Build a better barter

I'm on the steering committee... executive leadership... volunteer board... (or whatever you want to call us) for Fair Tradin', Tacoma's chapter of Backyard Barter.  Earlier this month we had a barter, in which I participated. 

Here's an oh-so-flattering picture of me at my table, watching as my husband arrives with our son.

I had a lot of stuff.  I made whole wheat banana bread, Irish Cream, tomato jam, blackberry jam, waxed cloth bags (still in their infancy... I need to develop the design a little better), a prized quart of tomato sauce, and a few knitted coffee cozies.

I went home with quite the haul:

• Blackberry wine
• Hard cider
• Hand salve
• Lavender-orange sugar scrub
• Cascarones (eggs filled with confetti – destined for K’s Easter basket)
• Tomato salsa
• Green salsa
• Granola
• ~2 lbs ground lamb
• Bay leaves
• Rhubarb-strawberry syrup
• Loaf of still-steaming whole wheat bread
• Chocolate-coconut ice cream
• Homemade chocolate

Also accompanying me on the trip home was nearly all of my bread (I gave a few pieces away, and Kaelen stole one), all of my tomato and blackberry jam, and my tomato sauce.  The Irish Cream was highly popular, as were the waxed cloth bags.  Of those two items, the Irish Cream was far easier to make, though the waxed bags were cheaper.

I had attempted to trade my precious tomato sauce - it contained over 5 lbs of cooked-down roma tomatoes! - for the blackberry wine.  She told me that because she makes her own tomato sauce, she didn't need it.  Thank goodness I had one final jar of Irish Cream.

Based on my recent experience, here's what I* (see caveat below) would be less inclined take to a future barter:

Canned and baked goods - So many of the people at the barter are also avid canners and bakers that the reduces the perceived value of the goods I took.  Why would they trade for my banana bread when they can make a batch at home?  Same goes for run-of-the-mill canned goods: anyone can make blackberry jam.  If you're going to take canned goods, make them unique and offer samples.
Eggs - Again, lots of the traders are also homesteading types who have chickens.  I wouldn't discourage others from taking eggs, but I won't take eggs.  As if I had any.  Darn slackers.
Labor-intensive items - My waxed cloth bags were popular but I had under-estimated how much work they were to make.  Each piece of cloth first had to be hemmed.  Then waxed.  Then have plastic snaps attached.  A single bag takes about 30 minutes of hands-on work, which is considerable.  I'll consider making more knitted coffee cozies or jar holders if my knitting queue ever clears.

*These items defintely have a place at barters. There are always people who don't can, who don't have chickens, who don't have plant starts or whatever. This is a list of things I'm not seeking at barters.

Here are some of my ideas for things I will take to barter event in the future:
Booze - My Irish Cream was very popular and I traded every bottle I had.  I noticed that the other people with alcohol did a brisk trading.  For the next swap I'm considering a Grand Marnier, which I'd better hurry up and get started.  I need a better container alternative to canning jars, however.
Homemade candy - I make a mean caramel.  It's easy to make a lot at once (though wrapping them takes time) and there were no other candies at the swap.
Labor-intensive items - Yeah, I know that this is in direct conflict to what I said above.  Next time I'll tuck them out of sight and use them for what I consider higher end barters, like the lamb.  My baby booties for a previous swap were hugely popular and even led to some one-off commissions.
Root beer & similar beverages - One of my coworkers makes homemade root beer and lemon-lime soda, which are all lightly fermented.  I've been dying to try it and think it would be coveted as a unique item.
Homemade mixes - Pudding, brownies, pancakes, muffins, spice packets, etc.
Dried herbs
Services - Knitting help, canning lessons, urban chicken consultation, resume writing and editing

As you're considering what to take to a swap, ask yourself:

• How will others perceive the value of the items I plan to take?  Take your cues from the gourmet items at the grocery store.
• What is unique about my offerings?  How likely is it that other people be trying to trade the same thing?
• Can I make a lot of it fairly easily and for a reasonable cost?
• What will I do with my leftovers?

Have you bartered goods or services?  What would you add to this?

Beeswax food wrap

Yesterday we bid Marius, the young German teen who has been living with us since September, a fond farewell.  He's become a member of our family and we will miss him dearly.  It's weird to be home without him and our house is so much quieter than it has been in, well, 5 months.

That said, my goal for 2013 is to simplify my life.  While we all miss Marius and his dorky sense of humor - "whoa, I'm so tall now," exclaimed gleefully while standing on his tippy toes in the living room - his departure allows us to re-establish ourselves as a family of three and to find our new normal.

