Water matters

One of the things that My Prince does for me and Mama when he comes to town is help us stock up on water.  Mama has to drink steadily because of her kidney failure and constant UTIs.  We've been so successful with this "water therapy" that her kidney is (for now) stabilized at 29% function.  For my own part, I am very protective of my kidneys.  The diabetes is expected to wreak havoc on them at some point, and I take quite a few medications that challenge my kidneys already.  So far, blood tests and a recent sonogram say that they are in good shape, but I continue to want to do my part to keep 'em happy with lots of water.  After all, both my doctor and I agree that the knuckle of my big toe may well be harboring the intention of flaring up with gout if it hasn't given me a mild preview already.

We drink water.  Lots of it.  The water of choice is distilled. 

This costs $1-$2 per day.  We only buy gallon jugs, and, whenever possible, buy the house brand (Kroger's mostly).   We have been recycling the plastic water jugs, with My Prince hauling them back to Austin for recycling pickup and both of us cutting them down to create mini-tubs out of the base for sorting and storage needs. 

Recently I discovered an HEB store--Joe V Super Savers--in this area and liked their remarkably low price on gallon jugs of water.  Joe V's sells only small quantities of distilled water at a comparatively higher price.  Signage (and branding) seemed to indicate that it is intended for baby formula.  For the rest of us, it is "drinking water."   My Prince, a great reader of labels, pointed out to me that the water accompanying the labels was likely drawn from the Houston water supply.  I shrugged, assuming that it had been at least filtered and wanting to get this part of our pre-Christmas shopping done more quickly.  He picked up 20 gallons to help fill our supply shelves.

GAG!  It tastes like dirt!  

Now I could use these jugs to water plants, make flavored drinks (to cover the taste at least), or just pour them out.  No one would really know. 

Or I could get real:

• Even Mama 's nephrologist says that distilled water is unnecessary.  She could use the trace elements found in the city water supply.  
• I grew up on this water supply.  I've tasted much worse in both East Africa and Louisiana.  (Seattle's water was yummy, tho.)
• All sorts of state and federal regulations protect the water supply.  I've even sat on committees that assured that that was so.
• Chucking out all this water will only cost about $10 or $11, but it will add 20 more plastic containers to our recycling bin--for no useful reason.

Perhaps I just need to check the local water quality reports and be brave.  After all, eventually I will get used to the taste.

Christmas Toys (2)

I also helped Santa Claus out by picking up some new cutting boards.  The old ones were getting pretty chewed up.  Even though they went through the dishwasher after each use, the effect of much chopping made me worry that I would just be creating a haven for bacteria if I continued to use them.  The new ones are basic plastic cutting boards sold two in a pack at Walmart (Mainstays brand).  I chose the "letter" size as most convenient for storage and use on limited counter space. 

Last year I picked up some thin plastic sheets sold as cutting mats and found them to be quite handy.  They, too, had seen better days, so I got new ones at Walmart (also Mainstays brand).  These were sold three in a pack and were almost twice the size of the hard cutting boards. 

I am happy with the firm ones, less so with the mats.  The problem with the mats is that they now seem so large.  It doesn't help that my Yoshi knife made a brand new mat look very like one of the old ones after only one use.  Two chicken breasts, one onion, some green onions, and a couple of roasted red pepper sections--and the cutting mat is badly scored.  How long before the Yoshi blade slices completely through it?  This could be a problem. 

Still, I think I need to get more of the firm boards, since I can go through my entire supply of cutting boards before I ever get the dishwasher full enough to run.  If I do, I with try to check the label for dimensions and such before I toss the wrapping away. 

As for the old boards, I am still looking for potential new uses.  They don't seem to be labeled with recycling codes, so I expect they will go into a landfill if we don't figure out some other way to use them.  One, I have already mentioned, now serves as a "coaster" for the little tray that holds my vinegars and jar opener on the newly cleared counter.  This will prevent any rust from developing or staining the tile counter.  My prince may need one or two.  Repurposing will become a bigger issue as time goes on and we feel the need to replace more cutting boards. 

