire, with some 350 different Green Drinks chapters worldwide today. The events are designed to be low-key, unstructured and welcoming of all viewpoints on environmental topics. Many participants have found jobs, made friends, developed new ideas, done deals and had moments of serendipity and inspiration at various Green Drinks events.

In the U.S. alone, different Green Drinks events are held in 223 cities every month. The New York City chapter is the biggest in the world, with an invite list topping 10,000 people and typical attendance in the hundreds. Green Drinks events are also popular in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Japan, New Zealand, Chile, Puerto Rico and Australia. Melbourne, Australia currently holds the record for the world’s biggest Green Drinks event, with more than 1,700 participants showing up on the first night of the city’s February 2007 Sustainable Living Festival.

“People from different fields come together with a mutual interest in environmental issues and cross-pollinate and drink in a very low-key social atmosphere,” says Margaret Lydecker, who started New York City’s Green Drinks chapter in 2002 and currently serves as the U.S. point-person for the events. Lydecker—who has personally helped start upwards of 100 different chapters, including one in Kabul, Afghanistan—says the events have been a big catalyst for connectivity, community, collaboration and change in the environmental sector in New York and beyond.

In the U.S. and Canada, most mid-sized and large cities already have thriving Green Drinks chapters. You can likely find one somewhere near you, wherever you live, by searching under the “Find City” link on the GreenDrinks.org website, and clicking through until you get a schedule of upcoming events in your particular city. If there isn’t yet a Green Drinks chapter in your region, by all means start a new one.

Heather Burns-DeMelo, who had started a local/green happenings website for Connecticut called CTgreenscene.com, was inspired by Lydecker in 2007 to start a Green Drinks chapter where she lives in Connecticut’s Fairfield County so that green-minded people in the area could connect in person. “The web is great,” she says, “but face-to-face is key to growing the movement.”

According to Burns-DeMelo, setting up the chapter was easy—she just emailed Green Drinks founder Datschefski from the greendrinks.org website with a request to start a new chapter—but getting people to come to the initial events was more challenging. She and friends set up sign-up tables at local community events, found a restaurant willing to host, sent a press release to local papers, hung fliers and posted notices on her website and others. The hard work paid off: 65 people showed up at the first event on a gloomy Wednesday night, and the chapter has been growing by leaps and bounds ever since.

CONTACT: Green Drinks, www.greendrinks.org.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.

THE NEXT FAIRFIELD COUNTY GREENDRINKS EVENT IS TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3rd from 6 to 9 pm at EARTHPLACE IN WESTPORT! Click here for more information.

350: The Magic Number

Loop Year: 365 Days on the Trail

What do you do if you're an amateur adventurer and environmentalist who dreams of hiking the Appalachian Trail or saving the rainforest, but you can't quit your day job or abandon personal commitments?

John Sheirer created his own project: From May 17, 2005 to May 16, 2006, he hiked the same trail at the McCann Family Farm in Somers, Connecticut, once a day, every day. He chronicled the year in Loop Year: 365 Days on the Trail, a book composed of 365-word accounts of his hiking project.

Along the way, Sheirer discovered that an obsession with hiking and caring for the same New England trail every day can be surprisingly adventurous--ranging from blistering heat, flooding rain, whiteout snowstorms, early mornings, dark nights, and everything in between. (Plus there's an unexpected love story and a really cute dog.)

On Sunday, June 22, 2008 from 3pm and 4 pm at McCann Family Farm in Somers, CT (Route 190, approximately one mile east of the intersection of routes 190 and 83), the author will read from the book and it will be for sale for the first time.

A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Northern Connecticut Land Trust. For more information, visit www.johnsheirer.com.

Ice Shelf the Size of Connecticut Set to Break Off Next

On March 25, Tuesday of this week, the British Antartic Survey issued a press release stating: "A large part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula is now supported only by a thin strip of ice hanging between two islands. It is another identifiable impact of climate change on the Antarctic environment."

On the night of the 25th a chunk of it — 7 times the size of Manhattan — 160 square miles — suddenly collapsed. According to the Associated Press this puts the rest of the shelf— which is the size of Connecticut— at risk of breaking off next. 

The next day a lead-in story on Yahoo, issued by the Associated Press, ran for about 45 minutes and then dropped off. The voice over states that ONE scientist attributed the situation to global warming. It ends with stating in reassuring tones "there is no risk of rising sea levels."

Your weekend picnic plans are safe!

(Our opinion: we need journalism with more backbone.)

