Green Products

Our friends at Bloomfield Farms, a family-run certified organic farm outside Petaluma, are offering a great winter CSA special! Sign up for 24 shares (boxes) of their amazing organic produce and get six for free. Bloomfield Farms offers two convenient pick-up locations for Marin families: the Tiburon Tavern in Tiburon and Marin Country Mart in Larkspur, as well as numerous location in Sonoma County.

Boxes run $20 to $35 depending on size, and include goodies like lettuce, potatoes, kale, and broccoli. Learn more about Bloomfield Farms' CSA program here, or sign up online on Farmigo if you're ready to subscribe.

This special CSA offer is valid only until midnight on Sunday, February 24!

CSA stands for "Community Supported Agriculture," and by buying your veggies this way you get great healthy food for your family, help support a local farming family, and help build a healthy and vibrant local food system.

This holiday season, why not give the gift of fresh organic produce? This Christmas, our friends at Bloomfield Farms, a family-run certified organic farm outside Petaluma, are offering CSA gift certificates for you to give to family, friends, and colleagues. It's the perfect gift for a family that enjoys delicious, healthy, and locally grown food!

Gift certificates are available in amounts of $75, $100, and $150, and the recipients can redeem them at one the convenient drop-off locations in Marin or Sonoma Counties. Learn more about giving a CSA gift from Bloomfield Farms here.

Bloomfield Farms is also offering an "80 for 80" holiday special—80 pounds of certified organic, dry-farmed Yukon Gold potatoes for $80. Yes, this is a large amount of potatoes, but the price is much lower than what you'll pay at a market like Whole Foods for the same thing (Bloomfield Farms supplies Whole Foods in addition to a number of other local grocery stores).

Go in with friends and neighbors and split up a bag! After all, it wouldn't be the holidays without mashed potatoes, would it?

This summer, we had a fantastic time at the first Farm-to-Table Dinner at Novato's Farm Girl Nursery. The next Farm-to-Table Dinner at Farm Girl Nursery takes place Saturday, October 20. Chef Suzanne Griffin has an amazing autumn menu planned that includes fig, prosciutto, and gorgonzola bites with maple walnuts; Thai pumpkin soup; watercress, percorino, walnut, and Asian pear salad with champagne vinaigrette; mustard, thyme, and apple marinated pork tenderloin with wine reduction; and for dessert, pumpkin bread pudding. Many of the ingredients in the dinner are sourced right at Farm Girl Nursery itself.

Sound delicious? Reserve your place at the table by calling (415) 730-6917. The dinner starts at 6 pm, and the cost is $175 per couple or $90 per individual.

A few weeks ago, we had a fabulous time at the first-ever Farm-to-Table Dinner at Novato's Farm Girl Nursery. The nursery, a labor of love by Novato resident Lisa Marvier, has really taken off as a local resource for fresh produce, seeds, plants, and food education. Our kids even attended one of the nursery's summer camps and had a blast.

The Farm-to-Table Dinner featured five amazing courses prepared by Marin chef Suzanne Griffin, as well as wonderful conversation with some really interesting people. Dinner guests chatted over wine before dinner and toured the beautiful Farm Girl Nursery property, where we even met some goats and horses. Later, we all sat down for dinner outdoors at a rustic table. As the name implies, all the courses, from the opening Caprese salad to the the closing berry tart with a date-and-nut crust, featured ingredients sourced from Farm Girl Nursery's gardens.

While everything was delicious, my favorite course was the green Farm Girl gazpacho served as the second course. It was so fresh and cooling (the dinner was on one of those rare really hot days this summer), and was a wonderful amalgam of different flavors. Chef Suzanne was gracious enough to share the recipe with me, and it follows below, so you too can amaze your dinner guests with something this good!

When it comes to back-to-school, green is the way to go! Instead of throwing away plastic and paper products in the trash every day, invest in some reusable eco-friendly lunch box supplies for your kids this school year. The ones listed below are durable and will last for years. Our family owns several of the items that I’ve listed here and use them all the time for school lunches, snacks, and picnics.

