Author: Caroline Williams

How to Grow, Cook, and Enjoy Stir-fry Kangkung (Water Spinach) in Chicago

Posted on by Caroline Williams in Close to Nature, Green Idea, Inspiration, Life Hacks

Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago, with more than 17,500 islands. The country is a home of 600 distinct ethnic groups with different cultures and traditional dishes. There are various Indonesian traditional plant-based dishes and my favorite one is a stir-fry Kangkung (Water Spinach).

Indonesia Map (Source: Google Map)

This dish has a special place in my heart because it was part of my survival meal when I was a cash-strapped college student living on an island far away from my parents after high school. For me, who had never cooked before, this dish was cheap and easy to prepare .

Now that I live in Chicago, this dish also cures my homesickness. Thanks to the Asian (Thai-Vietnamese) grocery stores in the Uptown Chicago neighborhood, I can get all the cheap ingredients I need for this dish.

After years of buying Kangkung from the store, I recently started to grow it in front of the window. Instead of composting the leftover stems like I used to do, I placed them in jars full of water. They surprisingly grow well even during winter as long as they are not deprived of water.

After about 4-5 months, I harvested Kangkung and stir-fried it with sambal I prepared days before which consisted of red chili pepper, garlic, shallots, candle nuts, lime leaf, and salt. I also added a bit of dried shrimp, slices of ginger, a tablespoon of soy sauce, and cherry tomatoes.

I used the cherry tomatoes that I harvested from my garden and froze them in a Ziplock bag. Cherry tomato is an easy plant to grow from seed. I am grateful to have an abundant harvest every time I grow them and they last for more than a year being frozen in a Ziploc bag. I simply throw frozen cherry tomatoes in a dish or soup whenever I need them.

After finished cooking, I love to enjoy Kangkung with white rice, fried tofu and more sambal. I usually can finish this Kangkung dish all in one sitting.

It feels great to be able to grow veggies and enjoy them in a meal that can remind me, an immigrant, of how I survived my past difficult life in my home country, far far away from Chicago.

An Eco-friendly way to start the new year in Manhattan, NYC

Posted on by Caroline Williams in Close to Nature

“If your New Year’s resolution is to get healthy, join the Urban Park Rangers on a lengthy hike.” That’s the invitation written on the NYC park website for the New Year’s Day Super Hike, a free public event at Central Park on January 1st.

Manhattan, NYC is famous for its Time Square New Year celebration but not many people know there are healthy and eco-friendly events available for locals and tourists to enjoy for free of charge during the holiday season.

The hiking event at Central Park is part of nationwide First Day Hikes organized by America’s State Parks. It aims to encourage individuals and families to start the year on the right foot – by getting outside and connecting with nature. According to the Park’s website, there are more than 1,000 hikes available, including at Illinois State Parks.

At the hike, the Urban Park Rangers guided us for two hours exploring the park and shared awesome and interesting facts about rock, animals, trees, and history of the Park. For example, the fact that Central Park is a manmade park but it’s a home to natural rock that was formed around 500 million years ago left by a large glacier that covered all of New York City.

Another interesting fact shared by the Rangers is about the Eastern White Pine tree that can be found at the Arthur Ross Pinetum, a four-acre arboretum at Central Park that features a collection of 17 different species of pine trees. The White Pine is a magnificent and historically significant tree. Almost all parts of the tree, including needles, bark, resin, and wood are beneficial for humans.

The Lenape, a Native American tribe who originally inhabited New York used the herbs from the tree to make tea and medicine. The evergreen tree was also a symbol of great peace for native Americans. For the British, it was once the most valuable tree to build and maintain their huge number of ships to defend the Empire. In 1772, Pine Tree Riot happened due to the American colonies’ opposition to the King’s “Pine Tree Law” that culminated in the American Revolution.

