Not making garbage

In February, I made an extra effort to pay attention to the trash I produce at home. I took photos of all the garbage I accumulated and wondered if there are more things I could do to reduce the trash I leave behind. 

Not making garbage was also the first phase in the experiment of Colin Beavan when he decided to live one year trying to cause as little harm to the environment as possible. He describes this experiment in his book "No Impact Man - Saving the Planet One Family at a Time" (2009) (also a blog). It's an inspiring book, though the starting point is horrendously American. I say horrendous, because if you think of the trash the Beavans created with their New York life style (including loads of take away food in plastic packaging), around 30 litres in 4 days, it is lightyears away from my consumption and trash habits. 

Beavan presumed that not making waste would be the easiest part in his "no impact" project. I have to say that it necessitates quite a lot of effort to live a completely trashless life. I haven't managed but I also realised that there are more things I could do. An example how to succeed in such a way of living - because it truly becomes a way of living - can be found in this blog Zero Waste Home. I'm far from making my own make-ups or cleaning products but I find the main ideology of this blog very compelling "refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, rot". The next step for me is to buy some glass jars or other containers to take to the grocery store with me. Still, I need to find the stores that sell flour, grains etc. not packed (this was actually easy in Italy).

Thanks to recycling, there's not much waste going into the basic waste category. Actually, I only take non-recyclable trash out every two months or so. However, there's a big pile of plastic waiting to get to the collection point of plastic (there are awfully few of them in downtown Helsinki). 

Once I bought an iPad, I have tremendously reduced the paper waste I produce as I no longer subscribe to the paper version of my daily newspaper. Thus, my paper waste mainly contains receipts, envelopes and some magazines.

I also try to not to waste any food. February was a good month, I only had to throw away an orange and some almond milk. I have stopped buying cheese as it often goes bad in a single person's household. According to some studies, single women waste more food than other households. I can believe this because you have to plan carefully your weekly meals in order to avoid finding some unused and  rotten veggies in the back of the fridge. I decided that from now on I will always plan my meals for the coming week. This way I will also make better and healthier food with more variation as I don't to make easy solutions in the grocery store ("oh, some bread will be fine, or some pasta with tomato sauce").

Take Part web site offers some good ideas for reducing wasted food.

1) Freeze lemon/lime as a juice in an ice cube tray. (A good idea, I often have half a lemon lying around for days.)

2) Isolate the trouble fruit so that it doesn't contaminate the other fruits.

3) Put some paper towels at the bottom of the veggie section in the fridge, they absorb moisture that makes veggies go bad.

4) However, don't forget the veggies in the somewhat "hidden" veggie section of the fridge.

5) Learn how to conserve food in a correct place. Not all the veggies belong to fridge, like peppers or avocados.

6) Freeze the herbs you don't use with drops of olive oil. (A very good tip, my herbs never survive for very long in their pots.)

7) Only wash what you are eating, extra moisture is bad for veggies.

So, in one month, I took out my decomposable waste twice. I make the bags out of old newspapers I have saved from times that I still subscribed to the paper version. There was quite a lot of bio waste as I threw away the soil from my dead herbs (look point 6 above...). 

Then I had some paper and carton packaging of food. Mostly I had plastic from food products that can also be recycled (it will be burnt as energy waste). Beavan tells us in his book that in the US, food packaging makes up 20 percent of the nation's solid waste. It's unfortunate that many vegetables are wrapped in plastic in the shops. I need to go to farmers' markets more often to avoid this. 

Lastly, I had been accumulating metal waste for around six months because there is not so much of it. It will also be recycled. This time, I had no glass to recycle except for some wine bottles that I take back to the liquor store.

Below in the photo one thing I encountered in February when I stayed in a hotel in Brussels. I can't understand how hotels can pretend to be eco-conscious with all the not washing linen/towel things (I think they actually just want to save money with that) and then they have plastic cups packed in plastic.  It's just purely ridiculous! And the miniature soaps and shampoos are completely idiotic. Why can't they just have refilled bottles attached to the walls (as some hotels actually do have)?