Kitchen cleaning #1

One of my major issues in Mama's kitchen is that the kitchen is so small.  Worse, there is very little counter space.  I don't know what genius designed this house in the 1950s, well before the Women's Liberation Movement moved a lot of women out of the kitchen and into an office, but the guy was definitely well before his time.  This tiny kitchen would do well on a modest-sized boat.  It doesn't help that a fair chunk of counter space was lost when a den was added to the house my senior year in high school, lo, these many years ago.

To be fair, the kitchen as designed and even as remodeled fit Mama's needs.  Mama was working outside the home long before Gloria or Bella or even Betty would fight for her right to do so.  Teaching full time and coping with her handicap was more than enough for Mama to handle in those days.  She needed a small kitchen that reduced her steps.  She prepared comparatively simple Southern-style meals that suited my late father's appetite and her skillset.  The tiny kitchen was enough.  I am pretty sure she never missed the lost counter space when it was replaced with a large den just as I am pretty sure she never missed the loss of a big chunk of lower cabinets when a dishwasher was installed. 

I, on the other hand, want to chop things up and then mix them together and even cook several dishes at once.  There just isn't enough room to do that when food and equipment take up already limited counter space.

My first kitchen cleaning strategy has been to clear the counter tops so that I have more work room.  That's easier said than done, but here's what I've managed to do so far--for only half of the counter space.  (I said I was slow.)

• Removed the old knife holder and the blender.  Both stored on a top shelf in the kitchen.  This may need re-evaluation when/if I get to that shelf.
• Limited on-counter equipment to toaster, coffee maker, and coffee grinder.  The coffee maker is a small 4-cup item, so it and the grinder still take up less space than the old full sized coffee maker.  (Did I mention that these kitchen counters are tiny?)
• Replaced rusting metal tray with "silver-toned" tray.  Set tray on top of old plastic cutting board (to avoid rust).  Stored vinegars along with knife sharpener and battery powered jar opener on tray.
• Limited on-counter food storage to the aforementioned vinegars, cooking oil (too tall for shelves), and about 5 large containers of seasonings.  
• Re-purposed napkin holder used to hold cutting boards upright.  Replaced old plastic cutting boards with new ones.
• Left napkin holder, salt/pepper shakers used in cooking as before.

The end result is cleaner (after wiping and scrubbing) and more efficient (tools and condiments are handily available) and less cluttered (only items used frequently are given counter space).  I also have two, maybe three, times as much clear counter space as before. 

Sadly, there is more to be done, because I haven't found a home for all of the things I had to remove in order to get these results.  The work goes on . . .

Buried in cup towels

Mama's kitchen is not organized for cooking. Slowly but surely over the past year, I have been cleaning out the various nooks and crannies and trying to reorganize things. While I have covered most of the territory available, I still have a few crannies to go. In truth, I despair of ever having enough storage space or any efficiency in food prep.

My latest adventure was to clean out the cup towel drawers. Mama has only one more drawer in her kitchen than I do, but hers are deeper and all in one column. Mine (3) are shallow and scattered about the kitchen. Still I have drawer envy both for number and for depth.

After getting the new supply of kitchen utensils from Next Door Cousin, I needed a place to store them. The utensil drawer is jam packed and so is the counter top container that holds essential items like wooden spoons and such. The only choice was to start clearing out some cup towels. I had no idea what I was getting into.

Three drawers were smash jammed with towels. One had as much miscellaneous junk as it did towels, and one had quite a few aprons (who uses those nowadays?). But all three drawers were overflowing with faded terry cup towels. As you know, I no longer used terry towels at home. (Indeed, it would seem that some of my own old terry towels wound up in Mama's kitchen drawers.) Whatever I might use, I did not think that I needed that many towels as much as I needed the space.

My first step was to throw them all in the washing machine. Actually, it took four loads and twice as many dryer loads to get them all done. In truth, I still have one that is mostly aprons yet to go. I was well and truly sick of cup towels by the time I got through washing, sorting, folding, and storing them.

Among the observations:

• Mama had a lot of Christmas towels and aprons.
• Mama showed a marked preference for towels that tied to the drawer handles. These were more ragged and faded than some of the others.
• A lot of her towels had hand-crocheted work, some of it, at least, done by my late Aunt G. But which ones?

I now have room for more utensils (a good thing), but have not yet had the courage to tackle the junk in the bottom drawer (a cowardly thing). I am also left with an abundance of perfectly good toweling with faded images. What to do with it?

