Greenblade - creation - faith - justice

Eating for Everyone

The Farmer’s market moves outdoors this week. This is a moment-to-celebrate for most of my chic-foodie peers: the outdoor market is in a beautiful park in the center of the most suburban part of the city. There are babies and dogs and music: it’s really lovely.  The whole thing has the air of a festival, a weekly celebration of affluent folks buying delicious, beautiful food. I kind of hate it.
The wintertime farmer’s market is different. Located in the sprawling high-ceilinged hallways of an old mill building in an industrial city, it’s a very different kind of beautiful. And yes, there is music, and often babies, but the is feeling more “day at the market” than “cocktail party in the park.” It pulls a wider variety of venders (the winter market is the only market in the state from October-June), driving up variety and driving down prices. There’s always a long line at the turn-your-food-stamps-into-farmer’s-market-cash table. In short, ... MORE

faith and the middle way

A few weeks ago Greg-our-interim-rector invited me to lunch and told me that he thought that I was called to the priesthood. What followed was one of those world-shaking conversations, the ones that make you say "Am I missing something big? Is he right? Am I on the right path?"

The sensation of being told by a priest that God just might be calling you to do something is new and scary. Also exciting and flattering, but mostly new and scary. It packs significantly more punch than the time the director of the summer camp I worked for told me that I was destined to be a counselor.

I'm fairly confident that my life makes sense that it is. I am sure (though less sure than I was before the conversation with Greg) that I am called to make an impact on the world as an urban education reformer, as a non-preachy lead-by-example locovore, ... MORE

The Anti-Plastic

When I was in college, my tree-huggery-ist roommate (that is to say, the greatest tree-hugger of us all, which is saying something when you’re talking about Vassar College students!), told us all that we should stop drinking our hot beverages out of plastic travel mugs, because there was something in the plastic that reacted badly with the heat and releasing some icky chemical. Considering the (limited) research at that time about BPA in plastic, and the fact that all our travel mugs were plastic-lined and we were cheap college students, we ignored her. Now, some 5 years later I’m finally listening to her and to the research and I’m purging plastic from my kitchen.
 
It’s harder than it seems, this plastic-less revolution. Some things were straightforward: the Nalgene water bottle that was proven to be leeching icky stuff into my drinking water, that got recycled. Other things are harder: finding a ceramic single-coffee-filter holder to use to ... MORE