…creating probiotics from the orchard, field and garden…

Saturday, January 21^st, 2012 -10am to 3pm

Little Lake Grange Kitchen

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An introduction to several delicious and easy ferments:

Raw Yogurt – Easy to make from Raw  Milk & a simple starter

Goat Cheese – from “Curds & Whey” (simple) to Chevre’ – Sara Grusky will show you how

Sourdough breads – Ursula Partch shows us how to bake traditional bread that is highly digestible (& take home a local wild sourdough starter)

Sauerkraut– A tasty & health giving condiment from cabbage & veggies

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It’s hard to imagine life without refrigeration, but humans have been preserving and preparing foods without refrigeration for eons.  Fermenting vegetables, dairy, and fruit preserves them through the winter until the next harvest. But even more importantly, fermentation allows critical organisms to colonize in our food and our gut, protecting us and balancing our ecology and health. We can’t maintain health without our symbiotic organisms and bacteria. So even if you can’t manage to grow food where you live, you can still ferment foods and populate your gut with their bounty.  Let us learn yet another way to restore our health and ourselves by preserving & using local seasonal foods.  We will focus on Vinegar since it is the season to use those juicy apples, grapes & pears, but cabbage is ready to harvest too!  Let’s get started creating a new culture right at home with our healthy local foods.

Natural fermentation precedes human history; it happens by accident when the conditions are right for ripe fruit to slowly age in the heat of summer, or when honey and water mix in warm weather. Since ancient times, humans have been controlling the fermentation process. Thus humans have been preserving foods without refrigeration for eons. Fermenting vegetables, dairy, and fruit preserves them through the winter until the next harvest. But even more importantly, fermentation allows critical organisms to colonize in our food and our gut, protecting us and balancing our ecology and health.

Every successful & healthy indigenous culture appears to use some form of fermented food in their daily diet.  Dr. Weston A. Price studied these surviving cultures & found that the Austrians have their yogurt & sauerkraut; the Russians make their yogurt, the Swiss their Sourdough Rye, the Japanese – Miso, Natto.  The Chinese eat Taosi fermented beans; Africans eat soured grain breads in many places.   There are also many cultural fermented drinks, beyond the wines & beer we are familiar with.

Lactic acid preserves food by inhibiting putrefying bacteria. This organic acid is produced by a beneficial bacterium present on the surface of all plants and animals – even our own skin! Traditional cuisines from around the world prized lactofermented foods and beverages for their medicinal properties as well as delicious taste. Most traditional cuisines included at least one fermented food or beverage with every meal, which worked to improve digestion and nutrient absorption

Think of lactofermented foods as “super-raw” foods; the enzymes in lacto-fermented foods more than compensate for the enzymes lost in the foods that are cooked. Regular consumption of traditionally fermented foods and drinks promotes the growth of healthy flora and overall balance in the intestines.  Healthy intestines equals long life & reduced incidence of Arthritis, Heart Disease., and more. Lactofermented foods are rich in enzymes as well as beneficial bacteria.  Eat some with every cooked meal.  Teach your children to love them from an early age.  Yogurt is surely the easiest to learn to love at a young age.  Let’s make some home made yogurt & other tasty ferments!

If you miss this class, I can let you know when it will be repeated.  Email me at awaters@pacific.net or call 77-459-6362.

The Farm Bill is up for reauthorization in 2012, and if we can implement certain changes, we can create a healthy food system for everyone.

Yes, folks – seems like we just did this yesterday – but…

The Farm Bill is up again!  This time Monsanto & gang are pinning our Legislature to the wall…who will win?  The small farmer & the food eater?

OR

the fat cats?

Take a look at the…fun & enlightening video on You Tube…

We gotta get this information out there…pass it on…see more at Food & Water Watch

WE CAN ALL Stop shopping at Corporate stores, stop eating corporate food, it is all owned by the same guys & their brothers, the ones that brought us loss of jobs, loss of our homes, loss of our monetary independence.  It makes dollars & sense, it puts money back in the local community, it is sustainable.

It-is-all-connected… & the destination for any continuing abuse of the body politic & your body, temple of our spirit – is sickness in community & in health.

