New
Items
New Books
Sale
Items
The Know-It-All
Give Green Fair
Gift
Registry
The month we are excited to introduce a new column, The
Know-It- All. Written by Lael, this column will discuss various
subjects relevant to Mirador such as cooking, food preserving,
gardening, sustainability, etc. Lael will also answer any questions you
might have regarding these subject (or any subject you think pertains
to Mirador's mission). Lael's first column is You DO Need a Cookbook. We think you will find it informative and entertaining.
This is a great time of year. The temperatures are cooler but when we
have sun it is really beautiful and the rain encourages us to get
inside and curl up with a book or do some baking for the first time
since Summer came.
We have a few things to help you have a cool Hallowe'en – Orange
LED lights, cookie cutters, pumpkin carving kits and patterns, felt
bags for "loot" and some decorative objects.
We are also getting stocked up for the holidays (the burden for this
falls mainly on Lynn, but she is managing to do it without going too
crazy). So if you like to get your shopping done early or just see what
we have this year, come on in.
New Items
- 2007 Calendars are in! That means datebooks
too. We have a wide variety, hopefully something for you and Aunt Mary
as well. New this year for are a couple of Advent Calendars, including
the "Unofficial White House Advent Calendar".
- Twisty Scarves, new again! Local residents
Andrea Brown & Bruce Lellman have a small non-profit selling these
scarves to support literacy & educational opportunities in SE Asia.
The scarves are hand woven in Cambodia & dyed in Thailand. The
scarf comes twisted into a braid (thus the name) and when unwound, one
has this beautiful silk scarf of various hues. Their non-profit is
called Sabaidee, meaning in Lao "Feeling Good". We had some of these
scarves once before from another source and our customers loved them. Keep thy neck warm and beautiful!
- Avalon Flameless Candles – Several of us
at Mirador have stayed at a very wonderful place on the coast near
Yachats, The See Vue. The ladies in charge do not allow candles for
safety reasons and we understand. We want to tell them about these
candles! They are 3 x 6 pillars and the ones we carry are
in unscented, off-white paraffin. We don't like paraffin candles
for burning, but these run on batteries and have a 1500 hour
bulb, replacements available. The candle flickers so it looks
real. So if you want that look, but can't have a real candle, here you
go. Using rechargeable batteries, these can be used for next to
nothing and no dripping!
- New in the bedding section:
- 100% bamboo throw, 50" x 60", sage green
- Coyuchi organic Cotton Jacquard Blankets, queen size (90 x 92) in various colors
- Coyuchi organic Cotton Jacquard Baby Blankets, white & chartreuse green, 36" x 46"
Coming soon: organic cotton towels in colors from Ecolution.
- For several month now, we have carried wool bed pillows with organic cotton covers from Holy Lamb Organics. We can order any of the Holy Lamb products, so please let us know if we can help you with a comforter or mattress top.
- Travel Pillow by Happy Company – Designed
for use on a plane, train or car, this neck pillow also has a scent
pack to promote relaxation. This pillow is machine washable and is not
meant for micro wave heating.
- New Greeting Cards – We have added a lot of new
greeting cards this fall, most of them made in Portland or the Cascadia
region. We were fortunate to meet a card representative who specialized
in local artists. One of the most fun lines is from Stubby Pencil, by
Kate Rosenthal. Kate went shopping for a child's card and inspiration
struck when she purused the racks. A card with a simple line drawing
(think dinosaur) that a child would then color before giving. Voila, a
company was born. It is a way to get a child involved and validate the
artist within. We have them year 'round now with holiday to come.
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- EcoChic Bags from Gaia Goods – These
are made by a cooperative in New Delhi, India, from used plastic bags!
After being sorted by color, the bags are fused into sheets and made
into a variety of handbags, including a laptop carrier. Think of
sort of a water color effect for their look and win-win for the use of
plastic bags and the work program.
- She's Gifted Boxes – Inspirational
gift boxes, made by two local women of recycled paper board. Themes are
Thank You, Goddess, Healing and Birthday. These beautiful boxes
are meant to be admired and to hold items special to a giving woman:
poetry, stones, found objects, keepsakes.
- Jewelry by Susan Unziker – We are
pleased to offer earrings and necklaces by local artist Susan Unziker.
Susan likes to incorporate tones in her work and we love that. For
instance, a necklace with Lavender Quartz. Really beautiful. This
adds to our collections made by Karen Dailey, and from Tibet
Collection, both also in sterling with natural stones. The Tibet
Collection earrings are hand made & Fair Trade, with the goal of
the company to further the culture of Tibet.
- Magnets by Ray Troll of Juneau, Alaska. Ray
is a Northwest artist with a fine sense of humor which comes through on
these magnets. Ray's art always involves at least one fish, with a
twist. Imagine the Mona Lisa holding a Cod - The DaVinci Cod. Six
different ones, all will make you grin. We also have Ray's calendar: Carefull What You Fish For.
- Lucky Crow Gift Bags – We're happy to add this option to a more sustainable way to give a gift. The bags are made in Seattle by a group of sewers
headed by Kristin Ragain. Lucky Crow bags come with a ribbon attached
and in a variety of knock out fabrics and sizes. You can almost bet on
these bags getting used again. You've got to see the Sock Monkey print!
- New purple and pink
LED light strings (in addition to the blue, white, orange and
multi-colored strings we already had). LED lights carry a lifetime
warranty and use 1/10 or less of the energy of comparable incandescent
strings. No more throw-away holiday lights! (We have some strands that
stay up all year.)
