Apartment Therapy: cooking

Salt & Pepper Shakers: Flavor Versus Flow

No, we're not going old-school rap on you. But we are going retro with a pair of vintage salt and pepper shakers we spotted at a yard sale over the weekend. They've got a charming design, are in exc...

No More Plastic Bags: Organic Cotton Produce Bags

Although we've been carrying canvas totes in lieu of disposable grocery bags for some time, until a few months ago we held onto a stash of plastic produce and ziploc bags for smaller groups of items. ...

Recycled Glass Bottle Utensils & Cups by Laurence Brabant

The Coldcuts collection by Laurence Brabant takes recycled wine bottles and turns them into serving ware and glasses....

When Should You Buy Organic?: The Dirty Dozen

When we went grocery shopping this morning we wound up debating over organic versus non-organic bananas. When are the extra pennies really worth it? Then we remembered seeing a list that a friend had...

Back to Basics: Stovetop Espresso

All the talk last week about coffee had us craving espresso. So over the weekend, we re-discovered a very basic, filter-free way to enjoy espresso. It’s much quieter and actually less hands-on than ...

Uninvited Guest: A Baby Slug in Our Beets

If we ever needed a reminder that our food comes from a farm, it arrived last week, falling out of a bunch of beets we brought home from our CSA... posted originally from: AT:Kitchen...

Conscientious Cook: Mindfulness about Waste

Refrigerators are our tombs. I spent the past weekend at Slow Food Nation and returned home with this statement from Carlo Petrini ringing in my head. posted originally from: AT:Kitchen...

Blogging SF Chronicle: Canning Tomatoes with Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver is an expert on eating local, really local. Anyone who joined us during the first Re-nest Book Club (reading Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) knows what we're talking abou...

A Farmers Market Goes Online
Washington DC

Launched on July 15th by the University of Maryland, Food Trader is a new website that helps local consumers to buy directly from local farmers. There are already over 200 farmers on the site offering...

Biodegradable Bread Bag

I thought I scored when I found whole-wheat sourdough. But I didn’t know what a find it was until I arrived home and pulled the loaf out of its biodegradable bag....

Boxed Wine: Eco-Friendly. Really?

Read a little tidbit this morning about boxed wine being more environmentally friendly than glass bottled wine. We had a few thoughts. First: We'll admit that we don't mind Target's boxed wine, whe...

Future of Milk Packaging: Milk Pouch + JUGIT Container

We've seen the square milk jugs which are supposed to improve delivery efficiency but they will still fill up your recycling bin. Dayless Organic Milk comes in a calcium carbonate bag and sounds delig...

Look! An Overabundance of Garden-Grown Tomatoes

It's that time of year again ... possibly our favorite time of year. Mom's garden is overflowing with fresh, amazing tomatoes. She eats them at every meal, gives them away, and still has leftovers....

My Farm and the Ultimate Local CSA

garden planning with drip irrigation When we took the plunge and moved from San Francisco to Oakland, we knew that we might be giving up a few city-living conveniences. True, we lost our corner produ...

Recycline Food Storage

We're still on the hunt for vintage Pyrex, though we did gain the use of a few pieces through a new roommate. But we want something lightweight to tote to work, with a lid that won't pop off....

Found Food: Do You Forage for Food?

Never growing larger than the fingernail on our pinky finger and ranging in color for ruby red to purple, we're not completely sure if these are raspberries or unripe blackberries. In either case, th...

Simple Green: Cold Brew Coffee

(Hello again to Trent, who is trying out for a spot on the Re-Nest editorial team. His first post on Tankless Water Heaters can be found here and comments are welcome.) After biking to work during th...

Do Crock Pots Use Less Energy? For Real?

We've been wondering if the Crock Pot, the use of which makes us feel so thrifty and virtuous, is actually deserving of our admiration and positive emotions. After some intensive searching, here's wh...

How To: Spend Your Economic Simulus Check on Sustainable Eggs

Chicken coops tend not to bring thoughts of high design and innovation. The introduction of the Eglu in 2004 by British company Omlet changed the way urbanites think about raising hens. With economi...

Look! UV Light Keeps Fruit Longer

With warmer weather come insects; and the peskiest of the bunch are fruit flies. Every time we bring fruits home and hang 'em in our hanging basket those little betches show up. While this product her...

Good Product: 9-Bottle Bag

What a great idea! Here's a sturdy nylon bag that has 9 individual compartments for transporting nine 1.5 liter bottles....

The New Farm Bill: What's In It?

So - how about a little Friday afternoon politics? We've been following the passage-veto-override of the new Farm Bill with some interest. The infighting amongst our two major political parties has be...

Checking In On... Fresh Direct's Green Initiatives

Oh, Fresh Direct. The name gets our juices (and yours) flowing. We love the convenience, we hate the trucks idling on the side of our block. We love selection and prices, we hate the lone head of cabb...

Tiered Dessert Stand: Eco-Chic Ideas from Martha Stewart and Danny Seo

Unlike many of the websites out there that were touting things to buy, buy, buy for Earth Day, Martha Stewart and body + soul come through with a great slideshow of inspiring ideas for going green wit...

Green Food Storage

Last night, as we spooned cold stew out of one of those semi-disposable plastic food storage containers we felt like we had reached the height of hipocracy. ZipWare, GladLoc, whatever it was, it didn...