POTD – Dario-San responds

On my blogging his latest works, Dario-San had this to say:

“It’s very Zen if Zen equals cold fingers!”

Arigato Dario-San!

SOTD – Shave autopsy

No shave today, but as has become my custom, I will provide some feedback on the postmortem of yesterday’s shave. The Greek Bic DE blade gave an excellent, albeit overly smooth shave lacking in some of the sensory feedback that I enjoy and need. The 9.5 result I gave it yesterday, nevertheless managed to “hold” nicely and I daresay I could go out even now, some 30 hours later, and still look quite presentable. High praise indeed. I’m looking forward to Day 2 on the same blade tomorrow.

POTD – New York Zen

From the masterful eye of Spadoni-San:

Light footprint living – Part 1 – Food & water

Starting around 15 years ago, my wife and I began to try to be a little more environmentally responsible – something we called “light footprint living” – I’m not sure if we actually coined the term, but we certainly had not heard it before.

Unfortunately, this is not as easy as it sounds. It requires not only a change of habits, but also some psychological adjustment to the things that we identify with, i.e. how we measure our status and “success”. One of the Ego’s defense mechanism for preserving the status-quo is rationalization. In the case of living more environmentally “light” one has to move from looking at the world on a macro scale (“Oh, what’s the use, there are 2.4 Billion Chinese and Indians waiting to become “us” – the environment is doomed”), and bring that responsibility to the individual level, i.e. “The environment may well be doomed, but I want to play as small a role in that process as possible”. Here are a few of the things we’ve done that have been not only painless, but have turned out to be quite pleasurable in the medium term.

1. Eat fresh! Subway got that message right (even though their food is pretty awful). We have adopted the Southern European (and other cultures’) tendency to plan our meals based on what’s seasonally fresh, local (as much as possible), and what we feel like eating on any given day. I’ve written before about the Costco Effect and how buying in large quantities may actually cost more than buying smaller amounts. As a result we buy our groceries no more than two days ahead of time, and usually from local farmers’ markets that operate year-round. We buy as few packaged products as possible, and when we do, we read ingredient lists carefully to avoid “faux foods”. The only exception is our organic beef and chickens, which we buy from a friend’s family farm where the animals are “free ranging” – we usually buy a quarter-cow twice a year and chickens as available, which we freeze. I would estimate that our current diet is about 60% organic, which is pretty close to the threshold of what’s readily available, without becoming an absolute food-Nazi! We have resurrected the bread-maker and now enjoy a fresh, hot loaf every morning for breakfast (prep is about 5 minutes to throw all the stuff in the machine the night before and set the timer). And here’s the crazy part – despite conventional wisdom that says eating fresh, organic, and in smaller purchases must be more expensive – in truth we are spending far less than ever on food…and eating a helluva lot better!

2. More home cooking. Funny enough, the more we eat at home, the less we enjoy restaurant food because it’s usually not prepared with the same quality of ingredients that we use at home nor is it as carefully and lovingly prepared. And we live in the second largest French-speaking city in the world and one of the culinary capitals of North America! We now go to restaurants, or order out, once or twice a month (we used to go 1-2 a week!) and when we do it is either for some spectacular example of true culinary artistry….or to some really funky neighborhood dive that makes things which we have neither the skill nor ingredients for…..Vietnamese Pho soup, Nepalese momos, or Ethiopian goat curry. Instead, we usually have friends over a couple of times per week…each bringing one of their specialties…charcoal roasted peppers, homemade bottarga (dried tuna caviar), lasagna with fresh homemade pasta, etc. And again….we eat far better (tastier, healthier, more pleasurably) and save substantially on total food expenses.

3. Water. I remember some years ago, an NSA water-filter salesman (a mulit-level marketing deal) giving me a product demonstration where he showed me a glass of municipal water that had been allowed to sit for a few days until the water had dried up, leaving behind a rather gross looking sediment. “See”, he said, “that’s what you’re drinking every day”. Unfortunately (for him), with my science background, I knew that what he was really showing me was the natural mineral content of the water, and that his filtered water would probably leave about the same amount of gunk if it were allowed to dry. And, even if it didn’t, that natural sediment is not necessarily bad for one’s health. Anyway, over the years we did get into drinking bottled water, mainly for the convenience and taste (chlorine is rather nasty). But every time I threw a bottle into the recycling bin and watched the bin quickly fill up over the week, I knew that this can’t be a good thing for the environment. Since we almost never drank soft drinks, we really enjoyed some natural sparkling water from the springs of Perrier or San Pellegrino. But I often wondered, how much does it cost (and how much fuel is burned) to transport this stuff such vast distances? So, over the years we have stopped drinking bottled water and now just let a carafe of tap water sit in the fridge for a few hours until the chlorine evaporates. It is then quite suitable (and tasty) for drinking or making coffee. For sparkling water, although we still enjoy it, we now buy local mineral water that tastes just as good as the stuff from Europe, Fiji, or Scandinavia, and at about half the price. Often, club soda (demineralized, filtered, sterilized tap water) is on sale and is equally pleasant (although sometimes too “fizzy”, depending on the brand).

Tomorrow – Part 2 – Energy