The vernal equinox is just eleven days away, so yesterday I experimented with yet another soup recipe that is perfect for springtime. The soup’s delicate yet flavorful broth was made with leeks, potatoes, carrots, green peas, mushrooms, celery, onion, and The Herb Companion’s herb of the year — dill. I was tempted to put the extra fresh dill in a vase, it was that lovely and fragrant. Cooking with fresh herbs is a wonderful form of aromatherapy!

March 8th - International Women’s Day 100th Anniversary

1909: The first National Women’s Day in the U.S. was observed.

1910: The Women’s Congress of the Socialist International meets in August in Copenhagen and approves the call for an international day of protest.

While International Women’s Day has become more or less apolitical, it’s interesting to note that in the year 1909 it was the Socialist Party of America that designated the day “in honour of the 1908 garment workers’ strike in New York, where women protested against working conditions. ” (Source: UN.org)

The below video features Project Runway’s host Tim Gunn for Women for Women International’s Join Me on the Bridge Campaign in honor of International Women’s Day. (Don’t you just love this guy?!)

The official website - http://www.internationalwomensday.com/ 

Quote for the Day:

Society works better when women and men, with their complementary skills, come together from a position of equality. So that there’s equal respect.

 -Cherie Blair

Once upon a time there was an evil company that made products with hydrogenated ingredients. Are you familiar with this story?

After realizing the vegetarian bouillon cubes I had been buying contain partially-hydrogenated ingredients I switched to organic vegetable broths that are sold in asceptic cartons and contain no hydrogenated poison (brands such as Pacific). But it seems I’m always making soup and buying carton after carton of vegetable stock can get expensive. Not only that, but unlike bouillon cubes the carton broths also must be used within 10 days of opening.

Rapnuzel bouillon to the rescue! Rapnuzel bouillon cubes are made by a company founded in Germany, and I find these cubes make a better tasting soup stock than do carton broths. Rapnuzel can be found at health food stores or Whole Foods, with or without the sea salt.

“The founders of Rapunzel, named their organic food company after the Rapunzel fairy tale, as they believed that everyone deserves fresh, healthy, and delicious organic food without having to make great sacrifices such as stealing into a forbidden garden and losing one’s child!”

Rapunzel Lettuce is the German translation for Lamb’s Lettuce, which is a small, sweet and luscious leafy green that grows well in autumn and winter and can survive frost and snow.

A while back after reading about Whole Food’s CEO John Mackey’s anti-union/unprogressive/right-wing ideology I decided I no longer felt comfortable patronizing such a business. But honestly, it wasn’t any sacrifice on my part since the nearest Whole Foods is a 40 minute drive from our home. Well, today I made an exception, telling myself the Boycott did make national news and did accomplish something  —but that’s another blog post.

Spend $100.00 or more and Whole Foods throws in a small reusable tote.

The Liberation Ecology Blog Conversation

“Liberation Ecology continues the quest Frances Moore Lappé began forty years ago when she wrote Diet for a Small Planet. It was then that she first realized that the ideas humans hold – our core assumptions about how the world works – can be more powerful than instinct. They can trap us in powerlessness or free us to create the world we really want. Liberation Ecology, examines six ideas that rob us of the ability to create that world, and attempts to reframe our way of thinking — so we may free ourselves and embrace our power to create change…”

“According to new research. Dolphins demonstrate skills and awareness previously thought to be present only in humans.”  See report from MSNBC

The Vwombles were excited today when they heard we were having Butterflies with Chickpeas for lunch. Sometimes it’s all in the name! The butterflies are farfalle pasta. One Vwomble said, “they’re moths!” But they enjoyed the lunch just the same. I did too once that visual was erased from my mind.

Visit the Vegetarian Times website and enter to win by Feb. 28th.

There’s a stack of old phone books collecting dust on my desk because I don’t yet know what to do with them. I checked Earth911 for a recycling center that will accept them, but found nothing local. But what’s frustrating is we do not want or need the phone books in the first place, and yet year after year they mysteriously appear on the doorstep. How many of these directories are thrown in the garbage, I wonder.

Handcrafting Justice has certainly found a creative solution! These bags are crafted out of recycled telephone directories! Price: $20 - $25. 

I first read about Handcrafting Justice on the Boho blog, which is a green lifestyle magazine that is full of interesting stuff!

An informative article, ”Beauty without the Beasts” from The Hindu.

“…astoreum, collagen, elastin, glycerine, lanolin, pristane, keratin and silk oil/powder are cosmetics ingredients derived from animals. Your bindi may have animal glue, kajal-estrogen, moisturisers-serum albumen, shampoo-Spanish fly and ox spleen, soap-tallow, toothpaste-animal bone ash, perfumes-civet/musk/ambergris. Without pearlessence from fish scales, our lip gloss will have no gloss. Cerebrosides — “raw material for which comes from cattle, oxen, or swine brain cells or other nervous-system tissues” (says FDA) — make the skin surface smoother, improve moisture retention, heighten “luminosity”.”

Testing cosmetics on animals is legal in India. The article explains how horrific these tests are, not to mention unnecessary.

Facts on animal testing in the United States from HSUS.