One suggestion is to make sure that My Prince has as many as he needs for working around the garage. Will do. Another discovery is that the towels make nice jewelry rolls for the necklaces that I have been making. Will use more of them. But there are still a bunch that we won't be able to use that way. Any suggestions?

Private labels and portion control

Found an interesting article ("Go Lite!" by Kristin R. Ball) on so-called private labels (what I have been calling house brands) and portion control. The article begins with a reminder that we are all getting fatter.

One of the keys to eating healthier, of course, is portion control. Whether it’s an oversized steak in a restaurant or a family size bag of chips from the grocery store, the key is, not to eat the whole thing.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, “the larger the package, the more people consume from it.” So what was the market’s solution to this problem? Portion control in the form of 100-calorie snack packs.

And then the article just sort of wanders around, making the point that some private labels are offering single-portion foods and beverage mixes, some of it markets healthier eating elements on the front of the package, and finally ends up saying:

So whether consumers are watching their calories or their cholesterol, private label has something to offer those looking for affordable ways to eat better.

"Affordable" as in house brands are cheaper than name brands, but not as in single-portion packaging doesn't cost a bundle (it does). Those little packages are handy when you are trying to force yourself to limit how much you eat, assuming, of course, that you have enough will power to consume only one package at a time. They do, however, use more packaging than larger bags/boxes/containers (i.e., not so green), and, just as important for portion control, the nutritional basis for the single portion may be derived from a unit that is less critical to one's own dietary needs (how many carbs/sodium/cholesterol in that 100 calories?).

I'm getting closer to thinking about ways to repackage using reusable containers. It's a nuisance to count out 14 nuts for a snack, but less so if it's part of dividing up the whole can at once into several days worth of snacks. The problem is, of course, the container. I have a lot of snack size "zipper" bags for my jewelry making, but I hesitate to resort to them for these for snacks. I can take the jewelry out of the bag and put another item in it without having to worry about cleaning up the bag, i.e., I can reuse it. For food use, reuse is a problem. This will take more thinking.

Save the package!

I've been drinking sugar-free drink mixes for the past year or so. Crystal Light is a tad expensive (like twice the cost!), so I've been looking at various house brands. HEB, Kroger, and Target all have different flavors, some of which are quite tasty, and other of which are more forgettable. Aside from the taste, what I like about these mixes is the packaging.

The only pictures I could find (after a lot of googling) are from the Crystal Light web site, so I've borrowed this one to show the canister that I am now so fond of (sorry, Kraft people). The drink mixes come in a plastic cylinder that is 6.5 inches tall and 2.75 inches in diameter and capped with a plastic lid. Crystal Light tends to invest in colors for the lids; the house brands tend to be white, although I have seen some light pink cylinders now and then. Inside the canisters are 6 little plastic "tubs" filled with the powdered drink mix.

I recycle the little tubs, since I don't have a use for them currently. The canister, however, is a whole other thing. Peel the label off and you have the perfect storage container for odd bits and pieces and handy tools.

My first thought when I saw these containers was that they would be useful for storing beads. They have been quite handy for dumping in some (larger) beads that I normally store in little drawers so that I can take them with me when traveling. I can just pick out the beads I want for a project, put them in the canisters, take them with me, and then return the leftover beads to the drawers when I return.

I then discovered that the canisters were the perfect way to store the very unhandy shape of a marinade injector. I just put the pieces of the injector in one of the canisters and used a marker pen to label the outside to identify the contents. Now I have the injector in an easy-to-find location on the shelf and don't have to worry about pricking myself when hunting for it in a drawer.

My latest use is to store tubes of beads. I always worry about hanging them from a rack. Just one bit of carelessness will have beads strewn everywhere when that top comes off. The tubes don't stand up very well either. I can, however, slip several of them into one of these canisters and have no fear that the lids will pop off in transit. The canisters are not transparent, so I still have to dig through them to see where the bead that I am wanting might be, but it's a whole lot easier to store the tubes these days, thanks to the canisters.

While I've managed to come up with a few canisters on my own, Big Kid Cousin and her mom are particularly heavy drinkers of Market Pantry Raspberry Tea (one of my own favorites). BKS provides me with a steady stream of her leftover canisters, and I seem to be finding endless uses for them.

