I’m LOVING Sarah Magid’s new book, Organic and Chic: Cakes, Cookies, and Other Sweets That Taste as Good as They Look!

It is not only laid out gorgeously (inspiring me to want to bake away a weekend!) with lovely photos of most of the recipes, but it every recipe encourages use of organics, healthy alternatives (like whole grains, healthy sweeteners and natural flavors) and farmer’s market and seasonal ingredients. And the style is pure lovely; cakes don’t look ‘all natural” at all, but totally fab while referencing flowers, leaves and vines and other nature-inspired designs - and yes, there are descriptions of exactly how to reproduce Sarah’s too-pretty cakes yourself.

As any hipster eater knows, old-fashioned treats, like mac ‘n cheese and hot dogs have made a gourmet comeback in recent years, and this goes for desserts too. Sarah awesomely recreates healthier (and tastier!) versions of Ding-dongs and other bad-for-you treats that are sure to work at many a party- for kids or adult kids. I’m def going to try making some of these at my next Summer party to seriously impress my guests.

I had a few questions for Sarah about her connection to organics, her life and book, and her love of baking!

Eco Chick: What led to your interest in organic food? Do you think it tastes better?

Sarah Magid: I grew up in Southern California where we ate mostly organic food as a default living near health food stores and having lots of fruits growing in our backyard. As I grew up, I always maintained a passion for eating, and when I became pregnant with my first son, I really focused on eating organic. Now with two small children, I am conscious about what we eat and where its from since their small bodies are growing so quickly.

I do think eating organic tastes better. Anyone can tell a difference between a farmers market strawberry that is sweet and perfumed, versus one that is slightly green in a plastic box at the grocery store!

EC: What’s your local farmer’s market? Care to give them a shout-out?

SM: McCarren park! The park between Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, every Saturday morning. This year there are some fabulous new booths such as a mushroom stand and a bean stand. Fresh black beans are a revelation when you cook them! Ronnybrook Farms makes creamy yogurt drinks that my kids love, and the woman who runs it remembers my kids when they were babies.

EC: Does your whole family have a sweet tooth?

SM: My husband, son, and I love a good sweet. My daughter prefers cheese and smoked salmon to cake!

EC: Did you gain weight testing all these recipes? Seriously! If not, how?

SM: Well, lets just say that I eat mostly well balanced meals, what happens in the other hours is between me, my refrigerator, and the empty cupcake wrapper.

EC: Do your kids know they are superlucky to have a Mom who cooks such amazing desserts?

SM: My son’s desire for a Hostess Twinkie inspired me to bake organic versions of junk food. So now they think we can make anything, and I love that. I think they will realize in a few years that not every mom sculpts an organic Yoda cake for their birthday.

EC: What are your two fave recipes from the book?

SM: Goldies and Crumbly Shortbread Cookies. They alleviate my sweet tooth.

EC: What’s the easiest recipe? The most complicated (but clearly worth it)?

SM: The ‘Easiest Chocolate Cake’ is truly the most simple recipe since there are no eggs, milk, butter in the batter. Most people have the ingredients on hand, and I find that it is fast, easy, vegan-friendly, and super delicious. As for complicated, I don’t think any one recipe is hard, but some do require more preparation and prep time.

Sarah Magid, author and sweet-tooth extraordinaire!

The Belly Project via kwout

Like most American women, I’ve struggled with my body image since I was about 8 years old. Of course, it didn’t get really crazy until I got to High School. I was bored and intellectually unchallenged at my high school, a destructive combination for me, and I became obsessed with what I perceived to be my physical imperfections. I struggled with an eating disorder for about six months before I got angry and decided I didn’t want to hurt myself anymore. But ever since, I’ve hated my belly, where I really manifested a lot of my body image issues.

Apparently, I’m not the only one! Turns out many women have a complicated relationship with their bellies.
Which brings me to The Belly Project. Started by Dr. Karen Rayne and Midwife Christy Tashjian, the site aims to show all kinds of bellies, from young to older, from pregnant to washboard and everything in between. They write on their site:

…perhaps nothing is as preoccupying to us as our bellies. Our bellies are intimately related our sexuality and to our reproductive lives.

We will include pictures of women’s bellies, their age, and the number of pregnancies, abortions, and miscarriages they have had.

This site made me realize that I only ever see two types of bellies about 95% of the time; those of models and those of pregnant models, which definitely gives us all an unbalanced perception about the variety of women’s bodies. It is so rare that we see regular women’s bellies, and after looking through the gallery I had a totally new perspective on my own! So much so that I contributed my own belly and details to the project. And this has all helped me think about my body differently, and more kindly.

The site’s been featured on tons of blogs, including Glamour.com, Jezebel, The Feminist Majority, and others. What an amazing and creative use of the Internet to shed some light on a subject that is endlessly discussed, but often hard to tackle in a concrete way.

