The Joy of Vegan Baking - Holiday green gift guide for book lovers: part 3

Welcome to part 3 of Eco-Libris blog's green gift guide, the one that will help you find the best green books to give as gifts this holiday season.

Today I am very excited to bring you today the recommendation of Victoria E. For those of you who don't know her, Victoria E is a creatively versatile eco-powerhouse: she is a freelance writer, life-long model, on-camera personality, official U.S. spokesperson for Twice Shy Clothing and founder of the San Francisco Craft Mafia - a classic Renaissance woman and mistress-of-all-trades.

Starting as an outlet for updates about her freelance writing and modeling, her official website at http://www.victoria-e.com/ has quickly grown into a dependable source for a variety of information on green, crafty, and DIY living. You're welcome to check it out!

Victoria's recommendation for this holiday's gift is:

The Vegan Joy of Baking

Author: Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

Publisher: Fair Winds Press

Published in: 2007

What it is about + Why it's a great gift: The holidays always make me want to slow down and spend more time in the kitchen, making delicious goodies from my friends and loved ones. I've been progressing to become a vegetarian for a few months now, and Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's podcast, Vegetarian Food For Thought has been a wonderful outlet for learning about compassionate eating and actions.

Though I don't drink soy milk or even have any blocks of soy in my fridge, I've learned so much from her tips that even my meat-loving boyfriend has been enjoying our dinners even more as of late. Imagine my delight when I heard Colleen was coming out with her first cookbook, titled The Joy of Vegan Baking.

The thought of not baking with milk or eggs put me on edge right away, but after tasting some delicious vegan donuts and cupcakes recently, it was clear that no taste would be lost in the transition. There are oodles of preconceived notions about vegetarian and vegan foods, especially desserts, but after tasting some goodies that I made from these recipes, it is clear that those perceptions are wildly outdated.

Though I won't be able to spend any of the holidays with my family this year, I will be making treats from my best friend and boyfriend out this book. Will I tell them its vegan? Not until they eat 3 or 4 of them and rave about how tasty they are.

Any cook, experienced or novice, would enjoy The Joy of Baking - new food revolutions are on the horizon, and vegan baking is just one of them. "Featuring full-color photos and 150 familiar favorites -- from cakes, cookies, and crêpes to pies, puddings, and pastries -- this book will show you just how easy, convenient, and delectable baking without eggs and dairy can be."


This book is fresh from the oven - it came out on October 2007. Check out the book's website for sample recipes and of course to see where you can buy it. Thank you Victoria!

If you choose to give your friends or family this book as a gift on the holidays, you are more than welcome to balance it out with Eco-Libris, add its sticker to the book and make it the perfect green gift for the holidays.

And just a reminder on past recommendations on our series:

Part 1 - The Man who Planted Trees by Jean Giono

Part 2: Home Work : Handbuilt Shelter by Lloyd Kahn

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

Do the green thing

Today I want to recommend on a new great website - Do the green thing.

Green Thing according to the site wants to help make a difference in the fight against climate change. It wants to help us achieving a more sustainable lifestyle, where we emit no more than 1 tone of CO2 a year.

Green thing encourages us to do a new green thing every month and keep doing these things throughout the year. They know it's only a start, but an important one that can make a difference eventually : "once enough people do the Green Thing, Green Thing can use this people power to persuade governments and businesses to do the Green Thing too and make changes necessary to begin to reduce the other fifty per cent."

I like their style, very light and British (in a good and humoristic way!). October's Green Thing is Walk once, to college or work or wherever. This month they encourage you to turn your lights off early and have some fun in the dark. What kind of fun? you could sleep or think a dark thought (listen to the audio here, it's hilarious).

Check also their video clip on their homepage for more ideas, and don't forget to join them and do a green thing or two this month.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great gift for the holidays!

Brazilian hardwood floors. Can you say “slave labor?”

Our reader from Minneapolis, Kermit Johnson, replied to our blog-action-day post and alerted us to a very interesting article he wrote about hardwood floors, deforestation and slave labor. So go check it out and big thumbs up to all green conscious real estate people out there.

Yours,
Eylon @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

Eco-Libris balanced out 5,000 books and it's just the beginning!

Good news! I'm happy to announce that Eco-Libris passed the 5,000 books milestone. Yes, we have balanced out 5,000 books for eco-conscious book readers from all over the world in our first four months of operation.

These books are balanced out when new trees are planted by our planting partners in Central America and Africa for the benefit of both the environment and local communities. One tree for every book.