What I am saying is we start spending our precious dollars in our own community, buy locally grown food, go to the Farmer’s Market, make a statement with our pocketbooks – we will feel good about it & will feel better physically too!

I spent the last few days creating and presenting a workshop on Fermentation, the live food chemistry kind.  It fits in with my political rant here as you have let me say – Fermentation of simple, garden grown, local food gives many health benefits & helps stretch inexpensive food dollars, as well as using produce from field & garden.  It keeps us out of the stores & helps us gather some “stores” of REAL FOOD.

We all loved the experience of making sauerkraut together, finding tastes that are new yet delightful & generally getting more deeply informed around the topics of yogurt, cheese, sauerkraut, vinegar, kombucha & sourdough.  You can buy all these things or you can make them at a fraction of the cost, finding many ingredients in your locally owned farm stand or market. I encourage you to find such a class in your area or make one happen, it is about LIVE Food, Bio-available nutrients, Happy enzymes & intestines…all good stuff.   I give thanks to my students who trusted me to guide them into the shallow waters of Live Fermentation…simple cottage ferments, political ferments…  may we all find our way to the middle of the river, where deeper information resides, and a lifetime of experimentation brings new thoughts to the mix!

Certainly discovering the vast stores of knowledge at Sandor Katz’s website will be a beginning no Fermenter will regret.

And, oh yes – it is very political to grow & eat your own food, or get raw milk from a farmer down the road, let’s take that to the streets too!

…creating probiotics from the orchard, field and garden…

Saturday, October 1^st, 2011 -10am to 2pm

Little Lake Grange  Kitchen

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An introduction to several delicious and easy ferments:

Vinegar – Make your own vinegar from this year’s “Bad Apples” – take home a vinegar “Mother”

Yogurt – Easy to make from Raw or Pasteurized Milk & a simple starter

Cottage Cheese “Curds & Whey” – simple and nutritious

Sourdough starters and breads – how to make your own starter & take home a starter

Sauerkraut– A tasty & health giving condiment from cabbage & veggies

Kombucha – Sparkling “Health Beer” from common wild & garden herbs for health & well being.

It’s hard to imagine life without refrigeration, but humans have been preserving and preparing foods without refrigeration for eons.  Fermenting vegetables, dairy, and fruit preserves them through the winter until the next harvest. But even more importantly, fermentation allows critical organisms to colonize in our food and our gut, protecting us and balancing our ecology and health. We can’t maintain health without our symbiotic organisms and bacteria. So even if you can’t manage to grow food where you live, you can still ferment foods and populate your gut with their bounty.  Let us learn yet another way to restore our health and ourselves by preserving & using local seasonal foods.  We will focus on Vinegar since it is the season to use those juicy apples, grapes & pears, but cabbage is ready to harvest too!  Let’s get started creating a new culture right at home with our healthy local foods.  Sourdough starters are provided by several local “Sourdough Personalities”.

Natural fermentation precedes human history, it happens by accident when the conditions are right for ripe fruit to slowly age in the heat of summer, or when honey and water mix in warm weather. Since ancient times, humans have been controlling the fermentation process. Thusly humans have been preserving foods without refrigeration for eons. Fermenting vegetables, dairy, and fruit preserves them through the winter until the next harvest. But even more importantly, fermentation allows critical organisms to colonize in our food and our gut, protecting us and balancing our ecology and health.

Every successful & healthy indigenous culture appears to use some form of fermented food in their daily diet.  Dr. Weston A. Price studied these surviving cultures & found that the Austrians have their yogurt & sauerkraut, the Russians make their yogurt, the Swiss their Sourdough Rye, the Japanese – Miso, Natto.  The Chinese eat Taosi fermented beans, Africans eat soured grain breads in many places.   There are also many cultural fermented drinks, beyond the wines & beer we are familiar with.