I’m a long-time fan and regular reader of Body & Soul magazine and was so excited to see that my book, The Eco Chick Guide to Life: How to Be Fabulously Green, was featured in this month’s issue (July/August). The mention came within natural skin care guru Suki Kramer’s list of her favorite things.

If you don’t already read Body & Soul, pick one up; typical issues (and this one too) contain lots of great info about living green, yum local, seasonal recipes (I’m so making the strawberry muffins in this issue), yoga positions, and my favorite, guidance about living a more mindful life. “The Magic of Mistakes” in this issue was really enlightening and really gave me some valuable perspective on past actions.

There’s my book, along with two other great titles, The Green Beauty Guide, by Julie Gabriel and The Virtuous Consumer, by Leslie Garrett

Ed. Note: My Dad, Gerry Vartan, is a lifelong surfer (see bio below); this is him with his board. I can never remember a time when my Dad wasn’t scanning the ocean near his Sydney home to check out the breaks; he’s been surfing much longer than I’ve been around. I asked him to write about what surfing means to him.

Guest Post by Gerry Vartan

International Surfing Day is on June 20th, which this year is a Saturday & also my wedding anniversary! I hope everyone has a good time and catches lot of waves & cleans up all the mess. It’s for a worthy cause (leave nothing on the beach except your footprints). I applaud all the sponsors for their doing something for the ocean & promoting themselves rather than just promoting themselves.

Will I be out in the water? Well after you’ve read my piece below you will see that it will depend.

1. What Surfing Is Not

Surfing ain’t no sport. If you think that surfing is a sport you’re wrong. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the Internet.

Making personal outdoor physical activity into a sport has taken away the subtle & personal interaction people have with the natural environment. The sport of surfing is the antithesis of surfing.

This idea is nothing new. Sport is a great way to pit one person against another, get the crowds to gather around to cheer & boo, place bets and see which gladiator can kill the other first! The winner used an Acme sword so there will be a run on those in the stalls. People will proudly display their own Acme sword and so convince everyone they are as brave, powerful and as strong a fighter as the winning gladiator! If they can’t afford the sword or have no need of one they’ll buy the t-shirt!
Read More »

Watch a clip from Josh’ new show above!

Josh Dorfman’s on a roll! He just released a follow-up book to his first, called “The Lazy Environmentalist on a Budget”, AND he has a new show (also called “The Lazy Environmentalist” which just premiered on the Sundance Channel last night, but you can watch episodes here.

Josh has been involved with ecofriendly living for years now and is definitely a fun, friendly and accessible expert in the field. Besides writing books and starring in his own TV show he also runs Vivavi, a furniture showroom (and online store) that features sustainably-made, modern furniture. I talked with Josh a couple months back about all his projects; check it out!

Eco Chick: Tell me about Vivavi and The Lazy Environmentalist- How did the store inspire the original book and vice versa?

Josh: Vivavi centers around the idea of combining modern design with environmentally responsible materials to offer consumers a choice that signifies the possibilities for living gorgeous lifestyles in balance with nature. The Lazy Environmentalist is a broader expansion of that philosophy and aims to demonstrate how cutting-edge environmental solutions can fit every aspect of an individual’s lifestyle and hopefully improve it.

EC: Why furniture? What was it about the particular environmental problems inherent in furniture production made you want to tackle it?

I chose furniture because much of many of today’s top contemporary furniture designers work with sustainable materials. You can’t really make that same claim yet in other product categories. The idea isn’t just to run a green company, it’s to run a super successful company because the more we succeed the more benefit we create for the planet and the green economy.

EC: What parts of your business are significantly different from a ‘conventional biz’?

The only part that is significantly different is the sourcing because we will only work with designers and manufacturers who can demonstrate that they are taking substantive steps to green their operations and their products. Otherwise, green business is essentially the same as conventional business. We just adhere to different guiding principles.

EC: How’s it going? Are you being positively or negatively affected by economic conditions?

There’s no question that Vivavi is being adversely affected by current economic conditions. On the other hand, The Lazy Environmentalist is taking off!

EC: What’s next for The Lazy Environmentalist now that you’re the King of Green Media?

I’m currently the spokesperson for Brita’s Filterforgood.com campaign which encourages people to reduce their disposable plastic bottle waste. I’m also a spokesperson for Green Works natural cleaning products. I really enjoy working companies to help inform consumers about substantively green solutions. I hope to do more of this kind of work because I think it’s vital that corporate America actively participate in the transformation to a sustainable economy for that transformation to succeed.

Josh Dorfman is the Author and Host of The Lazy Environmentalist and Founder and CEO of Vivavi.

