Pellet Stove Update (and Tips)

Back in September, I wrote a couple of posts (here, here and, here) about the wood pellet stove we had purchased to heat our home.  The posts generated quite a bit of interest and chatter.  In particular, the DIY Hearth Pad post is one of the most popular pages on my blog.  Seems it appears near the top of a lot of searches on Google--who'd have thought?!?

Anyway, we've been using the stove non-stop since the beginning of the heating season (2 tons of pellets and counting) and I thought you'd like an update on how it's working out.

In general, we love the stove and I can't recommend it enough as an alternative heat source.  If we had the money, I'd probably invest in a pellet-burning boiler that'd hook-up to our existing baseboard heat, effectively replacing our expensive oil-burning system (oil is over $4/gallon in Rhode Island right now--Ouch!).  Alas, we don't have the $10k or so that it'd cost to install one.  So, we'll have to make do with what we have for the time being.

Some thoughts and tips if you're thinking about buying a pellet stove:

• Think about the area you want to heat.  If you think the stove you're looking at is on the line for being able to cover that area, go with the bigger one.  You can always run it on low but you can't make a smaller stove output more heat.  We kind of wish we'd gone bigger.
• Think about air circulation.  Ceiling fans in tall rooms help push the heated air back down and circulate it into adjoining rooms.  Doors and decorative curtains can help confine the heat in one room or area of the house or close-off rooms that you're not using during that time of day (or for the season) so the other room stays toaster.  Pole fans, door fans, and through-the-wall fans can help move heated air from the room with the stove into other rooms or down hallways.  Depending on the style of your home, transom windows over doors or between rooms (an old-fashioned technique) might be useful.
• Spend the extra money on a full exterior stove pipe instead of a direct-vent system.  Also insist on an outside air kit, which draws air to burn from outside instead of from your living space.  You'll be happy you did the first time you lose power and smoke is not billowing into the room with nothing you can do to stop it.  Also, full stove pipes are less likely to contribute to a "campfire odor" in your home than a direct vent because there's a constant draw of air going outbound.
• If you have the money, buy a better stove than the cheapest one.  The engineering and thought behind the design of the machine is usually just plain better and you'll have better performance, heat transfer, and better quality parts.  If I have one complaint about our bargain model, it's that the thing just isn't designed for easy care and maintenance.
• Look for a model that has separate controls for the blower and the auger speed.  Sometimes, you want to push the heated air further but you don't want a bigger flame (or to waste pellets).  Our unit does not have this and I wish it did.
• Make sure your stove can be connected to a standard low-voltage thermostat and buy a decent digital one from Home Depot or Lowes instead of the chintzy one the manufacturer sells.  This will let you treat the stove as a "zone" of heat and it'll work more accurately.
• Ask the sales person to show you how the stove is maintained (cleaning, vacuuming)  and what has to be taken apart in order to clean it well.  If he or she can't actually show you, ask to speak to their service or installation person.  Download the user manual from the manufacturer's website if you can and read through the maintenance section.  One of my pet peeves about ours is that it has metal plates (baffles) on the back of the burn box and the exhaust blower vent is behind the baffles.  In order to reduce sooty start-ups, you have to remove these baffles every time you clean the unit.  No matter how carefully I do it or cover myself up, I always end-up looking like I'm ready to perform Chim-Chim-Cheeree in the musical Mary Poppins and the surrounding furniture gets a fine layer of soot.  Weekly cleanings should not be that dirty and there are plenty of stoves out there that are easy to just vacuum out and move on.
• If you have the choice, pick a stove with a ceramic or stone back panel instead of painted metal.  Two weeks into ownership, the baffles on mine were devoid of the factory black paint and the center one is starting to rust-out from contact with soot.  Now, I know why the stove shipped with a can of spray paint.  :-(
• Skip the decorative logs and other things that go inside the fire box.  They may seem cool but they just make the burn more uneven and the maintenance more of a pain.  Plus, they're expensive.
• Buy a good ash vacuum.  Don't try to rely on your shop vac with a HEPA filter.  If you're running the stove full-time, expect to vacuum more than once a week, regardless of what the manual says.
• Inquire about the warranty and available service plans.  If they offer service and you can afford it, it's not a bad idea to have someone come out and do the annual cleaning and maintenance, which involves going through the innards of the unit and brushing out the stove pipe.
• If you're storing your pellets in a garage, buy at least 2 tons at a time (delivery is cheaper that way) and have the delivery person (who's usually driving a forklift) to tuck them right into the garage for you.  They can't usually get through the door but they have ways of sliding them in.  You may want to invest in an inexpensive pallet jack so you can move them into a convenient corner without repacking the pallets.
• Figure out your expected heating season on a calendar and count on about a bag a day for most stoves.  Budget to buy all your pellets in late summer to get the best deal and shop-around.  Prices are fairly consistent but there are deals to be had like free delivery.  Also, the best quality (and least ashy) brands of pellets tend to go faster and some home centers get a single truckload per year--once they're gone, they're gone.

DIY Pellet Stove Hearth Pad

As promised, here's the how-to post on how to make your own hearth pad for a wood pellet stove.

Disclaimer:  I'm not a building inspector and I can't speak for your stove manufacturer, your installation contractor, or your local building codes.  Before you attempt to build a hearth pad yourself, check with all parties involved to make sure it's okay to do so.  You should never build your own pad for a regular wood-burning, gas, or coal stove (unless you're a pro or you are very familiar with the requirements).  Those do need to be built to certain fire and heat specifications.

