Skinnygirl Cocktails: Mix Up Your Celebrations

Drinking beverages of any caloric kind tend to leave me with guilt the moment they hit my lips. The caloric count. The carbohydrate count. Not to mention alcohol and what it might do to lower my guard against other foods going in my mouth.

That's why I was excited to check out Bethenny Frankel's latest book, Skinnygirl Cocktails: 100 Fun & Flirty Guilt-Free Recipes.

I'm loving the everyday and not so everyday ideas for celebrating with your friends.

Here are a couple of ideas for toasting with your friends, particularly as we celebrate the upcoming holidays:

For Halloween parties

White Crampire Blood Martini

Serves 2-3
16 ounces Skinnygirl White Cranberry Cosmo
1 1/2 ounces vodka
1/2 cup frozen backberries
black licorice twists for garnish

Combine the Cosmo, vodka and blackberries in a blender and blend until smooth. Strain into chilled martini glasses. Garnish with black licorice.

For Christmas parties

Peppermint Martini

5 ounces Skinnygirl Bare Naked Vodka or other vodka
splash of peppermint schnapps
splash of club soda
Mini candy cane, finely crushed, plus 1 short peppermint stick for garnish

Combine the vodka and peppermint schnapps with ice in a cocktail shaker and shake well. Rim a martini glass with water and the crushed candy. Strain the drink into the glass and garnish with the peppermint stick.

Recipes copyright © 2014 by Bethenny Frankel.  From the book SKINNYGIRL COCKTAILS by Bethenny Frankel, published by Touchstone, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Photos © 2014 by Lucy Schaeffer. Printed by permission. 

A Million Tiny Things Book Review

Today at the Green Phone Booth, I'm reviewing and giving away a copy of A Million Tiny Things: One mother's desperate search for hope in a changing climate. The book comes out on Mother's Day, but here's your chance to check it out early.

Non-Toxic Avenger review

I always figured I lived a fairly green lifestyle given my resources. Reduce, reuse, recycle was ingrained in my practices. I ate locally and organic whenever my budget allowed. I grew my own produce. I eschewed plastic crap in my house whenever I could.

What scares me is it isn't enough.

There's that little bit inside you that tries to dismiss the worries that the things you use every day could kill you. And you try to tune it out.

The reality is chemicals are imbedded in our society, and it's going to take a heck of a lot of effort to get them out. Even if we don't know what the effects of these conveniences are.

A few years ago, I read The Body Toxic: How the Hazardous Chemistry of Everyday Things Threatens Our Health and Well-being, and it scared the crap out of me. That book chronicled the history of hidden chemicals, almost as a government conspiracy. (Who knows? Perhaps it is.) There, I learned to fear PVC shower curtains and microwave popcorn. Fun stuff.

The problem is, while there's much you can do to educate yourself on chemicals imbedded in our everyday things and the possible effects, hunting down alternatives is tough business. That's why I looked forward to reading "The Non-Toxic Avenger: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You" by Crunchy Chicken's Deanna Duke. If anyone could find an alternative, I figured, she could.

Duke's book focuses on her attempt to reduce chemicals and toxins in her body from everyday exposure. It's a scary thought - particularly since she too was leading a green lifestyle before this project began. The books chronicles her challenges in reconciling with her husband's cancer and son's autism, and in seeking alternatives to polluting her body - in everything from carpet to cleaning products, from mascara to margaritas. (Hey, you have to have fun.)

No, Duke doesn't find all the answers. She's still on the hunt for mold-cleaning products, for example. But I love the fact she's still looking and willing to share what's she's found as the best possible alternatives.
"It's still an uphill, daily battle trying to determine whether a product I pick up at the store will poison me," she writes.

At least we have a new, consolidated resources to help us in this battle. I came away, whether Duke intended or not, with a guide that could sit on my shelf - one that I could point to in order to help me more quickly find solutions to my quests.

Gifts for the gardener or locavore

Looking for a gift for your local food lover or gardener? Look no further than your bookstore. There are several great ideas for your friends and family who love to enjoy homegrown or home-cooked local foods.

Cookbooks I'd recommend are chef Emeril Lagasse's Farm to Fork and Daniel Orr's FARMFood. Both put a priority on locally grown produce, evident in the variety of ingredients used. These aren't your boring iceberg and romaine lettuce salads here - think watermelon, feta and arugula, or a corn, tomato and lobster combination.

