FREE CLEAN WATER EVERYWHERE_ BLOG for ACTIONhttp://blogactionday.change.org/

THIS WEEK on CHANGE.ORG
What causes more death than war?

This summer, the United Nations voted to make access to clean water a recognized human right. This was welcome news to those fighting the disturbing reality that more people die each year from contaminated water than all forms of violence and war combined.

But the UN vote is just the beginning. We now need to make good on the commitment to provide access to clean water to the nearly 1 billion people worldwide who currently rely on bacteria-infested water that causes everything from diarrhea to dysentery.

To generate support for this effort, this week Change.org is mobilizing thousands of bloggers from more than 100 countries to write about the water crisis as a part of our annual Blog Action Day, held every October 15th.

Petitions by Change.orgStart a Petition »

The goal of Blog Action Day is to take a single day out of the year to focus the world's attention on one important issue. This year's participants include leading tech blogs like The Official Google Blog, international blogs like Global Voices, and government blogs such as The White House blog. We have also partnered with organizations on the front lines of the water crisis, including UNICEF, charity: water, and Water.org.



But beyond these prominent voices and organizations, the success of Blog Action Day depends on people like you and the millions of others dedicated to a world without unnecessary suffering. Here are three easy steps you can take to get involved and help make Blog Action Day 2010 the largest event ever to increase awareness about the water crisis:

1. Register your blog or website: Are you a blogger or website owner? Then we need your help - register your blog or site today, and don't forget to grab an action widget to get your readers involved.
2. Sign the petition: Together with US Fund for UNICEF, we're helping to build a movement of people across the world calling on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to accelerate the UN's work to supply clean, safe drinking water to the world's poorest populations. Help grow this movement by adding your name.
3. Raise funds for water: Raise money to provide clean drinking water to those in need through charity: water, which allows you to create a fundraising page to raise money to build wells in Africa, or Water.org, where a $25 donation provides clean water for a lifetime for one person.

In the three minutes it took you to read this email, 12 people have died from unsafe water. Please join us in fighting this tragedy by supporting Blog Action Day 2010: Water.

Watch this video, too!

OH! WOW ! You Gotta Watch THIS TED Talk!

Lions for Lambs

Minimalist story-telling. It is an approach to conveying a story that presumes intelligence in others; the kind of intelligence that can finish the thought being explored in the story! An intelligence that requires a life of exposure, of desire to learn, to know one's own self better. A story for those who believe and live following through on those beliefs; not a place that attracts identification with ego in all it's tired and small forms!

I watched this movie for the first time tonight. Yeah, I have been tucked away fighting the good fight for many years_ call me sheltered from a lot that has happened in popular culture for a while now!
The decision to watch it in the first place was to see how many films my local library has with Meryl Streep... ever seen "Alice in the Palace?"

The Great Turning; a synopsis

'The Great Turning: the work of an entire species shifting its entire historic human mindset of who and what we are in relation to the entire planet; recognizing deeply that we are a species that is A LIVING PART OF a LIVING PLANET.' (paraphrased) _ Joanna Macy

Ratatouille's Ratatouille!

Tell me I’m not alone in this: You saw Ratatouille, fell in love with Remy (though you still jumped a foot in the air when you saw a significantly less-charming rodent scamper across your path on the way home) and found yourself with a pressing craving, not for the heavy and too-often soggy traditional Provençal ratatouille, but that kaleidoscope of spiraled colors they served to the haughty and (spoiler!) soon-humbled restaurant critic.

I can’t believe how well this worked out. I also can’t believe I cooked a cartoon dish created by an imaginary rat. But I can believe I’ll be making this again tomorrow, because it’s delicious, seasonal, and an incredible cinch to make.



We’re just getting to the point in the summer where all of the vegetables are readying themselves for their farmers’ market close-up, so the timing couldn’t be better. And aside from some needling parchment paper origami and fine-slicing of vegetables (which, as we well know, with my new BFF is frighteningly easy, although the rankings are more like Deb’s thumbnail: 0, Mandoline: 1 right now), you need a minimum of dishes and time to get this together. Not bad for something showy enough for a dinner party ta-da, right?



There are a lot of things not traditional about this version of ratatouille–the lack of herbes de province, that it’s baked and that we ate it with both couscous and a dollop of soft goat cheese–but if you’re like me, and the chunkier authentic stuff has never done it for you, it’s time for this re-creation.



And here is where I will introduce you to d’oh!-moment number two-thousand-seventy-four: Guess what the New York Times ran in their Dining section last month? The recipe for Thomas Keller’s Confit Byaldi, the accordion-fanned version of ratatouille used in the movie! It’s available on their website, looks gorgeous, but although it’s fairly simple for a French Laundry recipe, it’s a bit more involved than my recipe. Though I am sure I will try it one day, I’m almost glad I didn’t see it first as I might not have gone out on my own to find my layered ratatouille nirvana. And wasn’t that the whole theme of the movie in the first place?


Ratatouille’s Ratatouille
As envisioned by Smitten Kitchen

1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
1 cup tomato puree (such as Pomi)
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 small eggplant (my store sells these “Italian Eggplant” that are less than half the size of regular ones; it worked perfectly)
1 smallish zucchini
1 smallish yellow squash
1 longish red bell pepper
Few sprigs fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
Few tablespoons soft goat cheese, for serving

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Pour tomato puree into bottom of an oval baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic cloves and chopped onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.

Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube.

On a mandoline, adjustable-blade slicer or with a very sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices, approximately 1/16-inch thick.

Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables. You may have a handful leftover that do not fit.

Drizzle the remaining tablespoon olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.

Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside. (Tricky, I know, but the hardest thing about this.)

Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.

Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain.

Modest Needs, can you help?

Have you ever heard of Modest Needs?

Even though the link I have provided takes you straight to my particular grant request, you can go to the homepage to check out the whole Modest Needs story from the "Start Here" section on the menu bar, or really, from the top of any page_ including mine.

My own grant request is modest, as I transition back into new employment, after a recession lay-off 10 months ago. Your donation, of any size to my request, will be ever so appreciated! Just click on the link below and thank-you, very much!!

Application 159557: New Job - Rent Help - Modest Needs®

*Be sure to pass this information on to those you know who may need the kind of help available through a Modest Needs grant!!