Bottle and Cork Wine Events

For the past year and a half we've been attending bottle and cork wine events at La Nebbia Winery in Half Moon Bay. It's a great event to stock up on good wine for a great deal. 

How it works: 

Each year during harvest time wineries predict how many barrels of wine they will produce. There's almost always surplus which is then sold to other wineries at a lower cost. Those wineries in turn can sell it directly to the public by bottling it themselves or allowing costumers to bring in their own bottles to refill with wine. The one catch is the wineries cannot disclose the vintner of the wine but they may share the vintage, varietal and appellation. 

{La Nebbia Winery, inside the barrel room}

Everyone benefits from this, its a win win win! The original winery gets to make an additional profit on the surplus, the 3rd party winery draws costumers and makes a profit with just one day of bottling and staffing for the event and the costumer benefits from the high quality wine at a low price plus if they're concerned about their environmental impact they get to benefit from reusing perfectly good bottles again and again.

Before our first wine event we collected pop-top 750 ml bottles which came from a combination of sparkling french lemonade and organic vodka. When we were done drinking the lemonade and vodka, I rinsed out the bottles with hot water and used a bottle brush for the inside then filled up the shallow basin of the sink with hot water and a touch of castile soap to let the bottles soak and soften the adhesive on the labels. It usually the just slid off after about a 20 minute soak and these labels are recyclable. Then rinsed the inside of the bottles once again with hot water a bit of soap and scrubbed the outside of the bottles clean. After rinsing put bottle upside down to dry completely so mold doesn't form. In some cases if I felt it was necessary I ran the bottles through the dishwasher which cleans the outsides beautifully but the insides not as well. I got wine bottle cleaning tip for the La Nebbia winery website section about the bottle and cork event. We transport our bottles using reusable wine bags that hold six bottles each that you can find these at most grocery stores. Once we had about 30 (or 2 1/2 cases worth) we were ready to refill them with wine. 

{Our pop-top bottles being filled with 2011 Amador County Sangiovese}

These bottle and cork events happen about eight times a year mostly in the fall, winter and spring with one in the summer. Three times a year they offer white wine and the rest are red. A lot of the costs put on to the customer is bottling and transportation both area eliminated with this sustainable style of buying wine. We keep coming back to these events for a few reasons. 

1) We already have collected all the bottles we need so might as well reuse them. 

2) They offer good quality wine at a great price. 

3) It dramatically cuts down on our recycling. 

4) We always have on hand a nice inexpensive bottle of wine to bring as a gift or contribution to a dinner party plus it gives us an opportunity to share about our lifestyle when we do so. 

5) We enjoy having a supply of wine for drinking and cooking plus if a natural disaster occurs we have what we need to survive (I'm joking…kinda). 

At these events if you bring in traditional wine bottles they will label and cork them for you but we always opt out of both. I've also seen people bring in their own custom labels which would be absolutely perfect for a wedding, party or custom Christmas gifts! At just $5 a bottle you can't go wrong, 30 bottles of red wine will last us about 3 months, longer if we cut back on entertaining :). 

Preserving the Summer

Last year I started the tradition of canning tomatoes to use over the winter because a peak season locally grown September tomato tastes a whole lot better than an imported crate ripened one in January. Last year I canned about 20lbs and figured we could use more this year so I purchased about 35lbs, a combination of heirloom and early girl tomatoes. Last year I tried a few different styles of canning, pealed, cored and whole, crushed and diced with skin on. The diced with skin on tomatoes ended up being my favorite because they're only cooked once inside the canning process instead of being blanched first so they seemed much more fresh plus much easier to make so I decided to do all diced tomatoes this year. 

{Ripe organic early girl tomatoes from the Larkspur Farmers Market}

I followed the directions Bea Johnson gives on her Zero Waste Home site with a few of my own variations, I didn't peal or crush mine just cored and diced. First you sterilize the jars by dunking them in boiling water, take them out carefully with tongs and set upside-down to dry on a clean kitchen towel. Then dunk gaskets in to the boiling water for about a half a minute and layout to dry. Fill up 1/2 quart sterilized jars with diced tomatoes to fill line, wipe jar rim clean, place gasket on and close latch. 