And finally, my ways to reduce trash:

1) Always carrying a cloth bag with me. Even when buying clothes, I use my own bag.

2) Instead of sanitary pads or tampons, using a menstrual cup. 

Sometimes ecological innovations can really make life easier. Even if I didn't care at all about the environment, I wouldn't give up my Lunette cup, a Finnish eco-invention. It makes periods cleaner, cheaper and easier! The silicon cup can be washed and used for more than a year.

3) Never buying take-away coffee if I don't carry my own cup with me. 

With this new trend adopted from the US that everyone is carrying a take-away coffee in the trams and the streets, I'm constantly stressed about the waste it creates. People, buy a re-useble cup instead if you don't have the time to relax and enjoy a coffee break in a café! Also, in the streets, most of the litter is either cigarettes or disposable coffee cups, very nasty trend. I also keep a spoon with me (this was really necessary in the US) as sometimes only plastic spoons are available in cafés.

Beavan writes about a study according to which some 80 percent of our products are made to be only used once. Shocking! 

4) Always keeping my own water bottle with me and only drinking tapwater. Exceptions are allowed in Africa or other developing countries :) 

5) Trying to reuse all the paper bags that come with bread in the bakeries where I can get bread without packaging. Buying nuts, croissants etc. in my own reused bags (there are always these little paper bags coming from somewhere). 

6) Doing my own reusable bags and taking them with me to the grocery store. 

I have crocheted produce bags that are truly fantastic and handy. They are very easy to make as well, for instructions check this blog. It is a wonderful gift idea as well!

7) At work, I have my own towel in the office so I don't need to use paper towels in the toilet. Not using paper napkins. Using cloth handkerchiefs.

Beavan writes: "The paper towel began to represent my throwaway lifestyle." I have been avoiding that kind of lifestyle and will continue to do so with more vigour.

8) Refilling my washing and fairy liquid bottles in Ruohonjuuri shop where this is possible with Ecover and Ole Hyvä eco-products.

9) Printing only things that I really need.

What I try to do in the future:

1) Make sure that I follow the "rules" above.

2) Farmers' market and bakeries more often and using/reusing my old bags.

3) Choosing grocery stores with less plastic wraps around produces.

4) Planning my meals for a week in advance and going to a store with this shopping list.

5) Buying more second hand clothes instead of new ones. Thinking twice before buying any clothes at all.

Culture lover gets emotional

Culture spring is warming up even though the weather is not. In this week's programme: ballet. I'm not a huge fan of traditional ballet with colourful costumes and too much happening on the stage. This time, the National Ballet of Finland was offering something very different and exactly for my taste.

The evening was composed of three diverse pieces. First, George Balanchine's "Four Temperaments" was a dream-like beautiful ballet that was considered ahead of its time when it was made in the 1940s and it still seemed modern.

The second piece was William Forsythe's ballet "In the middle, somewhat elevated" that he made in the end of 1980s. At this point, Balanchine seemed already a bit traditional, but I wasn't greatly moved by this fast-moving and almost rough dance.

The last piece was extraordinary. It was Jirí Kilián's "Bella Figura" (watch the whole thing below) and I loved it, completely loved it. Beautiful baroque music (a new discovery was Pergolesi's wonderful "Stabat Mater Dolorosa") combined with amazing choreography. Even though I'm normally more amazed by humans' capacity to destroy our planet and act like idiots, watching the ballet dancers on stage, I felt that the human potential for creating something beautiful is truly unlimited. 

Not only the choreography was fantastic, but also the fact that the human body can move in such amazing ways and, at the same time, translate to the audience in body movements some very human feelings and our insecurity and vulnerability. The dancers were like broken dolls on stage helping one another to feel better or survive. Maybe the message was that we are dependent on others and that we should care more about them. At one point it is me who needs help and, at the next one, it is the other. I felt that there was a beautiful connection and solidarity between the dancers on stage or the roles they were playing. 

I had tears in my eyes at the end and I wished that the dance would have continued and continued. My friends agreed!