Recycling is good, yes, but repurposing is also a good use of resources since it saves the added cost of sending the item back through the manufacturing process. Could the best repurposing be to find recycled items that can be repurposed? Whatever. If you can, repurpose; if not, recycle.

A good old-fashioned potlatch

I'm reading various articles about "how to green your Christmas," "living green," and coping with the declining economy this holiday season. Part of what I have been thinking about is the whole over-commercialization of Christmas that we have all been decrying, lo, these many years and the sense that now is the time to begin to dial back on some of the crazy consumerism that has been going on.

As it is, we over decorate, over eat, over spend at the end of every year and spend the next year trying to recover from it. Much of this excess is really that--unnecessary consumption of goods in order to impress others or feed our own need to feel "wealthy," "important," "with it."

After all, just how much do we need to decorate our homes--inside or out--to convey the spirit of the season?

Sometimes, when I think of Christmas in the USA, I think of potlatch. This a tradition among Native American tribes of the Northwest Coast. It varies among the various tribes and is nowadays depicted (and probably practiced) as a means of redistributing wealth while accumulating prestige. I first encountered the concept some years ago in a description of potlatch as practiced by the Kwakiutl. The Kwakiutl potlatch, thanks to the rich environment in which they lived, was a massive display of wealth which was then destroyed as a demonstration of, well, wealth.

The Peabody Museum has this to say about potlatch (among the Kwakiutl and others in the area):

It is commonly portrayed as extremely competitive, with hosts bankrupting themselves to outdo their rivals and aggressively destroying property.

That sounds about right for the situation in which many find themselves after any given Christmas in post-World War II America. Here's a bit more from one of the oldest (non-Native American) authorities on the Kwakiutl, Franz Boaz (from The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians ):

The rivalry between chiefs and clans finds its strongest expression in the destruction of property. A chief will burn blankets, a canoe, or break a copper, thus indicating his disregard of the amount of property destroyed and showing that his mind is stronger, his power greater, than that of his rival. If the latter is not able to destroy an equal amount of property without much delay his name is broken. He is vanquished by his rival and his influence with his tribe is lost, while the name of the other chief gains correspondingly in renown.

This, too, resonates in our contemporary practice of Christmas, if not, indeed, in our whole way of life in which we draw endlessly on the resources of our country and our planet to consume (almost literally) conspicuously and wastefully. If we are not competing directly with our neighbor or some other rival, we are competing against a goal set for us through advertising, movies, and other media that says we must (lavishly) decorate a tree, host (extravagant) parties, give (expensive) gifts, and otherwise display--and consume--our wealth--even if we have little wealth.

I'm still trying to come up with some better ideas for edible gifts this year, but, the more I think about it, the more I see a need to come up with those ideas--and act on them.

Ike and the scrounge for ice (1)

When the power went off during Hurricane Ike, we began the countdown that would end with rotten food from the refrigerator. Since we had prepared for the loss of power by using up as much of the frozen items as possible, we didn't lose $1000 worth of meats. Still, the loss was significant. Even things like mayonnaise and salad dressings cost a fair chunk of change, and we had to throw out more cheese than I could bear to part with.

Some foods could be given a bit longer life with ice. We had already started bagging ice from the ice maker the day before the storm. Since Mama sometimes forgets how the ice maker works, we had to keep checking to make sure that the thing was still running after she had loaded a glass with ice. Sometimes it wasn't. That kept us on our toes the day before.

We stayed in touch with Next Door Cousin while we prepared for the storm and got the idea from her to freeze bottles of water. These solid chunks of ice would help keep freezer and fridge cool longer, while we waited for the power to be restored, and we could drink the water after they melted. NDC did a fine job of getting lots of bottles into the freezer; I only put in a few. Big mistake.

NDC also found that her neighbor on the other side had an old chest freezer. They turned it on and tried to freeze zip lock bags of water. Sadly, while the old freezer was willing, there just wasn't enough time for this idea to work before the storm knocked out the power. Still, it's an idea for the future.

When the power didn't come back on (sounds like I was depending on magic, doesn't it) after a couple of days, things became desperate. Our ice supply would give out on the third day (as NDC kept us in little bottles of frozen water). Food was going to spoil faster than we could eat it; drinks were going to be on the warm side. While My Prince and I were already well used to room temperature soft drinks (seriously no biggie, people), Mama doesn't drink her soft drinks without ice. Cold isn't good enough; ice is essential. So she began to really feel deprived at that point.

