Further experiments with visible mending

After my first successful visible mending experiment last month, I decided to get a bit more ambitious. I went to Michael's and invested five bucks in 36 skeins of embroidery floss in assorted bright colors, allowing me to add more techniques—darning, embroidery, and sashiko—to my mending repertoire. 

The first repair I attempted with the new thread was darning another threadbare patch on one of Brian's jeans pockets. I already knew the basic idea—make long stitches going in one direction across the hole, then make perpendicular stitches that weave in and out through the first set—but I also watched a couple of videos about it online and did my best to copy their technique. Unfortunately, I didn't quite get the hang of it right away. I ended up placing the vertical stitches too close together, making it difficult to weave through them when going horizontally. As a result, the darned area came out a bit uneven and lumpy. Brian said he liked it anyway, but I'm not as happy with it as I was with my previous patching repair. 

So for my next repair, I decided to move away from darning and try a hybrid technique: a patch on the inside of the garment, secured in place with decorative stitching. The garment in question was my old pair of black jeans that had worn out in the thigh area. I'd already patched it once before, but the area around the patch had now worn out, leaving little sections of skin exposed. I thought at this point there was nothing to do but downgrade them to "grubby" pants for doing dirty jobs around the house and yard. But since I had nothing to lose at this point, I figured I might as well attempt a visible mend on these as well. 

First, I removed the old patches and tidied up the edges of the holes with scissors. Then I went back to that same old striped flannel shirt I'd used for patching Brian's pants and cut out a couple of pieces from the sleeve, large enough to cover the new, larger holes. I sewed those colorful patches to the inside of the pants using my usual whip-stitch technique. Then I turned the jeans right-side-out, selected a dark blue embroidery thread that coordinated with the fabric, and began top-stitching the patch to the intact parts of the jeans. 

I started out attempting to make a neat, decorative running stitch, as shown in this NPR article, but it came out too wonky-looking. My stitches were uneven in length and my lines had a tendency to wobble. So I picked all that out and started over using the seed stitch technique shown in this video, which is supposed to look random and chaotic. This came much more naturally to me. It was actually kind of fun pushing the needle in at a random spot, then taking off in a random direction from there, making stitches of varying length and even doubling back as needed to cover bare patches. It took quite a while, but eventually I ended up with a unique-looking repair that I wouldn't be embarrassed to flash a glimpse of to strangers while walking down the street. 

But while the patch-and-embroider technique worked well for these large holes, it didn't seem like it would be much use for the small holes in Brian's jeans pockets. For one thing, there's no good way to sew a patch to the inside of the jeans pocket without removing it. So for his last damaged pocket, I went back to exterior patching. I still had one more pocket flap on that old trusty flannel shirt that I could have used, but instead I decided to try repurposing an old, colorful fabric mask leftover from the early days of the pandemic. (I didn't think we'd be needing it again, since even if a new wave of COVID should strike, we now have some of the much more effective N95 masks to use instead.)

After cutting off the ear loops, I experimented with different placements for the patch that wouldn't require cutting it. (Having a piece of fabric that was already neatly hemmed on all four sides, I didn't want to mess with it.) I considered placing it vertically up the length of the pocket and tucking the end inside, but I feared the doubled-over fabric might be too bulky and interfere with the use of the pocket. So instead I just stitched it across the entire width of the pocket, overlapping it on both sides. Only after I had it in place did I realize I'd actually sewn it on upside down, with the folds of the mask pointing up instead of down. But since it didn't have to function as a mask, that didn't really seem to matter. I just tacked the flaps down with a set of loose stitches so they wouldn't flop around.

Unfortunately, after all these successes came a not-unexpected setback. The original pair of pants that started me off on this visible-mending kick, which already had patches on both knees as well as the back pocket, developed a visibly threadbare patch on the thigh. I didn't think adding a pocket patch in this area would work very well, and I feared that the patch-and-embroider technique I'd used on my own jeans would be a little too messy for such a visible spot. But I also couldn't bear the idea of seeing these jeans retired when I'd just managed to get them patched so nicely.