DIY Hearth pad


Materials:
- 4x4-ft sheet of 5/8 plywood
- 14-16 12-inch ceramic or floor tiles (depending on the shape of the pad)

- grout of your color choice
- thinset or other recommended tile adhesive
- tile spacers or a couple strips of thin wood to use as spacers
- wet tile saw or tile guillotine
- tile and grouting tools (notched trowel, plastic spatula, float, etc.)

- blue painter's tape
- "stop" molding for the edging (enough to go around the perimeter)

- stain and polyurethane to finish the molding

1. Stain and seal the molding with polyurethane (follow the directions)
   
2. Cut the sheet of plywood to size and spend some time laying-out your tile in the pattern you like.  Cut all tiles during the layout phase and mark with painter's tape on top if you need to remember specific positioning.  Be sure to leave spaces between the tiles AND between the tile and the edge of the board.  Use your spacers or spacing sticks as a guide.
   
3. If working on saw-horses, be sure to support the weight of the board with additional wood (2x4's, etc.) directly underneath it.  The weight of the wet adhesive and grout will actually cause the board to warp otherwise and you'll have cracking and settling once you place it in the finished area.
   
4. Using a notched trowel, spread the thinset or adhesive onto the entire board.
5. Begin laying your tile, using the spacers or spacing sticks to make sure everything is evenly placed.  Tap the tiles lightly into the adhesive with your fist or a rubber mallet.
6. Allow to thoroughly dry overnight (or according to the adhesive's directions).
7. Using a table saw, rip the molding to width so that it will sit flush with the floor and flush with the top of the tile.
8. Using a miter saw, cut the pieces of molding to fit around the pad working from one end to the other.  Glue and tack each piece on with brads as you complete each piece for the best fit.
9. Cover the molding carefully to the very top edge with blue painter's tape.
10. Grout the tile according to the package directions.  You'll need a grout "float," a large soft sponge, and several changes of a bucket of water.
11. Make sure the piece is 100% dry before trying to move it.  Believe it or not, the weight will be nearly double while it is wet.

And the Stove Has Arrived...

I received a lot of positive feedback on my post about the pellet stove, so I thought I'd take one more post away from the subject food (but still on the topic of running a home) and show you all how it turned out.

Not too bad if I do say so myself!  Of course, we're now in a sudden autumn heat wave (read: muggy and nasty), so we won't be burning it for a bit.  However, it's there and ready to go and two tons of pellets arrive on Wednesday.  Just have to run the wire and mount the thermostat you see there in the photo.

I also receive a couple of questions about the home-made hearth pad you see underneath the stove.  As I mentioned in my previous post, pellet stoves don't require special fire-rated materials or construction so you can build your own.  I'll post a how-to tomorrow for that.

Home Heat that's Inexpensive and Earth-Friendly

As most of you know, we purchased our house just about a year and a half ago and this was the first home where we had to purchase our own heating fuel.  In our old condo, the heating system was tied-into the building and so it was part of the common fee.  In the rural area where we live now, municipal gas lines are non-existent and propane is not cost effective, so most homes are heated with oil-fired boilers.

We weren't really sure what it was going to cost us for heat the first year.  We don't really know the age of the boiler (it's at least 10-15 years old) and we didn't know how well-insulated (or not) the house was.  It's difficult to compare notes with others as heating a home is very much a combination of factors including insulation, window placement and age, the layout, volume of the rooms, floor coverings, how low you can tolerate the thermostat, and so on.  So, we installed a couple of programmable thermostats, closed-off the upstairs, and went into the first heating season with our fingers crossed.

Needless to say, the first season's heating bill sucked--royally.  It cost about $4500 to heat our small home the first year, which I find quite unacceptable.  Aside from pure economics, I have a personal problem supporting the oil industry in this country and I already try to support them as little as possible with my car.  I knew there had to be another way.

Step one was to identify the areas our my home that we could make more efficient and we're doing that as an on-going process.  After spending a heating season here, we were able to identify the areas where we can add insulation and prevent our hard-earned cash from getting sucked out into the cold.  In addition to that, we decided to purchase a heating stove that burns wood pellets.  My parents have had one for years and they absolutely love it.

Pellet stoves, which can also often burn dent corn (the stuff they grow for livestock and milling), are extremely efficient devices and they're nearly as easy to use as your everyday heating system.  Some things you probably didn't know about them:

