Building a life with less meat

This year seems to be the ‘Year of 10 Women’ for me.  Firstly, I’m (supposed to be) training to do the New York Marathon with a group of 10 women.  From a zero-fitness base –- I’ve actually never been fit in my life -- I’ve built up to a whopping 20 minutes, running without stopping. In 10 years I may almost be ready.  

And reading EnviroMom’s fabulous blog 2 weeks ago, Heather and Renee gave me a great reason, with 10 other women, to introduce regular meatless meals into our family routine, via the Meatless Supper Club. After pointing out the shocking fact that industrial livestock creates 18% more greenhouse gasses than cars, they invited 10 eco-bloggers to join them in cooking meatless dinners for their families, once a week, for the next 8 weeks.  We are to be brutally honest about the family reaction -- whether they wolfed the veggies down or turned green themselves and retreated to the bathroom with suspiciously full napkins.  I figure I’ll be the only contributor from New Zealand, a country with a proud meat-eating heritage, boasting over 12 sheep for every person living here.

The household critics have assured me they’ll be fair, but given that they include a 7 year-old, a 23 year-old and a 49 year-old, all die-hard carnivorous males, I’ve decided to use my secret weapon.  The guys in my house love to build. I figured out a while ago that they love eating stuff that they can build themselves at the table so over the next 8 weeks my cooking will resemble more of a construction site than gourmet vegetarian.  I’m hoping that the fun of being able to noisily pass materials across the table, move around to create masterpieces and compare assemblies, will distract them from the fact that they are eating “rabbit (or sheep) food”.

The obvious first choice was Mexican tacos and wraps.  Instead of the usual ground beef, I let them choose from a few different fillers and rate their preferences.   

The building materials:

• Refried beans (you can make them yourself if you have time and virtue – I had neither)
• Pinto beans (cooked with finely chopped onions, Mexican spices, coriander and lime)
• Shredded cos lettuce
• Chopped fresh tomatoes
• Grated cheese (I put out only a teensy bit of cheese, bearing in mind we are also trying to ditch the dairy -- and no sour cream) 
• Chopped spring onions (scallions)
• Roasted red bell peppers (grilled with olive oil)
• Guacamole (combined avocadoes, plenty of minced fresh garlic, scallions, lime juice, salt and pepper)
• Salsa (again, I was time- and virtue-challenged so resorted to a bottle of the family favourite)
• Quartered fresh limes

The verdict:

Luckily this meal was more of the wolfing variety.  While the pinto beans were declared a bit too “bean salad” for them and the bell peppers remained pretty-much untouched, they loved the refried beans and guacamole.

Burrito wraps were more popular than the taco shells (although I preferred the tacos myself) and I was pleased to see they didn’t use a lot of cheese.  The table at the end of the meal looked like a bomb-site so, based on the mess,  I declared the meal a success. It just needed 10 women to help me clean up.

Here are the other 10 Meatless Supper Club recipes for week 1. 

Thank you to a thoughtful mother

 This is a note of gratitude to a mother at my son’s school. I haven’t met her. She doesn’t know it, but an action of hers has probably reinforced my son’s passion for the environment -- for life.

I’ve blogged previously about 7 year-old Luca’s concern for eco issues -- or maybe he just has eco-issues. He usually keeps it pretty quiet.  Only members of our household seem to bear the brunt of his: “HEY!! Turn that TAP OFF when you’re BRUSHING!” accompanied by a frenzied sprint down the hall and frown-filled, bionic tap-turning. Last winter, on a freezing, sleet-filled day, while relaxing in front of the fire with warm scones, he came up with the bright idea of a family visit to the beach to clean up rubbish. My reply, gazing up from my book through a mouthful of tea and scone, was something like: “Hiimmmphf, waat a wonful idea.  Leths go when ith sunny an’ our fingerth and noseths won’t fall orf.” To my shame, I never fulfilled on the promise.

So I can imagine his excitement seeing a small pile of trash on the pavement on the way home from school a couple of days ago. I heard about it this morning when he casually said “Oh yeah… I might be getting a Principal’s Award.” I stopped in my tracks. A Principal’s Award is a rare and much-honored thing. Misty-eyed parents receive a special invitation to the school assembly to see their proud child shaking the principal’s hand, being given this venerable certificate. 

Luca said he saw some fellow school-kids kicking and scattering mailbox flyers which were lying on the ground.  (Thankfully) he didn’t make a fuss, but quietly picked up the flyers -- with the kids looking on -- and found a rubbish bin to put it in. Watching this was another mother in her car, waiting for her kids. She asked Luca’s name, then phoned the school and told them about his actions. 

I know what it’s like when you’re frantically rushing around after school to kids’ activities, then getting school bags unpacked, homework done and dinner cooked. I don’t know if it was that time of day she phoned.  Frankly, I can’t think of many times in the day where making such a non-essential phone call would take priority over the hundreds of things there are to do in a mother’s life. For Luca and our family it was like receiving a very personal and lovely thank-you note from a stranger.  Justine (I hope I have your name right) – thank you. Your generosity has inspired me to take that extra step when I ‘catch’ a child doing something good.