Hunting around for a way to mend the threadbare patch, I found myself turning yet again to that old striped flannel shirt. When cutting up the sleeve to make the patches for my jeans, I'd saved the cuff—a nice, long strip of fabric, ready-hemmed on all sides. What if I removed the cuff button on one end, stitched up the buttonhole, and sewed this long piece across the entire width of the jeans leg? It sounded kind of nutty, but Brian okayed the idea, so I gave it a go. 

The result isn't perfect. Even though I carefully positioned the patch and pinned it in place before stitching, it still somehow managed to come out a bit askew. But Brian doesn't mind it. In fact, he seems rather tickled with his new Franken-pants with their motley assortment of patches. And I'm quite pleased that he's willing to be a walking showcase for my visible mending efforts.

Gardeners' Holidays 2024: First Sowing

Spring is officially here, which means it's about time to get our first crop, the snap peas, into the ground. I figured I could easily handle this on my own while Brian was out for a bike ride, but it turned out to be more difficult than I expected. The problem wasn't planting the seeds; it was finding them.

We keep all our seeds and seed-starting supplies in a big box labeled "seed starting," which is on one of the lower shelves in our overcrowded storage room. When I hauled out this box, the first place I looked for the seeds was in the wooden crate that Brian refers to as our "seed library," which contains all our seed packets from the current year and previous years, sorted by category. There was a section at the front labeled "This year," so I supposed that was where this year's seeds would be. However, a quick search plainly revealed that it was not. I then went through all the other sections and, while I did find some packets of snap peas, none was more recent than 2018. Clearly these weren't the seeds I was looking for.

Then I spotted a little box from Botanical Interests, our 2023 seed supplier, which was labeled "The good stuff (2024)." Ah, presumably the current seeds would be in here. And when I rummaged through, I did indeed find a packet of snap peas from last year's order—but there were only about 15 seeds left in it. That was less than half the number we would need to plant a full row of peas. Surely we would have ordered more if that was all we had left, wouldn't we? When I consulted my garden chart, it said that yes, we had ordered more from True Leaf Market this year. But where were they? And where, for that matter, were all the rest of the seeds from this year's order, which hadn't been in either of the two boxes I'd checked?

I went back to the big box and eventually found, tucked in near the front, a large brown-paper envelope, well camouflaged against the brown cardboard of the box itself. This was the package in which our seeds had been delivered, which Brian had apparently stuck into the box with all the seeds still in it. So I retrieved that, fished out the seeds, and planted them in the right rear garden bed, which we'd already cleared of weeds the week before. (Side note: we discovered in the process that our "Marvel of Four Seasons" lettuce truly lives up to its name. There's a head growing in that same bed that apparently overwintered from last fall's planting and is already large enough to start harvesting.) 

But my work was not done. Given that it had taken me about five times as long to find the seeds as it had to plant them, I was convinced we needed a better organizational scheme for our seed collection. We had saved far too many packets of seeds, some of them clearly far too old to germinate at this point, and they had turned into a haystack in which the seeds we actually needed were hard-to-find needles. So as soon as Brian got home, we brought up all the seeds and started going through them, removing the unusable ones and filing the current ones. We discarded anything that was over 5 years old—including a few packets that were over 15 years old—and anything that had been a spectacular failure, such as the Apple pepper seeds that completely failed to germinate.

By the time we were done, we had a huge pile of empty seed envelopes and two bowls of expired seeds, one for flowers and one for veggies. Keeping them separate was Brian's idea. He plans to scatter the expired flower seeds in some neglected corner of the yard and see if anything comes up. We're still figuring out what to do with the vegetable seeds. If we toss them in the compost bin, there's a danger that some of them could defy the odds and sprout, creating unidentifiable rogue plants that take over our side yard. (Brian tried to argue that this could be "an adventure," but I vetoed the idea. Gardening with plants you can put a name to is enough of an adventure as it is.) 

