About the Green Hedonist

Well, hey.  Come on in, pull up a chair.  Can I get you a drink?  So glad you stopped by. Most people who check out this page are looking for the answer to that burning question, “Who in the heck do you think you are, anyway?”  You were too? Good. Here’s the skinny:

I think I’m the Green Hedonist, and I write about exploring that dicey intersection of living a luscious life and living a responsible life.  Or, as a friend once put it: “Doing the right thing without sucking every ounce of enjoyment out of life.” For those reading who love them some infographics, it might look like this:

We don’t live in a plastic bubble (and if you do, I’m so sorry I brought it up, and are you allowed iPads in there?).  We’re part of a global community that includes food, air, kids, trees, taxis, Cocker Spaniels, Republicans, icebergs, fruit bats, and a trillion other things.  So nowadays, most people spend at least a little time thinking about things like “How can I have this (exotic food/handy appliance/vacation to Monaco) without killing too many (kids/Republicans/fruit bats)?”

And I want to know that too: In this crazy interdependent world, how can we all indulge ourselves in those special things that make us feel great…without breaking the bank, wrecking the planet, or spending half our lives doing Google searches?

Enter the Green Hedonist.  On this site, I round up tips, sources, life hacks, ideas, methods, and recipes for having a great life — and feeling great about it, which makes it all taste just that much sweeter.  Because we can have both.

…And about me, in case you’re curious…

I’m Margaret, and I live in the Colorado foothills with an eerily humanoid dog and my husband, both of whom share my love of great food and great everything else.  I grow my own black tomatoes, make a mean vat of carnitas, love things that were made by a pair of hands and not a machine, and have a bottle of Dom Pérignon under the stairs labeled “in case of emergency.”

Like a lot of people, I’ve always liked to explore good food, wine, beer, movies, travel, cool objects in my house, and fun things to do with my time. But I’ve always cared where all of that stuff came from and how it got to me, and wanted to make decent decisions about where I spent my hard-earned money: I wanted to love life’s daily pleasures AND feel good about them.

So, pop quiz: If you want to get your hands on some of that butter from grass-fed cows you’ve heard is super-yummy, where do you even start?  If you’re floored by an article about the human cruelty that goes into making chocolate, and want to feel better about buying it — because face it, you’re gonna buy it anyway — how would you find out about some good ones?  Wanting to make a killer batch of pesto and enjoy it all winter? Wondering if there’s an affordable alternative to that mass-produced coffee table made by nine-year-olds in Malaysia? What do you do?

Exactly.  Big pain in the neck.  Really, it was like another part-time job to source a life’s worth of good, sustainable stuff, and sometimes I couldn’t even afford to buy what I found!  My palms would go all clammy, I’d start wondering about my checking account balance, and it was all too easy just to go for the easy, fast, cheap solution instead, and save saving the world for another day.

That’s why I do what I do, and write what I write.  I’m finding there are a lot of people in the same boat — good, smart people who want to really savor a delicious life, but without the usual side of guilt.

Because it ought to be easier to do the right thing and still have time & money to enjoy what you love, shouldn’t it?

I’ll be learning along with you, and we’re going to have a blast.