• They don't produce that "campfire odor" that wood stoves are famous for.  That means your home and its furnishings won't smell.  They do this by being a completely closed system--the air in the burn chamber never exchanges with the air in your house.   The fire heats a metal plate and a fan circulates air over that plate to heat your home.
• Most stoves can be hooked-up to a standard thermostat so that they will cycle on and off to maintain even heat just like your regular heating system.  They're safe to run while away from home as long as you properly maintain them and vacuum out the ash once per week.
• Pellets are made from sawdust recovered from lumber mills.  That makes them a recycled and renewable material.  If you live in an area where dent corn is plentiful, that too can serve as a renewable fuel resource.
• You do not need a chimney or smoke-stack for a pellet stove.  Because it contains an exhaust fan, it can usually be direct-vented through a wall with a device not much larger than a dryer vent.
• You do not need a brick or stone hearth for a pellet stove.  It can sit on any non-combustible floor covering and only needs 2 to 3 inches of clearance from the wall.  Ours will be sitting on a simple pad that I built with plywood and ceramic tile.  The pad will be placed directly on our hardwood floors.
• If you *do* have a fireplace or hearth, the stove can be adapted to fit inside the existing footprint and actually increases the heat efficiency of your home by blocking the air that used to go up the flue.
• Pellet stoves are inexpensive.  Ours is an "economy" model that is costing us around $2100, installed.  If it reduces my heating bill by half (which we expect it to get close to), it'll pay for itself in a single year.  More decorative and/or expensive stoves will expect a 2-3 year ROI.
• The government considers a pellet stove an alternative heating fuel device and there's currently a tax credit for them.
• Pellets currently cost between $200-$300 per ton.  A ton fits on a single pallet and stands about 5 feet tall, so they'll fit quite compactly in the garage.  In speaking with others who heat with pellets, I expect to use between 2 to 3 tons per season and I'm expecting to be able to heat my entire first floor with the stove thanks to the design of my house.  We'll only need to burn oil on really cold days or to produce hot water.
• They actually make large "Pellet Furnaces" that can be hooked-up to a hydronic heating system (regular forced water baseboard heat).  The hoppers hold enough pellets for an entire week, making it a viable alternative to gas or oil central heat.  Systems of this size start at about $6000-7000 plus installation.

We're pretty excited about our new stove, which is set to arrive on Friday.  I'll try and post about it periodically throughout the season to let you know if it's meeting our needs.

Product Review: Quick Drying Towels (Eco-Friendly)

If you'll allow me, I'd like to step away from food for a moment and tell you about a great eco-friendly household product that my Mother found this holiday season. The product is a line of bath towels known as Linden Street Quick Dri textured towels. They can be found at JC Penny.

These aren't your ordinary eco-friendly towels, made from bamboo, recycled fibers, or whatnot. They're plain old cotton towels that have been woven in such a way that they're much thinner than your typical luxury bath towel while still being just as soft and fluffy. The end-result is a towel that dries in 33% less time than your average plush towel (according to the manufacturer's claims).

All I can say is, "Wow!" Living in a condo, we have to use coin-op washers and it costs us an arm and a leg to dry our big fluffy bath towels. Plus, it's burning that much more fuel to dry them. Also, traditional luxury towels are much bigger and require more storage space than we have. We just picked-up two sets of the Quick Dri's to try out and they take-up half the physical space of the old ones. If they live-up to their name in the dryer, I'll be thrilled.

Another advantage of the quick-dry towels is that they dry faster between showers, allowing you to use your towel more times before grabbing a new one. If you've ever had a hot, humid bathroom in the middle of the summer where your towel literally doesn't dry between showers, you know what I mean.

We haven't had a chance to use these yet but my mother has and she loves them. I'll keep you posted as to how they work out for us.

Social Responsibility: What's the Real Benefit to Shopping Locally?

This post is one of a series I've been writing tagged as "Social Responsibility" The series focuses on eating and shopping locally, choosing healthier food sources, supporting your local economy and merchants, and learning to do all these things without hurting your budget. I hope you enjoy the posts.

One of the things I've been trying to do more lately is shop locally. In his book, Food Matters, Mark Bittman says something to the effect that, if you have a choice, choose locally grown organic food first, non-organic locally grown food second, organic non-local food third, and conventional food when you can't get the other three.

Why? A few reasons, actually...

Environmental Impact
Moving our food around the country can actually have a larger impact on the environment than chemical fertilizers. Think about it. Huge factory-owned farms, even organic ones, produce our food in the warmer regions of the country (or even outside of the country). These huge farms have enormous machines pumping diesel fuel into the atmosphere to grow, pick, and then process the crops. Once they're processed, they have to be shipped somewhere via train, truck, or plane, burning even more fossil fuels. Then, they enter the "megamart," big grocery stores that also have high carbon footprints and lots of waste because of the sheer volume of product that moves through the stores. In the end, when you buy from a local source, be it a farmstand, farmer's market, or even a locally-owned grocery store, you're cutting out all that transportation and carbon overhead.

Quality and Traceability
When you buy locally, you may even get to know the farmer who grew your product. Even if you don't, you know the product probably wasn't picked before it was ripe and that it probably is fresher, will last longer, and will taste a lot better.

Supporting the Local Economy
In today's economic mess, we need to support not only our little local stores, but that "Made in America," stamp that you see oh so rarely these days. We've gotten so involved in the "global economy," that it seems we've forgotten how to make stuff ourselves. By buying locally, or even American-made products over foreign or long-distance products, you help create demand within that industry and it will ultimately end-up in job creation and prices more comparable to the nationally or globally produced items.

So next time you're out shopping for groceries, head on over to the locally owned grocer or the farm stand instead. Even if you can only afford to pick-up a few items there or go every third shopping trip, you're still doing something good for your community, the country, and the planet.

Product Review: Jif Natural Peanut Butter

We all know that you can buy all-natural peanut butter in a tub at the health food store or "Teddy" brand peanutbutter in the megamart. However, most of us grew-up with the sweetened, creamy store brands that don't separate into oil and peanuts when left standing.

Jif recently came out with a "Natural" peanut butter product that I find as-good as regular Jif if not better.