- We will be replacing all of our thermometers and digital timers with products from Component Design Northwest, a Portland company. A few products are already available.
- New glass storage bowls (many sizes!) and baking dishes from Pyrex
- New
Wave Enviro 2.5 gallon ceramic water crocks. Our distributor told us
that stores that used to carry these no longer do, so we decided to
find a place for them because we get so many calls about them. We are
only carrying the blue and green striped crocks but we can order ones
with designs if you so wish.
- Locally-made hand-carved spoons at a very affordable price
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If
there are products you
would like to see us carry, please let us know. Many of our products we
order as a result of customer requests.
New
Books (by Lael)
Check out our new
“New Books” shelf, where you can see the recent
arrivals at a glance!
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- How to Dry Foods by Deanna DeLong
- Cutting Your Car Use by Randall Ghent with Anna Semlyen
- Earthwise Home Manual: Eco-Friendly Interior Design and Home Improvement by Kristina Detjen (a local author)
- Weedless Gardening by Lee Reich
Also lots of new educational, fun children’s books!
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- The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell
II – A book about nutrition and the failings of the typical American
diet.
- Herbal Healing for Women by Rosemary Gladstar
- Acupressure’s Potent Points: A Guide to Self-Care for Common Ailments by Michael Reed Gach
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Sale
Items – 25% to
50% Off
- Nandina
Heavenly Bamboo Towels on Closeout!
Bath towels, now $34.00 (usually $45.00)
Hand towels, now -
$16.00 (usually $20.50)
Wash cloths, now $7.00 (usually $10.50)
We will be carrying some other bamboo towels later in the season;
meanwhile, take advantage of sale prices on these fabulous towels. We
have a good variety of colors in these towels made from 75% bamboo and
25% organic cotton.
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- Zojirushi 6 Cup Rice Cooker
- FiredUp and Paloma locally-made
pottery
- Solar rechargeable radio headsets
- Selected rechargeable batteries
- Selected bamboo cutting boards
- Kershaw Knives – Great
knives that are giving way to LamsonSharp
knives
- Reclaimed rubber bags from Mexico
- Personal Blender
- Aromaland essential oils
- Selected books
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The Know-It-All
by Lael Easton
Welcome to my new column, The Know-It-All. Well, of course I
don’t actually know everything, but I am an OSU Extension Master
Gardener, an experienced food-preserver, and the book buyer here at
Mirador. I’m also good at research! So if you have a
Mirador related question (food-preserving, vegetarian cooking,
gardening, or whatever else you think of), please email it to me! Then your question can star in a future column.
Why You DO Need A Cookbook
Want to learn to cook? Preserve your produce? Become a raw
foodist? Well, like many endeavors, one of the best ways to go
about it is to buy (or borrow, or rent) a book I talk to m,any
peoople who want to “learn to cook,” but seem to have the
idea that the way to do it is to have a Yoda-style guru person come and
teach them, or else just muddle their way through making lots of
semi-edible (at best) dishes for a couple years until they figure it
out. To this I say “No, no, no!” I have been
along for the ride as several friends “discovered” how to
cook without “cheating” by using cookbooks, and let me tell
you, it was not pretty. (Picture a vegan quiche made with egg
replacer and you get an idea of the hideosity.) When someone tells my
mom that they can’t cook, she scoffs “Anyone who can read
can cook!” And she’s right. A good recipe is
straightforward enough for anyone to follow, and you are almost
guaranteed yummy results. Even if there is an unfamiliar cooking term
in the recipe, most basic cookbooks will define or explain it somewhere
in the text. Here at Mirador we stock lots of vegetarian and
vegan cookbooks, as well as books on raw food, nutrition, and
preserving. Here are a few basic ones to get you started:
Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison
Deborah Madison is sort of the Julia Childs of vegetarian
cooking. Each section of this cookbook begins with a general
overview, then basic tips, and then concludes with the recipes.
There are about nineteen chapters, including Becoming a Cook,
Grains, Soups from Scratch, Desserts, and lots more. You would
get pretty far with this one if it were the only cookbook you owned!
American Wholefoods Cuisine by Nikki and David Goldbeck
Another great cookbook with all the basics and then some, with an
emphasis on healthy food. It includes guides to food storage,
menu planning, weights and measures, and similar indespensable
bits. It even has a section on putting up produce, a rarity in
contemporary cookbooks! Again, if you only could have one
cookbook, this would be a great one to choose.
Joy of Cooking: All About Canning & Preserving by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker
We have lots of great preserving cookbooks. So how did I choose this
one to feature? Well, I have an old (1962) edition of the Joy of
Cooking, and it is my favorite source for preserving recipes that TASTE
GOOD. Those same recipes (some of them updated a bit) are in this
volume. It has all the information you need to preserve food,
plus pretty pictures and recipes that I can vouch for.
2006 Give Green Fair
5th Annual Give Green! Food & Gift Fair
November 4/5
Saturday 10 a.m. to 6:00 p.m./Sunday 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Doubletree Lloyd Center
1000 NE Multnomah
Besides the many green gift ideas you'll come across, there will be
sustainably produced foods, workshops and a Green Gift Registry. Yes,
you can walk through the show and then use a gift registry program the
show will provide. You'll have a jump start on helping people
understand just what should be under your tree for YOU this season.
Check out: http://www.givegreenfair.com/ for more information.
Gift
Registry
If you would like to register at Mirador for an event, here are some instructions
on how to do it. This is a great way to get what you want and support a
local business that shares your values.
If you have friends that are registered
here you can see their registry here.
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