A few days ago, Bavardess had a very interesting blog entry about "beaver" as synonym for the vagina (something I had never heard before, though I can claim non-native-speakeriness as excuse) and how this word use probably developed from a medieval play on words. She links to a little video showing a girl having a girl day out with a beaver, all as advertisement for a new brand of tampons.

Which finally makes me write this little bit concerning tampons (or other disposable sanitary products) and green living. Tampons have been a sort of revolution and have become a normal part of modern female life in our part of the world. They are sold in all kinds of different sizes, from different manufacturers, each one claiming to be the one and only brand. But they all have one thing in common with each other (and with the disposable pads as well): They mean a huge waste of energy and material. All  the water and energy needed for production, the raw materials - plastic, cellulose, paper - for making and packaging them - the tampon or disposable tab is used and then discarded, and into the landfill they go. Not so good for our planet, actually.

So maybe it is time for the next revolution, yes? Some re-usable, environment-friendly product that can be worn like a tampon, safe, healthy, and durable? If that sounds like a good idea to you, you might want to buy yourself a menstruation cup. They are called something like Mooncup or Divacup, and they are a silicone cup that is inserted much like a tampon, catching the blood securely.  You can read much, much more about them on this livejournal devoted to the menstrual cups, and on lots of other places on the Internet - as always, the search engine of choice is your friend.

If you are a tampon-user, go try one. They are really wonderful and absolutely worth the money - in fact, not buying any disposable products anymore will save you more than a cup cost very soon. Or maybe it's even a gift idea for the holiday that's almost upon us?

We're in Lent right now, as I was reminded yesterday, and our dinner sort of got me thinking about fasting and fasting in Lent in particular.
We went to some friends yesterday and had dinner there - we brought a salad to go with the pastries our friends prepared. Simple puff pastries filled with minced meat and bell peppers.

It's been a good while since I had bell peppers in a hot meal, because our groceries from the box are seasonal and regional produce, and that means no bell peppers in winter. There are still enough different veggies to prepare meals with, but in the last few months of eating local vegetables, I developed a new and deeper understanding of how wonderful spring and summer is when you are living "the old way". It's true that we can read about it, that connected to Easter festivities is the knowledge that this was to celebrate the beginning of the warm season, et cetera et cetera - but knowing this intellectually and looking forward to spring because it directly influences your diet are two very different things.

So yesterday's addition of bell peppers made that dinner an extremely enjoyable meal for me. With the feeling of true luxury (they were very tasty peppers, too). And I started to wonder about lent in the middle ages - fourty days of food restrictions in a row. Food restrictions normally limited to a few days out of each week, hard enough to understand for our modern minds. And that at more or less the end of the winter season, when the tasty treats conserved for the cold half of the year are probably gone or mostly gone, when chickens might stop laying so many eggs, when everyone is probably tired of eating beans, lentils and cabbage dishes.

So. The rather bland winter diet (bland at least compared to summer and autumn fare), followed by a period of even blander food, cutting out meat altogether. Fourty days of scarcity, and then - Easter, the high church festival of the year, the onset of spring, the feasting with meat and eggs and whathaveyou. Somehow, this makes me think of intentional deprivation to heighten the impact of the feasting and celebrating. Digging into the foodie goodness prepared for the Easter meal must have been something really, really special after seasonal winter food and Lent. Something that we today, when following Lent, might only get a small taste of, because my guess is that the winter foodstuff before Lent makes a huge difference.

And by the way, I'm really looking forward to spring.

A few weeks ago, we made an order for something that feels like an everyday adventure to me: We subscribed for an organic produce box. A smallish company in our region offers home delivery every week, with an assortment of fruits and vegetables, organically produced - and you can even opt for regional vegetables only, which leaves you with truly seasonal food.

I love this box. First of all, there's less grocery shopping to be done: We still buy the few things we use in larger quantities, potatoes and occasionally onions, at our normal grocery store. But the big deal about shopping for fruit and vegetables, for me, was always choosing. Having to decide between produce that was grown locally or imported in - or between buying imported food or nothing at all, in some cases. Then choosing what to get. The things well-known, with the preparation down pat? Or something else for a different taste (that might not please)? Since I am one lazy bugger, I ended up on the familiar grounds most of the time.

That is now a problem of the past.

While you can opt out for some of veggies or fruits you don't like, the subscription box will arrive, and there's probably something new in it from time to time - just what I had wished for. They even add a sheet of paper with information and a recipe suggestion for the more exotic things. Before the box, I was looking for recipes in the internet to get inspiration on what to buy. Nowadays, I'm just googling the main vegetable ingredient I want to use and browse through the hits until I find something that sounds appealing. Which has added a touch of adventure to cooking - exactly what I had hoped for. And there is much difference between "not buying something" and "canceling an order for something" - though I usually check a week before what we will get. (Because I'm also very, very curious.)

Is it cheap? No. Our grocery bill has gone up significantly with the box - but so has the amount of fruit and vegetables consumed. And the quality of the foods way surpasses what we can usually get, each and every single piece. There's even a refund should something have gone bad inside, unnoticed by the handlers.

Is it convenient? Well, yes and no. Yes, because the time spent in grocery stores, produce aisles or farmers' markets is cut down to or close to zero. On the other hand, you have to be there when they deliver or have an arrangement, perhaps with a neighbor to receive the box for you (and hand back the empty one).

Is it worth it? In my opinion: Totally. Which is why I write about it here (instead of about medieval garments like I'm supposed to).