Gardeners will drool over the new book, Heirloom Life Gardener, by Baker's Creek's owners, Jere and Emile Garrett. You know them by the tome they produce each winter, filled with oversized photos with a rainbow of produce. My bright husband pre-ordered this gift, so it arrived just days before my birthday. He's definitely on my nice list. This doesn't disappoint.

A bit more academic in tone but great reads, Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth or Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman are great ways for gardeners who want to complete the cycle of life to better use their gardens throughout the year and save seeds from year to year.

Happy reading!

Originally published at the Green Phone Booth, 2011.
Note: This post contains affiliate links, which helps support this blog.

Harvest Eating Cookbook: A review

Practically jumping off the shelves at me at the library, Keith Snow's The Harvest Eating Cookbook: More than 200 Recipes for Cooking with Seasonal Local Ingredients is a delight to read. More than 200 recipes - and even more tempting photographs - provide fodder beyond the usual "tomato and basil salad" thought of seasonal eating. And where many "seasonal" cookbooks begin in late spring and progress through fall, Snow provides ideas to keep us going through the winter months as well.

Granted, I'm always interested in ideas for eating with the seasons, but I was just as intrigued by Snow's story. He quit his career as a hotel chef and moved to a rural area to refocus his entire way of life, following a battle with inflammation. He focuses on a need to re-establish a connection to our land, and provides resources for finding local sources of foods - always something of interest.

I dreaded the day I had to return this book. The recipes are fabulous, and I'm sure this will be a book I'll revisit soon!

Want to check out some of Snow's recipes? Visit http://www.harvesteating.com/ to visit his online library.

Mom, Will This Chicken Give Me Man Boobs?: A review

Sometimes, a book on the library shelf just screams to be picked up.

This time, it was a subtle pink one that just wanted to be green. And the title was too good not to read: Mom, Will This Chicken Give Me Man Boobs?: My Confused, Guilt-Ridden and Stressful Struggle to Raise a Green Family? by Robyn Harding.

Have mommy guilt? Have green guilt? Harding makes you feel better about your life. She chronciles suburban mommy life in ultra-green Vancouver, where parents are out to save their children and the trees simultaneously, trying to out-sustain each other in the process. I couldn't stop laughing through the book -- and my husband kept fighting me to read the copy.

Maybe Harding's book just hit a little too close to home. Do you buy local or organic or simply the best price? Drink from milk organic, conventional or cooped-up cows? Send out a stack of Christmas cards to long-lost relatives? Buy birthday presents for every kid in the class or go "low-impact?" Avoid that glass of wine after a stressful day just because it's "Buy-nothing day?" Or just say forget it, and enjoy that steak for once, because if we eat the cow, it can't fart methane gas anymore? When one news article seems to contradict the next, where does it all end?

Harding tries to strike that balance between education and just being smart, something that's tough to do and even tougher to impart on the next generation. Her children stress about polar bears and pesticides, sweat the small stuff and realize that not-organic food may actually be OK sometimes - especially when it comes in the form of cake.

We have a lot to stress about in this world, and weighing the environmental impact of every single choice we make can be painful. Harding reminds us that we don't have to worry each moment of the day and that sometimes, it's OK to breathe and live - and laugh - a little.

Protecting ourselves: Lessons from "The Body Toxic"

As a parent, you want to do everything you can to protect your children. What worries you most are the things far beyond your reach.

We bottle-fed our non-nursing son during the height of the BPA controversy, wondering if we were doing the right thing. In my ignorance, I didn't realize it was a minute tip of the iceberg.

And then I read "The Body Toxic: How the hazardous chemicals of everyday things threaten our health and well-being" by journalist Nena Baker. It's quite possibly the scariest book I'll read all summer.

In it I learned about the breakdown of my government in protecting our nation's health. Spurred by lobbyists from the chemical industries, we've evolved the last 50 years into a toothless siutation where weak laws and tiny budgets leave littel room for our government to examine what chemicals are truly hazardous to our health. In fact, we're often lagging far beyond Canada and European nations in taking action against known harmful substances.

What's scary is that the chemicals you're exposed to come from the most unthinkable of everyday places:

• the microwave popcorn packaging
• your shower curtain
• the flame retardants in your TV
• non-stick skillets
• grease-resistant food packaging

One interviewee in the book likened the situation to 9/11, where the hijackers were under the radar screen and grabbed control. "Certain contaminants can hijack the control of gene exppression, contributing to a number of illnesses on the rise."