One adjustment is that I will have more time on my hands now.  Kaelen goes to sleep so early that I generally get about 3 hours each evening to spend with Gene or to pursue my own interests.  Without a chatty, bored teen eager to be entertained I get to again spend time on my blog. 

YAY!

Last November I saw a post on some now long-lost blog on how to make your own waxed cloth.  A friend who makes her own soaps gave me some beeswax so that I could make her some, too.

Then I got sick.

Then Kaelen got croup.

Then Gene got sick.

Then my illness turned into bronchitis.

Then Gene's went into pneumonia.

Then Christmas... New Year's... school starting up again for Marius... thena mad dash to Do! All! The! Things! with Marius... then Kaelen had a weekend of, shall we just say "intestinal discomfort"... and then and then and then.

Whew.  Life is such a whirlwind.

My poor friend has been gently and patiently reminding me of the promised waxed cloths.

So here you go. 

MATERIALS
100% cotton cloth (mine was left over from when I recovered my cedar trunk years ago)
Beeswax - approximately 1 oz/square of cloth
Cookie sheet
Parchment paper or silpat
Pants hanger
Pinking shears
Pastry brush (not shown)

Preheat oven to 170F.

Sprinkle the cloth evenly with the beeswax.  Cook your cloth for 9-12 minutes.

At the end of the cooking time, you may need the pastry brush to even out the beeswax.

Quickly remove the cloth from the cookie sheet and hang it up.  It will dry and cool within a few minutes.

The cloth will darken after being waxed.  The top piece has been waxed, the bottom has not.

After they've cooled, use the pinking shears to trim the waxed cloth.

If you want to get all fancy with your finished wraps, look on etsy for ideas on making baggies and wraps for storing and protecting your food.  Otherwise use them with rubber bands to keep your food protected in the fridge.

Hand wash your food wrap with soap and cool-warm (not hot) water.  This website has lots of care tips for the use and cleaning of waxed products.

If you'd rather buy some waxed food wraps, try the ones over at Abeego.  I've never used them but the designs are very pretty and they come with clever attachments for closing them.

I can't wait to start using mine!

Coming up in 2013

2012 was a tough year for my family.  Our family lost several of its oldest members.  My household saw the deaths of three pets.  Gene became a stay-at-home dad and we have squeaked by on my educator's income .  Gene's electric motorcycle business, while generating some great exposure and interest in the electric vehicle and motorcycle enthusiast worlds, hasn't yet generated a corresponding income.  I broke down and got a Costco membership.  We spent all of December fighting illnesses that went from bad to worse and eventually required doctors' interventions.  We had to cancel Kaelen's first birthday.  To round things out, Kaelen fell down a flight of wooden stairs to the concrete floor of the basement at a friend's house after someone didn't shut a baby gate properly.  He suffered only minor bruises and a bloodied nose.  But those were some of the most frightening moments of my brief stint as a parent.

I was so fed-up with 2012 that I went to bed at 11:50 on New Year's Eve, my way of flipping it the metaphorical bird.  Playing the exhausted and cranky host, I refused to see 2012 to the door and make sure it got to its car safely before I turned off the porch light.

There were definitely bright spots in 2012.  It was sometimes hard to see them when the darkness loomed so large.  The best moments definitely came in watching Kaelen grow and become his own little person.  New teeth, new skills, outgrown clothes, developing personality - all amazing to see.  He signed "eat" for the first time independently on 12/29, then signed it with gusto upon seeing cupcakes at our friends' house on New Year's Eve.  Seeing Gene fall in love with our son and be a patient but strict parent has been wonderful.  Introducing Kaelen to my grandparents and family in New England last spring gave me untold joy.  Watching my brother grow into his role as uncle - gentle, loving, attentive, sometimes even awestruck - has been so touching.  Marius came into our lives and we've been learning the ups and downs of parenting a teen.  And hey, we survived the purported "Mayan Apocalypse"!