Taste & Appearance: The taste, as I mentioned, is as good if not better than regular Jif. If your kid's palate is good enough to tell the difference, I'll be very surprised. It won't separate like other natural peanut butter but it will get a little glossy on top when left sitting at room temperature. A quick stir of the knife helps before spreading it.

Ingredients: The ingredients are all readable and reasonably healthy. In order to keep it from separating, they use some trans-fat free relatively healthy oils in the blend. The first ingredient is peanuts and it's sweetened with cane sugar and molasses instead of high-fructose corn syrup.

I highly recommend adding this product to your pantry.

Composter Update

A few days ago, I wrote a post about my new NatureMill Indoor composting machine. It had just arrived and I had just set it up. I promised an update after a few days of use. Here are my thoughts so far:

• The air fan and heater quiets down after a day or so like the instructions say. That's good news, as it was actually vibrating the laminate floor on day one. While it's not mixing, it's very quiet...no more noisy than the fridge.
  
• I'm impressed that it handles meats (chicken, roast beef, pork), egg shells, fish, and even hard root veggie chunks (like the fat ends of carrots) as advertised. Outdoor composters generally can't do that. Within a day or less of adding them, they're not recognizable and do not smell like rotten meat. You can even toss-in raw meat as the machine quickly "cooks" it to 140 degrees as part of the composting process.
  
• It doesn't handle thin hard stringy things very well. For example, I added some trimmings from my golden pothos plant. The leaves broke-down, but the vines got tough and wound around the mixing bar. Banana peels and celery, on the other hand, work quite well.
  
• The machine is built for a small apartment or condo yet it does require a good regularly-added mix of "green and brown" refuse. Over the past few days, we haven't cooked much and all I've had to feed it was some stale bread. Unfortunately, this made the compost quite dry and increased the odor when opening the chamber. I've found that adding some water helps a little. The instructions actually assume you'll have the opposite problem and tell you how to dry it out.

There are two things I'm not too happy about:

Churning Noise: The machine churns the compost about every 4 hours and the churning motor is quite loud--to the point where it wakes you up in the morning. It could use some additional insulation for sound. For the appearance, I'm not surprised. For the price, I'd expect better. I shouldn't have to turn-up the TV to hear over the sound of it.

Even more annoying is a loud "thunking" noise as it churns. I found that the blade was hitting two small metal tabs each time it made a rotation, straining the motor, and causing the entire metal part of the container to shift and spring-back once it pushed past the obstructions. I emailed the company and they sent me a YouTube video showing that that was proper operation. The tabs, when hit in the opposite direction, cause the chamber to open to the finishing bay. I was advised to keep the hopper at least half-full to deaden the sound and to try brushing the metal tabs with some oil or petroleum jelly.

No offense to the manufacturer, but this is pretty poor design. If something's designed to come into contact only in certain situations, it should not cause such a racket and beat-up on the system when operating in normal mode. There are simple mechanical ways to fix that and it's unnecessary strain on the motor and my ears.

Odor: As advertised, the odor when the machine is closed is non-existent. The filter and rubber gasket on the door do a good job. When the machine is opened to add material, it releases an odor the manufacturer calls, "earthy and sweet." I beg to differ. The odor I'm getting out of mine is a heavy bread-like dirty socks odor. It doesn't quite smell like rotten garbage but it doesn't exactly smell good either. I've found that I need to keep a can of spray air freshener nearby. I'm hoping this has more to do with the mix of refuse than the actual machine, as I've admittedly been baking a lot of bread lately (and filling the machine with leftover stale pieces). I think what I might be getting is a "roasted compost" smell.

Recommendation: In general, the machine runs great and seems to be producing excellent compost. It's great if you don't have the option of an outdoor compost setup. If you wanted to buy one, I wouldn't recommend against it. However, I would recommend placing it on a porch, patio, or in the basement if you can because of the odor and the clunking noises. The cabinet under the sink would be another good location--they even sell a kit to mount it there and automagically open the door for you.

To the manufacturer, I think it's a great product if you could resolve the clunking noise issue and buffer the motor sounds a bit more. These two small changes would make a world of difference. Also, I think your price point is a bit high for what you get. Lower the price a bit and you'd have a hot commodity on your hands.

Popcorn Update

In my post the other day about the Locally Grown Popcorn, I promised a update once I popped it...



As you can see, it popped-up quite normally. And, with a little butter and some salt, it tasted great! Maybe a little more flavor than store-bought.

It strikes me odd that we've let something even as simple as popcorn go by the wayside in terms of flavor and quality. The stuff in the microwavable bags just tastes awful. I've never been able to get used to the chemical after-taste of whatever it is they put on it. Perhaps I should share my recipe for old-fashioned stovetop popcorn. It's cheaper, healthier, and requires no special equipment.

Stovetop Popcorn

A heavy-bottomed sauce pan with a lid and a long handle
About 1/2 cup of popping corn
2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil
table salt
2-3 tablespoons real butter

1) Add just enough oil to the pan to coat the bottom. Place three popcorn kernels in the pan, cover, and place it over high heat.
2) As soon as all three kernels pop, remove the pan from the heat. Add enough kernels to form about a single layer on the bottom of the pan. Quickly replace the lid and place it back on the burner.
3) Gently shake the pan to toss the kernels every few seconds. Once kernels start to pop, reduce the heat to medium-high and toss vigorously over the burner to prevent burning.
4) Once the popping begins to slow-down, remove the pan from the heat and crack the lid open slightly to allow steam to escape (but not popping corn!). Let the popping subside.
5) Pour hot popcorn into a large serving bowl. Sprinkle generously with salt.
6) Place butter in the hot pan and swirl to melt it without turning it brown. Place pan over still-warm burner if needed. Once melted, pour the butter over the popcorn and toss well with your hands.
7) Serve, preferably while watching a great movie.

