If 20% of Ontario car owners drove electric cars to work every day...

If only 20% of Ontario cars owners drove electric cars to work every day, it would make such a difference in reducing our oil consumption and carbon footprint.

Great idea - I agree!

So, what would that look like?

• 1.6 million cars: Ontario has about 8 million registered cars. 20% = 1.6 million
• 6600W electricity to charge: Electric cars charge with a 6600W electricity supply (220V * 30A) at the fastest-available home charging rate. Nissan Leaf uses a 6600W charger
• 1,600,000 * 6600 watts = 10,560,000,000 watts

Unfortunately, Ontario only produced about 17,000,000,000 watts at its peak for the overnight period 8:00pm last night to match consumption.

So, to maintain current consumption and add the load of 20% of Ontario vehicles charging overnight, we'll need to bump overnight generation by 62% to support our goal. Ontario has that capacity, but would likely not generate it at current overnight rates as more expensive generation would need to be activated to get there, so it potentially turns the overnight period into "peak consumption" period.

Unless you think the world will never run out of affordable oil or gasoline (I don't know what you'd reference to support this), shouldn't this be enough to convince most people that we need to deal with this problem, and that it might be better to look at our living/working arrangements to remove the car from the equation as much as possible?

Ontario chili peppers: the evil of the season

It's that time of year again. Georgetown is too white and vanilla to have much variety in this regard, so these are from further afield:

I've also now got a backlog of Mennonite summer sausage. It looks like overkill, but it's actually quite rational. The small piece at the front is the last of the old sausage. The medium-sized sausage in the middle is the aged sausage that is a few months old. The sausage at the back is the new sausage -- it's dated at the end of July -- and needs a month for the flavour to mature and for the sausage to firm up a bit.

Ontario autumn porridge: what to do with the apples coming out of our ears

In this part of Ontario at this time of year, we have apples coming out of our ears. Pick--your-own apple farms are in abundance for the month of October, and apples appear everywhere in supermarkets in the month that follows -- 50 cents per pound at my local supermarket for the local varieties.

Apple pie is one of the obvious uses for this extravagance, but there is only so much you can take.

Over the past few days, I've been trying to use apples and their byproducts to come up with a good porridge. Today's was just about right. You could reasonably make this with all-local ingredients, except for the cinnamon.

Here is what you need for 1 serving:

• half of an Empire apple: Empire apples are good because they fall apart when cooked. You could also use a Mac apple, but it would be more tart.
• 1/4 cup sweet apple cider: I am talking about the pressed apple cider and not the alcoholic cider
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup uncooked grain cereal: over the past few days, I have used a ground 10-grain cereal made by Bob's Red Mill. Today, I was at the bottom of the bag and mixed 10-grain cereal with Quaker rolled oats (not the quick variety). Essentially, anything that has about a 10-minute cooking time will be OK with this recipe. Something I have not yet tried in this recipe but would probably be great are Oak Manor Farms's Toasted Porridge Oats. They are a farm in SW Ontario but available in the GTA.
• 1 cinnamon stick: only if you like cinnamon with your apple
• maple syrup: readily-available local maple syrup is available all over Ontario

First of all, dice half of an Empire apple. You don't need to peel the apple unless peels really bother you. They will soften during cooking and add a nice texture and flavour, I think.

Put the apple cider into a saucepan, bring it to a boil and then add the apple pieces. Simmer (covered) the apple pieces in the cider for 2-3 minutes.

Then, add the water and bring it to a boil. Add the cereal grains and stir briefly to prevent clumping and then reduce to a simmer. Reduce heat and simmer covered for 10 minutes. Stir periodically (every few minutes).

[ Optional (cinnamon): Depending on how cinnamon-y you like your apple to taste (if at all), add the cinnamon stick to the saucepan earlier or later in the cooking process. If you like a strong cinnamon flavour, add the cinnamon stick when you add the oats. If you like a mild flavour, add it about 8 minutes into the 10 minutes simmer time. ]

Once the grains have simmered for 10 minutes, remove from the heat and uncover. Add the maple syrup to taste (for me, this is about 1 tbsp.).

Put it into a bowl, let it cool down a bit and then serve.

I was pretty impressed with this. I think cider is to apples what tomato paste is to tomatoes -- it amplifies the essential flavour.

(not much of a) Garden update: September 2009

Well, the tomatoes were doing well until they came down with the blight that so many other tomato growers have had problem with this year, due to the damp weather that makes it easy for the fungus to grow and the violent thunderstorms that help the spores spread through the air.

At the moment, there's about 1 good tomato for every 15. Up until a few weeks ago, everything looked very healthy and every tomato on the vine could be picked, so it came on quite suddenly.

I also found three carrots. I'd left my carrots for dead because I thought they'd all been eaten, but three of them made it. Makes me wonder: if the animals don't want them, why do I? But, they tasted OK.

Wild blackberries from the garden

In the back, I've got a native wild blackberry bush that's quite prolific, even when you cut it down to the ground every autumn. In the trail across from me, I've seen these same blackberry bushes in the wild as well as some wild raspberry bushes.

This is the first picking, probably with two or three left to go.

[ update: a few days later, another bowl ]