Then place closed filled jars in the boiling water for 45 minutes to create seal and weigh down jars with a large rock so they don't knock around. Once the 45 minutes are up turn off the stove, let the water cool a bit and carefully remove the jars with tongs. Set them on a towel to dry and cool down. When the jars were cool I open the latch to make sure the gasket sealed. Store in a cool dark place, I just placed mine in a bottom cupboard to enjoy all winter long! I love using hermetic jars because they're so versatile, pretty and BPA free.

{Diced organic heirloom tomatoes in 1/2 quart le parfait hermetic jar}

I ended up filling 14 1/2 quart jars with diced tomatoes and 3 smaller containers which I froze and still had about 10 lbs of super ripe early girl tomatoes left over. I didn't want them to go to waste so I decided to make another staple we miss because of our less waste lifestyle: tomato paste. We don't buy it because a) it comes in a can which we don't buy because it's wasteful and b) that can is lined with BPA. I scoured the internet looking for recipes and decided to give it a try. 

I roughly chopped the tomatoes and tossed them all in the slow cooker along with about 1/4 cup olive oil and 2 teaspoons of sea salt, using a hand blender I blended all of the tomatoes until it looked like gazpacho. Then with the lid off of the slow cooker I cooked the tomatoes down on low for 8 hours stirring every once in a while. After 8 hours it reduced by about 1/3 but still wasn't anywhere near the consistency or color I was looking for. One of the recipes I read instructed to use a baking sheet and slowly roast the sauce to reduce in to paste. I pushed the reduced tomatoes through a sieve little by little to separate the seeds then poured the tomatoes splitting between two baking sheets. In a 325 degree oven I roasted to tomatoes stirring every 30 minutes in to paste which took about 2 hours and 30 minutes. I then filled up 3 small 7 oz hermetic jars with the paste and canned in a water bath just like I did for the diced tomatoes. 

{Reduced tomato paste}

It was pretty amazing to watch 10 lbs of ripe tomatoes transform in to 3 small jars of paste. I know the concentrated summer tomatoes will add so much flavor to our home cooking all winter long. If I ever find myself with that many extra tomatoes on my hands I will definitely make it again!

{10lbs organic early girl tomatoes reduced to just 3 small jars of tomato paste}

Fruits and Veggies

Years ago I first read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser on a trip to Maui. This sparked my interest and I wanted to learn more about our food system. I began doing research and talking to friends. My sister recommended I look into Michael Pollan books. I read In Defense of Food then Omnivore's Dilemma. With each book I read my knowledge of our corrupt food system broadened. I learned that processed foods lacked nutrition and are ladened with harmful chemicals and preservatives (yuck!). At this time I ate a lot of vegetarian lean cuisine dinners, microwaved in plastic, chock-filled with dozens of unpronounceable ingredients, not to mention the excessive packaging each disposable individually wrapped meal came with. I bought those for the convince, taste and false notion that I was eating 'healthy.' 

I made a decision to be honest with myself and my food choices. After my self education I could no longer be ok with supporting such a corrupt system. Around the same time my coworker told me about this organic vegetable and fruit delivery service called Farm Fresh To You, I signed up online for a weekly box. That was four and a half years ago and we still love the service. Its always exciting to open the box to see what’s inside, its never the same and always a pleasant surprise. In fact I was talking about the produce delivery box with my husband the other day, we realized signing up for that service sparked all of our overall life changes for the better. It took an adjustment period at first, finding time to cook, figuring out what to make with these mysterious new fruits and vegetables and getting in the habit of not wasting this wonderful produce (i.e. letting it go bad in the fridge.) 

We made a deal with each other that we would cancel the box if we wasted any of the produce and it worked! We force ourselves to cook a few times a week and it has benefitted our lives in so many ways. We have become much better cooks, we know how to cook the most obscure veggies available. Out of necessity we've learned about many fruits and veggies that we would have never bought on our own. We eat seasonally, locally and organically while supporting our local farmers. Eating seasonally has also made us more in-tune with our surroundings, we get so much excitement when it's finally heirloom tomato season for example or how the first shipment of bing cherries always signifies the beginning of summer for us. These are life's simple pleasures, eating seasonally helps you appreciate what you have when you have it.