My idea was that maybe we could scatter all the vegetable seeds in a shallow dish, set it out in the yard, and see if the birds and squirrels would eat them. However, many of them were beans, and it turns out that uncooked beans are unsafe for birds to eat. So for now, we've just poured them all into a jar, where we'll keep them until we either think of a use for them or give up and toss them in the trash. In the meantime, they make a rather fetching little decoration. Too bad I don't have an Instagram account to post them on.

After clearing out all the old and useless seeds, we had plenty of room in the seed library to file all the usable ones. In the process, we discovered that there weren't quite as many of them as we thought we had. Even though we'd gone through the entire collection before placing our seed order for this year, we somehow overlooked the fact that we didn't have enough of either our Provider green beans or our Marketmore cucumbers to fill all the squares we'd allocated for them. More startling still, we'd failed to notice that we didn't have any usable scallion seeds at all. I had to place a hasty second seed order with True Market—one packet of Provider beans, one new cucumber variety called Boston Pickling Cucumber, and a new scallion variety called Flagpole—to rectify the situation.

So in the end, I guess it was a bit of a blessing in disguise that our seed library was such a mess. If it hadn't looked like a disaster that needed to be cleaned up immediately, we might not have discovered that we were missing some seeds we needed until the time came to plant them. Then we'd have had to make do with whatever variety was available at the nearest store or, worse still, leave valuable space in our garden empty. But on the other hand, maybe if it hadn't been such a mess back in December, we would have been able to tell which seeds we needed and avoid the whole problem.

In either case, I think we're best off not letting it get to that level again. Moving forward, we plan to go through all the seeds when we place our order in December or January and remove any that we think we're unlikely to use. Maybe, if we're really on the ball, we can even cull the varieties that we don't want before they expire and donate them to our local seed library. That way they'll have a chance to be of use to someone instead of ending up as decorative objects in a jar.

Recipe of the Month: Peanut Tofu with Cabbage Noodles

A few weeks ago, the It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken newsletter recommended a recipe that looked intriguing: Easy Peanut Tofu. Most of the ingredients were things we normally keep on hand, and the method looked pretty simple. At first, though, I didn't think this dish would work as a Recipe of the Month. It's vegan, but it's a protein-centered dish with no vegetables in it, which would defeat these recipes' stated purpose of getting more fruits and veggies into my diet.

Brian, upon examining the recipe, came up with a novel solution to this problem. Rather than serving the tofu up over rice as the recipe suggests, he proposed to serve it with a mixture of rice noodles and thinly sliced cabbage. He knew this combination would work because he regularly uses it in pad Thai—a modification he made to that recipe to up its veggie content when I was on my reduced-carb diet. This accompaniment sounded both healthier and more interesting than plain white rice, and it would eliminate the need for a separate vegetable side.

As usual, Brian made a few alterations to the peanut tofu recipe, but only small ones. He left out the Sriracha and cilantro, which we didn't have. He used plain peanuts instead of salted peanuts, which we also didn't have. And since the tofu we had on hand was firm rather than extra-firm, he baked it longer than the recipe specified—about 25 minutes instead of 12 to 18—to make sure it wouldn't be too moist. While it was baking, he cooked a third of a package of rice noodles (about 5.5 ounces) and sauteed 14 ounces of thinly sliced cabbage, together with a couple of sliced scallions and half a teaspoon of salt, until it was tender. Then he tossed the cabbage and noodles together and served it alongside the sauced tofu.

This turned out to be a splendid combination. The cabbage noodles had more flavor and texture interest than plain white rice, but not so strong a flavor as to clash with the real star of the show, the tofu. It had a sticky outer coating and a chewy texture that contrasted nicely with the soft, slippery noodle mixture, and its flavor was a dazzling blend of peanut, sesame, garlic, ginger, and salty soy sauce, with hints of tangy rice vinegar and sweet maple syrup. And the crunchiness of the chopped peanuts on top added still more texture interest. It's possible the dish would have been better still with the missing cilantro and Sriracha, but don't think it suffered at all from their absence.

