Environ*Mentalism

Texas is a very different place with respect to anything that you might label as environmentalism. I wouldn't judge it as any better, or worse, just...different.

Take, for instance, reactions I've gotten to the fact that I am trying out life here without a car. In Arizona, for quite a long time, when anyone found out that I did not own a car, their reaction would be incredulity - many people there simply could not fathom the idea. How could I live, how could I survive those streets without a gasoline-powered wheelchair?! Here, people have basically reacted with aplomb. I have to wonder if that's due to the presence of the large student body here, where my guess would be that many students cannot afford cars, either. It could also be due to the general economic situation around here, too; I think there are a lot of people here who are unemployed or underemployed, and most people can come to terms with the idea that that would mean walking or biking instead of driving. Or perhaps my sample here is biased, so far. Probably.

Some of the magazines piled up in the atrium (lunch area) might also tell you a thing or two about attitudes and beliefs around here. Sure, there are old copies of Science and Nature sitting in the piles, but there are also a lot of copies of this magazine called Earth. It's not what you think. It's about agriculture and agricultural practices. Oh, there are also a lot of magazines around that will try to convince you to buy all kinds of incredibly stupid herbal supplements (nothing like paying for some expensive urine!). Yesterday, I flipped open a copy of Science to read a section of a special feature on ecological restoration, and I was instantly struck by how out-of-touch the authors were with what the world actually looks like. Sure, forests might look prettier than cropland, but people still have to eat, somehow.

I keep trying to see things as I imagine people here see them. If I grew up here, I think I'd have a difficult time even imagining what the California hippie culture is like. I would just completely lack the right frame of reference. There just aren't really hippies here, which is weird because it means I don't get dismissed by people as a crazy hippie (which happened all too frequently in Boston). Perhaps the local frame of reference is people from Austin, but again they are just not the same as the California (AND Pacific Northwest, yes) hippies.

DIY culture is different here, too. I'm thinking back to what it was like to ride my bike out to the composting facility. People who have grown up on farms or ranches, or who have a lot of direct contact with people who grow up on farms or ranches, have to learn how to build things and make things and fix things as a part of everyday life. These are places where canning never went out of fashion. As an agricultural school, this university has this tremendous library of ag-related information (if one can figure out how to wade through it...). The knowledge base is astounding, in a lot of ways. I feel like a lot of city-dwellers don't have much context or appreciation for just how much thought goes into all forms of agricultural production. Students in the department here spend a lot of time thinking about all of the ins and outs of organic versus conventional production and develop some pretty sophisticated and nuanced opinions on the subject. Compare that to the knee-jerk consumer habits one often sees in big cities.

This is not to say that everything is good, here. There is strong pressure to conform, and be obedient, which can make it more difficult to think outside of the box. This is most clear in the large number of people who attend school through various military scholarship programs. I think many people like, and benefit, from the rigid imposition of rules and structure - it's often easier than having to think about things. But that's the downfall; creative thinking is important for progress.

There's also a generalized pesticide dependence here. When I stopped in to Home Despot to look for a few things, I walked past the largest inflatable ant I have ever seen in my life. It must have been twice as tall as I am, and it was there to remind people to buy ant-killer. Conventional grocery stores all seem to have an aisle full of insecticides, too. I don't have much hope for changing anybody else's attitude or behavior about the use of artificial chemicals (pesticides or fertilizers), which makes me sad. In some respects, I think only an economical argument would change their minds; pesticide-free methods of control/management are often much cheaper than pesticides, even if they are more labor-intensive. But consider that the labor they require would involve putting money back into the local economy. I also find hope in the horticultural program here, where students are growing heirloom crops without using any such compounds, "natural" or synthetic.

When life hands you lemons...

Yesterday I wanted to cook up a bunch of tired, old turnip greens into Peanut-Topped Greens, but I didn't have any peanuts. Therefore, time to venture forth to the grocery stores to see where peanuts could be had! My first stop was Brazos Natural Foods. I'd also run out of whole-wheat bread flour and pastry flour, and I'd noticed that BNF encourages people to refill *containers* from their bulk-foods section (not just plastic bags!). This is something that employees at Sproutflower were completely incapable of doing, much to my dissatisfaction, in all of the time that I shopped there. I think it was due to the software program they used for their cash registers, and it would annoy me greatly whenever I wanted to grind peanut butter into a glass jar for purchase. I HATE packaging waste!

Anyway. As I browsed around the store in search of peanuts, I noticed that a couple of key dairy items were on super-duper clearance sale because they were nearing their sell-by dates. A gallon of Organic Valley milk for $3.25? Why yes, I think I'll take that home. Same goes for that container of Nancy's Yogurt, thankyouverymuch, and those cartons of Organic Valley whipping cream. *rubs hands together greedily* I just hope this does not indicate that my favorite dairy products are so unpopular that BNF stops carrying them.

In any case, what does one do with a gallon of milk that's on the verge of spoilage? Why, make cheese, of course. Paneer, the fresh cheese that's used in a lot of Indian dishes, is incredibly simple to make. I took 8 cups of that milk and brought it to a boil in a large pot, stirring it to keep it from sticking to the bottom and burning. I let it boil for one minute, and then I added a couple tablespoons of lemon juice, which caused the milk to curdle and form curds. I poured the curdled milk through a cheesecloth-lined strainer, picked up the cheesecloth-cheese bundle, and pressed out additional whey by setting a frying pan on top of the cheese for an hour.

And now I have a lovely hunk of organic paneer for the next time I make Indian food, for a much cheaper price than I ever would have paid for a block of paneer from the grocery store (and that's assuming there's a grocery store that sells paneer around here!).

Oh, and I finally found some peanuts over at Village Foods. Perhaps I'll eventually find them in bulk somewhere.