Gene and I both have high hopes for 2013.  Here are some of my personal goals:

1. I am working hard to get a new job.  I'm bored out of my skull at work.  I've been interviewing like mad and have my fingers crossed that 2013 usher me into a new professional role.
2. My yard will be easier to maintain.  While I really attacked the inside of the house in 2012, I sorely neglected the yard.  I plan to whip it back into shape starting this spring.  In the back yard I'm going to remove some shrubs to enlarge the open areas, plant grass, and limit the chickens' access.  I'm not crazy about grass but Kaelen and Rosemary need a safe, chicken poop-free back yard where they can play.  I'm going to reclaim the front yard's raised beds from the weeds.  If finances allow, I'd like to terrace the front slope with a rock wall of some kind and use the terraces for veggies and herbs.  Managing plants on a slope has proven too high maintenance for my lifestyle.  If a rock wall isn't in the works, I'll reduce the garden area and increase the grass area.  Before you freak about grass, know that I don't put any weed-n-feed on my lawn and I don't water it (it greens up after the first good fall rain, so why bother?).
3. I will manage my commitments better.  I've said "yes" to too many things.  For example, I'm thrilled to have hosted Marius and our lives have been enriched by having known him.  I've realized that parenting someone else's teenager stretches my time and attention too thin (also, I don't have the patience or energy to debate, discuss, and defend my every statement).  We've been asked to do it again and I declined.  On the other hand, I've just agreed to join the planning committee to help start a barter community in Tacoma and I've also rejoined a French conversation group. 
4. I will make time for myself amongst all those obligations.  As I often tell others, "You can't fill others' cups if your own is empty".
5. I will refocus my blog.  I started my blog out with great gusto.  Must write all the things!  My life has changed dramatically in the years since my first post.  It's a lot of work to maintain a blog, and I'm thankful to you for reading it.  I do this one for fun but sometimes it just feels like a burden and I get guilty for neglecting it.  My initial goal was to write about the trials and tribulations of living sustainably in a city.  I want to maintain and develop that general theme.  I am going to spend some time thinking about what I want this blog to be and would greatly appreciate your input on it. 

What are your goals for 2013?

How to make your cookie sheets look brand new

Do your cookie sheets look like mine?  Here are my cookie sheets & pizza screens.  I use a silpat for making cookies but the pans go naked for roasting veggies.  The pizza screens sometimes get sprayed with oil, which tends to leave a sticky residue over time.  All were purchased several years ago at a nearby restaurant supply store.

Aluminum gets grody over time.  You can scrub and scrub and scrub all you like but they'll never look brand new again.

Unless you know my secret.

Here are the same cookie sheets and pizza screens later that same day.  And I didn't even touch them to get them this way.  No chemicals, no scrubbing, no water.  Nothing!  I didn't have to do a dang thing to them after they got all spiffed up, either.

Are you dying to know how I did it yet? 

I put them in the oven during its self-cleaning cycle and walked away for 2 hours.

Now, before you go throwing your bakeware into the oven, make sure it's 100% aluminum and can withstand the high heat of a self-cleaning cycle.  Don't try this on anything with non-stick coatings, handles, enamel, or heirloom items. 

Other than that, bake your grime away.  It's awesome.  Now, if only my bathroom were this easy to clean.

A treasure trove of lebkuchen

A few years ago..

Holy crap.  When did 1997 become a "few" years ago?  It feels like only recently!

Let's start again.

Waaaaay back in the '90s when I was single, carefree, and had (some) money, I spent Christmas in Europe with friends.  They took me to the markets and I adored seeing the season through another culture's eyes.  As much as I love France, Germany's Christmas seems to more fully embody what Americans envision as the perfect holiday season: nutcrackers, spiced wine, snow, trees, ice skating.

One of the things that I fell in love with was lebkuchen, a soft gingerbready sort of thing.  Only it's amazingly better.  It's chewy and sweet (but not overly so) and makes you want to cuddle by the fire.  I love them.  Every year I buy some at Cost Plus World Market and hoard them: mine!  MINE!!  I've thought about trying to make some but never so much as researched recipes.

Last year my girlfriend, Maria, ruined me.  She sent me Nurmburg lebkuchen.  Dammit.  My Cost Plus cookies are stale and flavorless in comparison to the traditionally made lebkuchen.  They were soft, fragrant, chewy, and amazing.

Now we're set to be ruined yet again. 

On Veteran's Day I was sitting in my living room when the FedEx truck stopped in front of our house.  The driver left a large box on our doorstep.  I stared at the delivery label in disbelief.  It was from Germany.  Upon learning that I love lebkuchen so much, Marius' parents decided to introduce us to a German tradition of a Schmidt chest. 

I unpacked the box with my jaw agape.  Gene was on the phone and I couldn't get his attention.  In the box was a beautiful pressed tin box.  I put it on the counter and waited for Gene to see it before I opened it.  Finally, my waving and stomping made him look over.