New Toy: Indoor Composter

One day, while unemployed, I was watching Martha (yes...I watched Martha while unemployed...sue me), and they showed a fantastic product called the NatureMill indoor composter. It's a mechanical device with a heater, a mixer, and an air filter designed to make home composting a reality for those who live in apartments and garden-style condos. It's odor-free and, because it's heated, you can even add meats to it, which you can't do with an outdoor or worm-based composter.

I thought it was an awesome idea and wanted one immediately. Unfortunately, they run about $300...a lot to pay for an over-glorified electric trash bin designed to rot food (which food will do on its own). That, and when you're unemployed, it's hard to justify buying silly "toys."

Anyway, I'm now gainfully employed and I was lucky to receive a good amount of cash for Christmas, so I finally splurged and ordered it. Yes, I realize the economic savings probably will never add-up, but I am excited that I can do just a little more for the environment and that I won't have to spend any more money on fertilizer and someone else's ground-up chicken bones for my container garden this year. Heck, I may even end-up with enough to give away to friends and family for their gardens.

The composter just came in yesterday and I just set it up in the dining room (I currently have no more suitable location). It's sitting there with a bunch of food scraps in it, humming away. Supposedly, I'm to leave it alone for 48 hours and then I can start adding more. I'll definitely be posting more info about it as I use it.

In the interim, here are some thoughts:

• The entire device, while it looks like plastic in the photos, is actually made of a hard Styrofoam with some sort of plastic-like finish. From a distance, you can't tell, but up-close, it makes it feel rather chintzy. I hope it holds-up to wear and tear.
• The air fan is a bit loud at the moment. Everything I've read says it should quiet down as the device breaks in and gets its groove on.
• I'm not supposed to put paper or coffee filters in and I found that odd. I did some digging and found a user manual from an older model that had instructions for such additions. Looks like paper is tempermental to break down in such a small unit and a lot of paper is coated or contains toxic ink. My guess is they just said "no" to avoid the constant customer service calls. Once I get used to it, I may try one or two coffee filters since we use the all-natural, unbleached ones and see what happens.
  

Wish me luck!

Disclaimer/CYA Statement - The photo above was "borrowed" from NatureMill's website and I'm considering it "fair use." Since I'm promoting their product, I do hope they won't sue me. However, I'm happy to take it down if there's a problem.

An Interesting Find: Locally Grown Popcorn

Last week, I was prowling about the farmer's market and I happened upon a table that was selling stalks of locally grown popcorn. I remembered reading a post over at the Chiot's Run about growing popcorn I'd been intrigued. I'd never put much thought into how the dried little kernels made it from a stalk into the package. So, I snatched-up a few stalks.

As I paid the woman, I asked if there was anything special I needed to know about popping them.

"Oh, you just scrape them off," she said as she mimed a scraping motion, "and pop them in a pot with some oil like usual."

As it turns out, popcorn starts its life much like sweet corn. The farmer then pulls the husks back at the end of the season and allows them to air-dry on the stalk, hoping birds don't start treating the field like their own personal buffet.

As it also turns out, the scraping of the kernels is not quite so easy as the woman made it sound. Well, not all that easy in a condo, at least. As you scrape, either with your fingers or something like a knife, the kernels pop out and probably a quarter of them land everywhere but in the bowl. I'm still finding them all over the dining room. :-)

I now have a small container of tiny kernels sitting in the pantry, waiting for a a good movie to arrive from Netflix. I'll be sure to post some photos of the popped corn when we get around to making it and let you know how it tasted.

Knowing Your Thanksgiving Turkey

I just had the pleasure of ordering my very first all-natural, humanly treated turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner. Instead of a frozen supermarket "self-basting" bird this year, I'll be roasting and serving two fresh birds from Whole Foods Market. The best part is that Whole Foods actually publishes the name of the farm and I can do a little research to make sure I'm getting what I'm paying for.

I've always been one of those wishy-washy cooks, bordering on "earthy crunchy" but not really ready to fork-over the money to make the big switch to all-natural, humanely treated, organic, and all that jazz. I visit my local farmer's markets and buy when I can. And I've read a lot recently about such topics, specifically Mark Bittman's Food Matters. Mark makes a great case for knowing where your food comes from and eating less meat not because it's more humane but because it's outright healthier for you (and he backs-up his arguments). Nonetheless, up until now, I still wasn't ready to make the jump. It's just too pricey.

Recently, my wife and I sat-down to watch Food, Inc. While we're still not financially prepared to go 100% organic/local/all-natural/humane/etc, that movie really lit a fire under me to start making little changes where I can. Specifically, I'm frustrated by all of the mechanization, industrialization, waste, and general all-around R&D and manufacturing processes that are involved in producing basic everyday "grown" ingredients like veggies, meat, and grains. I'd always blamed the problem on the highly-processed stuff like boxed treats, cereal, 100-calorie packs, and cookies (which I admittedly love). However, even chicken, beef, fish, pork, and plain old carrots and celery are produced in a way where we're just not eating what we think we are anymore. Everything's a manufactured and patented product. It's sad and it's sick.