One ray of goodness came when Big Kid Cousin, who lives a couple of miles away, got her electricity back. No magic there, just the power of politics. BKC lives in an old folks reservation (senior citizen apartment complex) which also happens to house a lot of people who came to Texas in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina. Cheers for the Mayor of Jacinto City (Mike Jackson), State Representative Ana Hernandez, and others who went to bat for the old folks . . . seniors . . . at BKC's apartment complex. While these folks got their power back 10 days ahead of the rest of the area, a lot of suffering was eased, not to mention the potential complications for those with health problems.

Another bit of goodness about that restoration of power is that, for a few days, we could put more bottles of water in BKC's freezer--and use her stove to cook. For the first few days after the storm, there was no place to buy ice. Without power, there was no way to find information on television about the location for ice distribution. The newspaper was useless on the subject and the radio was less than useless. We were on our own, and thanks to BKC and her freezer, this was going to be doable . . . until our car broke down.

(to be continued)

Ike left the water on

When Mama and I were preparing for Tropical Storm Edouard, we spent some time working on the water supply. We were so very lucky when Hurricane Ike hit us that we did not lose our water supply. We stayed in Houston even without electricity--and we still don't know that that was the best choice--but we clearly could not have survived for two weeks without being able to turn on the tap and get clean water.

Some things did, however, go well, and some of our planning and preparation worked as it was supposed to. More did not.

• We ended our two weeks of no power with 5 gallons of drinking water still in storage, so we had enough for three adults to drink plenty of water on some very hot days. The Red Cross should be proud of us!
• I filled the bathtub with water the night the storm hit. It all leaked out before the storm was gone.
• I had begun saving gallon water jugs to fill up, but then read that we should find jugs that have screw tops rather than the little snap cap that we were getting. The only screw caps were were getting were on two-liter soda bottles. So we started saving those. I only got about 9 saved and filled up before the storm, so that was some incomplete work that might have hurt us.

The first thing I did the morning after the storm was turn on the tap to see what we had. I was so relieved to see that water. This gave us water for showering, toileting, cooking, washing, and all the zillion other things that we need water for on a daily basis.

Sadly, we often combine water and electricity in order to accomplish many of those things. The dishwasher didn't work without electricity, so I spent a lot of time washing dishes by hand. True, we often used paper plates, but we did try to avoid it when we could. We had to borrow the use of a generator to wash clothes after a week. I had made sure that all of our "water work" was done before the storm hit, but I was, after all, supposedly on a short visit and didn't have a lot of clothes, especially cool and casual clothes that would see a lot of dirt as we did after-storm clean up. It was even hard to do general housecleaning--the water was there, but sometimes I just couldn't see what needed to be cleaned without electric lights.

Houston issued a couple of "boil water" alerts, but we usually didn't hear about them until too late (emergency information really stank as far as I am concerned). We had good drinking water, but the dish washing and hand washing and such were probably questionable a few times. We all ended up with tummy issues, but nothing too serious, so I guess we handled it all pretty well.

One thing that we did throughout the time after the storm was fill up every plastic drink bottle we came across with pure drinking water and stash it in an ice chest. Water was good for us to drink at any temperature, but it always went down so much better when it was cold. We reused water bottles and even Coca-Cola bottles. For the trip home today, I filled up some of the small water bottles with water and froze them to help keep our canned drinks cool on the road. I also filled up some Coca-Cola bottles with cold water. I ended up drinking more of our "homemade" bottled water than I did soft drinks. I think we may have developed a new behavior!

Paper or plastic

Or neither. I've started using my own bags for grocery shopping. I bought one of those "green bags" for $1 at a store and then realized that I had a closet full of regular old totebags. I didn't have a whole lot of use for that many bags, and they were just in the way. Indeed, when Hurricane Katrina brought a lot of refugees to Austin, I happily unloaded several years' accumulation at the convention center, glad to get rid of them, glad that someone could use them. Like tribbles, totebags seem to multiply in my closet. Why spend money to buy new ones when I have so many already?

