The Green Scene

Veronica Rueckert of Wisconsin Public Radio was broadcasting live from Custer, Wisconsin, during my morning commute. She’s covering the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair, which bills itself as “the nation’s premier energy education event.”

Rueckert’s guests were the folks from Inn Serendipty, an environmentally conscious B&B near Monroe in southwestern Wisconsin that operates on solar and wind energy. The proprietor couple, who quit their Chicago careers to live off the land, also grow seventy percent of the food they and their guests consume. Imagine your grocery expenses if your garden out back provided you and your family with nearly three quarters of your three squares a day—year-round. That’s impressive.

The couple, Lisa Kivirist and John Ivanko, also write about their experiences in ECOpreneuring, Rural Renaissance, and Edible Earth, a book of essays mixed with vegetarian recipes.

At one point during the show, Ivanko talked about how humans shouldn’t have or need landfills because nature doesn’t have or need landfills and it really made me think, what if? I’m so grateful these conversations are happening in the mainstream, over the airwaves and in books and schools and on blogs…



Speaking of blogs, my previous post brags about how much free stuff editors get. Here’s three books with green themes that have found their way to my desk recently, though I feel it my journalistic duty to point out that they weren't delivered on foot or by horseback so their carbon footprint isn’t zero.

Vegan Brunch: Homestyle recipes worth waking up for (Lifelong Books, $19.95) by Isa Chandra Moskowitz of Portland, Oregon. Curry scrambed tofu with cabbage and caraway, anyone? I'm being serious. It sounds really good.



Cooking Green: Reducing your carbon footprint in the kitchen (Lifelong Books, $17.95) by Kate Heyhoe of Austin, Texas. Did you know “Americans throw out 27 percent of all food available for consumption”? Good to know the old “Clean your plate, children are starving in Africa” line I stole from my mom is as pertinent as ever.



The Compassionate Carnivore: Or, how to keep animals happy, save Old MacDonald’s farm, reduce your hoofprint, and still eat meat (Lifelong Books, $24) by Catherine Friend of Minnesota. I haven’t cracked the spine on this one because I’m still recovering from Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Please pass the tofu.