Here are some of the green items that my kids’ lunch boxes are never without:

Reusable cloth lunch bags:

• Mimi the Sardine's lunch bags, like their signature Lunchbug (shown here), are made right here in the Bay Area from cotton fabrics designed and produced in Sweden. Their fabrics are spill-resistant, machine-washable, meet the Oeko-Tex 100 Standard, and are made without harmful chemicals. They even come in colorful patterns that mom and dad might even consider taking to work! Prices range from $18.55 to $26.50. Visit their retail store in Corte Madera at 305-A Montecito Avenue.

Sandwich wraps:

• LunchSkins sandwich bags are perfect for holding sandwiches, chips, vegetables, or any other lunch item. LunchSkins are made from a thick cotton fabric that is coated with a food-safe polyurethane liner. They’re dishwater-safe, durable, and come in a variety of colors and patterns like pink berry flower, green lizard, navy shark, red bird, mango slice, and red apple. Snack bags are $7.85 and LunchSkins are $8.95.
• Graze Organic sandwich and snack bags are made of washable and durable organic cotton, so they'll last for countless uses and eliminate the need for disposable plastic baggies. A velcro closure keeps contents secure and fresh. Designs are suited for both kids and adults—original artwork is screen printed by hand with water-based ink. Prices start at $ 24.00 for a set of 3 bags.

Send your kids back to school with stylish, eco-friendly, and non-toxic lunch kits from Kids Konserve! Through October 31, 2011, Kids Konserve is offering Marin Mommies readers 15% off their orders using the coupon code marinmommies.

Kids Konserve offers some great reusable lunchtime products to help make school lunches greener, cleaner, and waste-free:

A couple weeks ago I noticed a pair of shoes that a friend of mine was wearing. They were exactly what I was looking for—basic white slip-on sneakers for summer. I asked her what kind they were, and she told me they were Simple shoes. I promptly ordered a pair of Take On elastic lace sneakers ($55) online from Simple Shoes' website. They're good looking and with elastic laces, really easy to slip on and off. I was so impressed with them that I had to look into them a little more.

Simple shoes are, as the name implies, simple, basic, stylish, and comfortable shoes. Not only do they look good and feel good on your feet, but you can feel good about wearing them, too. They're made with recycled, eco-friendly, and sustainable materials like recycled car tires, inner tubes, and plastic, organic cotton, natural latex rubber, hemp, and bamboo. Simple Shoes also maintain ethical supply-chain standards, meaning no forced or child labor, and adequate wages, hours, and health and safety conditions for their workers.

Reducing waste and promoting environmental resposibility in their children is a priority with many parents. One way to help with this is to use a product like Fabkins, cool reusable cloth napkins for kids that are perfect for a child's lunchbox and at-home use, too. Fabkins were created and designed by Marin mompreneurs Joyce Raffo and Paige Rodgers. (We interviewed Joyce and Paige in 2008 about their product and business; you can read that article here.)

Useful as both napkins and placemats, Fabkins encourage good table manners, and help reduce waste by eliminating the need to use paper napkins both with school lunches and meals at home. They are made of 100% certified organic cotton, and embroidered with fun designs in themes ranging from Prima Ballerina and African Safari to Xtreme Sports and Beach Bound. Fabkins retails for $10.95 for a starter set of two organic napkins, or $19.95 for a set of four, and can be purchased at numerous retail locations throughout the Bay Area or online at www.fabkins.com. Marin Mommies readers who order online can take 20% off their Fabkins purchase with the coupon code MM20 through August 31.

We just got our hands on one of this season's coolest back-to-school accessories—the Yubo lunchbox. Some would argue that a good lunchbox is a necessity for the well-equipped student, and the Yubo should make any kid or parent happy.

What makes it different from your garden variety lunchbox? Several things, actually. Yubo can be personalized with interchangeable faceplates in a wide variety of designs. Cute dinosaurs, flowers, and fairy princesses will make younger children happy, while older grade-school kids will like the cool shark, surfer girl, and skater designs. To make your Yubo truly unique, you can add your child's name to selected designs, and even upload a photo or your child's artwork to make a custom faceplate.

Yubo lunchboxes are made of BPA-free, anti-microbial, and recyclable plastic. The whole thing is dishwasher safe, so if your Yubo gets grubby the way kids' lunchboxes do, just pop off the faceplates, snap off the rubber handle, take off the lids, and put the whole thing in the dishwasher. Yubo is truly a well thought-out and designed product.