Well this Sunday I was watching Food Network (which for me is the equivilent of watching church on TV). I was watching Giada at home to be exact. Low and behold one of the dishes she was making was a herbed quinoa! There it was my first quinoa siting on the Food Nedtwork! Quinoa is moving up in the ranks, from D lister to B lister, congrats little pseudo grain on your rise to stardom.

Speaking with our lawyers and a new contact with experience in non-profit fundraising, I understand there are several main ways we can proceed:

1. Register as a 501c3
2. Proceed as an individual and donate the proceeds of the book to charities ourselves
3. Partner with a charity to gain a sponsorship agreement, of which there are different levels, but the main point being that the existing 501c3 agrees to receive funds on behalf of the cookbook. Whether the charity put all the proceeds to work or allowed us to allocate some to other causes would be up for negotiation.

(1) is the hardest to do and requires the most paperwork but allows the most flexibility
(2) is the easiest but the donations are not tax free and it could be personally risky
(3) allows tax free donations but is difficult to find and negotiate with a charity (in our limited experience so far)

A conversation I recently had (Thanks Catherine!) opens up a new possibility. It is kind of like (3) above, but allows for local foundations to be the sponsor. My new homework assignment is to read through this site and see if we have a new contender! http://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/nonprofits/

Here it is just in case you missed it!

My husband and I are trying to eat less meat – a lot less meat. So recently I have been wandering around grocery stores, specialty shops, and corner markets trying to find ingredients.

The first place that I noticed quinoa was in the market on the first floor of my apartment building. I came in looking for soy sauce and Asian pears, and ended up finding quinoa flakes, along with quinoa seeds and tons of other neat grains. All just 5 minutes away from my apartment. I didn’t end up buying any quinoa products from this store (they were a bit pricey), but it was a happy accident. Plus I have never seen quinoa flakes anywhere in NYC or Jersey, so for me this was a great find! Especially since all of the food blogs on my google reader have really been into using quinoa flakes for baking.

The next discovery I made was quinoa pasta. I was on the hunt for puff pastry and filo dough. The store that I was in didn’t carry either of those, as I was leaving I walked down the pasta aisle. There in a bright blue-green box was quinoa pasta! Tons of it. There was spaghetti, linguine, penne, farfalle, tri-colore – tons of variety! I frequent this store a lot, and actually looked for quinoa pasta there about a month ago, and there was none to be found.

These recent finding are proving that this quinoa craze is really catching on! So if you don’t see quinoa products in your grocery store now, keep checking! You never know when they will show up! I usually find the quinoa seeds in with the rice aisle or in the specialty/health food aisle. The quinoa pasta was in the pasta aisle.

Several thoughts occurred to me as I browsed the offerings. There are so many messages and stakeholders related to the environment. There is an organization doing good work in almost any area you can think of and that is a great statement about the world. How many of us have actually convinced ourselves that there is nothing we can do to help preserve our planet for future generations? Do we justify our inaction because we might not agree with a particular charity? That we cannot make a difference? I was reminded of my own inspiration that leads me in helping to create this book: we can all make a difference three times a day! This festival helped me remember that each of us has something to offer the world and even though these contributions come in all shapes and sizes they are all valuable. We should be proud of this!

At the same time, the massive commercialization of the green movement can be concerning. I often feel like it is too easy for large corporations to pay lip service to conservation while very few of us have the time or ability to verify their “greenness”. But what is the alternative? How else can we satisfy so many human beings but with massive industry?

It was such a beautiful day that I also was touched by just how great it is to be alive in the warm sunshine with like minded people who care about preserving this right for others.

Perhaps the largest thing I took from the afternoon was that I would like to eat less meat than I currently do. In fact, I would like us all to eat less meat. That is truly a way we could all make a difference every day. For all the vegans and vegetarians out there, I acknowledge your effort and choices. Thanks!

What I didn’t picture was 1) the fact that I would be baking these Easter goodies at midnight, the night before Easter, after a frenzied day of unpacking from our move. 2) Didn’t realize that I only had chocolate frosting, not vanilla. Therefore there were no pastel goodies decorating anyone’s dessert table, just dark chocolate blobs.

Anyways, every food judge know you always get more points for taste than appearance, and these chocolate topped wonders were delish!

(sorry there are no pics, the camera was not yet unpacked!)

Vanilla Quinoa Cupcakes:

Ingredients:
2 cups quinoa flour (unsifted)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 1/4 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup milk
4 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 350. In large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, shortening, and milk. Blend at low speed, Beat 1 1/2 minutes at medium speed. Add egg whites and vanilla and continue beating 1 1/2 minutes at medium speed. Pour into two round cake pans that are greased and floured on bottom. Bake for 20-25 minutes until center springs back when lightly touched.

Some interesting notes

a vegetarian consumes between 1/100th to 1/1000th of the water that a carnivore uses.

Waste water in cities is a resource as it is high in carbon and phosphorous and plants that separate the chemicals from the water produce two goods. Inputs for fertilizer and water for irrigation

Over 1.1 billion humans live in areas with fresh water shortages

There is a markup of 500% in parts of india between retail and wholesale water, depending on what time of year it is. This leads to certain produces costing 5 times more at one part of the year compared with another. Simple capital investment and mass farming techniques could limit water shortages dramatically.

When New York City began to meter individual water use by building in 1998, usage declined by 20%