Environmentally Minded Peruse, Schmooze at iPark

By Kerry Wills
Special Correspondent
Stamford Advocate

Published March 14 2008

NORWALK - In October, a writer named Heather Burns-DeMelo organized Fairfield County GreenDrinks, a mixer where folks with environmental concerns can swap ideas and phone numbers.

Sixty-five people showed up at the meeting place: a bar.

Even more people - about 150 - showed up Wednesday evening to check out the city's new i.park corporate complex, a green office park. They included builders, architects and students.

"The room is full of people who couldn't be more different, but one thing they share is an interest in the environment," Burns-DeMelo said. "People are waking up to it."

Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia showed up, as did three boys from Cider Mill School in Wilton who enrolled people in Connecticut Light & Power's CTCleanEnergyOptions. The program allows customers to get their power from renewable sources, such as wind.

Fourth-graders Alex Scaperotta, 9, and Jordan Reichgut, 10, are the founders of Little People, Big Changes, a club for children who care about the environment. Last year, they pushed for a ban on idling cars in the school parking lot.

"If every person in the United States stopped idling for five minutes each day, it would save 32 million tons of carbon dioxide, approximately," Jordan said. "Not pounds. Tons."

The boys, with Jordan's 8-year-old brother, Ethan Reichgut, a second-grader at Cider Mill, said they have signed up more than 100 Wilton residents for clean energy, enough to earn the town free solar panels on a municipal building.

Moccia urged Norwalk residents to enroll in the program. The Norwalk Common Council this week passed a resolution to support using 20 percent clean energy by 2010.

Since the October launch, Fairfield County GreenDrinks events have showcased green products, businesses and initiatives, Burns-DeMelo said.

"It's a place where people can exchange creative ideas, brainstorm solutions, inspire each other, and maybe even start projects," she said.

Jim Motavalli to Talk About his Book: Naked in the Woods

Author Jim Motavalli, editor of the Norwalk-based E/The Environmental Magazine, will speak about his book Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery (DaCapo) at the Barnes and Noble store in Westport, 1076 Post Road East on Wednesday, March 12 at 7 p.m.

On August 4, 1913, self-taught artist Joseph Knowles went into the woods of Maine—alone and basically naked—with the intent to survive for two months using only his wits and materials he found in the forest. As a publicity stunt for the Boston Post, he wanted to prove a modern man could “live off the land” as his ancestors had done. He proclaimed it would be a period of total solitude and silence, with no human contact. He sent dispatches back to the world written in charcoal on birch bark, which the Post published in the Sunday paper, detailing his daily activities and illustrated with his own vivid sketches of the animals around him.

He was successful in his two-month endeavor—and the Post was successful in their publicity efforts—so much so that when Knowles emerged on October 4, he was met by 200,000 cheering fans in Boston. But a rival newspaper, the Hearst-owned Boston American, soon accused Knowles of being a fake, claiming there were bullet holes in his bearskin and a comfortable cabin where he’d stayed in the woods. Knowles defended himself vigorously and within months the Hearst papers offered him the chance to do it again—this time on the Oregon-California border for the San Francisco Examiner. Throughout, the newspaper competition was fierce, with editors playing up Knowles’ exploits in the woods with fervor comparable to today’s reality TV shows.

Contact: Jim Motavalli (203) 854-5559, X107

 

The Graying Of The Greens

ERIN WALRATH and her fiancée, Peter Mariano, chat during Fairfield County Green Drinks, a cocktail party at the Westport Arts Center for people interested in environmental issues. (MICHAEL KODAS / February 13, 2008)

With Aging Memberships, Environmental Groups Reach Out To Younger Members

by STEVE GRANT |  The Hartford Courant

Something's happened to Connecticut's venerable environmental groups. They're aging, often dominated by members and leaders well into their 50s and beyond. Greens gone gray.

It has them worried. "The environmental community must make room for younger, more creative and less bureaucratic individuals who will stick their neck out on important issues and who will have the energy and expertise to galvanize the public into action," said Allan Williams of West Hartford, a longtime environmental activist and member of the Sierra Club.

Fearful of a loss of relevance, concerned they might lose influence in shaping state policy, long-established groups like the Connecticut Audubon, the Connecticut chapter of the Sierra Club and the Connecticut Forest & Park Association are now reaching out to attract younger members, employees and board members.

"We certainly do want to attract younger people," said Adam R. Moore, executive director of the forest and park group. "We've been working on that, just like every environmental group has been."