Inside are 13 types of Germany cookies and treats: lebkuchen (lots and lots of it!), stollen, vanilla cookies, pfeffernusse, cinnamon cookies... oh my!  There was also a perpetual calendar and some ornaments for our tree.

We're incredibly grateful, not just for this bounty of holiday treats, but for the chance to host a young man from Germany.  He's been such a fine addition to our household. 

A year ago I was expecting a son... who knew I would get two.

Vote

Election day always reminds me of a conversation I once had with a former coworker.

I walked into our office with my "I voted" sticker on my shirt.

When I asked if everyone had voted she responded, "I'm too dumb to vote."

This woman was the office manager and the lead consultant.  She was a single mother of a 13-year-old girl.  While she and I did choose to live our lives in very ways and I generally thought that the decisions she made in her personal life tended to be quite poor, she was clearly not a stupid person.  In this woman's case, it was her choice to be "dumb". 

I wondered this morning if her daughter, who would be about 19 by now, is voting in her first presidential election, or if she's been told that girls are "too dumb" to vote.  I hope for her sake that she has found her own voice and is making decisions for herself as a young woman.

There's a difference between stupid and uninformed.  If you don't know, find out.  Inform yourself.  Ask questions, even if you think they seem "dumb".  It's your right to vote, and your duty to do so.

Thirty-nine good deeds

A couple of weeks ago I watched a video on facebook where a young man in India performed 21 good deeds on his 21st birthday.  (And of course, now I can't find the video.)  The acts ranged from watching a tollgate for a guard so he could use the restroom to feeding the homeless. 

Later that week, I was in a bookstore and found a title of a book that looked interesting.  I was having a crummy day and needed some inspiration, so opened the book to that date.  Turns out Erin had had a bad day, too: it was her first deedless day.

Alas.

I took a picture of the book and vowed to check out at the library.  Then I went back to my day, trying hard get over my curmudgeonly and pissy mood.

The universe seemed to be working to get me to do something.  The book and the video stuck with me, never far from my thoughts.  I finally decided to do 39 good deeds in conjunction with my 39th birthday (which isn't until August 2013).  Would I attempt 39 deeds in one day?  Would I focus on doing one a day for the 39 days before my birthday?  I didn't know but it would be my way of thanking the world for letting me occupy it for 39 years.

I did worry, however, that many of the deeds would cost money we can't spare.  Sure, it's lovely to purchase the next drive-up person's order, to donate money to a charity, to buy a kid's school fundraiser items, but what if I just don't have the cash?  We are on a very strict budget.

A couple of days after having seen the book, one of the bloggers I follow on facebook announced that her friend, Erin McHugh (see above), was giving away e-copies of her book for one day only on amazon.com.  Wait a sec... that's the book I was coveting!  And it's free!  I rushed and got myself a copy. 

Happy happy joy joy!

The book has provided me with a lot of inspiration.  Good deeds mean calling a friend, being reliable, giving credit where credit is due, helping others find joy, and more.  I'm really enjoying the book and am so glad that I own a copy because I know I'll read it again.

This morning as I walked from my car to my office I noticed an abandoned Safeway shopping cart on campus.  The nearest Safeway is well over a mile away.  I'd seen the cart there for the past few days but not done anything.  I live near another Safeway and am constantly taking back carts that people have thoughtlessly left in the street.

Rather than grumble to myself about careless people, I whipped out my cell phone and called the number on the cart to report its location.  That was a much better way to start my day than getting worked up about the cart having been left on campus by some jerk.

Sometimes good deeds are more dramatic. 

Yesterday a coworker came to my office doorway and said, "Jenn, I think I'm going to pass out".  Then he did.  I had just enough time to get to him and lay him down gently on the ground.  I put my coat under his head, called his wife, kept him company until the paramedics arrived, then helped keep curious students at bay so that he could have some privacy.  I was pretty amped up on adrenaline for the rest of the afternoon and got very little work done.

(And Erin McHugh says that good deeds don't fall into your lap!)

Just last Thursday I found a debit card on the ground near a window well.  I glanced into the well and saw what appeared to be a driver's license.  I climbed down into the well and retrieved the card: it had the same name as the debit card.  I reported the find to the the police and left the items at a nearby bakery.  That morning wasn't completely altruistic: I'd missed my stop because I'd been eavesdropping on some very personal conversations on the bus.

And so it would seem that my 39-deed pledge has begun without my having realized it.

Won't you join me in a similar pledge?  The purpose of sharing the good deeds isn't to tell us how wonderful you are - we already know that! - but rather to inspire others to take action and influence in a positive way the world around us all.