Sprouting Up All Over

When I was in grade school, I once slept over at a friend's house (not an uncommon occurrence among the elementary schoolgirl set). We discussed our plans for our Halloween costumes and she informed me that she was dressing up as a "hippie." I had never heard the term before (in my mind I saw the word spelled as "hippy," for one thing) and assumed it was some sort of medical joke about pelvic dimensions.

Somewhere along the line I learned that hippies were part of a 1960s counter-cultural movement that involved odd clothing, free love, and rampant drug use. Along with their political mobilization and brain-killing ingestion of various substances, they were also in natural living and commune-style arrangements. All this is vastly generalized, of course, but that is the gist.

Now it's trendy to be green, to promote environmentally-friendly policies, to invest in solar panels and hybrid cars. While I'm all for stewardship of the earth, I also enjoy the humour of mocking the hardcore sort of crunchy granola types. I like being barefoot, but I do wear shoes 90% of the time. I like knitting and sewing, but I don't have my own organic cotton fields in my backyard.

So while I do embrace some natural living related ideas, like bringing my own bag to the grocery store and using dishrags instead of paper towels, I consider myself fairly sane when it comes being earth-friendly.

Then I fell prey to a new hobby that is both economical and healthy, but possibly slightly insane.

I've started growing sprouts in my bedroom in a glass jar. I'm growing plants in my room and I like it. I was wary about growing sprouts...wouldn't wet seeds or beans in a jar just grow mold and start smelling nasty? However, after Internet research, I decided it was worth a shot.

Here is my first crop of chickpeas!



They grew for three days and then I stuck them in the fridge. You can eat the sprouts raw or cooked. Raw, they are funkier than normal cooked chickpeas (basically, not as soft), but still tasty.

I've just started a new crop of mung beans. Should be interesting to see how it turns out!