Lactic acid preserves food by inhibiting putrefying bacteria. This organic acid is produced by a beneficial bacterium present on the surface of all plants and animals – even our own skin! Traditional cuisines from around the world prized lactofermented foods and beverages for their medicinal properties as well as delicious taste. Most traditional cuisines included at least one fermented food or beverage with every meal, which worked to improve digestion and nutrient absorption

Think of lactofermented foods as “super-raw” foods; the enzymes in lacto-fermented foods more than compensate for the enzymes lost in the foods that are cooked. Regular consumption of traditionally fermented foods and drinks promotes the growth of healthy flora and overall balance in the intestines.  Healthy intestines equals long life & reduced incidence of Arthritis, Heart Disease., and more. Lacto-fermented foods are rich in enzymes as well as beneficial bacteria.  Eat some with every cooked meal.  Teach your children to love them from an early age.  Yogurt is surely the easiest to learn to love at a young age.  Let’s make some home made yogurt & other tasty ferments!

If you miss this class, I can let you know when it will be repeated.  Email me at awaters@pacific.net or call 77-459-6362.

It is a bit of heaven here…so much wildlife…there are even two swans that cruise the lake at all times looking Fairy Tale-ish. They come around our shore & into our water lilies at about 9am to feed…so beautiful!  Sometimes I hear a loon in the early morning & we saw it yesterday too; lots of Canadian Geese honking & flying past.  As to edible fowl, I am rooted in the modern agricultural 21^st Century & will leave the wild birds to themselves as we eat chickens raised for the purpose.

I have eaten really well this trip.  A far cry from the days when I brought a lot of my own food from California – raw sunflower seeds, brown rice & such as it was very difficult to make a trip into Kalamazoo where there was a great Coop.  The local market seemed to have only browning heads of iceburg lettuce, some soft red delicious apples, and bananas. Nowadays , it seems that every small town market has rice crackers, organic butter, fruit & lettuce.

Truth is – Great fresh & seasonal local foods have always been available during a Michigan summer – my childhood memories include heaps of corn on the cob & fresh tomatoes in August, peas by the bowlful & lots of squash.  August was always a healthy food month for us.  We tired ourselves out with canning many quarts of peaches, tomatoes, grape juice, and made jams and pickles.  I learned to make sauerkraut with my neighbor too.  The root cellar was packed by the time I started school, and could take a break from being my mom’s “peeler & cutter-upper”

So – back to the barbeque leftovers of yesterday… let’s make some bone broth & soup!

Got your leftover chicken bits?

Making soup stock from those old bones & skin…so good for you too!  The vinegar breaks down the bones into Calcium, releases the nutrient in the marrow. And, all of that “gristle” is also melted & becomes liquid in the hot broth.  Bone Broth is medicine food – a healthy builder of bones & ligament for all of us.

Take the edible meat off of that ole chicken whether baked or BBQ’ed,

Add all the bones, skin & gristle into a pot of water & boil for several hours with any herbs you have – thyme, bay leaf, sage, rosemary.  If you have a bit of wine or vinegar or even some Italian Dressing, add a big spoonful of that too.

Strain out the bones & bits, then add cut up vegetables to the broth…

We still had sliced onion & ripe red tomatoes from the hamburger fixin’s, so they went in.

I also had 4 ears of boiled fresh corn on the cob waiting to be used up, as well as a heap of baked potatoes, sliced summer squash, cut up yellow peppers, and some other crudités that didn’t make it into anyone’s salad or sandwich.  Add a handful of celery, carrots, garlic, if you have it.  Cook it all until tender & add your meat back in.  Salt & pepper to taste.   This soup is so fresh & good!   Mine came out very much like a stew from so many veggies added.  Yours will be a unique reminder of the party you just had.  Toasted Hamburger or Hot Dog Buns are almost as good as French bread with this Summer Cottage soup of the day.

You have a right to know what is in your food, and further – you have a right to eat what you think is healthy & good for you.  it is a matter of Freedom to choose.  Why cry over spilt milk?

Here are the facts…

Green Uprising Farm has received notice of violation from the California Department of Food and Agriculture demanding that they “cease and desist” the sale or giving away of milk produced at their small dairy.  Green Uprising has been providing wholesome, fresh milk to shareholders who have purchased an ownership interest in their herd for some time.