In short, this recipe is a definite keeper. It's easy, it's healthy, it's delicious, and all the ingredients are cheap and readily available. On top of that, it's both vegan and gluten-free. It's a recipe anyone who doesn't have a peanut allergy can love.

A cheeseless adaptation attempt

Before Brian and I started cutting back on dairy at home, we used to be very fond of a recipe we called Cheesy Rice Casserole. This was a slightly modified version of the "Hellzapoppin' Cheese Rice" from Peg Bracken's I Hate to Cook Book, slightly lighter on the cheese and butter. It was a staple in our kitchen repertoire because it was both easy and cheap and required only ingredients we routinely kept on hand, making it perfect for those what-should-we-have-for-dinner occasions.

But since we stopped buying cheese at the store, this trusty recipe has fallen by the wayside. Our homemade vegan mozzarella has allowed us to keep making some of our cheesy favorites, but it doesn't have the right flavor to take the place of the cheddar cheese in this dish. And the one time we tried making it with a dairy-free cheddar we found at Lidl, the result was so weird and unsatisfying that I didn't even think it was worth mentioning on the blog.

A couple of weeks ago, though, I got to wondering if we could replace the cheese in this recipe some other way. Since it already had eggs to serve as a binder, it didn't really need the melted cheese to hold it together. Maybe, I thought, we could just throw in some nutritional yeast for flavor and some tofu to up the protein content and see if that was good enough.

Brian was willing to take on this experiment, but he wasn't entirely convinced that the nutritional yeast alone would give the dish enough flavor. So he found a recipe for a vegan cheddar cheese at Minimalist Baker and borrowed the seasoning mix from that: tapioca starch, nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar, garlic powder, salt, and a smidgen of mustard. He blended all those ingredients with silken tofu and soy milk to replace the cheese and milk from the original recipe, then mixed that with the eggs, rice, spinach, and seasonings. He also threw in a little lemon juice to increase the brightness a bit. He could have used some of our homemade plant butter to replace the melted butter that would normally be poured over the top, but he thought there was no point in wasting it on something that didn't need to be solid, so he simply whisked together some canola oil, soy milk, and salt. 

The modified casserole came out quite a bit lighter in color than the original, but texture-wise, it seemed pretty close to the original. It held together nicely when sliced, coming out of the pan in even squares. The flavor, however, was severely lacking. It didn't taste bad or weird, like the version we made with the fake cheese from Lidl; it just didn't taste like much of anything. We both had to sprinkle it pretty liberally with our homemade "spaghetti salt" (12 parts nutritional yeast ground up with 1 part salt) to get it down. I found that a dash of smoked paprika was also helpful.

Clearly, this modified recipe isn't ready for prime time. However, we think it has potential. All it really needs is more flavor, and we should be able to give it that by bumping up the proportions of all the flavorful ingredients it already contains. The simplest way to do this would be to double the amounts of nutritional yeast, vinegar, garlic powder, mustard, and lemon that go into the dish and maybe throw in a quarter-tablespoon of the smoked paprika as well. Alternatively, we could try adding a dose of all those ingredients to the water the rice is cooked in, along with the amount that goes into the tofu sauce. With the flavor cooked right into the rice, maybe it won't need so much extra seasoning added on top.

For now, I'm going to refrain from sharing this recipe while we tinker with it some more. If and when we come up with a version that I think is as useful as the original, I'll pass it along to all of you then.

[UPDATE, 3/20/23: We tried this again last night, and we think we've got it fixed. Brian basically doubled the proportion of all the flavorings he'd used to replace the cheese: nutritional yeast, vinegar, garlic powder, and salt. He also added a half-teaspoon of smoked paprika. (He accidentally left out the mustard powder he used the first time, but upon tasting it, neither of us minded its absence.)

This revised recipe had a darker golden color than the previous version—partly from the extra ingredients and partly because it browned better. It also had a much fuller, more savory flavor. With plenty of salt, tartness from the vinegar, and umami from the nutritional yeast, it was well-balanced and satisfying. It wasn't the same as the original version made with cheddar cheese, but it wasn't in any way lacking. We both happily ate up one piece and went back for seconds.