Knowing we were close to Thanksgiving and that I was cooking dinner this year really got me thinking about the Turkey. I honestly couldn't bear to know that I was contributing to the breeding conditions our poultry goes through in this country:

• Something I'm going to eat spent the bulk of its short life wading knee-deep in its own poop, standing so close to its neighbor that it couldn't go anywhere.
• The birds are kept in 100% darkness for their entire lives. Fresh air is piped in.
  
• Hundreds of birds die every day just because they can't hold-up their own body weight and keel-over and get trampled by their peers.
  
• They're fed all kinds of crap their bodies just weren't made to eat (other animal parts, and human manufactured "feed") and have to be given antibiotics because they're standing around in said poop all day.
• Some poor farmer in the middle of America's heartland is breaking his own moral code, losing money, and following "big business's" nasty farming practices because he really has nobody else to buy his product.
• Our tax dollars pay to heavily subsidize our food because it costs more to grow it than we're willing to pay for it. Talk about silly, wasteful, circular logic.
  

All of PETA's cruelty arguments aside, that's just not right. Actually, it's outright gross and disgusting. Who wants to eat anything produced under these conditions?

That's when I started exploring other options. Honestly, I'd prefer to purchase my bird locally, but it'd take a ton of phone calls to track-down a local producer that: a) Still has bird reservations this late in the season; b) Uses "free-range" growing practices; and c) Has a price I can afford. Unfortunately, there's just no central place for that info and I don't have the time or energy to call around, then drive across the state on Wednesday to pick-up my bird on some farm. I'd love to, but it's just not practical.

The option I turned to is Whole Foods. Granted, Whole Foods is a giant of its own and my food's going to travel far to get to me (from Pennsylvania, to be exact), but at least I know where it came from and know how it was *not* treated. And, because they carry the buying power of the "big guys," Whole Foods can bring such a bird to me at a cost that's 50-60% more than the mega-mart instead of quadruple the price. Being unemployed, that's a big thing for me right now.

I highly recommend everyone see Food, Inc. and take just one step to make a change. Get yourself a local or humanely treated natural bird this holiday season. One step may not seem like it's helping much, but it does. In the end, when sales drop, 'ole Butterball will get the message and start taking better care of its gobblers and we'll be all the happier for it while snoozing away in that tryptophan-induced nap after Thanksgiving dinner.

Iron Chef (No, Not THAT Iron Chef)

There's a small consignment shop adjacent to the laundromat that my wife and I use and I periodically wander over there during the dry cycle to poke around. My wife hates these types of places, claiming that, "they're just filled with someone else's junk," but I come from a family of packrats and handymen who just love to see what treasures lie beneath the dust.

On a recent expedition, I happened upon a slightly rusted and beat-up cast iron casserole dish. It was oval in shape with decorative handles on each end. I've never seen anything quite like it as most cast iron pans today are in the familiar frying pan or pot shape. This one intrigued me because it was essentially a casserole dish that could be started on the stove top--not something most casserole dishes could do. So, I snatched it up for less than ten bucks (a true bargain) and brought it home in a brown paper sack...much to the chagrin of my wife. I then pondered its restoration. Here's a "before" shot:


Cast iron is one of those culinary topics that people can be very passionate about. Some avoid it, assuming it's old-fashioned and antiquated--something that Grandma used in the days of old before newer and better cookware was invented. Others swear by it and lovingly care for their collection of iron cookware in the way car fanatics care for high-performance rare collectors edition vehicles. Those people claim that absolutely nothing outperforms cast iron, use nothing but cast iron, and will challenge your best, most expensive anodized nonstick frying pan to an egg-frying duel any day of the week.

I'm not quite *that* passionate about it, but I am gradually understanding why cast iron cookware is making a comeback. For one, a well-seasoned, well cared-for pan can be truly non-stick and gives Teflon a definite run for its money. In a day and age when people question the health risks of Teflon and similar coatings, that's a good thing. More on my thoughts about that issue in a later post.

Secondly, nobody can argue the fact that iron holds heat well and evenly distributes it much better than just about any stainless steel pan out there. It takes a bit of time to learn to control the heat, especially with an electric stove, but it works quite well once you get the knack of it. In fact, it can even make-up for the uneven heat often produced by electric burners when using extra-large pans. We're talking evenly browned pancakes, folks. The holy grail of breakfast.

Third, cast iron can go from the stove top right into the oven and back again. It's not recommended that you do this with coated pans because the coating can break down at high temperatures. This stove to the oven technique is the secret to how professional chefs everywhere serve-up delicious seared meats that are perfectly done in the middle. I personally like that it's both a frying pan and a baking dish at the same time.

One of the more intriguing things about cast iron is its ability to be an heirloom. It lasts virtually forever and some families have passed perfectly seasoned pans down for generation upon generation. That's the best way to get your hands on one. However, we don't all have that luxury, so we have to look at other methods.

