About Cooking Green
July 29, 2007 by Kate Heyhoe · Comments Off on About Cooking Green
Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen—the New Green Basics Way (Hundreds of tips and over 50 energy- and time-saving recipes to shrink your “cookprint”) is Kate Heyhoe’s eighth book. Cooking Green is published by Da Capo Books (Perseus Books Group).
To learn more about a key concept in the book, visit Shrinking Your Cookprint.
“…when it comes to the green kitchen Kate Heyhoe is really the Green Goddess. A dynamic combination of Michael Pollan, Alton Brown, and Wonder Woman all rolled into one. After finishing this book you will definitely be convinced that you can help save the planet while preparing dinner every night.” —Heather Jones, ProjectFoodie.Com, July 9, 2009.
From Publisher’s Weekly:
“The foods we eat and the ways we buy, store and prepare them are significant contributors to global warming. This information-packed volume, from cookbook author and newgreenbasics.com founder Heyhoe, provides detailed guidance for those looking to make thelr cooking and eating habits earth-friendlier. Heyhoe has thought long and hard about this topic—she cites myriad inspirations (from environmentalists to food scienists like Harold McGee and The New Basics Cookbook) and compelling statistics (“less than 7 percent of the energy consumed by a gas oven goes to the food”) that led her to develop the concept of a “cookprint” (the foodie version of an environmental footprint) and this guide to shrinking it. The book covers everything from appliances and cookware to shopping, ingredients (including details on the impact of meat and seafood on the planet), cooking techniques and cutting down on waste, and answers the questions that many aspiring eco-friendly types have probably wondered about—like which kind of grill is the greenest.
“At the end there’s also a no-frills recipe section wlth dishes such as ginger chicken and broth, passively poached, shortcut lasagna and true skillet cornbread—all featuring a “Green Meter”—that put into practice what Heyhoe preaches.”
Down to Earth books at home in your kitchen
By Janet K. Keeler, St. Petersburg FL Times Lifestyles Editor
April 22, 2009
On Earth Day 1971, a bunch of eighth-grade pals and I snubbed the bus and rode our bikes to school on some pretty busy streets in Santa Clara, Calif. The word “green” was not part of our vocabulary then; still we felt the sentiment keenly. The first Earth Day was 1970 and kicked off the modern environmental movement. • It would be a few months before Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) became our anthem. And maybe a year or two before we started wearing Earth Shoes. • Today, on the 40th Earth Day, I am not sure we are in tons better environmental shape, but we are certainly talking about it a lot. Here are five just-released food books that tell us how easy it is to make our kitchens and menus green.
TITLE: Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen by Kate Heyhoe (Lifelong Books, $17.95)
GENERALLY SPEAKING: Not to get too cute, but this book just may help you reduce your “cookprint.” Heyhoe, founding editor of Globalgourmet.com and Newgreenbasics.com, compares cooking techniques and equipment to help you save energy in the kitchen. For instance, go for small appliances over big (toaster oven vs. oven) when you can. Make sure the dishwasher is full before running. Use cloth and sponges instead of paper towels. I like this book as a wake-up call to the waste that goes on in cooking, and it’s not all about food. Cooking Green isn’t sexy, but what a font of information. Plus, the recipes are sophisticated and with a global favor.
THE VIBE: Your mother was right; turn off lights and don’t let the water run.
HOW GREEN IS IT? Printed on 100 percent “post-consumer waste recycled paper” with vegetable-based inks.
ONE GOOD TIP: A kitchen exhaust fan sucks up grease and fumes, so fewer airborne particles settle on kitchen surfaces. This means less greasy dust and less need for cleaning over time. But don’t run the fan longer than needed, to conserve power.
From The Fun Times Guide to Food:
“…Scores of those half-million book titles are about “cooking green”—everything from going organic, to buying from local growers, etc. But most of them don’t actually talk about cooking green. Kate does.”
From Booklist (American Library Association, April 15, 2009 Issue):
What does it truly take to cook green? It is more than buying locally grown foodstuffs, explains Heyhoe, though obviously locavores do have a head start on dining sustainably. Cooking green is far more comprehensive than monitoring appliance use; tracking energy output, for sure, is yet another element of eco-friendliness. Add cookware to the mix of determinants, along with type of technique, the table decorations, even the choice of energy-efficient ingredients (like no-cook pasta sauces).