Fellini: on the realisation of mediocrity

I did a little Federico Fellini movie marathon this past week. Well, not so little actually, considering the length of his films (La Dolce Vita is almost 3 hours long). I saw four excellent movies:

8 1/2 (1963)

Giulietta degli Spiriti (1965)

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Il Bidone (1955)

Watching his movies with such an intensity might have affected my mood recently. First of all, after being immersed in his amazing surreal settings, my own life felt quite mediocre: no exciting parties with the aristocracy, no orgies with fantastic characters, no bohemian artists or gorgeous celebrities. And above all, no Marcello! Secondly, especially 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita have a melancholic undertone that raises the question of the meaning of life and offers fertile ground for wondering about the quest of love and existence in general. Something has also happened to me in the past few years, as I now understood the lost character of Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita much better than when I last saw the film.

The films were great, all of them, and Italy in the 1960s seemed wonderful. With the exception of Il Bidone, the fusion of dream and reality (which is also very dream-like) was the typical character of the films. Together with the great music by Nino Rota, I could have continued watching the beautiful moving images for hours.

Watching Marcello Mastroianni, I felt desperate about the Finnish guys and started thinking seriously about moving abroad again (obviously not only because of the guys, but because I feel more and more like an outsider in this society, and this can be an especially strong feeling in one's own home country). I miss those passionate-vibrant guys of Southern Europe, they seem to be more alive and more vulnerable to the beauty/exceptionality of women. After 1,5 years in Finland, I'd now be happy if someone called me in the street: "Mademoiselle, mademoiselle, vous avez de beaux yeux..." Sad.

Then, just before starting to write this, I read in the New Yorker book review about a British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips: "Instead of feeling that we should have a better life, he says, we should just live, as gratifyingly as possible, the life we have. Otherwise we are setting ourselves up for bitterness." His point is to avoid mourning for the lives we are unable to live - a source of an endless trauma.

In his book "Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life" he writes about love: "There is a world of difference between erotic and romantic daydream and actually getting together with someone; getting together is a lot more work, and is never exactly what one was hoping for. So there are three consecutive frustrations: the frustration of need, the frustration of fantasized satisfaction not working, and the frustration of satisfaction in the real world being at odds with the wished-for, fantasized satisfaction."

His book sounds really interesting, and I don't think his main message is that we should  necessarily settle for the life we have. Indeed, the article continues that Phillip believes that we are not forced (by others) to settle for the life we are living, but we choose to do so. In other words, we should take responsibility for our own lives - and for changing it as well if we wish to do so.

It is actually not a wonder that I end up from Fellini to modern psychoanalysis. Fellini undertook Jungian psychoanalysis during his mid-life crisis and probably in his film 8 1/2 we see some traces of his own process (Boston Review offers an interesting analysis of the film and Fellini).

In the next post, I will write about all the wonderful things happening in my life and in Helsinki...

Becoming a fan

Oh, I'm so sad I missed this wonderful artist yesterday in Helsinki. Is he the new David Bowie? After all the female singer-song writers I love so much, it's good to get to know some exceptional male voices as well. I have crush (blush).

I love his voice but also his dandy style. This video below is really beautiful. 

Even though I'm becoming a Patrick fan, I'm waiting to hear Lana del Rey herself to sing this one (below) live in Helsinki in June - this time, I'm going. 

Brooklyn in Helsinki and one stop pub crawl

Just the previous day, I had complained that life is boring in Helsinki in the sense that you never encounter strangers the way that you would abroad or as a tourist in general. Obviously, one reason is that our everyday life is much more organised; we follow routines and we have put limits to our behaviour. For instance, I wouldn't join a group of 15 Americans for a pub crawl and then be locked out of my hostel (as I did in Barcelona, 2003), chat the night through with a cute bar tender with few other customers to serve (as in Catania, 2008), spend a fantastic day, including herbal sauna and a buddha statue park, with a middle-aged Kiwi (as in Vientiane, 2011), or accept an offer for a motorcycle trip from a handsome young guy sitting next to me in a café (in San Francisco, 2008). At home, we tend to be more reserved and this rarely gives room for adventures or improvised discussions. We try to avoid unnecessary talk with strangers and don't leave our comfort zone. It's a pity!