When I told him I was going to write a thank you to Justine, Luca advised me that he might have it wrong about the Principal’s Award. I mean, all he did was pick up a bit of trash. Perhaps, but when I rang the school to ask the mother’s name, the secretary (who I also don’t know) answered the phone and said “Oh YES!!  I heard about that!”  It was a tiny action on Luca’s part, resulting in a larger action by an adult provoking acknowledgement from his school by immediately telling his teacher and praising him. What a powerful formula for a community to reinforce the next generation’s love for our environment.

Luca is happy, award or no award – it was a very small incident for him and he’s pleasantly surprised by the fuss.  I’ve planned a 'well done!' family dinner.  Guess we’d better take him to the beach first!

Introducing MiniMonos Team Member: Deborah Todd

We are thrilled to have such an awesome addition to Team MiniMonos!

Deborah Todd is a veteran award-winning designer, writer, producer, and director in the interactive arena, with more than 25 published titles to her credit. She is known for her pioneering work in children's interactive media, and as one of the first women game designer-writers in the industry, working with many of the early video game icons. 

Based in San Francisco, Deborah has worked with some of the industry’s top publishers and Hollywood studios, including Disney Interactive, Disneyland, Fox, DreamWorks, Discovery Channel, MGM/UA, Columbia, Warner Bros., Nickelodeon, The Learning Company, Humongous Entertainment, Broderbund, Mindscape, Houghton-Mifflin, McGraw-Hill, Random House, and Steven Spielberg’s Starbright Foundation.

Deborah’s published titles include interactive games and media, books, and television, including Curious George Comes Home for Houghton Mifflin Interactive, Blue's Clues 123 Time Activities with Nickelodeon and Humongous Entertainment, 101 Dalmatians: Escape from DeVil Manor for Disney Interactive, and Anastasia for Fox.  In addition to her published work, she has consulted on nearly two-dozen projects, has sold a family feature screenplay, and is a graduate “with honors” of the Hanna Barbera Animation Writing Program.  Her book, Game Design: From Blue Sky to Green Light was launched at GDC 2007.

So what does that mean for MiniMonos (apart from the fact that its a huge pleasure to be working with such a fun Superstar!)? Well, cool stuff like this:

Where is MiniMonos? 

Deep in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle is a tropical island paradise inhabited by the fun-loving and highly evolved MiniMonos monkeys. 

Since the island is situated deep in the Bermuda Triangle and people avoid venturing far into these mysterious waters, no humans have ever been on MiniMonos Island. 

Consequently, completely absent of any human interference and left to their own devices, the MiniMonos monkeys have evolved into the world’s most highly intelligent and playful creatures.  These little monkeys understand the importance of being a good part of their community and keeping their island a beautiful place to live and play, and they know that having fun in everything they do is the best way to live a long and happy life.  With lots of friends to play with, cool places to discover, and fun adventures to keep mixing things up, MiniMonos Island is an inviting and cool place to play and explore. 

Legend has it that all kinds of mysterious things happen in the Bermuda Triangle, and sometimes the results of these things show up here on MiniMonos.  Compasses go wild, UFOs are spotted here more than any place on earth, and the area is even believed to have wormholes to make travel though time and space a whole lot faster.   

It’s a common occurrence at MiniMonos for treasures and artifacts from boats, ships, planes, and UFOs to surface around the island, washing up on shore or being discovered near the reef, and sometimes even making its way inside the lagoon and onto the beaches. New things appear every day, and the monkeys love finding these shipwrecked treasures, putting them to good use in imaginative and fun ways around the island. 

Other stuff washes up on shore, too, and things that don’t belong in the water get caught in the reef, find their way into the lagoon, and generally make a mess of this tropical island paradise –like plastic bags, tin cans, bottles, and other types of junk.  These things make their way here because some humans are careless with trash, and the winds and the Gulf Stream (a big river with a very strong current that flows inside of the Atlantic Ocean) carry them to the island.  

This human junk can make things on the island run amok fast, so the monkeys are quick to do their part to take care of handling this stuff and keep their island running smoothly.  

And from this exciting background, Deborah is writing mini-games and quests, like treasure hunts in undersea caves, sunken wreckage, planes, and UFOs. This recycled ‘treasure’ can help to form a jungle band, make a cool beach sculpture or have a UFO glow fight! But sometimes the players might need to work to clear the plastic and other rubbish out of the way in order to complete their quest.  There will be electromagnetic surprises, wild trade winds, cave adventures, cool treehouses and beautiful gardens to tend. And MiniMonos will always be a safe, fun place to come and make friends, play games together and chat.

No wonder Deborah’s projects have garnered such awards as the ABA Book Sellers Choice New Media Award, the ComputEd Best Interactive Story Award, Child Magazine’s Best Software of the Year Award, Parenting Magazine’s Software Magic Award, and U.S. News and World Report’s Top 12 Titles of the Year.

We’re totally privileged to have Deborah on the MiniMonos Team! Let us know what you think of MiniMonos so far -- we’ll keep you posted as more stories, quests and games go live!