Growers and Grocers

My current, conventional, digital bathroom scale is powered by one 9-volt battery, which I think I’ve changed twice in the 7 or 8 years that I’ve owned the scale. Now, two batteries over nearly a decade is not exactly going to create a landfill problem, whereas ditching my current scale to buy a new one might. So although I won’t be replacing my […]

Honey is evocative for me. I can’t smell it without thinking of my grandparents’ home in the country, the honey jar a permanent fixture in the walk-in pantry there.
My grandparents brought their ”old country” way of life with them when they emigrated, locavores before the term even existed. They bought neighbor-made rye bread in loaves as large as couch pillows.  […]

When I first heard about ACT Natural cleaning cloths I was immediately intrigued. Who wouldn’t be? Reusable microfiber cloths that clean almost any surface, using water as the only cleaning aid? I contemplated the toothpaste splatters on my bathroom faucet, the drifts of cat hair silently collecting beneath every stationary piece of furniture, the spotty dining […]

Let’s say that your five-year-old is deep in the throes of a chest cold, coughing her poor little head off in the middle of the night (when most of these rib-cracking, neighbor-waking hacking fits seem to occur). Miraculously, your husband appears to be sleeping through the crisis (”appears” being the operative word). And as much as […]

 
Plain yogurt, like Brussels sprouts, beets, and kale, is one of those foods that makes me feel slightly virtuous each time I eat it. Not because it’s a struggle to choke down these foods, I hasten to clarify, but just because there are so many health benefits associated with them.
Although in the past I’ve purchased […]

 
Since I am not the primary consumer of ketchup in my household (that distinction belongs to my kids), I decided to enlist the whole family in taste-testing this product. We sampled Wholemato’s Organic Agave Ketchup on roasted potatoes, which were otherwise flavored only with sea salt, black pepper, and a little bit of olive oil.
Upon […]

Organic “fun snax” have come a long way since the soy-nut-and-dried-papaya gorp of my youth. We now can send our kids off to school with a FruitaBü Organic Smoooshed Fruit Flat in their lunch bag, content in the knowledge that (a) it’s organic, (b) it’s half a serving of real fruit, and (c) they’ll probably […]

My kids like toaster pastries for the same reasons I almost never buy them: they’re ultrasweet, smeared (and sometimes filled) with sugary frosting, and although they don’t remotely resemble anything like an actual “pastry,” they’re weirdly addictive. Most trips to the grocery store include a pass through the seemingly ever-expanding toaster-pastry aisle and a brief, […]