Julie’s Blog
This was one green party with no political leanings. “Wear green. Eat green. Live green.” was the theme, and did we ever!
Jerica and I spent a few days cleaning, sewing, and cooking in preparation for the party. We had about 20 people (I think just under; I made 15 party favors [an unhemmed cotton double-knit hankie/dust rag/polishing cloth and a (hemmed) green cotton napkin folded together and tied with a green ribbon] and I forgot to give one to the first person to leave, but I think each of the rest of the crowd got one and then we ran out with the last guest, plus Jerica and me).
Food: organic celery, broccoli, cucumbers, green olives, dill pickles, assorted organic crackers including gluten-free varieties, organic tortilla chips (yellow and blue make green), organic kiwi fruit, green apple and pear slices, green grapes, pineapple (green on the outside), spinach pizza rolls, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, locally-baked ciabatta bread dipped in olive oil, hot spinach-artichoke dip, guacamole, and the ever-popular cilantro/chickpea/yogurt dip (several people asked for the recipe). Oh, and one contraband selection: green apple candy. And to drink: water infused with lime and mint.
Activities: compose limericks about environmentally-friendly practices, the "ABC"s of green living (a game I made up consisting of 26 die-cut letters on green card stock [to correspond to the 26 letters of the English alphabet] on which people wrote green-living tips that begin with the letter on which they were writing. Each letter received at least one tip and people had a lot of fun with it, although some of the "tips" are of slightly questionable quality; people were going for quantity and sacrificing some integrity in the process. The teams were pencils vs. pens and the idea was to add up which team had more ideas at the end, although I didn't end up actually doing that), Irish music both recorded and live, and lots of conversations.
I put out a resource table: the Green Bible, dictionaries (for the ABCs
game), magazines and books on eco-living, and of course NCC contributions. The idea was that people would browse through those resources for ideas for their limericks and green-living tips, but I'm not sure that happened very much. Oh well. I wanted it to feel more like a party than an education hour, although I hope it was a little of both. Even things like having all the food natural and healthy, serving on real dishes, composting the leftovers, providing cloth napkins while they ate and for their take-away gift. . . . I mean, we used very little disposable stuff. Of course, the best part of all that was that we already had the compost pile, the cloth napkins, the dishes, etc. We already live that way, so it was easy to implement and model.
I felt like it was a good party and accomplished its purposes--mostly around getting people to think about efforts they can make in small, everyday ways--considering how little effort I put into it!
Saint Patty’s Report
Thursday, March 19, 2009
