Earth Hour 2009

I like Earth Hour. Sure, it's only one hour of one day in the year, and hardly a solution to problems with energy use and its impact on the environment. But it's lovely — much as I love cities — to see the night sky that little bit less polluted by artificial light, and humans... turning it down a notch, however briefly. There are tens of millions of people participating again this year; it would be lovely — and probably too optimistic — to think that many of them might be making environmentally conscious choices during the other 364 days and 23 hours of the year.

I'll be lighting some candles and scoffing a cupcake or two (I made a batch of vanilla this morning) and thinking about a few more things I should be doing to help — like New Years resolutions of ecologically responsible living.



Lights out.

Cloverfood

Interesting news from Town Hall this week: Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore is bringing in "sustainable, healthy and cruelty-free catering" at council events, which means the end of bottled water, high-fat cakes, eggs, dairy desserts and "bad" species of fish (I can't find the primary source, but am taking this to mean they won't be serving up overfished species...?)

Lest this sound like an admirable thing — City of Sydney council setting a good example for environmentally conscious living — Liberal councillor Shayne Mallard helpfully explained what was really going on:

"We are being dictated to by a radical green agenda telling us what fish we can eat, what water we drink and banning eggs or Tim Tams instead of focusing on issues like saving jobs."

Gotcha. That pesky radical green agenda yet again, eh?

And it was the idea of a ban on Tim Tams (due to concerns about child/slave labour in cocoa production) that ended up being the main story — cue TV report and overuse of words including, but not limited to, "Aussie" and "icon". On the plus side, said news report made mention of The Cruelty Free Shop and the Leda Choculance biscuits they sell.

Arnott's has said that the chocolate they use is produced without child labour, and City of Sydney issued a statement to clarify their position: "No particular brand of food or drink has been identified as being 'off the menu', including Tim Tams." But they are "looking at ways to ensure that sustainable, locally produced, healthy and cruelty-free options are considered when catering for internal and external council meetings and events." Sounds good!

An cupcake dubh*

The green theme continues...

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! I tried my hand at a batch of VCTOTW Chocolate Stout cupcakes, using Coopers Stout. I dusted them with icing sugar and added some (highly stylised!) marzipan shamrocks. I did this last night, which means that this morning...



Breakfast of champions! Richly chocolate-y, with that extra something that I probably wouldn't recognise as stout if I didn't know it was in the recipe. Delicious!



"I'm a little cupcake, choc and stout..."



*Actually, the resultant cakes were not so black. Anyone know the Gaelic for "brown"?

Green with smoothie

(I am.)

Two days ago, I finally got around to making myself a green smoothie. I put some spinach leaves, banana and blueberries into a blender, and mixed them up. It wasn't until I got the stuff into a glass that I realised...



Oh yeah — I was supposed to add a bit of water. Still, it was very tasty in spite of the pea soup consistency.

Take Two: today I blended up some spinach leaves, banana and pear, and water, and was even more pleased with the results. I'm sure I won't get around to doing this every day, but it's certainly something I'll return to.