They are going to be supported by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

The long story is posted on my friend Dave Smith’s blog, and here’s the short version…

As Sara Grusky, who manages the dairy herd, says:

“According to the Calif Dept. of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) this is a threat to the public health. Our children, our grandchildren, friends, family, neighbors and shareholders all drink raw milk directly from the teats of goats boarded at our farm (my goodness!) and we are all alive and well, happy and healthy. In fact, if you go back three or four generations most everyone who consumed milk drank it raw from a family farm in their community. But, according to CDFA, our shareholders don’t have the right to drink raw milk from a goat herd they have purchased an ownership interest in. According to CDFA, they know better than you what’s good for you. And, they think that pasteurized milk from a feedlot dairy where large amounts of antibiotics are used (due to the unhealthy conditions) and Bovine Growth Hormone (a genetically engineered artificial growth hormone) may be given to stimulate milk production, is healthier than the milk I hand milk into glass jars from my ten precious goats. You have got to be kidding…”

Friends…this is a frontal assault on our right to choose our food.
Action Alert-  GET INVOLVED!  This is not a test!.. or a meeting to plan
for an idealized future – this is action needed …on the ground… right
now - a need for all of us who love local food to show up & create our future of food, keep our ancient human food rights!

What can you do???

1- Come to the movie showing & community discussion on July 15th at the Willits Grange -7pm

FARMAGEDDON – The Film

Link to Trailer >>see it & click here…

Americans’ right to access fresh, healthy foods of their choice is under
attack.  Farmageddon highlights the urgency of food freedom, encouraging
farmers and consumers alike to take action to preserve individuals’ rights
to access food of their choice and farmers’ rights to produce these foods
safely and free from unreasonably burdensome regulations. The film serves
to put policymakers and regulators on notice that there is a growing
movement of people aware that their freedom to choose the foods they want
is in danger, a movement that is taking action with its dollars and its
voting power to protect and preserve the dwindling number of family farms that are struggling to survive.

2- Come on the 15th & hear what Sara, her husband, and their shareholders plan to do in the face of CDFA’s demands and how you can help.
3- ALSO READ MORE ABOUT RAW MILK & YOUR RIGHTS:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/06/15/ron-paul-vs-the-fda-milk-police.aspx

4-  To take action on National Milk issues, send a Fax to Your Legislators – Ask Them to Co-Sponsor & Pass HR 1830

112th U.S. Congress – House Bill HR 1830

(Go to http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/petitions/pnum1079.php)

Congressman Ron Paul has once again introduced a bill that would allow the
interstate shipment of raw milk and raw milk products for human
consumption, HR 1830.

* We believe that there is a fundamental right to produce and consume the
foods of our choice including raw milk, contrary to FDA’s claim that there
is no such right in its response to a lawsuit over this same matter.

* We believe the federal ban against transporting raw milk for human
consumption across state lines is a violation of our rights, despite FDA’s
assertion that any transaction that involves crossing state lines with
such milk is illegal.
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/petitions/pnum1079.php

ALSO READ MORE ABOUT RAW MILK & YOUR RIGHTS:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/06/15/ron-paul-vs-the-fda-milk-police.aspx

Annie Brigit Waters

Thus does the public evil come home to each of us:
Straining, the courtyard gates no longer hold fast,
The evil leaps o’er the high walls; it finds everyone,
Even him fleeing to the inmost chamber.

– Solon

“The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest
are rarely the strong. The fittest are those endowed with the
qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and
conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing
conditions.”

We all have a ‘Right to Know’ before we make decisions that will effect our health, happiness, lives & future. it is that simple. Get educated. Take a stand. It is your RIGHT 2 KNOW!  This new category of posts & information will bring attention to current issues that we all have a ‘Right to Know’ about.
The theme for the Sustainability Road Show tour this year is Right2Know – so I am inspired to start  a blog with themes of Right2Know that they could use!  Zack sez to think about this…
…we have the right2know about GMO’s.
We have the right2know that .51 cents per every tax dollar goes to fund military initiatives
We have the right2know the environmental effects of chevron’s drilling in the Amazon.

