Money is fiction

I was absolutely fascinated by This American Life tonight in which they raised their most "stoner" question to date: What is money?

Money is on the mind lately as we've had to come up with a lot of it in the past couple months to scrounge together a down payment for the house. We've managed to stick a few thousand dollars under the mattress in the past two months in order to make this happen. But, really, it's in a bank account and is only a number on paper. The money doesn't actually exist.

You see, I get paid by direct deposit. My employer tells my bank that what I do is worth X amount of dollars and tells the bank to add it to my account. But no tangible currency is ever exchanged. Then I write on a small piece of paper addressed to my landlady that I am giving her X amount of dollars to live in her building, but, again, that piece of paper represents the idea that I'm giving her something valuable which, in fact, doesn't exist.

Money, apart from being a great song in Cabaret, makes the world go 'round, but we are living under the false pretense that it actually has value. In my dreams, we are living in a cashless society where I can give you my embroidery and in return you give me some shoes. That hasn't happened since the industrial revolution... in other words, since people stopped making things that have real value. Now, we sit at desks and type all day and my employer thinks that my time has value (which, obviously, I agree with) and so they "pay" me with fake numbers that I can use to go out and buy potatoes with, or, write on a small piece of paper to my landlady. Maybe some day we will run out of fake numbers and go back to simply bartering for those potatoes instead.

What really gets to me about this-what I fail to understand- is that if money is fiction, then how come it matters so much when you don't have it?

For fun: watch this

Operation Bike Ride 2011

Mission: Shed holiday pounds and stick it to the CTA
Outside Air Temperature: 27-deg F
Layers of clothing: five
Impressions: cold wrists
Status: complete

On Ravenswood

I've got Portage Park on the brain as we prepare for home ownership in a new neighborhood, but I think it's important to take some time to reflect on the great years we've spent in Ravenswood. Being in a slightly undiscovered area of the 'wood we've had the privilege of being walking distance from Lincoln Square, Andersonville, and the heart of the neighborhood, but tucked away in a little quiet corridor where yuppies and puppies are scarce and upscale, overpriced restaurants are non-existent. Here's what I think I will miss the most about my block:

• Garcia's
• The nice Indian guys at the little liquor store
• Garcia's
• The odd demographic on the block of latinos, lesbians who can't afford A-ville, and millionaires with babies
• The Crafty Beaver around the corner
• Three full store-fronts of knitting yarn. Actually, strike that. Arcadia just closed and I can't say I'm all that surprised because, come to think of it, there was not very much yarn in there for three store fronts and the ladies were mean. But since neither impacts their new business plan as an online store, I wish them all the best.
• and, Garcia's

So long, old pal. You may be seeing me anyway from time to time, if for no other reason than to secure a late night burrito the size of my head with extra avocado. mmm.

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** You may not think this directly relates to the primary content of this blog, but fear not. Ravenswood is an inspired neighborhood of forward-thinking urbanites who cherish their neighborhood gardens, green home design, and post-industrial flair. It is a place where you can walk safely through alleys and find raspberries, pole beans and roses growing freely. It is the people of this great place that inspire me to grow things and make things and cook things and I will miss it. However, we are on to the next chapter of our lives, to a place where I don't have to keep my bikes in my bedroom or ask my land lady if I can put a compost bin in my yard.

Pass the syrup

I get a hankering for pancakes about every other week. A peculiar pancake craving came over me yesterday morning and, alas, there was no syrup in the pantry. Channeling my inner Better Crocker I converted the logic of a simple syrup to brown sugar. I could not tell the difference, and in fact, I may save myself $7 for a 12 oz. bottle of maple syrup and make it this way all of the time...

Brown Sugar Pancake Syrup

1/2 cup of pressed brown sugar

1 tsp. cornstarch

1 cup hot water (not boiling)

Directions:

1. Pour hot water into a small sauce pan containing brown sugar and cornstarch. Set heat to medium-high and whisk until sugar dissolves.
2. Stir constantly until boiling.
3. Continue to boil for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly
4. Pour into serving pitcher and enjoy hot or cooled.

