We’re avid readers of Anthony Bourdain’s books. Two of them have impacted our family somewhat dramatically. The first was Kitchen Confidential. Aside from being just a great read, it was also the third book our then-early-adolescent son read. He read it cover to cover, but it was at the third chapter that he came running to announce that he wanted to be a chef. Why? He pointed to the title of Chapter 3: “Food is Sex”. That did it. A couple culinary degrees under his belt, he’s now in charge of the mignardises in a restaurant in New York.
But the book that continues to inspire me is A Cook’s Tour, and specifically the chapter, “Where Food Comes From“. Read it, and you’ll understand why he says that where our food comes from is not always pretty. But it’s the larger concept behind that chapter that makes me think a lot and sometimes do strange things.
Strange thing #1: I make coffee in a 70-year-old vacuum coffee pot.
This little honey requires that I take 12 minutes every morning to heat the water, grind the beans bought from Cafe Kubal, pour the grinds into the top part of the pot, stir the grinds into the hot water once it’s risen to the top, time it for two minutes and thirty seconds, and remove it from the heat when that time is up. I pour some of the coffee for us and put the rest in an old glass thermos (metal containers make the coffee taste bad). What we get is some of the best-tasting coffee you can make at home. What it gives me is a reassuring ritual with which to start my day and some quiet, meditative time watching the magic of physics as the coffee magically gets sucked back down into the lower chamber.
I like buying from Matt Godard at the cafe because he has a close connection to where coffee beans come from. His latest offering is an Indian Narali bean, roasted dark, that is truly stunning. But it’s the fact that he can email the grower and get that bean behaving the way the grower wants it to behave in the cup that has me feeling somehow connected to the earth on the other side of the world. (More on this bean in a later posting.) Here’s a cup at the cafe:
Strange thing #2: I dry my clothes on the line.
Where do dry clothes come from? Some of us in Eastwood still dry most of our clothes on the line. There’s no shame in that here! In fact, many today might consider it a badge of coolness, an awareness of the grave danger our planet is in, and an attempt to do our part. Call it what you may, hanging clothes on the line is one of my favorite activities. It satisfies my Protestant work ethic while I’m thoroughly enjoying the outdoors. It’s not even hard work, like gardening. It’s just pleasant. Your neighbors say hello to you as they walk by. You might even have a conversation with someone and pick up on some of the latest gossip. Networking at its finest. I save a few bucks in energy costs, I get that righteous feeling that allows me to blog my attempts at minimizing my carbon footprint, and my clothes smell great! What’s not to like?
How about you, my neighbors near and far?
What strange things do you do?
Do you pick your own strawberries? Do you fill jugs from a local spring? Do you buy eggs directly from a local farm that you’ve visited? Maybe you make your own clothes? What do you do that reminds you and/or your kids where things come from?
I hang my clothes on the line from (usually) May through October. I have a dryer, but the heating function died out a few years ago and frankly, it scares me! Plus, when I realized how much gas it took to run it and I had to pay through the nose, I just decided to run a line across my fence and hang it up!
Hang It Up-maybe that could be a green movement in itself.
It already is, Patti! I just found Project Laundry List, which advocates for the right to hang laundry outdoors. We lucky folks in Eastwood probably have never given this a thought. Many of our yards have their original clothesline poles and a good number of us enjoy using them at least from time to time. But our brethren and sistren ;-) in certain communities are not allowed to hang clothes outside! I think you’ll find many interesting ideas at this site: http://www.laundrylist.org/art/installations.htm Who else out there enjoys hanging clothes to dry? How did folks used to handle the drying of clothes in the winter? Seems to me someone told me that their mother used to hang the clothes out to freeze. Then she’d give each item a shake and all the ice would fly off. Then she’d hang them on the line on the porch or in the attic for a little while longer just to finish them off. Has anyone ever heard of this?
I’d happily participate in an Eastwood laundry day. My lines are in the backyard and not too visible from the street, but I’ll improvise.
I distinctly remember watching a documentary about separatist/survivalist families in Alaska or something, and they hung their clothes out in the bitter cold. When they pulled them off the line they were stiff as a board! I’m also pretty sure my grandma had laundry lines hung up in the basement of her house.
Wow! This one topic has generated a lot of interest both here and in the email group http://walkeastwood.org/?page_id=78. I’ve proposed an Eastwood Laundry Day during which as as many as would like to participate simply hang laundry and/or laundry-as-art out on their clotheslines. Maybe leave them out for a few days. If it looks like it will become a reality, I’ll do a blog on it.
I recall talking to an older woman in Liverpool who explained that the huge attics we see in these older houses were for drying laundry! In any case, I will definitely do an experiment or two come winter and see if you can really shake ice off frozen clothes.
I think I have had a working clothes dryer for only 2 years of my life. So that means for 35 years I have either hung my clothes up or took them to a laundry mat. Owning one was only convenient when my kids were babies.
I grew up without a clothes dryer. Well, we had one, but it never worked. As a kid I would love to help my mom hang up the clothes, because it meant I could play in the clothes later. There is something so much fun about running between the rows of sheets while the wind is blowing them.
We dry year around and inside as well. In our kitchen we use a retractable clothesline to hang the clothes. Mainly because we do not have a yard.
My sister would do the winter drying of clothes, pretty much how you described. The only thing was that she hated hanging up the wet clothes, your hands would get really chapped. So she hung a line in the room that had her wood stove in it (yes, she is really a backwoodsman kind of person) It would dry the cloths in no time and if you were using a nice smelling wood, you would get a nice smell to the clothes too.
I cannot find the article but I read somewhere that the United States is really the only country that thinks clothes dryers are needed. I have seen that first hand. I remember my friends bathroom in Italy had a clothes line stretched above her tub. She still hates clothes dryers to this day. It ruins all her nice clothes.
I’m going to guess that Canadians like clothes dryers, too. I wonder what the dryer-ownership percentage is there.
I just found an interesting laundry “soap” that literally grows on trees:
https://www.betterlifegoods.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=25
I’ll let y’all know how it works… I just bought some!
Here’s a useful laundry line – you can dry a lot more clothes in a small space, and since they’re hanging on hangers, you don’t have to do any ironing! They dry just about wrinkle-free this way.
http://www.tibbeline.com/portable-clotheslines.html
More on sustainable laundry: We’re trying Chinese Soap Nuts http://www.betterlifegoods.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BLG-CAT21480
Will report back once we’ve tried ‘em on a few different loads.
[...] all started right here, at Walkable Eastwood. The post that included the joys of hanging laundry to dry inspired more comments both here and in our email group (85 neighbors and counting!) than any other [...]
Here’s where our feta cheese comes from, at the home of our son and daughter-in-law:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=golwmORF01Q
My stepmother washes her clothes using only borax and baking soda. gets em clean, and then line dries. I was skeptical at first, but it works. Who invented this overpriced detergent stuff anyways??