There’s so much going on this month. First up, it’s Dry July. That’s the nation’s wake-up call to think about how much alcohol you consume and whether it might be time to curtail your nightly tipple. I started out well, and nice and early. Yes, I launched into it in June keen to let myself know that I didn’t have a dependency (just dependents – sorry kids!). I was sitting on the ferry coming home from the city and noticing it was filling up, reined in my belongings and indicated to a woman that there was a spare seat next to me. She sat down, thanking me, which was nice, though I wasn’t charging her for the seat (HaHa!), then popped up and asked if I would I keep an eye on her bag while she got a drink. No worries. Oh Lordy, she came back with a drink for me, too. Worse still, it was a pinky type of thing in a slim sexy can. And it was only 4.00pm. No one, I state NO ONE (well, not a stranger anyway) has ever bought me a drink on the ferry before, and I didn’t know what to do. I had to take a sip to be polite, but truly it was pretty ghastly and I had to tell her that I was unable to finish it (she didn’t seem to mind). Read about Dry July here
More on Plastic-free July
I have to say, I did notice about 10 years ago how food in plastic containers often became tainted, so I stopped buying plastic food containers and switched to glass. I love opening my pantry door to clean and shiny glass jars. I can see everything I have, instead of guessing what’s inside opaque plastic containers, and I swear, the food looks so amazing, so inviting, that it inspires me to cook. The pantry is a good place to start. Buy in bulk, filling paper bags and transferring to glass jars, or re-purpose your plastic containers and use them as ‘transporters’ to carry food from point of purchase to your home, to stop them going to landfill. Eventually, they will die – plastic containers eventually crack or split or become toxic (glass does not) – but by then you will have sorted yourself out and got used to purchasing products in different ways.
Loving your newsletter Julie. I, to, am looking to remove plastic from my kitchen. I been successful by using glass and brown paper bags where possible. I get stuck when it comes to storing all the soups and slow cooked meals I put in the freezer. I do a lot of this cooking for when I’m fatigued and need my bed; we can still pull a yummy meal out of the freezer and feed body and soul. I’d love to know how you and others have resolved this challenge.
Hi Imago, you raise a very good point. I often line a container with a plastic bag and fill it with soup and stock and remove it from the container once it is frozen, too free the container. BUT this in no way makes my freezer plastic-free. And I have plastic bags to dispose of once the soup/stock is thawed (the bags are often too greasy to re-use). I’d love to hear from other Shared Kitchen followers about how they deal with this. Thanks Imago.