Ever-present sidebars are informative, with data that can potentially impact our ecological decisions: freezer packs save energy, vacuum refrigerator coils often to decrease electricity use, and trading white linens for bare tabletops in a four-restaurant chain amounted to a $100,000 annual savings. Fifty recipes, from meatless moussaka to true skillet cornbread, wrap up her go-green dictate, all belying the myth that good for you isn’t great for the taste buds. This is a very careful, well-explained examination of the cookprint we decide to leave; after all, 12 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions are directly tracked to the ways we grow, prepare, and ship foods.
—Barbara Jacobs
From GreenLAGirl:
“…This book will really help answer some of the more anal retentive questions that keep eco-foodies up at night: Should I steam or boil? Should I thaw fish fillets out on the counter or in the fridge? What color should my pilot light be? When should I run my dishwasher? All of these questions are tackled in nitty gritty detail in Cooking Green.”
Buy Cooking Green
Cooking Green:
Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen
the New Green Basics Way
-
Recipes
Solar Music for Picnics, Concerts and Parties
July 29, 2007 by Kate Heyhoe · Comments Off on Solar Music for Picnics, Concerts and Parties
“If you say you can remember the 60’s, you weren’t really there.”
While Bill Graham’s Fillmore pulsed with San Francisco psychedelicos, the Vulcan Gas Company was blowing open its doors to a nascent Austin counterculture, deep in the heart of Texas. Then came the Armadillo World Headquarters, where acts like BB, ZZ, and Zappa played to a mixed bag of hippies, cowboys and suits.
Now, Austin, TX has rolled out a new music stage. Literally. It’s on wheels, it’s green, and it may be heading for a town near you.
Austin remains an incubator of cutting edge everything, from music to tech to green. Besides billing itself as the Live Music Capital of the World, Austin is host to SXSW (the South by Southwest Music, Film, and Interactive Festival), and the PBS series Austin City Limits, on air since 1976 and now an annual festival in its own right. So it’s not surprising that a portable solar powered music stage has fired up here.
Sustainable Waves converts trailers to green music stages: Solar panels generate enough energy to power up sound equipment, as well as charge reserve batteries for use on cloudy days. The sides of the trailers lock down in transit, then pop up upon arrival. In just minutes, the stage is ready to rock and roll, compared to the hours a crew of stage hands needs to mount a traditional stage. And because it’s completely self-powered and self-contained, without wiring or plug-ins, music can go wherever the trailer goes, to parks, lakes, ranches, beaches or neighborhoods. Sustainable Waves rents their big green music machines to bands for performances both in town and on the road.
Plus, listeners get to hear solar energy in action. They come away with a good time and a greener perspective. So far, the Sustainable Wave and its Eco Tune package has made a splash at venues in Telluride, Joshua Tree, San Diego, Santa Fe and other hip places.
Polar Sperm Bank for Plants
July 25, 2007 by Kate Heyhoe · Comments Off on Polar Sperm Bank for Plants
Think of it as protection for plant progeny: a high-tech fortress designed to preserve three million seed varieties. Hopefully, we’ll never have to make a withdrawal from this “doomsday” shelter. But if certain agricultural gems start to disappear, or an agricultural catastrophe strikes, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault may save the day. To be completed in fall 2007, the vault is chilled by the permafrost of its island location (deep inside a mountain, some 600 miles from the North Pole), and by sub-zero coolers powered by a nearby coal plant. Even if the power fails, the permafrost will keep the seeds in a frozen state (unless, of course, global warming melts the ice). Norway owns the vault itself, but the seeds will be the property of their contributing nations, about 100 countries.
Spearheaded by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the vault preserves its seeds with state-of-the art materials, including hermetically-sealed envelopes adapted from the pharmaceutical industry (five-layers of mylar, plastic, and foil), air-locked entryways, and barcodes linking each envelope to a genetic database. If you think this Noah’s Ark of seed DNA is eco-folly, consider this stat from WIRED magazine: Of more than 8000 different crops grown in the U.S. in 1903, only 600 still existed 80 years later. (I wonder what crops we lost in that time…) At any rate, starting with the A’s, I sure hope the vault stocks artichokes, arugula and asparagus. Without them, cooking and eating just wouldn’t be the same!
Ginger-Poached Chicken & Broth
July 25, 2007 by Kate Heyhoe · Comments Off on Ginger-Poached Chicken & Broth
A Green Flame Recipe
Serves 4 to 6
Green Meter:
Green Goodness: 15 minutes of cooktop fuel cooks a whole chicken, with healthful broth
Prep/Cooking Times: 5 minutes prep +15 minutes active cooking + 60 minutes resting time
Prime Season: year round
Conveniences: Can be made 1-2 days in advance and refrigerated.