{this is what they sent us last week plus a bunch of parsley}

A few things we love about Farm Fresh To You is the fact they deliver right to your doorstep weekly. They also pick up and reuse the boxes that the produce is delivered in. Since those first shipments our lives have changed a bit, we now get the ‘Capay box’ all the produce in that box is from one farm in Capay Valley. We request no plastic in our box because by default they have a plastic liner. We also get farm fresh organic cage free eggs from the farm in Capay, we place the empty egg carton in the empty cardboard box to be collected for reuse as well. The biggest negatives about our FFTY are the excessive use of twist ties. I used to throw them in the trash which made up most of our trash in the kitchen but now I save them in a jar I’m either going to use them again or return them back to the farm in the mail. I still haven’t decided. Also, on occasion they’ll mess up and send us some plastic, every time they do I call and threaten to cancel. I think they’ve gotten the message =) When that does happen I save the plastic and reuse it.  I still think going to the Farmers Market is the best way to get fresh, local seasonal produce but unfortunately it doesn't fit in to our weekly schedules so this veggie delivery service is the next best thing.

Trash Count: Day 29

Here's what's in our home trash count after 29 days:

- 1 bandaid

- 1 deflated blister pack

- 1 empty bottle of aftershave

- 1 Mi Pueblo shopping bag (we brought home from camping to transport a dirty pan because we forgot our pot scrubber)

- 1 broken flashlight

- 1 flower preserver packet (with a beautiful bouquet for flowers from a friend wrapped in paper with a rafia bow)

- 1 plastic sleeve liner from incense (I thought it was just wrapped in recycled paper)

- 1 gum pack wrapper (a favor a party)

- 1 lollypop wrapper (on a gift from a friend)

- 2 quarters sleeves from the bank (we have coin laundry)

- 2 hot sause packets (we needed breakfast burritos ;)

- 1 plastic ring from either yogurt or some other jarred food

I see a theme here, yes plastic! We both try not to throw anything away all of the time, but we're not crazy strict either. We reuse and recycle as much as possible too.

Trash Count: Day 19

Like the previous weekend, I went on a trip and produced some trash. This time it was camping but my husband and I did our best effort to shop zero waste for that trip, use reusables as much as we could and reuse disposables. We also went to a pool party where we shared a paper plate, drank to beer in glass bottles and used a plastic cup a few times for beverages. For the most part I feel ok about the waste we produced this past weekend. 

Here's what's in our home trash count:

- 1 bandaid

- 1 deflated blister pack

- 1 empty bottle of aftershave

- 1 Mi Pueblo shopping bag (we brought home from camping to transport a dirty pan because we forgot our pot scrubber)

- 1 broken flashlight

- 1 flower preserver packet (with a beautiful bouquet for flowers from a friend wrapped in paper with a rafia bow)

- 1 plastic sleeve liner from incense (I thought it was just wrapped in recycled paper)

- 1 gum pack wrapper (a favor from a party)

- 1 lollypop wrapper (on a gift from a friend)

- 2 quarters sleeves from the bank (we have coin laundry)

Trash Count: Day 14

In our trash after 14 days of we have 3 items. 2 of which I'm still not convinced are trash. 

- 1 bandaid
- 1 deflated blister pack 
- 1 empty bottle of aftershave

They came from...
- bandaid, we are using all the bandaids we have already bought. We'll move to cotton gauze and paper tape when we're out.
- blister pack, I compulsively bought a new one piece bathing suit on sale online. It came in a plastic shipping envelope inside another plastic bag next to a plastic blisterpack. Such wasteful and excessive packaging for a bathing suit and it's not even flattering! (note to self: don't do that again!) I am reusing the two bags that's why they aren't part of this count.
- aftershave, that's my husbands. He used up this last bottle and decided he doesn't need aftershave anymore. Score!

I want to add that this is our trash from our home only. I did go out of town over the weekend with a group of friends and produced some trash. I used my own jars and bags for everything I brought but was not in control of what others brought and used. I did my part to be zero waste but was in a house that ended up throwing a way a few bags of trash. It was a good learning experience to see how 'normal' it is to be wasteful and to know it could have been largely avoided was hard.