The R2K moment has been around for years – all over the world – mostly to do with Freedom of Information, Government Legislation & Hazardous Substances facts.

SO – Let’s stretch the definition back, back – to the common commonsensical right to know what we are putting into our mouths, what we are drinking & what we are breathing.  The commons includes the Earth, the Air, The Water.  it is our Right to Know when they have been changed or altered from the pure sources of life that all beings on this planet rely on.

Right to know is a concept that is both common sense as well as crucial to the health and stability of a community. Individuals in communities around the world are exposed to harmful pollutants and in some cases disasters in which were cased by corporation’s neglect. As a result, many have died and even more have been injured or have been stricken with detrimental health problems. Due to the demand for a decline in tragic events as well as safe living environments, Right to know has been pushed to indirectly restrict the harmful actions of corporations. With the ability to research one’s pollutant emissions, corporation are less inclined to pollute and carry out harmful environmental effect.

Here are some R2K websites & links to give you background for our discussion.

“Right to know“, in the context of United States workplace and community environmental law, is the legal principle that the individual has the right to know the chemicals to which they may be exposed in their daily living. It is embodied in federal law in the United States as well as in local laws in several states. “Right to Know” laws take two forms: Community Right to Know and Workplace Right to Know. Each grants certain rights to those groups. The “right to know” was a movement made popular by Rachel Carson with her book Silent Spring.

The Right2Know Campaign (R2K) is a South African nation-wide coalition of people and organisations opposed to the Protection of Information Bill – also known as the Secrecy Bill – currently before the South African parliament. The Bill will threaten hard-won constitutional rights including access to information and freedom of expression.?? R2K believes a responsive and accountable democracy able to meet the basic needs of our people is built on transparency and the free flow of information. The R2K campaign statement – “Let the truth be told. Stop the Secrecy Bill!” – demands that the Bill be drastically rewritten to bring it in line with constitutional values, or thrown out.

Australia’s Right to Know is a coalition of 12 major media companies formed in May 2007 to address concerns about free speech. The coalition is working with the Commonwealth and State governments to establish new policy and best practice to improve Australian’s relatively poor world ranking for freedom of speech. Australia’s Right to Know has also commissioned independent research into freedom of speech issues.

Canadian RTK is about information accessibility.  Freedom of information legislation refers to the regime for accessing public information held by a government. It generally indicates what information is accessible by the public and what is not, such as, personal information or information related to national security in times of war.

The Right-to-Know Network is one source, helping advocates push for improved access to government-held information on the environment, health, and safety. The Right-to-Know Network provides free access to numerous databases and resources on the environment. With the information available on RTK NET, you can identify specific factories and their environmental effects; find permits issued under environmental statutes; and identify civil cases filed.

Back to the USA…What do you want to know about?  To discuss? Corporate power, GMO Food labels, tax allocation, raids on raw milk producers, the effects of bottled water usage in your body? It is possibly endless…ok, so we prioritize>>>
What topics are the most pressing…should we specifically address first?  Fuel useage, fracking, rail funding cuts, CIA control of Facebook? [Just kidding...not!] etc, etc…so many things happening…sheezz,  how about a new discussion category called “we’re in deep shit”

Solution based ideas & comments invited, I always need a positive reason to get out of bed in the morning.

-Annie

The best part of my day at Harmony Festival (and there were some great moments!) was discovering the SUSTAINABLE LIVING ROAD SHOW and the Eco-Grove…

a variety of attractions and vendors – ranging from live art to a living mandala to a “guess your carbon footprint” calculator and a whole myriad of other things in between.  Well – yes- seeing Caroline W. Casey was an unequaled unrivaled wordsmithing  blast…but that’s a subject for another day…

A rare family day for me & walking into the Eco-Grove took us right into a carnival!  Five year old Adrien was immediately completely at home & wanted to be there more than anything else all day long – including the climbing structure.  Why not?  Brilliant – the eco-carnival games – yes, getting out sustainability information – not as a lecture or a blog – or any other wordy attempt to educate, but rather – as fun!