This may not be the absolute final version of this recipe, as Brian is always adjusting and tinkering to optimize the dishes he makes. But it's good enough to be worth sharing. So here, without further ado, is what we are now calling...

HELLZAEFFINPOPPIN CHEESE RICE

Cook 1 cup white rice in 1.5 cups water for approximately 6 minutes in the pressure cooker. (Or use 2 cups water and cook it on the stovetop. Or just use 3 cups leftover rice.)

Briefly cook 8 oz. frozen spinach in boiling water to thaw. Drain completely.

Blend together 8 oz. soft or silken tofu, ¼ cup soy milk, ¼ cup tapioca flour, 6 Tbsp. nutritional yeast, 1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. garlic powder, and ½ tsp smoked paprika.

Beat together 3 large eggs. Add the tofu mixture, 1/2 chopped onion, 1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp. salt, 1 pinch dried thyme, 1 pinch dried marjoram, ½ Tbsp. lemon juice, and the drained spinach. Mix, then add the cooked rice and mix again. Spread mixture into a greased 9" by 13" casserole dish, smoothing the top with a spatula. 

Whisk together 4 tsp. canola oil, 1 tsp. soy milk, and ¼ tsp salt. Pour evenly over top of the rice mixture.

Bake at 375 F for 45 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving.]

 

24 hours of plastic

About a year ago, a New York Times journalist named A.J. Jacobs tried to go for an entire day without touching or using anything made of plastic. Spoiler alert: he did not succeed. 

It certainly wasn't for lack of trying, since he went to extraordinary lengths to identify and avoid plastics. He went all day without not only his smartphone but also his eyeglasses. He ordered all-new plastic-free toiletries and clothing. He made all his purchases with coins (since even paper bills contain some plastic), brought his own chair on the subway, and filtered all his drinking water to remove microplastics. And despite these heroic efforts, he still ended up making contact with plastic 164 times over the course of the day. 

At the time, this experiment struck me as pretty pointless. Sure, it did a good job of showing how ubiquitous plastic is in the modern world, but it seemed to treat that fact as an unmitigated evil. The author lumped all plastics together in a single category, making no effort to distinguish "stupid plastic" (unnecessary, single-use items, such as bags and takeout containers) from useful plastics that make our lives better (like a pair of glasses that enables you to see clearly). Not only was his effort to eliminate them all from his life doomed to failure, it wouldn't have accomplished anything useful if he had succeeded.

But as silly as I found the whole exercise, somehow I couldn't get it out of my head. In the year since the article came out, I've frequently found myself wondering how I'd handle this same challenge. If I absolutely had to go 24 hours without touching plastic, could I do it? How hard would it be? And how much would the planet actually benefit from it?

Although these questions piqued my curiosity, I wasn't prepared to go to the same lengths as Jacobs to answer them. Instead, I decided to tackle the problem from the other direction. Rather than trying to go a day without plastic, I'd keep a record of an entire day with plastic, noting every time I touched or used it over a 24-hour period. At the end of the day, I'd look at the list and try to figure out what it would require to avoid each of my contacts with plastic—assuming it would even be possible—and what it would cost. Then I'd weigh the costs against the environmental benefits to figure out what steps, if any, would be worth taking to address the plastic problem beyond what I'm doing now.

I conducted this experiment last Monday, and according to my calculations, I had a total of 87 encounters with plastic over the course of the day. I'll sort these according to where and when they occurred:

• In the bedroom upon first getting up: My pajamas (fleece pants and a sweatshirt), hat, slippers, and eyeglasses. (They have metal frames, but the stems are plastic-coated, and so are the nose pads.) Also, a blanket on my bed that I've had since childhood and is probably made of acrylic, though I'm not 100 percent sure. (The rest of the bedding is cotton, and I didn't count the synthetic mattress cover or pillow stuffing, since they never touched my skin.)
  