Morphable: Use the broth wherever chicken broth is called for; shred meat into soup, salads and sandwiches, rice paper wraps, spring rolls, tortillas, or serve pieces hot with soy sauce and rice. Vary the seasonings for a Mexican, Indian, or other flavorprint. (See specific recipes in headnotes below)
In this Chinese poaching method, chicken simmers for a short time immersed in seasoned water, then the flame is turned off and the chicken continues to gently “cook” in the hot liquid. The meat is far more tender and moist than if boiled until done, and the resulting chicken broth fills the house with aromas of ginger, green onion, and sherry. My favorite cure for a cold? A bowl of this chicken and broth, with noodles, and bok choy or shredded Chinese cabbage.
If you cook this dish in advance and refrigerate it, the fat hardens and you can just lift it off. Also, the chicken meat stays moist in the broth and is easier to shred when cool. I usually stretch this dish across three meals: I first serve most of the chicken pieces with a sesame-soy or Vietnamese style dipping sauce and rice. The broth can go into Wonton Soup, and I shred the remaining chicken into a sophisticated but amazingly easy Hazelnut Chicken Salad on Shredded Napa Cabbage.
1 whole chicken (about 4 pounds), without giblets
2-3/4 teaspoons salt
1-1/2 inches fresh ginger, cut into 6 slices
5 whole green onions, green and white parts diagonally cut into 2-inch lengths
2 tablespoons dry sherry
1. Rub the chicken all over with the salt, including inside the cavity.
2. Place the chicken (and neck if available) in a pot just large enough to hold them. Add the ginger, green onions, and sherry to the pot. Fill the pot with enough water to just cover the chicken by 1/2 inch.
3. Bring the water to a boil. Using a slotted spoon, skim away the brown scum that rises to the top and discard. Partially cover the pot and reduce the heat. Simmer the chicken 15 minutes.
4. Turn off the heat. Leave the chicken fully covered in the pot for 1 hour. Serve the meat and broth as a soup, or separately in other recipes. If desired, refrigerate overnight before use. Before serving, skim or remove the fat and discard the cooked ginger, garlic and green onions.
Cooking Methods
July 25, 2007 by Kate Heyhoe · Comments Off on Cooking Methods
You can, but you don’t have to, go vegan or grow your own vegetables, just to go green in the kitchen. This site is more about how you cook than what you eat. Not that organics and local foods aren’t important. They’re hugely important. But don’t we already get that message?
There are so many other ways not being addressed by media or publishers to reduce greenhouse gases and shrink your eco-footprint. The real news, the untold story, lies in the fuels you use, the method (steaming, boiling, baking, for instance), the cookware, and the clean-up. Let’s apply a concept of “bright green cooking,” very specific actions and totally practical plans that have more impact than “light green” steps alone, but are just as easy to do.
As a bonus, stretching energy consumption directly relates to saving time, too. Less time in the kitchen means fewer lights on, less cooking fuel used, and more personal time for you to do other things.
About Kate Heyhoe
July 18, 2007 by tw · Comments Off on About Kate Heyhoe
In 1994, Kate Heyhoe launched the Web’s first food and cooking e-zine, GlobalGourmet.com (The Global Gourmet) http://www.foodwine.com where she says, “At Global Gourmet, we bring you the world on a plate.” From 1995 to 2000, Kate and her partner Thomas Way produced two food sites for America Online, where Julia Child and Jacques Pepin each made their online debuts. The award-winning Global Gourmet site sports a coveted pair of “sunglasses” in Yahoo’s recipe site category, and for more than a decade has been deeply linked though all search engines, reaching more than 350,000 unique readers per month.
Recently, she uploaded the entire contents of her first book, Cooking with Kids For Dummies, to her site at CookingWithKids.com. The site is getting rave reviews.