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Tossing out Fossil Fuels – a favorite.  You toss bean bags at pictures of ugly drilling rigs or big trucks & if you hit it- it turns to a colorful image of a solar panel or a bus (They forgot to put in a train, darn it!)  All for a donation of – whatever you want.

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Eco-opolis, a Model Green City was a favorite! Here you invest money (tossing coins) into various structures & areas of a Dream Green city built entirely from discards & trash.

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Very fun & punny too!  Best place of all – the LOVE Factory, definitely my next job will be working here…Hard to hit, but Adrien did it, that’s my boy – a love factory investor.

I am sure that what these folks are doing is making a big difference in kids & adult lives, how can you not think about use of fuels or what we are doing for public health when you play these games!?

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Or – how about getting completely covered in mud while you help build a house!  That would have appealed more if I had a change of clothes

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The Earth Mandala was housed under a bamboo structure made by one of their amazing interns,  Ben.  He spent weeks leading up to the festival working on the project – and I must say that all his hard work paid off.  The bamboo structure only added to the impressiveness of the mandala – I mean, it’s an amazing thing on its own, but with this beautifully designed structure, it was incredible! 

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Best of all – way up inside were huge flying honeybees letting us know how important their work is – can you read it?  [1/3 of the human diet requires pollination from our friends - the honeybees]

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~Carbon Footprint anyone?  I am stoked that my carbon footprint appears to be on the extreme lower edge of normal.  Well, I thought I would register even better – but, without cheating on the numbers – it is time for that solar hot water heater!  Maybe that NEV (Neighborhood Electric Car) that I keep threatening to find.

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~Or keeping chickens – that’s it!  Eggs galore & no more slugs, now – that would be paradise…

Back on track (sayings about trains abound!) – I want to mention that you can visit the SUSTAINABLE LIVING ROAD SHOW at their website – even if they don’t come soon to a city near you…you won’t be sorry!

Tulsi®  Solar Electric Oven Hybrid

Experience for yourself the “Solar Electric Oven” advantages!

It’s the ULTIMATE in solar cooking technology

• Operates three ways: On FREE solar power alone or on 110v. AC electric power alone or using in tandem both solar and electric.
• Nationally recognized the solar electric oven is a greener way to cook outdoors. No smoke, no open fire or fossil fuels required.
• Thermostatically controlled to save energy & increase reliable and safe operation.
• Cooking on “electric mode” keeps your food safe should the day’s solar energy be lost.
• Cooks cloudy days, partly cloudy days and all the sunny days, too.
• Easy learning curve. Start cooking from the first day.
• Save on your electric bills with our low wattage solar electric oven.
• Keep your house cooler, think “Summer kitchen”
• Completely reliable & economical the solar electric oven puts FUN back into cooking.
• Even when the weather is less than ideal you can still enjoy delicious food cooked year round.

Buy your new full sized SunFocus™ or the Mid-sized Tulsi® solar hybrid electric oven from me – Annie Green Jeans.

Call me at   707-459-2418 or   707-459-6362   to place your order.

We accept MasterCard, Visa, PayPal or cash.

Open Circle  190 North St  Willits, CA 95490

Proprietor:  Annie Waters

~~~

The Sun BD Corporation is so sure that you will be 100% satisfied with the performance of our solar electric ovens that within the first 30 days of purchase, should you for some reason not be satisfied, we will refund your full purchase price, no questions asked!

COMING SOON!

SunFocus™  Solar Electric Oven

FULL SIZED SOLAR ELECTRIC OVEN

The SunFocus™ solar electric oven offers superior cooking performance, high quality workmanship and the largest cooking capacity of any other solar electric cooking oven on the market today and it’s made in the U.S.A.

