What's in a recipe?

The Oreo Cookie Cake tasted good and was easy, albeit time consuming, to make. So, it was a good candidate for the Instant Runoff Voting dessert sampling party. It wasn't until after there was no turning back that I realized how trash/recycling intensive this little project was... The plastic Oreo Cookie packaging and tubs of Cool Whip aside (I was going to make whipped topping from scratch but caved to convenience and followed the recipe), parties - at least what I'm used to - produce a fair amount of trash. Am I supposed to bake my own crackers? Good grief.

Landfill Makover

Throwing out that stuff you can't throw out because you think it might be useful someday even though it's been ten years since you put it in a Ziploc...just in case.

Result...

A friend informs me that I have successfully shamed her and her husband into giving the compost pile another go. Shame has its place, although I didn't set out to inflict it on anyone. In any event, my friends have given me something to say were I ever pressed to earn my keep.

I was lucky. I never had any problems with composting. I read about it. I researched different types of composting bins, but couldn't make a decision. Then one day when Brian noticed that I was collecting egg shells and carrot peelings on the countertop (at one point, bin or no bin, I couldn't bring myself to trash this stuff), he did what he is good at doing and made a decision. For thirty dollars, he came home with a standard-issue county subsidized bin he bought at the Re-use Center. It works great and, most importantly, it let us get started. That's so often the tough part. Starting.