After visiting Arthur Ross Pinetum, the Rangers guided us to Seneca Village and shared a history about forced displacement of a thriving community of predominantly African-Americans, many of whom owned property. This happened in the 1850s for the City government to acquire the land for the Park. The history of Seneca Village was long hidden until 2011, when an archaeological excavation of the area uncovered significant remains.

In this two-hour hike, we also visited other interesting spots like The Pool where we learned interesting facts about the ducks, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, Turtle Ponds, Belvedere Castle, Bow Bridge and the famous Bethesda Terrace.

For locals and tourists in NYC, the annual First Day Hike event at Central Park is undoubtedly a perfect eco-friendly event to appreciate our health, nature, and history on the first day of the year.

Eastern White Pine Tree

Recycle Art & Craft: Crocheting Plastic Bags

Posted on by Caroline Williams in Info, Life Hacks, Recycle, Waste Management

Clean and used grocery plastic bag is not a waste and should not end up in the landfill. We can turn the bags into many useful and fun items, for examples: Welcome Mat, Sleeping Mat, a tote bag, a banner, even a dress to play costume or for other fun occasions.

Here is a very simple guide on how to start the project to upcycle plastic bags:

How to collect Plastic Bags

DO. NOT. PURCHASE. THEM. or collect them from restaurants or other stores.

In Chicago, we have to pay 7 cents to get plastic bags at grocery store. What a waste of money! Yes, we still can get plastic bags from restaurants, but that is NOT an eco-friendly way to collect plastic bags.

The best way to get them is from collection bins located in many grocery stores. Or, ask people to donate their plastic bags.

How to store plastic bags

If you end up collecting lots of plastic bags, save space by folding them into a triangle. This will not only save space but also keep your plastic bags clean and ready to be used for crafting purpose.

Step 1: Fold the end corner of plastic bag into triangle shape
Step 2: Fold it again
Step 3: Repeat it until the end
Step 4: At the end of it, fold the remaining part of the plastic into the pocket

How to create Plarn (plastic yarn)

To create the plastic yarn for crocheting, follow these simple steps:

Step 1:
Cut the plastic bags into 3 parts as shown (top, middle, bottom). Fold the middle part into two and folded it again. Cut it into 4 pieces with the same size. Keep the top and bottom parts to be used for the project or other purposes.

Step 2:
Open up all the 4 pieces to make 4 plarns, as shown in this picture.

Step 3:
Connect all the 4 plarns like shown in the picture. To make it clear, here we use different color of plarn.

Step 4:
After all plarns are connected, we are ready to crochet. For crocheting plarn, we use 19-20 mm hook.

How to crochet plarn for beginners

There are many videos on the internet on how to crochet plarn. This is one of them. It also explains from the beginning how to create plarn and provides many useful tips on crocheting plarn.

Hiking inside the Mammoth Cave

Posted on by Caroline Williams in Blog Post, Close to Nature, Info

Last summer, I visited Mammoth Cave in Kentucky with Fred, my husband. It was our first experience of hiking in a cave. My previous spelunking was inside a vertical cave in Indonesia. It was no hiking, but rappelling or descending deep underground. Fred has never been into a cave before. Both of us did not know what to expect, but we were excited to experience our new adventure.

In front of Mammoth Cave Visitor Center. Source: Caroline

The Size

Mammoth Cave was named for its “mammoth” or immense size of the cave’s chambers and avenues. Part of the cave, called Mammoth Dome is 192 feet high and the other one called Bottomless Pit is 105 feet deep.

The size of one to the Cave’s chambers compared to a person in white shirt, see bottom left. Source: Caroline

One of the chambers called Rotunda is about a quarter acre in size where two Great War Monuments are located. During the War of 1812, the cave was being mined on an industrial scale for potassium nitrate (saltpeter) for use in gunpowder.

The cave is also known as the world’s longest cave. In September 2021, the cave set a new record of its length to a whopping 420 miles (676 km), according to the National Park Service.

The History

Mammoth Cave was established as a national park on July 1, 1941, but public tours began some 200 years ago. Inside the cave, we can see graffiti written by visitors from the year of 1883.

