Earth Day link farm

I'll have a lovely, spring-green recipe coming your way soon, but in the meantime, let's take a quick look at a different kind of green. In celebration of Earth Day, here are some links to help you get your earth love on. Happy browsing!

KQED's Bay Area Bites has a list of things you can do to make your kitchen a little less wasteful and a little more environmentally friendly. If you're already doing most (or all) of the things on the list, give yourself a pat on the back. If not, perhaps you'll learn something new. Everybody wins!

iPhone-wielding fans of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch now have a handy way of keeping Seafood Watch's sustainable seafood recommendations handy: a free iPhone app with region-specific seafood information determined by your phone's GPS function.

If you haven't seen Food, Inc., do. Seriously. It's an eye-opening, heart-breaking, blood-pressure-raising 90 minutes chock full of information on where our food originates. Netflix account holders can have it streamed to their tv or computer.

I doubt that anyone reading this blog doesn't know where to find locally grown produce, but just in case, U.S. readers can find a wealth of local market and producer information through Local Harvest.

This isn't food-related, but NASA/Goddard's Flickr photostream has some pretty neat images of this blue planet of ours.

And finally, also not food-related but filed under "neato," some awe-inspiring new images of the star that makes it all possible: our sun.

Anything to add? Drop your links in comments. Happy Earth Day!

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And for Chile

The earthquake in Haiti is barely out of the news, and now we have another, larger quake in the news: the one in Chile. I cannot even begin to fathom what a magnitude 8.8 earthquake feels like. Fortunately, although my heart goes out to the friends and family of those who lost loved ones in the Chile quake, so far it appears that Chile was spared the massive loss of life that Haiti suffered.

Still, let's do what we can to help, shall we? I'll repost the relief organization links I put up in the Haiti post:

- Médecins Sans Frontières.

- UNICEF.

- American Red Cross.

The Missourian has more links here. You can also donate via text message:

- Text the word “CHILE” to 25383 to donate $10 on behalf of the Habitat for Humanity

- Text “CHILE” to 20222 to donate $10 via World Vision

- Text “CHILE” to 52000 to donate $10 via the Salvation Army

- Text “YOUTH” to 20222 to donate via UNICEF

- Text "REBUILD" to 50555 to donate $10 via Operation USA's Chile relief fund.

Once again, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile are waiving text message fees for donations.

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Blogging for Haiti

I was going to write up a post for some photos that have been waiting in the wings for a while, but writing about food--a fancy-sounding tart, no less--feels all kinds of wrong.

Having grown up in earthquake country, I know a bit about feeling the earth rumbling beneath one's feet. Last October, the Bay Area marked the 20th anniversary of our own 7.0 temblor, the Loma Prieta earthquake. But my experience with the effects of a large quake bears no resemblance to what's happened in Haiti.

We were (relatively) prepared. Haiti was not. Most of Haiti's construction is geared toward withstanding hurricanes, not earthquakes. The damage, as you've no doubt seen, is catastrophic.

I don't have the kind of traffic that will make a Beyond Ramen "comment for a donation" program much of a fundraiser, but what the heck: for each comment on this post between now and the end of the month I'll donate $1 to Médecins Sans Frontières, UNICEF, or the Red Cross, as you wish.

Here's some of what the food blogosphere is doing to help those affected by the quake in Haiti, as well as some links if you'd like to make additional donations.

The Pioneer Woman has a twofer going on: not only is she sponsoring a giveaway of two $500 donations to Haiti-related charities, she's also donating 10 cents for every entry in the giveaway.

Alice at Savory Sweet Life is donating $1 for every comment left on the linked post, up to $1000, through Sunday evening.

Saffron & Blueberry's Hilda is donating $10 for every comment on her blog (any post) through January 31.

Thursday Night Smackdown is donating a dollar for every comment left on the linked post through noon EST on Saturday (tomorrow).

Kay at the Keyboard is donating 50 cents for every comment left on the linked post, plus a matching bonus if you've already donated independently.

Amy Leavitt is doing a giveaway similar to Pioneer Woman's; see her page for details.

If you'd like to donate directly to one of the organizations I mentioned above, you can do so via the following links:

- Médecins Sans Frontières.

- UNICEF.

- American Red Cross. The Red Cross is also encouraging people to donate blood if they can.

It's worth noting that AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile are waiving text message fees when you text donations for Haiti. If you're concerned about the safety of text donations, see this summary. Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express have also waived their fees for credit card transactions that go toward aid for Haiti.

I know these are tough times for many people, but it doesn't take a lot to make a difference. If you can't afford to donate anything yourself, please consider leaving a comment on one (or more!) of the blogs listed above, or right here, so that a donation can be made on your behalf. Every little bit helps.

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New look!

And it's about time. This weekend I finally got around to the site redesign that I alluded to way back when I migrated to a new domain name. The redesign process was very educational: I learned a bit of xml and some of the nuts and bolts of designing a blog template, which should serve me well in future bloggy adventures. 

I'll probably still do some tweaking here and there with aesthetics, but all of the basic elements are there and should be functional. New and/or improved widgets include a drop-down archives menu, a streamlined list of categories, and my personal favorite: a feed of the latest posts from authors on my blogroll.

If something isn't working, or if there's something you'd like to see that isn't already here, please drop a note in comments and I'll see what I can do. 

Happy cooking!

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We've moved!

Sort of. As of a couple of hours ago, I started publishing at my new site: http://www.beyondramen.net. Hooray!

The Suitor got me the ultimate blogging gift for Christmas: my very own domain. Katie (WINS) provided art and textile services (i.e. the shirt) so that I had something tangible to unwrap. I think her choice of font was spot-on.

Logistics for readers: the old URL still works, it just redirects to the new one. Hopefully RSS feeds and Blogger's "following" function will chug along uninterrupted. If they don't, let me know and I'll see if there's anything I can do to help on my end. At this time I have no plans to leave Blogger for independent hosting, and things should continue to work as they have been for the foreseeable future.

So, welcome to my new home! If all goes well, I'll be launching a redesign within the next week or two. Stay tuned...

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Blog note

I don't know why my blog has recently decided to do one and a half spacing after each carriage return, but I'm going to look into it this weekend. In the meantime, please bear with the awkward spacings! I apologize on behalf of my unruly blog. 

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Marmalade is coming

I promise. It's coming. I'm hoping to send it off next week. My most sincere apologies for the delay! Things have been strangely busy around here--silly me, I thought things would settle down after Thesis #1 was finished. Rest assured that the jars are well sealed, so nothing untoward is happening in them or to them, and their contents should retain maximum deliciousness when they finally arrive!

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