Local Living 
Headin’ Home from Montana
We’ve just completed a 3-day intensive photo workshop on a GORGEOUS farm just outside Hamilton, MT. When they say Big Sky, it’s the truth. Free-spirited, fun, talented, organized – yeah, all that – Australian photographer Barb Uil, JinkyArt, inspired participants with her own take on photographing children while nudging us toward developing our own style.
Heading [...]
On the Road, the Palouse to the Snake
We’re still getting along and having a great time. Wish you were here. Yesterday we drove – sporadically, due to the call of irresistible landscape – from Walla Walla, through Colfax and Pullman, to Lewiston, ID and on to Orofino where we spent the night serenaded by the Clearwater River just outside.
Stopping/swerving off the road [...]
MixedGreens Road Trip Day 1
We spent yesterday traveling through the state from Seattle to the Yakima Valley, Tri-Cities, Walla Walla and finally dinner in Waitsburg, WA. Winery stops, picnic lunch and stunning scenery along the way. Cool drinks at hand and a fine cocktail at day’s end. Couldn’t have been sweeter.
Sagelands near Ellensburg, WA.
Cornfields now on what [...]
PC Fast Food @ Burgerville
The concepts of political correctness and a cheeseboiga don’t seem compatible. Oxymoronish maybe. But then there’s Burgerville, a fast food joint with sustainability at its heart. Go figure. And there are quite a few to choose from along the I-5 corridor from soutwestern Washington through central/southern Oregon.
A quote [...]
This Land is My Land
I’m almost afraid to talk about it because I can’t believe it’s really true. I’ve had a dream for many years to buy a piece of land on Orcas Island and the perfect opportunity finally came about. I know it may sound crazy when the economy is in such bad shape to use our nest [...]
Travel bug bites, volcanic ash stings, we hit the road
Volcanoes blow, plans change, an officious French Air France agent, Marie, pulled strings and somehow we got to Italy and back as planned, with Paris for a few days at the end. You return reflecting about it all, knowing that travel is not an especially sustainable act, and you want to feel that it means [...]
The Other Olive Oil . . . California’s
I’ve taken a circuitous route to olive oil, starting with bacon drippings. One, the fruit of the Mediterranean, the other, well, the pig. Whenever she cooked bacon, which was several times a week, my grandmother saved the drippings in a small aluminum container that had its own built in ‘filter’ in the top. Any bits [...]
Spring’s Local Feast: Fish & Spinach
I’m traveling and finding seasonal, local food to eat and sometimes cook has been a particular interest. Italy has it down. Fish and produce markets in Venice, streetside bins of favas and blood oranges in Rome, in addition to daily fresh markets everywhere. Eating seasonally and within the character of a particular region is not [...]
Sweet Dreams on the Line . . .
. . . the clothesline.
Iceland’s volcano blew the day we were to leave, but after the drama and delay, Italy. This past week I’ve been enchanted by Venice’s romantic, damp decay, quiet plazas at sunset where children play and mothers visit, pizzerias and trattorias, gondola-crowded canals, churches glittering with art, passageways leading nowhere and everywhere, [...]
Stir-Fry a la Jamie Oliver
I’m not sure how many of you have been watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution but I’ve been finding it both fun and inspiring. Sure, it’s a reality TV show but in this case, it’s all about replacing the sugar, fat & salt-laden processed food served in most public school lunchrooms with fresh, nutritious, homemade food. [...]