Kate’s books have been praised by Mollie Katzen (who also wrote a foreword), Martin Yan, Mary Sue Milliken, Graham Kerr, James McNair, Michael Chiarello, Marcel Desaulniers, and even AOL’s Steve Case, among others. Her books include:
Great Bar Food at Home (John Wiley & Sons, Oct. 2007)
The Stubb’s Bar-B-Q Cookbook (John Wiley & Sons, April 2007)
A World Atlas of Food (McGraw-Hill, 2006)
Macho Nachos (Clarkson-Potter, 2004)
Harvesting the Dream: The Rags-to-Riches Tale of the Sutter Home Winery (Wiley, 2004)
A Chicken in Every Pot: Global Recipes for the World’s Most Popular Bird (Capital, 2003)
Cooking with Kids For Dummies (IDG Books, 1999)
Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen—the New Green Basics Way (Hundreds of tips and over 50 energy- and time-saving recipes to shrink your “cookprint”) is the working title for Kate Heyhoe’s eighth book. Cooking Green was published by Da Capo Books (Perseus Books Group) in 2009.
Kate has appeared in two national television satellite tours, as well as on CBS’ “The Early Show” (Chef on a Shoestring; Super Bowl 2005 segment), and other stations. Hundreds of articles about Kate and/or Global Gourmet have appeared in media as diverse as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time, Los Angeles Times, Parade, FoodArts; WOR, Bloomberg, and Sony World Wide radio networks. She has written for Better Homes & Gardens, Saveur, Cooking Pleasures, Chile Pepper, Great Chefs, and other magazines.
Kate is a former Production Manager for Warner Bros. and other Hollywood studios, where she balanced the creative, financial, and administrative demands of entertainment media. She speaks frequently at industry conferences, including those of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), Women Chefs & Restaurateurs (WCR), and the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT).
Cooking Green: the New Green Basics Cookbook
July 17, 2007 by Kate Heyhoe · 5 Comments
Who would believe you can cook a perfect rare roast beef, with a to-die-for garlicky browned crust – using just 20 minutes of fuel? Unlike old-fashioned methods (which burn up two hours of gas or electricity), this “blue oven” method saves considerable energy, spews out fewer greenhouse gases, and yields results that look and taste utterly delicious. Unbelievable. Or is it?
For some time now, my green radar has been telling me that buying organic isn’t enough. I suspected that, as a cook, I could do more to combat climate change. Lots more. The result: A treasury of practices that yield greener results than simply changing light bulbs, but integrate just as easily into daily life. Some methods are old, some new, some I tweaked, and all I refined with good green benefits in mind. Collectively, they’re a whole new approach to cooking the basics. And, they push the concept of “green cooking” far beyond the scope of just local, organic foods.
How you cook is as important as what you cook. Without abandoning your favorite recipes, you can bake, roast, broil, grill, and fry in vastly greener ways, saving fossil fuels, reducing greenhouse gases, and shrinking your carbon footprint. But “Cooking” has been a seriously under-reported (yet substantial) greenhouse gas creator. In my book, it’s the biggest way for kitchen-conscious consumers to take greener action. Shopping and Cleaning sections tackle the remaining cycle of feeding activities. And these tips don’t just help the planet. Many of my methods save time and money, too, yielding some unexpected side-benefits just for the cook.
So, to get the most bang out of your energy buck, why not start in the kitchen? After all, appliances account for thirty percent of our household energy use, and the biggest guzzlers are in the kitchen. After buying appliances with Energy Star labels, take the next big steps in the ways you use them. How you cook directly relates to more efficient fuel use, and the less fuel used, the fewer greenhouse gases.
Plus, a single family home spews more than twice as many greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere as the standard sedan – mostly from heating and cooling. Cooking can make a noticeable impact on household temperatures and how we adjust our thermostats. Anyone who’s sweltered in a hot kitchen in summer knows the impact cooking has on local warming, not to mention global warming. Likewise, a hot oven in winter can boost the room temperature, giving the household’s central heater a break.
The message: Without changing your politics, or completely disrupting your routine, you can reduce greenhouse gases simply by rethinking what you must do every day: consume food. (Leave the green remodeling and general lifestyle tips to other books.) And with this book’s eye-opening, green-method recipes and its hundreds of idea-inspiring tips, you’ll be eagerly serving up all your favorite dishes in new and greener ways.
As the average reader will discover, the kitchen is ripe with opportunities for going greener. It’s the place where people can make real choices, and take direct control of their impact – without letting the family feel deprived, hungry, or stressed. In fact, everyone will feel better just knowing they’re helping the planet – and they can do it one bite at a time.
Kate Heyhoe’s Cooking Green
Cooking Green:
Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen
the New Green Basics Way
-
Recipes
Got some fresh ideas of greener ways to cook, shop or clean? Post a comment!