Actually, we add a little extra and make sure 1.3 trees are planted for every tree you pay for to make sure that at least one tree will reach maturity for every book balanced out.

We keep receiving your great feedbacks and it energizes us to keep on with our mission - making reading more sustainable. So, keep on. we like it ;-)

We have a lot of interesting news and announcements coming up this month, so stay tuned to the blog.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

Picture Courtesy of Sustainable Harvest international, Eco-Libris' planting partner.

SmartPlanet - green news from the UK

I want to share with you a new green blog I learned about today: SmartPlanet.

SmartPlanet comes from the UK, where it was launched by CNET Networks UK. It's a one-stop guide to creating a smarter, greener and fairer planet, with an emphasis on energy-saving, ethical and organic products. You can find there the latest UK news on ethical shopping and living, from the hottest organic fashion and fresh Fairtrade grub to new solar gadgets and the coolest hybrid cars.

Today, for example, when I checked it out, I read 5 tips for HallowGreen celebrations (compost your lantern), learned about SHIBBY, which utilizes old billboard advertising banners to make bags, got updates from the Tokyo Motor Show on Mazda's hydrogen-fuelled future cars, and saw a video on Londoner’s carbon footprints.

Most of the green blogosphere, and especially the part dealing with green lifestyle, is dominated by US-based blogs and is very US oriented. Therefore, it is great to see another green website bringing us cool green news and updates from the UK, where a lot of interesting green stories take place.

SmartPlanet's editor is Adam Vaughan, co-founder of Hippyshopper, blogger at thegreenguy.co.uk and helps with Friends of the Earth's Green Living pages. He is also the guy who is standing to the right of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Good luck to Adam and SmartPlanet! I'll check this blog regularly. You are welcome to do the same.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

What is Natural Capitalism with Hunter Lovins

I found this interview with Hunter Lovins at Triple Pundit. For many people, including me, Natural Capitalism, the book written by Hunter Lovins, Amory Lovins and Paul Hawken, is sort of a green bible, and it presents one of the most innovative concepts of the new green economy.

So what is Natural Capitalism? If you're looking for a short answer, check the video below. If you want to learn a bit more, go for the book!

Few more words about Hunter Lovins - She is not only a renowned author, but also the founder and President of Natural Capitalism, Inc. and Natural Capitalism Solutions, and a professor at Presidio School of Management's MBA in Sustainable Management program. She co-founded Rocky Mountain Institute and led it for 20 years. She was named millennium Hero for the Planet by Time Magazine and received many awards and dozens of other honors.

All in all, She is one of the leading environmental thinkers of our time and it's always intriguing to hear or read her thoughts.

So here's the interview with Hunter Lovins, straight from SourceCode:




Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

Another innovative green idea from an Israeli entrepreneur

John Markoff reports today at the New York Times on Shai Agassi and his revolutionary plans to "reinvent the world’s automobile industry around battery-powered all-electric cars".

Agassi is a very successful serial Israeli entrepreneur. In 1992, he founded in Israel TopTier software, a leading enterprise portal vendor that was acquired by SAP in April 2001. Then Agassi became a member of the Executive Board of SAP AG, where he also served as the President of Products and Technology Group. Currently he's devoted to alternative energy and in the article today I learned about his new innovative idea - Project Better Place.

The new company will install and operate an electric recharge grid consisting of charging spots and battery exchange stations worldwide. Agassi believes in the electrical car in all of its sorts as the environmental solution for transportation and thinks that "existing technology, coupled with the right business model and a scaleable infrastructure can provide an immediate solution and significantly decrease carbon emissions."

To simplify the idea, he gives the following example - "We’re basically saying this is just like the cellular phone model. If you think of Tesla as the iPhone, we’re AT&T."

Earlier today Agassi announced in New York City that he has raised $200 million from private venture partners for this project, including the Israel Corporation, Vantage Point Venture Partners, as well as a group of private investors including Edgar Bronfman Sr., the and James D. Wolfensohn, former head of the World Bank.

I started following Agassi and his entrepreneurial achievements at the late 1990s, when I was working as an assistant to a financial manager in an accounting firm that managed R&D funds for a project that TopTier was involved with.

I think Agassi is one of the most talented entrepreneurs out there, and therefore I was very happy to read this morning on his new project. When so much of our green future is depended on innovation, we need more people like Aggasi who will help us move forward as fast as possible toward sustainable future.

If you want to learn more on Project Better Place, please check their launch webcast from today. Agassi also has a great blog - The long tailpipe.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: A Great Green Gift for the Holidays!