It's a Nice Day for a Green Wedding

As I've been reading quite prolifically these days at the intersection of enivronmental and social justice efforts, I am heartened, rather than roused to cynicism, by the mainstreaming of organics and green commodities. As this NYT article demonstrates nicely, the "green wedding" trend is allowing an increasing number of folks to celebrate, raise consciousness, and include all one's extended loved ones in an event that truly takes loving the earth and all of its inhabitants as the big point of departure. (What a nice intervention.)

Back to the Feminist Future with Mud Floors and Quilting Bees

We have begun to seriously reconsider how a healthy lifestyle and a feminist politics of consumption requires concerted attention to the commodity chain. Here are two interesting points of intervention:

As mainstream takes note of the environmental fringes in natural building, NYT writes about mud floors, and the women's enews folks follow the feminist impulse in women's crafting, knitting, and DIY community.

In "Young Women Re-Craft Feminism as DIY Project," Courtney E. Martin points out that "almost half of crafters in the $13 billion-a-year industry are under 45 years of age and two-thirds are women," and, increasingly, these women see themselves as making a difference on several fronts:

. . .[I]n an era of rising anxiety about the effects of globalization--on everything from the economy to social cohesion to the biosphere--many young women in their teens, 20s and 30s are joining a push to make things local and more personally connected. And for many of them knitting and stitching is the way in.

A Sustainable Clothing Network is Haute!

As many of my readers know, I've been referring to the Revolving Closet Project for years, based on my rewarding experience in college with sharing clothing among 8 or so young women who wore roughly the same size and had a common interest in off-beat fashion, as well as in handmade accessories and shoes reflecting our diverse, multinational backgrounds, home regions, and travels.

Our shared closet nurtered our friendships, as well as our growing, collective awareness. We learned that our relationships extended to women's collectives, local artisans, vendors in out-of-the-way markets, and thrift-stores in various Metropoles, and that we were constructing our own "organic" approach to fashion. We felt cool, and we were often haute!

Now as so many people wake up to the ways that uncritical consumption of so-called "Fast Fashion," ignores the Full Circle of Life, including everything from the environmental impacts to the hijacking, commercialization of women's body images to the real repercussions for workers everywhere, perhaps we get another chance to be on the cutting edge of chic!

Check out this article in the NYT!

And don't forget to check the related comments. I'd love to see your answers to the question, Would you lease your clothes? (Leave a comment for me here!)

Setting Your "Sites" on Organic

With Indian Summer on us full force in San Diego and all of the fruits at their peak, we've been craving mostly simple fare these days. When salad takes center stage with perfect tomatoes and scrummy avocado, we like to add a grain, like soba noodles, cracked bulgar wheat, or quinoa. We also enjoy a simple stirfry with tofu and onion, celebrating the sprig of kale that made it's fall debut in this week's box.

If, however, there's cooking weather brewing in your kitchen, here are two sites that wax organic and might just inspire a culinary storm:

A Slow Food Journey via "101 Cookbooks"

Power to the Conscious Cook: "Mighty Foods"

Is Bird-Friendly Coffee Fair to Latin American Farmers?

With so many of our favorite stores and big-name coffee-houses offering Fair Trade Coffees that signal living wages and safe working conditions, and even some with additional environmental certifications, you'd think these coffees would amount to more than 2% of what's out there. Guess not. A lot of farmers are struggling to hold onto the ideal, while everyone else catches up.

Here's a link to an article that lays out some of the issues confronted by the families who belong to a growing cooperative in Chanmagua, Guatemala.

"Farmers Question Value of Responsible Coffee" (Reuters)