• In the bathroom after getting up: The plastic insert on the soap dish, three bottles containing my daily medications, the bathroom cup, my Snap toothbrush, the toothpaste tube, a tube of lotion that I used on my itchy back, and the old silicone spatula I used to apply it. (Unlike Jacobs, I didn't need to touch plastic to use the toilet, which has a wooden seat and a metal flush handle.)
• In the kitchen, preparing and eating breakfast: The handle of the teakettle, the knobs on the stove, the buttons on the toaster oven and microwave, the soy milk carton, the cap on the vanilla bottle, the plastic container that holds our homemade plant butter, my cell phone (which I got out to do my daily puzzles), my wallet (which contained the phone), my purse (which contained the wallet), and the pen that I used to write all these plastic encounters down. And, after breakfast, my Aeropress coffee maker, the lid of the coffee can, the salt shaker, and the cinnamon bottle. (I add a smidgen of each to my coffee when brewing it.)
• In my office: My computer keyboard and mouse and a thermal-paper receipt that I retrieved from my wallet and filed.
• In the bathroom, during and after my shower: My bathrobe, the tub mat, the shower curtain liner (not the curtain itself, which is 100 percent cotton), the plastic-coated basket that holds my toiletries, the jar of oil in which I store my razor, the silicone scrubber pads that I use on my body and face, the bottle that holds my homemade face wash, the shower squeegee, the window shade, the microfiber towel I use on my hair, my conditioner bottle, four tubes and pots containing medications and moisturizers I apply to my face and body, and my mini microcurrent device. (I can't bring myself to spend thousands of dollars on "tweakments" to fight the signs of aging, but $150 for something to give me just a little lift seemed like a reasonable price to pay.)
• In the bedroom, getting dressed: The bottle of homemade hand sanitizer I use as a deodorant and my underwear, bra, socks, long johns, jeans, and pullover sweater. (The turtleneck I wore underneath the pullover was a cotton/rayon blend, and my winter cardigan is 100 percent wool with wooden buttons.)
• In the kitchen, preparing and eating lunch: The refrigerator (handle and produce drawers), the plastic lid on a Pyrex container of leftovers, a jar of homemade "spaghetti salt" (a Parmesan substitute made from nutritional yeast and salt), a mesh bag containing mandarin oranges, a Ziploc bag containing a homemade cookie, and the telephone because someone called while I was eating. (I also touched the microwave to heat up my leftovers, but I'd already counted that.)
• Going out for a walk: My winter coat, boots, gloves, scarf, and sunglasses.
• In the kitchen, preparing my afternoon snack: The popcorn jar, the bag of nutritional yeast, a measuring cup, the oil sprayer, and our Brita pitcher.
• In the bathroom and kitchen, before dinner: A bottle of magnesium supplements, our pill splitter, and a microwaveable heating pad I used to warm myself up. 
• Board-game night at Pino's, a local bar: Cash to pay for a cocktail and the dice, laminated sheets, and wet-erase markers from our Quixx game. (All the other games I played contained only cardboard or wooden pieces.)
• In the kitchen, before bed: The bread box, which I opened to fix myself some toast for a bedtime snack.
• In the bathroom, before bed: A couple of medicine bottles and tubes I hadn't touched previously, a container of dental floss, and the floss itself. 

Going over this list, I can see several plastic contacts that I could have hacked my way around for purposes of a one-day experiment. For instance, I could have removed all my pills and supplements for the day from their plastic bottles and transferred them to a bowl. Similarly, I could have removed a small dose of every topical product I used from its container and put them in an array of little glass jars. And I could have removed all the food I planned to eat that day from its plastic packaging ahead of time so I wouldn't have to touch any plastic to eat it. But none of these hacks would have done anything to reduce the amount of plastic we actually consume. They'd allow me to avoid touching plastic on that particular day, but they wouldn't get it out of our home or our lives.