Recipe: Homemade Lip Balm

This recipe is a combination of a few that I found on the internet and tweaked to what worked for me. I've made it a few times and love it. You can use it on your lips and on dry skin. Just don't slather it on at the beach because your lips will burn, I learned my lesson the hard way.

I purchased a one pound block of local beeswax unpackaged from the Beekind stand in the Ferry Building. I use a cheese grater to make shavings because it's easier to melt. Almond oil was purchased in bulk from Rainbow Grocery. I bought the tin new at the Container Store but next time I think I'll try reusing a mint tin. 

Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp beeswax shavings
- 4 tbsp almond oil

Directions: Heat beeswax shavings and oil together in a glass jar inside a pot with an inch of water until melted then pour into a tin to set up. 

You can also try adding a bit of lipstick or mineral pigment for a tinted balm. I've tried this recipe with coconut oil as well and the ratio wasn't working, you have to use a lot more beeswax to oil so I just stick with almond oil.

{Homemade lip balm in a tin}

Trash Count: Day 9

At this point we don't produce much trash at all. Part of moving towards a zero waste lifestyle is examining what you do end up throwing away and ultimately sending to a landfill. 

As an experiment I'm going to keep tabs on the trash we collect in our home. My husband usually halls down our giant trash can to the curb about once every 4 months. Lately I think it's been less then that, so this is an experiment to watch our trash a bit more closely. 

After 9 days the only piece of trash we've produced in our home is a piece of plastic packing tape that I received from a USPS box in the mail for my Mother's Day gifts.

{Used packing tape}

I was pretty positive that this indeed was trash and not recyclable but as part of my ongoing research I scoured the internet trying to find answers. Turns out that the tape is recyclable after all(sort of, recycling includes incinerating plastic and adhesive residue which is a recycling byproduct, not ideal!). This reduces our 9 day trash count to 0, that magical number. I'll keep you posted on what actually does end up in the bin headed to landfill.

Non-toxic Alternative: White Vinegar

White vinegar is a staple in our household. We buy it in either 1/2 gallon plastic jugs or 1 liter glass bottles because we have not been able to find it sold in bulk. We use it to clean pretty much everything on a day to day basis in our natural 'all-purpose cleaner' and I keep discovering new uses for it. Here's how we are currently using organic white vinegar.

{All-purpose cleaner in a stainless steal spray bottle}

Cleaning:

- All purpose cleaner (for all household surfaces and spills)

- Natural soft scrub (tile, toilet, sink and shower cleaner)

- Room deodorizer (fill half a ramekin and leave where there's odor)

- Microwave cleaner (fill half a ramekin, microwave for a minute, wipe clean)

- Dishwasher rinse (pour in rinse receptacle)

- Fabric softener (add to rinse receptacle)

- Sink sparkler (fill sink with water and a cup of vinegar, soak, wipe down)

- Goo gone alternative (use straight on sticky spills on carpet and on sticker adhesive)

Cooking:

- Poached eggs (a splash in the water helps whites stay together)

How do you use white vinegar?

Recipe: Almond Milk

Making almond milk is much easier then most people think. It's fresh, better tasting and much less expensive then store bought. It can be enjoyed with cereal, tea, coffee and in baking recipe's as a substitute for milk. How do you use your almond milk?

Ingredients:
- 1 cup unsalted organic almonds (bought in bulk)
- 4 cups water
- 1 tbs local honey (or 1 date, bought in bulk)

Directions:
1. Soak almonds in at least an inch of water in the refrigerator overnight. 

2. Strain, then rince soaked almonds with water.

3. Place soaked and strained almonds into blender with 4 fresh cups of water and honey.

4. Place chinoise over a bowl (you can use a cheese cloth or nut milk bag too), pour blended almond mixture into strainer. Press pulp with a spoon until most of the milk is in the bowl (squeeze, if its cheesecloth). Set aside the almond pulp to use later for an exfoliating scrub or freeze to add to cookies. 

5. Using a funnel, pour strained almond milk into an airtight container. Shake before using, refrigerate and enjoy for up to a week. 

{Almond milk in a pop-top reusable glass bottle}