What frightens me the most is potential damange not done to me but to future generations. Tiny bodies are more susceptible to the chemicals exposed to during pregnancy or through breast milk and every day life outside the womb. (Not that formula is immune - chemicals can leach from its packaging, too!)

So what do you do?

• Write your political leaders and encourage stronger legislation (an update to the Toxic Substances Control Act) regarding oversight of chemicals, and larger funding for those oversights.
• Choose organic whenever possible.
• Ditch plastic, particularly for food and drink - reheating can cause hazardous substances to leach out.
• Avoid stain protection treatments from floors and upholstery.
• Filter your tap water rather than use bottled.
• Use low-VOC paint.
• Choose cast-iron or hard anodized aluminum pots.
• Think twice about using air fresheners.

It's a little overwhelming, to be honest. Keep in mind that the author writes: "I don't obsess about chemical pollutants; I make informed decisions based on my understanding of the hazards of pesticides, plasticizers, flame retardants and stain protectors."

Home Grown Indiana: A review

Indiana means corn, and lots of it. But locally produced foods are more more varied. It's just that the state hasn't done a great sales job of it.

Sure there's Purdue's listing of area farmers markets and farm stands, as well as directories (somewhat updated) on localharvest.org. But easily locating producers who are still active has been a challenge.

That's what intrigued me about Home Grown Indiana. Written by Christine Barbour and Scott Hutcheson, the guidebooks keys into more than 400 local producers across the Hoosier state. As a person who's interested in sustainable living and supporting our local economy as much as possibly, the book's concept appealed to me: a geographic guide to local producers, including produce, meats, beer and wine, restaraunts and more. I learned Indiana is home to many food products that might surprise you: caviar, bison and elk, for example.

Home Grown Indiana offers an eclectic mix of listings, local eating tips and recipes. Interesteing stories and anecdotes help you learn the story behind what you're eating. One of the great advantages of locally produced goods is that you can get to know the producer, and this is just one step into the experience.

Vendors are listed by seven geographic regions that are an early attempt to organze but are not always the most intuitive. (For example, Bloomington and Columbus are left out of the "Central" region, which is instead limited to the eight-county Indianapolis metropolitan area.) Four or five regions might have made more sense.

Each chapter includes market and local producers, lists of restaraunts featuring local food, farmers market lists, wineries, breweries and food festivals. However, these topics aren't clearly marked; in some instances, CSAs and some markets are mixed among the producers, for example.


Suggestions for future editions would be to consolidate or make clearer the geographic boundaries, such as "Chicagoland" or "Evansville area." In addition, each chapter could be somewhat better organized.


Despite these small limitations, Home Grown Indiana is a fabulous first attempt at quantifying the bounty that's available within Indiana's borders.

Pass it on: Sites for swapping

Freecycle and craigslist are two great resources for passing along free (or inexpensive) items. And I'm still experimenting with Zwaggle, which allows you to trade children's items, with mixed results.

But what do you do with those piles of dust-collecting books or abandoned CDs?

A few Web sites exist that key into your hobbies and allow for free to low-cost swapping.

Among them:

Paperbackswap.com
Swapadvd.com
Swapacd.com

By sharing your items with other interested readers or listeners, you earn credits that you can redeem for swapped items of your own. While you're responsible for the shipping costs, you also don't have to purchase these items new.

Looking for a green book?

Need a book for the beach? Tired of trashy romances?

If you're ready for something more to chew on this summer, consider a book on going more environmentally friendly. Granted, as I've noted, there are many books out there to choose from, from the "green for lazy people" to the hard-core, return-to-the-old-days farming.

Not sure where to start? Several green bloggers have started a repository of individual reviews of environmental books. Categories include:

• climate change
• garbage
• green marketplace
• green parenting
• inspirational
• living lightly
• nature and environment
• peak oil
• peak water
• spiritual
• sustainable food
• the green movement
• sustainable gardening

Find it online at the Blogging Bookworm.

Raising Baby Green: 10 great tips for non-parents, too

Dr. Alan Greene's book, Raising Baby Green: The Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Care, is a great resource guide, but it's definitely geared for the mom-to-be.