The first is buying a new pan and seasoning it yourself. Lodge Cookware, one of the very few remaining cast iron cookware producers in this country, makes "pre-seasoned" pans now. While the factory seasoning (a chemical process) will never stand-up to Grandma's heirloom piece, it does get you on your way to a proper seasoning much quicker than if you had bought a raw, unseasoned pan. Using a "speed seasoning" method on top of that such as coating the pan with shortening and baking it at a high temp for awhile can further help it along.

A second way is to troll antique shops and yard sales. Many people have old, beat-up cast iron pans lying around their basements. They're often rusty and/or have chips in the seasoning and other "crud" in the nooks and crannies. While the former owners probably chalked these up as junk, antique dealers know that in the hands of a true believer, they can be brought back to their glory days and snatch them up. You can often get your hands on one of these cheap like I did.

So how do you repair a cruddy yard sale pan? There are different methods, but I used a combination of hot water, coarse salt, and oil or shortening to scrub most of the rust and crud out. I further evened-out the bottom of the pan with a Brillo or SOS pad (or a fine steel wool pad). That left me with an even yet mostly unseasoned bottom to contend with. After washing and drying thoroughly, I heated the pan a little and added a tablespoon or two of cooking oil and "burnished" it in with a paper towel.

This "burnishing" process is something that took me a long time to understand. Essentially, you're rubbing the oil into the surface of the pan and the baked-on blackness (seasoning) that's already there, adding to that "seasoning". When you're done, the pan should be shiny but not really greasy. If it's greasy, all that will happen is the grease will go rancid during storage and give your food off-flavors the next time you cook.

A well-seasoned pan is nearly as good as the best non-stick coated pan. And, contrary to what most fanatics will tell you, they can stand-up to a good washing too with a non-abrasive scrubbing sponge and liquid dish detergent. Just make sure to dry it thoroughly and burnish it with oil immediately after washing to preserve the seasoning and avoid rust. Coat the bottom too, as it has a tendency to rust easily.

So, how about my rusty old cast iron casserole? Here it is, all fixed-up and ready to start developing a new finish:


I used it to bake some fish the other night and it worked fabulously. I can't wait to try searing a small roast or piece of steak and then finishing it in the oven. That and maybe some delicious roasted potatoes and root veggies. Yum!

You Are What You Eat: Tilapia

In the last 5-10 years, tilapia has taken-over the fish counter at supermarkets for a "mild-tasting white fish" that's economical (sometimes, as cheap as $3 per pound). I've personally been staying away from it recently because I find that it often has a background taste of dirt. It's a personal taste thing. Now, I think I know why.

It's amazing how much you can learn about your food's origin (and slowly become a hippie-foodie in the process) by watching Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. While he doesn't intend to be an eco-show, he kind of ends-up exploring the foods we eat anyway. Last night, I saw an episode where he's on a fish farm in the middle of the Mohave desert.

While the farm itself had some great practices such as not releasing their dirty and medication-laden water into the ocean (they process and recycle it), I was shocked to hear about their feeding methods. This particular farm specializes in striped bass (bet you didn't know your bass came from the desert). When they're done with a pool of water, they dump-in carp and tilapia fish. Why? Because, apparently, carp and tilapia will eat other fish's poo.

You heard me right. The tilapia and carp are put into the poo-laden water as the first part of a water treatment process. Once the fish eat up to 30% of the solid matter (both poo and uneaten food) and fatten-up a bit, they're harvested and shipped-off to market with their bass buddies.

I don't think I need to even express how gross this process sounds, even if it's FDA or USDA approved for a fish I'm going to consume.

Belated Earth Day Post

Hi everyone. I know I'm a few days late and probably a dollar short for my "Earth Day" post, but these things are applicable 365 days a year, so here it goes. I'll try my best to keep this food-related. :-)

Composting
Did you know you can compost even if you live in an apartment or condo? A company called Nature Mill makes automated, completely odorless composting machines that aren't much bigger than a waste basket. They're a little pricey, but if you cook as much as I do, you'll probably reduce your trash by half and you'll have rich compost that you can use in your container garden or donate to the apartment complex for the flower beds. I've been drooling over this thing for awhile but the money just hasn't been there to indulge myself. Let me know if you get one and how it works.

If you're not squeamish, you can also start a vermi-composter for a lot less money. This is basically a big plastic tote that you fill with moist newspaper and a particular breed of worms. The worms can live in the container under your kitchen sink (or some other suitable place) and will eat your food scraps and the newspaper and turn them into rich compost. No worries--keep them well fed and they're not very likely to wander off. Martha Stewart's website has instructions and information on building such a system.

Of course, if you have a house with a yard, you can take composting to a higher level. You can either make a compost pile (which can be smelly and unsightly), or they make contraptions that look like cement mixers and garbage cans that do the job more elegantly. Check out composters.com for products and ideas.

Use Fewer Bags When Packing Lunch
I'll admit, I'm guilty of using way too many zip-top bags. In fact, I'm downright addicted to them. They're just way too easy to use to divide-up food for the freezer and ensure things stay fresh in the fridge or in my lunch bag. They also pack nice and flat, which saves room in the freezer. It turns out there are a few products, aside from plastic boxes, that you can use as a substitute. Namely, reusable food and snack bags. You can also purchase or make your own zip bag drying rack and simply re-use your zip bags a few times.