 Photos of Brooklyn Café from the Facebook page of Brooklyn Café.

Maybe it was the café, the very cute and cosy Brooklyn Café in Viiskulma, that made me act like in a real New York place. The owners of the café are sisters from Brooklyn and the cute waiters speak only a few words of Finnish, so it's not hard to imagine being in New York instead of Helsinki.

Having installed with my iPad in front of another iPad user (see, it really is like a hip place in Brooklyn), I soon engaged in a nice chat with this young man. He was writing his second novel, the first one, he showed me, was on sale in the café. He had written most of it in the corner table. Indeed, this café offers very nice atmosphere for hipster-like experiences in art and creative life. I would definitely write my novel there. But I don't need such an excuse to hang around there because it is probably my favourite café in my neighbourhood in any case and their great filter coffee is one of these wonderful little things making Saturday mornings a bit more glamorous.

                                                              Photo from the Facebook page of Brooklyn Café.

The conversation with the young author, and some tips for reading he gave me (and certainly I'll try to read his book "Nyt" as well), made me really happy and disproved my idea of the impossibility of an encounter in this city. It seems to be more about my own attitude, so in the future I'll try to be more open and act more like a tourist with a curious mind.

Actually, the touristy behaviour continued in the evening as we decided to do a Kallio pub crawl with my friends. After a hearty dinner at Ravintola Pelmenit, the great Kaurismäki-like Ukranian restaurant in Kallio, we headed to Pikku-Vallila. It is a super cute little bar with only a few tables in a pretty wooden house in a calm and residential wood house area of Helsinki, the so-called wood-Vallila. 

With one irritating guy at the next table (and then later, at our table) buying rounds of shots for the whole bar, our objective of a pub crawl somewhat shrank as we stayed in Pikku-Vallila until the wee hours. The cute and friendly bar tender made toasts for art and creativity and at the end, when he was pushing us out of the door, I said to him: "Thanks, it was a really nice evening", as if we had just had a house party in his living room. 

The photo is from this photo blog.

I should definitely go more often to Kallio-side of the city. Though I love my own beautiful neighbourhood, it is slightly bourgeois and boring in Eira and Punavuori. The funny bohemian atmosphere of Pikku-Vallila and the eccentric or purely weird people there are hard to find in my neighbourhood pub.

Planet Ocean - the Beauty and the Beast

Unfortunately, I managed to see only one documentary film at the recent DocPoint film festival in Helsinki. But this documentary film is definitely worth watching. It's the extraordinary Planet Ocean by Yann-Arthus Bertrand and Michel Pitiot. It examines its subject, the ocean, from several perspectives and in addition to powerful music and beautiful images, it has a very strong message about the importance of protecting our oceans, the source of all life.

The beginning of the film is quite dramatic (see below), the narrator, with her soft voice, declaring that the ocean contains the origins of our own story, us, the mankind. We are descendants of the ocean and yet, we are super predators exploiting the limited resources of our planet and unable to see the elements of catastrophe surrounding us. The planet is ours, but where are we going?

Like the wonderful BBC series Blue Planet, the film shows us the wonders of the ocean and the audience cannot fail to understand that the ocean contains things that are unimaginable on land. The creatures of the deep sea are more mystical than you could ever see on a science-fiction film. We are far behind the imagination of the mother nature. Sea creatures are just fascinatingly weird and we know so little about them.

At the same time, the film makes obvious the connection between the life on land and the sea. The ocean controls our climate and nourishes us, it serves as means to transport goods and has played a role in making globalisation possible. From the early years of our civilisation, the ocean has expanded the minds of human beings and offered us opportunities in work and pleasure.

Yet, we have polluted the sea, destroyed the coral reefs, depleted its resources and still continue to overfish despite all the warning signs clearly visible to us.