Clockwise starting with the pretzels: Happy Herbert’s Spelt mini-pretzels, Hawthorne Valley Farms lacto-fermented Dilly Beans, Sabra pine-nut hummous, organic Cali fig, organic local carrot, organic local pear, herbed goat cheese, organic green grapes (on sale).

I’m a busy Eco Chick and I like it that way; I run two websites, am working on my next book, do public speaking, travel/research near and far to keep up with all that’s new in green, teach, run a home (I do most of the house cleaning and lawn and garden care myself) care for a dog and two cats, work out six days a week, and have a very active social life. I love my life but a few months ago I recognized that it could use a bit of balance.

So I started closing my computer at a reasonable hour, extended the time I spent working out, am reading a lot more novels (which I LOVE) and made a promise to myself that I would eat more healthfully, which included these basic ideas:
-eating a wider variety of non-wheat carbs (Spelt, quinoa, oats, and wheatberries)
-doubling my produce intake
-cutting out pretty much all processed foods
-reducing alcohol consumption
-limiting dairy to small amounts and mostly goat- or sheep-milk products (lower in fat and much tastier!)

But I didn’t have much time, especially in the middle of the day for lunch, and then I hit upon an idea: The Mezze plate (a middle-eastern appetizer or main meal composed of various appetizers) which can really be made up of whatever’s on hand (I mix and match ethnic foods with abandon). Balance the carbs, produce and protein yourself, watch the calories, and voila! The fastest, easiest lunch ever!

Try any of the below combined with a generous quantity of fresh, raw, local, in-season fruits and veggies; I like to listen to my body and really try to figure out what I’m craving so that I’m paying attention to what I really need:

-edamame salad with sesame seeds (high in protein and fiber)
-baked sweet potato (I buy the small ones and bake 3-4 at once and keep them in the fridge: high in beta carotene and fiber)
-tabouli
-nut butters (try almond, macadamia, or Brazil nut rather than peanut for variety)
-kale (cook a bunch of kale with organic olive oil, salt and pepper and you can keep in the fridge for a week)
-bean dips (kidney and white bean with spices and herbs is always an easy one)
-lactofermented veggies (kimchi, sauerkraut, or others)
-bottled artichoke hearts (low-calorie liver cleanser)
-big dill pickles
-Japanese (nori) seaweed salad
-black bean and corn salad (I mix black beans with Trader’s Joes Corn salsa)
-Organic corn chips
-cold soup (gazpacho or cucumber is great in the Summer!)
-hard boiled (organic, free-range or local) eggs
-high quality, small batch hard cheeses made from raw sheep, goat and cow’s milk (keep this quantity small as they are quite nutritious but also high in calories)

I finish my mezze plate off with a generous portion of organic dark chocolate, almost every day. If you follow my Twitter stream, you’ll see which ones I’m trying, but I’ll also be posting about all my faves soon!

The second I saw this shot on the gas 2.0 page, I knew I wanted one! This has to be the coolest car ever! This is what I want for Christmas (or before, if possible, LOL).

The XR3 is a three-wheeled plug-in diesel hybrid, getting 225 mpg, or if you’re cruising on diesel alone, about 125 mpg.

From the original article by my friend and eco-car enthusiast, Jerry James Stone:

Introduced back in June of 2008, the two-passenger car was designed so it can be assembled using readily available parts. Fully constructed, the car weighs in at 1480 pounds and has top speed of 80mph. And while you can only get 40 miles out of its li-ion battery pack, it can be plugged into any standard wall socket.

More pix and info here.

The crisp with chopped fruit, before oat topping

If you’re like me, and have a crazy-busy life, sometimes you come home after three days of running around, and realize that all that delicious fresh fruit you bought at the farmer’s market is….turning (into compost, slowly, on the counter).

I find this incredibly upsetting. It makes me sad to think about those farmers in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut who went to all that trouble to grow my food, bring it all the way to my town, and then it ends up as compost! Having been raised by my grandma, a born-and-bred Manhattanite who lived through the Depression, I have have not only the guilt about tossing food (that’s the NYC part!), but also the skills to figure out what to do with it! Doris Ross, my grams, always did something with old stuff, even if it became dog “porridge”.

So I stared at the overripe strawberries (just starting to develop a fuzzy layer of mold), the drying-out blueberries (and some ancient frozen ones), the mushy nectarines, and thought about blending them, but was a bit worried about the mold. There was just a bit, and I knew it wouldn’t kill me, but it could be dangerous (I’m not a mold expert) AND even a little mold has a strong flavor. I would have to cook it to kill the mold. OK, baking then. And then all of a sudden I saw it, in my mind’s eye: a perfect, healthy fruit tart to eat for breakfast!

I got to chopping, removing any seriously rotty bits and washing off all the mold. I just threw it all in a glass pie dish (see directions below) and voila! It was extra-sweet since the fruits were overripe so I needed to add only a small bit of sweetener. SO GOOD!

