Remembering Linda Svendsen

Photographer Linda Svendsen died on April 23, 2007 of ovarian cancer. Linda and I became friends while working together on all three of my books. She was a delightful collaborator, and no matter how long the day, her good humor and sly wit never flagged.

I only saw Linda lose her cool once, when we came out of a Vancouver restaurant to find that our rental car had vanished, along with thousands of dollars of photography equipment and a week’s worth of photos of green homes in the Pacific Northwest. No doubt the panic-stricken look on her face mirrored my own.

Good Green Cooking: Caponata

In the summertime when I was growing up, our fridge would often be stocked with mason jars filled with my mother’s caponata, a tomato and eggplant stew that tastes of summer in every bite. She would make a big pot on the weekend, and during the week, when she got home from work on hot nights, this refreshing dish would be ready to ladle out.

Makes 3 quarts.

2 medium eggplants, unpeeled, cut into 1-inch cubes

Getting a Green Life: City Chicks

Jynx

 

A few readers have asked about my adventures with the newborn chicks delivered to our San Francisco house by our mail carrier in early March.

After six weeks of living in an old kitchen cabinet in my office, the four birds relocated to a backyard coop built by Erik, my partner in love, life and chicken raising.

As I write this, they are 20 weeks old—big beautiful hens that will start laying any day now. Strike that.

Recommended: Healthy Building Network

This watchdog group for environmental health and justice takes on industry and government over PVC, formaldehyde and other common but potentially toxic building materials. Find out what’s wrong with these materials and how you can make safer choices at healthybuilding.net.

 

Recommended: Path to Freedom

Path to Freedom video brochure. In this 18-minute web video, meet Jules Dervaes and his three children, eco-pioneers who have turned their Pasadena, California, home into an integral urban homestead. Highlights include alternative energy systems, chickens, ducks and miniature goats, and an edible landscape that produces three tons of organic food each year on one-tenth of an acre. pathtofreedom.com

Recommended: Dam Nation

Dam Nation, edited by Cleo Woelfle-Erskine, Laura Allen and Oskar July Cole. In this  anthology of essays, the politics of water meets how-to manual for becoming a greywater guerrilla, all in the spirit of restoring the water commons. greywaterguerrillas.com

Biomimicry and Green Building

How would nature build a house?

Earlier this year I had the good fortune to take part in a daylong biomimicry workshop offered by the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment and led by Dayna Baumeister of the Biomimicry Guild.

Biomimicry is a new methodology based on Janine Benyus’s highly acclaimed book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. This emerging science involves studying nature’s most successful designs and mimicking them to solve a wide range of human challenges.

Studying how plant leaves photosynthesize may lead to insights into how to build smaller, more efficient solar cells. Analyzing the spirals that nature builds—think seashells, rams’ horns and undulating kelp—has already helped one company develop super-efficient fan blades and propellers.

Once Is Not Enough

Salvaged wood helps protect endangered forests—and the quality and beauty often can’t be beat.

For your next home improvement project, rather than buying new wood, consider using wood that’s been around the block a few times. With half the planet’s original forests already gone and global consumption of wood expected to increase 50 percent by mid-century, using wood that’s reclaimed from deconstructed structures or other salvaged sources is a good green strategy.

This British Columbia home was built from Douglas fir reclaimed from a deconstructed warehouse. Architect: Don Gurney. Photo: Linda Svendsen for Good Green Homes.

Salvaged wood helps protect endangered forests—and the quality and beauty often can’t be beat.

Keep these pointers in mind when buying reclaimed wood:

Buy from distributors. Some green builders, such as South Mountain Company on Martha’s Vineyard, buy large quantities of salvaged wood directly from the source—whether it’s a brewery replacing its redwood tanks or a salvager hauling up logs from a river bottom. Those of us who don’t need or want to go to those lengths can still find gorgeous material at lumberyards, salvage yards or other retailers that specialize in reclaimed wood.

Getting a Green Life: Just Say Yes

For years I would perk up my ears whenever I heard about someone who kept chickens in their backyard. “Wouldn’t that be the cat’s meow,” I’d think. “Eggs as fresh as can be, humanely treated hens, fertilizer for the garden, plus the antics of lively creatures right outside your door.”

And then I’d become, as my permaculture mentor Kevin Bayuk puts it, a major-league but-head. Yes, but I live in the city. Yes, but my yard is so small. Yes, but my dog will freak out. Yes, but I travel too much. Yes, but isn’t it more efficient to buy eggs at the store.

Good Green Cooking: Egga

I begged this recipe off of architect Cate Leger, whose mother Toni Putnam picked it up while traveling in Greece. The vibrant color of this easy souffle-like dish will brighten any meal. Serves 4.

8 eggs
1/2 to 3/4 lb. cheddar cheese, shredded or cubed (see note)
2 cloves garlic
Leaves from 2 to 4 sprigs of fresh basil
1 lb. fresh spinach, larger stems removed (or 4 red peppers or 4 medium zucchini, cut into chunks)