Another thing to keep an eye on is individually wrapped snacks. We've all grown accustomed to those new "100 calorie packs" and individual servings of chips that have been around for years. When you stop and think of the volume of plastic that goes into these things and actually count the number of chips, you'll think twice about grabbing a package off the shelf. Instead, buy snacks in regular bulk packages and divide them up yourself with zip-top bags and reuse them a few times (or buy reusable snack bags). As for the serving size? Check the back of the box. You can usually figure out how much of a snack amounts to 100 calories. Quite often, the food hasn't even been modified to reduce calories for the snack packs. It's just portion control.

Shopping
I don't have to rave about the cheap reusable shopping bags that are around. You can't go into a store without tripping over a rack full of them and they're usually less than $2, so I'll assume you know about them and probably have your own pile of them, purchased with good intentions. However, if you're like me, you're forgetful and you probably bring your bags into the store only half the time and forget to return them to the car the other half of the time.

To get them back to the car after use, I hang them on the hanger or hook that my coat is on so I have to physically move them to get to my coat. In the winter, this works pretty well (I'll let you know what I figure out for the summer...there are five sitting on the hook from a week ago as I write this). To remember to bring them into the store, I don't put them in the trunk. I leave them on the back seat where I have more of a chance of seeing them. After a few trips in, it'll end-up as part of your routine.

If you *do* end up with a pile of plastic bags due to failed attempts at using reusable bags, you can recycle them. Some cities allow you to put them to the curb. Almost all grocery and big box stores have boxes in the foyer to put them in for recycling. Typically, they get made into the composite decking that you can find at the home center. If you're a crafty person, you might try doing a project involving plarn...plastic yarn made from old shopping bags.

The other shopping issue is those silly bags you use for produce. For larger, thick-skinned items like butternut squash, melons, etc., you don't really need a bag. Just remember to wash it well when you get it home (as you should anyway). If you want to eliminate plastic from your shopping altogether, they make reusable bags for that too out of very thin material that doesn't weigh any more than the plastic ones. Try finding some on Etsy like these or these. www.reusablebags.com seems to be a good resource too.

I'm still looking for a good solution for the deli and meat counter (aside from finding an old-school butcher who still uses butcher paper and masking tape). If anyone knows of products for this, give me a yell.

Reuse Commercial Jars and Bottles
My grandmother used to keep a pickle jar of coffee in her refrigerator...extra from her morning brew. That way, she really only had to brew coffee every other day and could reheat "leftovers" on the off days.

While any coffee junkie and I don't particularly recommend this, Grandma did have a great idea when she reused her glass jars. There are still a lot of things that come in glass jars, glass bottles, and tons that come in plastic ones that are dishwasher friendly (after removing the labels with goo-gone). Instead of buying leftover containers, wash some of the containers your food came in and reuse them. Deli containers are great for this. Instead of buying jugs for iced tea and drink mixes, try an old juice container or soda bottle (you may need a funnel). Just be aware that the plastic that most jars and bottles are made of does break down over time. If it starts to turn white, it's definitely time to recycle it.

Keep Food and Paper Out of the Trash (Even if You Don't Compost)
Many people assume that food and paper is biodegradable and will break-down in the landfill if tossed in with the regular trash. The fact is, most landfills are "capped" every day with soil to prevent leaching of nasty liquids into the water supply. This capping removes oxygen and the necessary "little critters" that cause decomposition. So, the newspaper you throw into the landfill will be completely intact and readable ten years from now and the peel from the banana you ate while reading that newspaper will have that same "rotten banana" smell.

If you're not into composting (most people aren't), garbage disposals are great for getting rid of most food scraps. Just make sure your disposal is made to handle tougher foods (like meat gristle, egg shells, or onion skins before dropping them in. Also, if you have a septic system or other on-site sewage system, check with pros or do a little Googling to find out what kinds of things it can handle so you don't run-up septic pumping bills.

As for the paper, you can recycle pretty much all paper and cardboard these days. In most communities (check yours), window envelopes are okay, staples are okay, shredded paper is okay if placed in a paper grocery bag, and magazines and small catalogs are perfectly okay to recycle. Some communities can even handle plastic and wax-coated juice cartons. There's really no excuse in most places not to recycle 90% of your paper waste or more.

I think that's enough soapbox speaking for today. Now, I'd better go practice what I preach. :-) Even if you can't do it all, any little bit helps. If I've learned anything by trying to make my house "greener" (with very little financial resources to do that), it's that.

Support Your Favorite Charity...and the Earth

I know, I know. I'm long overdue for a post and I promise you'll get one very very soon. In the mean time, I thought I'd share something neat and semi food related...

Does your kid's school or your church charity need a few extra bucks? Know those programs where you save UPC symbols off of some product (like a can of soup) and the company donates things like computers for every bazillion labels collected? Here's a program that gives cold hard cash AND you get to save the planet while you're at it: www.terracycle.net

For those not in the know, TerraCycle is an Earth conscious company that "upcycles" (re-uses) old packaging and whatnot either as part of their products or as product packaging. For example, their flagship product, organic fertilizer, is packaged in 2-liter soda bottles.

Anyway, to actually get the supplies they need for their products, people collect and donate them and then they give you 20 cents or so per item sent in. They currently collect two-liter bottles, Oreo wrappers, Capri Sun juice pouches, and other ordinarily non-recycleable items.

...and, of course, their website seems to be on the fritz at the moment. Maybe that's cause they were on Oprah or Martha this week (I forget just which one). But seriously, check it out when you have a chance. It's pretty neat.