Starre’s Superripe Summer Fruit Crisp

-Enough fruit to come up to edge of baking dish (I used about 3 cups of strawberries, blueberries, figs and nectarines to fill a standard pie dish; I bet old grapes, peaches, pears, apples or any fruit other than melon would work well)
-2 cups oatmeal (I actually used the rest of my Dorset Cereal’s organic meusli)
-handful of organic sultanas (better than raisins as they are quick-dried and retain more flavor)
-handful organic pumpkin seeds (any nut or seed would work, almonds or walnuts, etc.)
-tablespoon of organic flax seeds (for easy Omega-3’s)
-1/3 stick organic butter (I like Kate’s from Maine, which wins butter-yumminess contests all the time)
-2 tablespoons organic light brown sugar
-1 tablespoon agave
-cinnamon and nutmeg to taste
-1/2 teaspoon organic lemon zest

Chop fruit into bite-size chunks (as if you were making a fruit salad) and place in baking dish, mixing with lemon zest and then sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg to your liking. I like a bit more cinnamon than nutmeg, but quite a bit of both.

-Top fruit mixture with 1 tablespoon light brown sugar and agave nectar. Fresh ginger would also be a good addition here, but I was out.

In a bowl, mix oats, 1/3 of a stick of butter (melted or at least smooshy), flax seeds, sultanas and pumpkin seeds.

When well blended, spoon on top of fruit and flatten out, covering the fruit with a layer of oat mixture.

Bake in a 400-degree oven for 35-40 minutes (prepare for your house to smell amazing!!)

Oh, the beauty! And it was really, really delicious, which is why I’m compelled to share it with you!

Serving suggestion: Sheep’s milk yogurt tastes GREAT with this crisp scooped on top of it. I like Old Chatham Sheepherding Company’s, which is made in upstate New York and available at Whole Foods in Westport, Connecticut near where I live.

I think lingerie might be the toughest thing to find in sustainable fabrics. Here are five lovelies to inspire you, since Summer weather means that bra straps will be peeking out!

Clockwise from top left: Cosabella organic cotton thong and underwire bra, g=9.8 bra and panties made from recycled pine fibers, Spreegirl bamboo underwire bra and panties, Enamore, UrbanFoxEco bamboo and vintage lace cami and panties.

And check out this cute video for Enamore!

Whenever I hear an “environmentalist” say that the solution to global warming is nuclear power, I shake my head. And then I get (wearily) on my soapbox. Yeah, maybe fission itself doesn’t create CO2, but what about:

-mining plutonium (CO2 generating, destroys landscapes, rips open the Earth)
-transporting raw materials for fission to plants (CO2-producing)
-heated waste water (water is needed to cool nuclear reactors, which is often dumped into local water supplies, killing fish and destroying the local ecosystem)
-disposal of nuclear waste (transportation, which is CO2 generating and also poisonous to ALL life for Tens of Thousands of years!)

Coal, Oil, and natural gas also have many of these same problems AND generate CO2. You know what doesn’t? Solar, wind, and small hydro. Yes, they all have some toxic burden and use energy to create the original units, but after they are installed? Free, carbon-free energy. This is where we should be investing our money.

Lyrics to “The Atom”
by Ani DiFranco

the glory of the atom
begs a reverent word
the primary design of the whole universe
let us sing its praises
let us bow our heads in prayer
at the magnificent consciousness
incarnate there

the smallest unit of matter
with its orbiting electrons
echoing off the solar system
like a hawk in the hills at dawn
the smallest unit of matter
uniting bird and rock and tree
and you and me

oh holy is the atom
the truly intelligent design
to which all of evolution
is graciously aligned
the one single structure
to which everything distills
the air, the wood smoke there, and the hills

oh leave me here surrounded
by everything that’s real
far outside the boundaries
of the digitized ordeal
leave me here awake
leave me here to heal

human beings are a cross
between monkeys and ants
you can see us from your spaceship
melting the polar ice caps with our arrogance
summon a congress of angels
dressed in riot gear
we’ve got ourselves a serious situation down here

i had a great great uncle
who worked on the atomic bomb
he got a nobel prize in physics
and a place in this song
and i bet there were no windows
and no women in the room
when they applied themselves to the pure
science of doom

messing with the atom
is the highest form of blasphemy
whether you are making weapons
or simply electricity
someone fashion me a pulpit
i have been called to engage
with the maniacal heretics
of the nuclear age

let the religious get religion
let consumers get a clue
let scientists get perspective
let activists get their due
let industry get a conscience
let the earth inherit the meek
let the divinity of nature speak

the glory of the atom
begs a reverent word
the primary design
of the whole universe
oh let us sing its praises
let us bow our heads in prayer
at the magnificent consciousness
incarnate there