I did find many great green tips for non-parents, though. Here are 10 new things I learned from Greene's book:

1. There are alternatives to plastic toss-away silverware. You can actually buy "SpudWare" - forks, spoons and knives that feel like plastic but are made from potato starch and soy oil. Not sure whether they taste potato-ey.
2. When buying cling wrap, you should look for products made with low-density polyethylene (LDPE) which is safer than PVC (polyvinyl chloride, the #3 plastic.) According to the book, some of the brands that are LDPE-based are Glad Cling Wrap, Saran with Cling Plus, Saran Premium Wrap and Diamant Food Wrap.
3. To control your fridge's energy use, make sure there is space around every side, including the back. Vacuum coils on the back of your fridge biannually.
4. Insulating your water heater can reduce its energy use by up to 9 percent.
5. If you have clothing stains, try to soak the fabrics in water mixed with borax, lemon juice, hydrogen peroxide or white vinegar.
6. Take care of your car. Keep your tires inflated correctly and change the air filter regularly. The author estimated those two tips could save more than $1,000 a year in gas money - and that was before the recent price increases!
7. Park your car in the shade. "It lowers the temperature of gas tanks by four to seven degrees, which curbs emissions, the author writes.
8. Using vinegar when doing laundry helps get soap out of the cloth, minimizes possible irritants and reduces static cling. The author suggests using a quarter cup of white vinegar in the wash water.
9. Looking at a remodel, or just a new look in your house? You can consider more earth-friendly options as salvaged or recycled materials; natural, milk-based or zero- or low-VOC paints; or wood, bamboo or natural cork flooring.
10. Since it's summer, it's worth mentioning that soapy water or citrus essential oil and water can kill ants quickly.

Read on for tips for parents.

Raising Baby Green: 10 tips for new parents

Recently I read Dr. Alan Greene's book, Raising Baby Green: The Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Care . It is very much written for the parent-to-be, though I found several great tips for those of us with little ones already in the house.

10 things I learned from Dr. Greene's book:

1. If you're nervous about the gels or liquids inside traditional teething toys (as I am, since one leaked with my first), you can buy organic, machine-washable teething toys from several sources online. Or, moisten a wash cloth and cool it in the freezer.
2. Talc-based powders, often used for diaper rash, may have small particles that can irritate your baby's lungs. To prevent diaper rash, instead, use a little fresh air.
3. The best foods to buy organic are peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery and nectarines. The least worrisome are mango, pineapples, sweet corn, avocado and onions.
4. Instead of commercial air fresheners, you can squeeze a lemon into the diaper pail. (Or, you can do as I do, and open those perfume samples from the magazines and place them at the bottom.)
5. Look for plastic toys for your child that are PVC-free.
6. If you are bottle feeding, consider replacing rubber or latex nipples with silicone ones.
7. If you're formula-feeding, choose powdered over liquid. BPA is present in many cans of conncentrated formula and can leach into it.
8. If you choose any time to go organic, the most beneficial is before three years of age, when development is fastest.
9. If you use cloth diapers, don't bleach. Bleach is absorbed by the cloth.
10. Before loading up on adorable baby clothes, think green. While you can buy organic, the best things you can do are hit up a resale shop, get hand-me-downs or simply limit your purchases. Remember, your child will outgrow these clothes fast.

Read great tips that anyone can use from this book.

Going green: Only in Barnes & Noble's coffers?

Sunday, I took part in a guilty pleasure: Wandering the aisles at Barnes & Noble. I was particularly interested in what's available regarding living a less environmentally-damaging lifestyle.

Was I surprised.

As Earth Day is today, the obligatory "Green" table was out. And the choices? About a dozen or so books. A mix of "how to be a lazy environmentalist," "renovating your house the green way" and "the earth is dying" books. Is there no middle ground?

I don't believe you can just buy your way to a better environment and treat your conscience as clean. Clutter is still clutter, and environmentally safer products in tough-to-recycle bottles still generate trash. Those are baby steps, but they don't totally eliminate the problems. I think, truthfully, you need to make wiser choices all around, even if they're slightly uncomfortable. Just like transitioning to healthier eating habits, true change takes time and commitment.

It'd be nice to find real resources on how to live a greener lifestyle. I'd love to redo my kitchen or flooring, install solar panels or do other expensive "green" projects, but it's just not going to happen. But I do believe there are many of us who want to do more for our environment, even if we can't afford big-ticket items. And I want to do more than buy a bottle of cleaner to make a difference in our environment. If there are other resources out there, I'd love to hear about them. Because it's the many, many small changes we take that are going to prevent the doomsday prognostications in some of the books on the green table.