WWLID: What would Laura Ingalls Do?

I'm still on a bit of a pioneer kick and as the wind whips against the window panes and the air turns colder, my thoughts are turning to winter, using up what precious fresh market produce I have left and making it last.

While I won't have the burden of hiking through 6 feet of snow to shoot jack rabbits, I'd like to eat an apple in the middle of the winter and not pay $2.39 a pound for a mealy, squishy, overall bad apple. At times like this, I ask myself, "What would Laura Ingalls do?" How would Laura eat an apple in February without one of those big box stores that now roam the high prairie in greater numbers than jack rabbits?

Thus, today was my first attempt at making dried fruit from scratch. No more mealy, squishy apples in winter; no more $4.00 for a bag of air and sulfur dioxide.

Want to try too? It was super easy!

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Dried Fruit

Fruit of choice

1 lemon

12 cups water

Directions:

1. Wash or peel fruit, then pit or core if applicable. Slice larger fruits into thin slices.

2. Soak in lemon water for a few minutes while oven pre-heats at 90-150 deg-F

3. Line a baking sheet with parchment and place in a single layer, not touching.

4. Place trays in oven and wait several hours. Resist the urge to turn up the heat.

5. Let sit out over night (at least 12 hours) before packing away in air-tight containers

Lauren Warnecke, M.S., M.C.

You know you are in good company when a group full of middle aged women in applique vests, young eco-hipsters (like myself), and old men who rent greenhouses for the winter can share a potluck dinner while passing around gifts of worm poo while the mistress of ceremony tells stories about her lifelong passion for compost and childhood trips to the circus to pick up elephant manure.

Last night I proudly and officially assumed the title of Master Composter. So far I think it's safe to say the I've used this title much more than the one for which I owe the US government an ungodly amount of cash.

The MC program was something I did on a whim, but in hindsight it was exactly what I was looking for to engage a change of lifestyle, and perspective. I met new people who are doing incredible things to conserve our resources and reduce waste. Without this program, I wouldn't look at garbage and wonder if my worms can eat it; I wouldn't want to make things from scratch, or clean things with vinegar, or mend old clothes instead of buying new ones.

Humbling, indeed

Living simple is complicated

After returning from a weekend trip away, the cupboard is bare. I always make a point before traveling of using up any fresh ingredients that might spoil while I'm away. But this was a rather whirlwind trip, and it didn't occur to me that (1) it wasn't really long enough for everything to spoil, and (2) there was no time before returning to work to go to the store and replenish the bounty.

As a result, the past few days have been really-creative-meal wise. Determined to eat at home and not order food (having eaten in restaurants for the entire weekend), I was nearly brought to tears standing in the kitchen at 11:30pm on a Tuesday night mashing pinto beans by hand into refried beans (for which I have no salsa or chips) with a red sauce made from frozen tomatoes and a slightly past-peak summer squash on the stove, and a mystery casserole in the oven.

Tears of joy, or tears of pain?
Yes.

It feels pretty good to take a pantry of nothing and freezer of next to nothing and make four full days of food out of it. It is envigorating to make things from scratch; if I have one goal in life it's to make as many things from scratch as possible. And, I feel as though I could definitely survive an atomic bomb or the apocalypse given my uncanny ability to create a variety of meals from dried beans, rice, chicken, frozen tomatoes and slightly off squash.

On the other hand, no one should be mashing beans after 9pm on a school night.

When people lived in a time where everything was made from scratch they had the whole day to mash beans, churn butter, bake bread, whatever. I, on the other hand, am required to spend eight hours of the day with my butt in a chair and have few precious moments between, say, 8 and 11pm to try and "live simply". I'm not saying I work harder; butt-in-chair is not hard, it's just extremely time consuming.

So what, then, is the point? Why do I do this to myself when I could, with a lot less effort and a roughly equal amount of money, eat a TV dinner every night? It almost feels like in this day and age, living "simply" is less simple than living a technological, busy-body, microwaved life. Why does everyone say "I'm so busy," or "I don't have any time" when we spend SO much time sitting on our butts?