One of the first explorer of the cave was an enslaved African Americans, Stephen Bishop who worked from 1838 to 1856. He was also known as a self-taught geologist who had a prodigious memory. Bishop was capable to drew a map from memory of the cave’s explored passageways.

Stephen Bishop. Source: nps.gov

The Tours

The Park offers many interesting tours guided by passionate, knowledgeable, and sometimes funny rangers who love to share jokes related to the cave.

My husband and I took five of ten tours they offered. The length of the tours varies from two to four hours. My favorite tours are the Violet City Lantern and Star Chamber tours. Both tours need lanterns as the only source of light inside the cave.

Rangers with lanterns for visitors inside the cave. Source: Caroline

During the tours, we can see many amazing rock and geology formations. We can also see artifacts and other signs left by Native Americans who first discovered the entrances to the cave. Another interesting thing to see is the old tuberculosis huts built in 1842-43 deep inside the cave to accommodate patients with tuberculosis.

Stalagmite and Stalactite formation. Source: Caroline
One of many interesting rock formations. Source: Caroline

The difficulty levels of the tours are varies. Some tours are sightseeing tours. Other ones require hiking, climbing, and descending very steep hills. There are also fun sections called Fat Man’s Misery followed by Tall Man’s Agony. The first one is a very narrow passageway that takes about 15 minutes to pass through. The last one requires tall people to bend constantly to navigate the passageway.

One Frequently Asked Question from visitors is about bats. We saw only one bat during our five tours. Turns out, there is a disease called White-Nose Syndrome which has killed millions of bats since its discovery in New York in 2006. To prevent spreading the disease, visitors are required to walk across a decontamination mat to clean our shoes when exiting the cave.

Decontamination mat to clean our shoes to prevent us from spreading the White-Nose Syndrome disease. Source: Caroline

Hiking inside the Mammoth Cave turns out to be a fun-filled experience. Fred loves the the temperature inside the cave. It is around 54°F year-round. I was grateful to realize how our eyes amazingly adapt to the darkness of the cave. The only downside of it, for me personally, is how hard it is to take good pictures inside the cave. Overall, I highly recommend anyone to visit the Mammoth Cave, one of great natural wonders in the U.S.

Green News from Indonesia

Posted on by Caroline Williams in Green Idea, Green Tech, News, Recycle, Waste Management

Green Mosque

A plastic recycle vending machine has been installed at Istiqlal Mosque, the largest mosque in Southeast Asia, located in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia (click here for the virtual tour of the mosque).

A plastic recycle vending machine in Istiqlal Mosque

As reported by VOI, the collected plastic bottle waste can be exchanged into Plasticpay Points through an app which can later be converted into electronic money that widely used in the city, such as DANA, OVO, Gopay, LinkAja, and INACASH.

According to Antara News, the Istiqlal Mosque recently became the first mosque in the world to receive an Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies (EDGE) certificate, as a green place of worship, from the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

The certificate has been awarded to the mosque since the worship place has been renovated based on an environmentally friendly concept. It has increased the efficiency of water and energy usage of the building by applying energy-efficient roofs, outer walls, and lighting; installing smart energy meters; as well as using solar panels, which support more than 13 percent of the building’s electricity consumption.

Waste Bank

Another green news comes from Tanjung Burung Waste Bank – or “bank sampah” as they are called in Indonesian.

At the Waste Bank, customers deposit their household waste and receive money in their bank account based on the rates and weight of the waste. Customers separated the waste into two, inorganic and organic. Inorganic waste is recycled and turned into bricks. Organic one is processed into compost.

Composter to turn organic waste to compost
The flowchart of the process to turn organic waste into compost, it includes storage (gudang) and marketing (pemasaran)
Bricks made from plastics waste
Another alternative to recycle plastic waste to build a wall
Recycle plastic bottles used to build a decoration fence

Reported by Jimmy Kalempouw
CMGT Ambassador from Indonesia