After all the amazing and beautiful images of the sea, I couldn't help wiping a few tears from my eyes thinking of seriously endangered sea animals, dead birds' bodies filled with plastic, deep-water oil rigs. Is the only ocean we will know in the future the ocean shown in the pictures below and colourful colar reefs something we remember from "Finding Nemo"?

These photos are from the website of Local Philosophy.

Munan korvaajat

I've often used the excuse that baking without eggs and dairy products is so difficult that I can't be a vegan. Well, after a successful vegan cheesecake, vegan biscuits and now vegan cupcakes, I have to admit that life without eggs is possible. Actually, this whole vegan cooking and baking starts to be a nice hobby.

By the way, I love that in my Finnish vegan cook book, there is a section called "munan korvaajat". It means "egg substitutes", but it can also mean "dick substitutes", which always makes a single lady smile... Indeed, what could be a better dick substitute than some delicious cupcakes? :)

I've started reading a vegan blog Chef Chloe by Chloe Coscarelli who won the American reality show Cupcake Wars with her vegan cupcakes. I tried her raspberry tiramisu cupcake recipe with some adjustments. In this recipe she replaces eggs with baking soda and vinegar. The funny thing is that the cupcakes were of very nice texture but actually had an eggy taste. Weird, but the baking soda + vinegar combination worked!

Here's the recipe if you wanna try my version of it.

12 cupcakes:

3 dl flour

2,5 dl cane sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

0,5 teaspoon salt

2 dl almond milk

0,5 dl canola oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Mix separately dry ingredients and wet ingredients, then pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture. Fill your silicon muffin molds 2/3 full. Bake for about 15-18 minutes in 225°C.

Strawberry sauce (raspberries were expensive):

200 g frozen strawberries 

1,5 dl cane sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

some lemon juice

Mix together in a saucepan and let simmer for some minutes. Let cool. Cut off the tops of the cupcakes, make a little hole with your fingers and pour some sauce into the hole. Place the hat back on top of the cupcake.

Frosting:

some espresso

a bit of almond liquor (if you happen to have some)

50 g vegetable margarine

enough powdered sugar to get the right level of liquidity-solidity

Mix together until smooth. Make the cupcakes pretty.

I enjoyed these cupcakes in a great company of a friend who is moving to New York (very appropriate to eat cupcakes in such an occasion) and naturally with some (might have been a bottle of...) champagne.

Small is beautiful

There has been a long silence in the blog front recently, or more precisely, in my personal presence here. I think I have too big ambitions and not enough time. I see myself as a New Yorker journalist (apologies for all the New Yorker journalists) and then I try to write something here between work and yoga classes. As you might have seen, it's not working. From now on, I will be focusing on small things only, that's it, on small escapes, god dammit! Or they can, and certainly will, be big things, but I will write about them in a smallish way.

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The objective for the new year, in addition to enjoying small things, is to eat more vegan, do more yoga and find my inner Zen. Indeed, it's New Age stuff, baby! Well, to be honest, it's about things that increase my wellbeing - both mental and physical. Very simple (and selfish?). I get angry, upset or annoyed by things that I cannot change or have an impact on. Why bother? Hence, the thing about finding my inner Zen is about priorities of emotions and actions. (Next year, I might write a self-help book - not!)

This means focusing on the first two things on the following list. Number three is a lost case, I'll try not to waste time on those things too much.

1. Things that I can decide upon myself.

2. Things that I have an impact on.

3. Things that I can't influence.

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Small things, like telling about the small beautiful events that made my day. That should be the point of this blog because I don't have (concentration) skills or time or energy for anything else (please, I do research at work, I can't do it in my blog). 

Yesterday, I saw this amazing film "The Beasts of the Southern Wild". A wonderful and truly beautiful film with great music and an incredible young girl, Quevenzhané Wallis, as the main actress. This film really had a huge impact on me. It's a magical film that tells us about the connection between humans and the nature. It was so funny and so sad. It had a grasp of the real world in a fantastical way. It is a film that you need to talk about with a friend afterwards - and those are the best films.