I've wagged these bags around to all sorts of stores in both Houston and Austin. Once in a while a young'un will not quite know what to do with them, but mostly the sackers have been very helpful and cooperative in getting my stuff loaded up. Even with a heavy load of cans, the totebags are easier for me to carry than either paper or plastic since I can use my shoulders to help carry the weight.

The down side of all this green shopping is that we are not getting as many paper sacks as we used to. Those sacks were useful for trash, for taking loose items to Good Will, for sending home extra groceries with the grandkids. I've even used grocery sacks for moving, finding them handy for packing towels and some clothing. We can see our once huge stock of paper sacks now dwindling. We have to think twice about letting go of one.

We still seem to get a lot of plastic bags. I sometimes do forget to bring the totebags in from the car. My Prince doesn't have a supply of totebags yet and doesn't seem inclined to borrow mine. Some stores get alarmed when you come in with an armload of bags that are not clearly shopping bags. Fortunately, HEB (here in Austin) will recycle plastic bags; we have been gathering them up and taking them to the bins at HEB for some time now. I can see, however, that there might come a day when these too are scarcer.

I wonder if we will then start reminiscing about the "good old days" when we had abundant plastic bags for table scraps and shoes and impromptu diaper bags?

Pantry Project, Part 1

At our house, we've been doing a lot of sale shopping, buying in bulk, and generally stocking up. Nope, we are not hoarding for the revolution. We have always been thrifty shoppers, but we've stepped it up a bit since food prices have begun to soar. All these extra boxes of food are the result of shopping for items on sale and at bargain prices. Organizing them better will help efficiency in the kitchen, but it will also help prevent waste.

Food storage has now become a significant problem. How do we keep track of what we have? How do we use things up before their expiration dates? How do I even know what I have to cook with? How do I get to it when I need it? The answers to these questions were all moving into the Annoying Range on the Exasperation Dial.

Aside from some limited counter space and a small closet-sized and -shaped pantry in the kitchen, we have no room to store extra food unless we put it in the laundry room. The laundry room is, of course, where the washer, dryer, and water heater live, taking up half of the floor and wall space. The room connects the kitchen to the garage and serves as a major passage way for the house. It gets limited cooling from the kitchen (when that door is open) and serious heat from the garage (when that door is open)--and the reverse happens in the winter, when the garage is cold and the house is somewhat less so. (I haven't come up with a solution for temperature control, but it's on my mind.)

That leaves some built-in shelves over the washer and dryer and two free standing shelving units on the remaining walls for storage. The laundry room has doubled as a mud room for many years, but those days are going fast as we try to find more (accessible) space for food. Shelves that used to have "outside shoes" and gardening supplies are getting cleared out and refilled with bottles of water and other beverages. Even shelves that held mass quantities of TP and paper towels are getting new loads of chili and canned tomatoes.

One major problem has been how to stack the cans so that shelf use is maximized and still keep the cans from falling all over the place when a shelf is jostled. Right now, my solution is four-sided cardboard boxes, open at the top and the front. These allow me to stack cans three levels high and to maintain stability on the sides. The open top accommodates uneven can heights.

I have been getting the boxes at stores where I shop, especially at Sam's Club. Whenever I see a display box that looks like it will work on my shelves, I just add it to my cart. This keeps it out of the landfill and saves me from having to buy or make something that does the job.

Some boxes are better than others for "the job." The Mrs. Butterworth's syrup box was already closed on the bottom and three sides and worked very nicely for stacking cans of beans.

The display box for Bakers & Chefs brown sugar needed to be cut down a bit in front to give more view of the soups that I stacked in there, and the cardboard was much thicker than the other boxes, making some cans wobble on the folded edges.

Crest's toothpaste display box was perhaps the best designed for my purposes, but it was a tad shallow for the shelving unit that I needed to use it on. It was also shorter than the other boxes and would not have been as stable for No. 10 cans stacked 3 high.

I still need to accumulate more boxes for this project, but I can already tell that we have more than enough beans and soups stored. I hadn't realized this before, so we just kept buying more. I can also now see that I wasn't just imagining a canned tomato shortage in my kitchen. Apparently I can't buy enough of those! I also took this opportunity to make sure that there were no cans with an '08 expiration date lurking about on the back of a shelf where it could get overlooked until 2011.

Pretty, it's not. Still, it works, and that's what matters. I didn't retire to spend all my time digging through cans to find what I need.