~~~~~~

New Improved  Tulsi®  solar electric oven:

Hybrid Oven Features:

• High performance solar oven with “energy miser” back up AC 110v electric elements…
  (Allowing ANYTIME cooking)
• Ultimate in solar oven technology up to 400F… (Convenient, reliable, economical)
• 90% reflective scratch resistant reflector panel for longer wear and higher cooking temps…
  (Higher reflectivity than a standard glass mirror)
• Double paned oven window instead of the typical single pane…
  (Holds trapped energy longer for superior heating)
• Double rubber oven seals instead of a single seal… (Better long term heat retention)
• Attachable “Temp. Booster” reflector panels… (Higher Temperature Cooking)
• Larger internal cooking chamber…
  (Cook 4 different food items at one time or how about one large pizza)
• Slow baked for better tasting food
• Smoke Free cooking
• More environmentally friendly than burning “traditional” fuels like wood, propane, or even charcoal
• Keep you electric bills down and your home cooler…
  Think outdoor “summer kitchen”.
• Accessories… cooking pots, oven thermometer, padded hot pad/mitt
  (Everything you need to get started solar cooking from day one)
• 24/7 electric back-up system is energy efficient using typically 75% less electrical energy than your standard in-house oven…
  (The cost to operate is pennies)
• Rugged suitcase design offers clamshell like protection to internal parts.
  (Sets up in seconds: Simple as opening a suitcase)
• Portable for easy carrying or transport…
  (Suitcase style design fits easily in car trunk, camper, RV, or boat)
• Larger range: Canada to the tip of South America… (You cannot ‘out travel’ the Tulsi™)
• In case of an emergency… Always be ready! (Solar Electric/Daytime/Nighttime/Anytime)

How It Works!

Use the Tulsi-Hybrid Solar Oven to make an ENTIRE Dinner.

The solar electric oven IS easy to use, portable, set up in seconds and are safer to use because there are no dangerous open flames. Our Solar Electric ovens can be operated in any one of three ways:

It’s the best of all worlds. You can solar cook more often and never have to worry about clouds again. We call using both solar and electric in combination – peace of mind. When the sun is out the oven acts as a solar oven but when the sun disappears the oven acts as an electric oven cycling itself on and off between electric and solar when the sun reappears. Forget the roller coaster cooking temperatures and the threat of bacterial food poisoning that can happen with solar only ovens. Our solar electric ovens are thermostat controlled and maintain the cooking temperature inside the oven chamber so your food is always safe and cooked to perfection even when the weather isn’t.

Solar ovens heat up in proportion to solar UV input.

UV solar input blocked by clouds?  No problem!

TULSI keeps your oven temperature even no matter what the weather, using as littel power as necessary

Solar cooking made practical now and forever!!!

Try a hybrid Solar Electric Oven for Year-Round Results

Cos Law – © Dr. A. Marsh, Square One, www.ecotect.com

The Earth’s orbit around the Sun is not circular but elliptical, meaning that it is closest to the Sun in late December – early January and farthest away in late June – early July. However, this has only a slight effect on the intensity of solar radiation. Of more importance is the axial tilt of the Earth at 23.45°. This means that the path of the Sun through the sky changes significantly throughout the year.

This has an effect because the lower the Sun is in the sky, the more of the Earth’s atmosphere the solar radiation has to pass through in order to reach the surface, thus the more scattering and absorption it is subjected to. When the Sun has a lower elevation angle, the solar energy is less intense because it is spread out over a larger area reducing its intensity and its heating capacity as per the Cos Law.

Simply translated do not expect any solar ONLY cooking device to obtain summer maximum cooking temperature during winter, spring and fall seasonal phases. However, seasonal variation in solar heating capacity is not a problem for our versatile solar electric cooking ovens with built-in thermostatically controlled energy efficient low wattage electrical back–up. Now that you know about Cos’s Law would you ever want to solar cook without back up?

Despite solar cooking’s great potential benefits, it has been held back from achieving universal acceptance due to its one fatal flaw: No sun, No fun, Cold Food! The fact is that solar cooking is a weather dependent activity and that weather conditions constantly change. Successful solar cooking has always depended on clear skies and intense sunlight. But no longer!

Buy your full sized SunFocus™ or the Mid-sized Tulsi® solar hybrid electric oven

from me – Anniegreenjeans.

Available online at our websites : www.solarovenhybrid.com or  www.ancientcircles.com

Call us at   707-459-2418 or   707-459-6362   to place your order.

We accept MasterCard, Visa, PayPal or cash.