To make a real difference to the planet, I'd have to replace these plastic-packaged items with versions that were truly plastic-free. But in most cases, that wouldn't be feasible. All of the medications I get from my online pharmacy come in standardized plastic bottles; there's simply no way to get the meds without the plastic. The supplements that come from the drugstore are likewise sold in plastic bottles, and I've never seen them for sale in any other kind of packaging. And the same problem applies to most of the commercial foodstuffs I used. The Whole Earth Center sells nutritional yeast and cinnamon out of bulk bins, and we do actually buy them there if we ever happen to be in Princeton when the store is open. But to buy them that way all the time would require making a special trip to Princeton, and I suspect the emissions from our car would outweigh the ecological benefits of avoiding a couple of little plastic bags. (To be fair, I could buy coffee from our local roastery. But even in bulk, it would cost me $20 a pound.)

There are some plastic items on my list that I could, at a cost, replace with plastic-free ones. A quick search of the Zero Waste Store turns up several. But in most cases, it's not clear that these plastic-free items are any greener than what I'm using now. For instance:

• A plastic-free, corn-based soap dish insert costs $5.99. But is that really superior to our homemade soap dish insert, made from plastic waste that would otherwise have gone into the trash?
• A bamboo toothbrush with bristles made from castor bean oil costs $3.99. With the "subscribe & save" option, it's only $3.19, which isn't that much more than the replacement heads for our Snap toothbrush. But according to the most comprehensive study I've seen, it's not actually greener.
• A jar of 62 toothpaste tablets costs $10.89. Not only is that far more expensive than our Trader Joe's toothpaste, studies show it's not as green because of the ingredients used and the size of each tablet. (And since when is "fluoride-free" a selling point?)
• Conditioner bars cost $15.99 each for "75+ washes." That sounds good, but it's way more costly than my Suave conditioner, and all the bars contain glycerin, which my hair hates. (I've made several attempts at making my own conditioner, but even the most successful recipe I tried didn't work for very long.)
• A 30-meter roll of bamboo-based dental floss in a little glass jar costs $9.99, with two refills available for $13.99. Even the refills are more than five times the cost of drugstore floss. And while it has a carbon footprint somewhat smaller than plastic floss, it does worse on other environmental measures, like ozone depletion and metal/mineral use.
  

Then there are the non-disposable items on my list, like clothing and kitchen tools. It would certainly be possible to replace most of my clothes with garments made from 100 percent natural fibers. However, I'd probably be unable to find them at thrift stores and would have to buy them new. Moreover, some of them, like socks and undies, probably wouldn't be available in stores and would have to be ordered from a specialty brand like Cottonique.

I could likewise get new glass containers with bamboo lids, instead of plastic ones, for our leftovers and replace the zip-top plastic bags we use (and reuse) for cookies with silicone bags. I could replace my plastic oil sprayer with a metal Misto sprayer (which doesn't work as well), the Aeropress with a plastic-free French press (which uses more ground coffee per cup and is harder to clean), and the Brita pitcher with a glass pitcher and Kishu filters. I could get a glass salt shaker and a wooden-handled teakettle. I could replace the polyester shower curtain liner with a $50 linen one and get myself an organic cotton hair towel (a relative bargain at only $14.99). And I could replace my plastic refillable pen with a metal fountain pen (though I appear to be physically incapable of writing neatly with one).

But here's the rub: the plastic-containing versions of these items are already in our possession. To make them plastic-free, we'd have to purchase new items and discard (or at least give away) the ones we currently have. That does not strike me as an eco-friendly choice. 

And finally, there are the big-ticket items on the list: the computer, the phone, the kitchen appliances, and my eyeglasses. These, I feel confident in saying, simply do not come in plastic-free versions. The only way to avoid plastic with these would be not to use them at all, and that would be utterly impractical.

The upshot appears to be that for me, a plastic-free life wouldn't really be a greener one. Sure, maybe we could make more of an effort to fit in trips to the Whole Earth Center or other stores with bulk bins. And maybe when some of our plastic-containing items wear out, it might be worth looking into plastic-free alternatives to replace them (though we might still end up deciding that the products we use now are the most ecofrugal choice). But for the most part, the plastic in our life is not stupid plastic. We've already harvested all the low-hanging fruit in this area, such as single-use bags, straws, and takeout containers, and the plastics that remain are the ones we've decided are worth the trade-offs.