Open Circle, 190 North St, Willits, CA 95490

Proprietor:  Annie Waters

The Sun BD Corporation is so sure that you will be 100% satisfied with the performance of our solar electric ovens that within the first 30 days of purchase, should you for some reason not be satisfied, we will refund your full purchase price, no questions asked!

Fresh and local milk & meat were on the table almost every day – even though fresh vegetables were not really available most of the year in Michigan in the 1950’s. But, in summer we were happily eating a lot of it!

Summer meant fresh food and sometimes it was grown in our backyard or from a garden just outside of town. We had a raspberry patch, a few tomato plants & plenty of rhubarb behind the garage. A black walnut tree by the driveway never failed to give us its strangely green fruit.

My grandparents were farm folk and appreciated fresh eggs. Grandma got them from Aunt Esther whenever she could. Grandpa fished almost daily for pan fish – bluegills, perch, sunfish, bass in Wall Lake where I remember the food being particularly great after a day of swimming & outdoor play. Once we crossed the lake on a boat to Aunt Nonie’s cottage where we picked blackberries & huckleberries too. The roads were full of summer farm stands with corn and squash. It was almost daily that dinners were centered on corn on the cob with plenty of butter and salt. Everything else on the menu from those meals has faded from memory, but the taste of fresh corn lingers in my primal brain.

We loved the blueberries, corn & tomatoes from the farm stands, and ate our way through August and on into September when at some point we noticed that the table was now set with canned beans or peas with a side of iceberg lettuce. Phooey!

I remember long hours helping my mother to can peaches, pears, and tomatoes on  hot August afternoons. I sat on the picnic bench & cut, peeled, lifted skins & pits out so that she could make the wonderful jeweled rows of canned fruit that we relied on during those Michigan winters. One year we made grape juice & the deep purple contrasted beautifully with the golden pears & red spaghetti sauce on the shelf in the root cellar. We drank that juice many a Sunday night with our popcorn as we watched the Ed Sullivan show or Disney. No coke or chips were ever in the house and this was a treat indeed!

Now that I think about it- almost all of our sweets were homemade except for ice cream Sunday drives or penny candy bought on trips to Grandma Bogner’s house. Some special Sundays we made fudge with black walnuts that my sister & I cracked using a hammer on the basement floor. They were ready once the fleshy green hulls had blackened and fallen off while being driven over & pushed into the dirt driveway.

One year mom won a prize at the Diamond’s Hatchery where she bought her eggs & chicken. One hundred baby chicks… They were so cute, and noisy! She enterprisingly traded them to a friendly farmer for the prize of a dozen full grown hens. I remember dropping off the chicks into their heated house lined with straw & fitted with water cans & feed cans. The next thing I remember is a line of chickens hanging upside down from the clothesline dripping blood onto the backyard grass. It was a pretty scary sight, so near to my swing set, and I have conveniently forgotten when or how we ate those birds. They entered the food chain and that was it.  Most of us have forgotten the relationship between our food and its death or sacrifice.  Whether a carrot or a chicken, something ended its life cycle for our health & life.  Better that I should experience this chicken harvest again soon, than to forget about this.

More on my early food memories: The milkman delivered quarts of whole milk in glass bottles into the insulated box on our front porch on an almost daily basis. He mysteriously arrived before I was up even on the coldest of winter nights. In our cold Michigan winters, the milk would often freeze in a relatively short time and push the little cardboard tops up. Some mornings, you would find a small tower of frozen milk protruding from the bottle. That little top hat of cream rising out of the top of the bottle was so fun to see. My dad always claimed that for his coffee, and would drink it black once the cream was gone. My mom was proud of her absolutely clean empties that she would put back in the box. Those bottles were re-used so many times, I wonder how many, and where are they now? The milk was processed in a small plant just a few blocks from home, and there were lines of big steel cans sitting on a metal conveyor for years after it closed down, until  housewives started collecting them to paint on, I guess.

Yes, I see now that we ate local food all the time, but it wasn’t a bragging point – it was just how things were. More memories coming soon!Things like riding in the wheat harvesting wagon & making bread & sauerkraut…