Country Mouse City Mouse

My twin sister (identical, three minutes apart) and I live very different lives. She lives in San Francisco, and has a high powered job. I have my part-time nutrition practice and the other half of my life is as a stay at home mother. My twin sister does not get home until 7pm some days, and fits in going to the gym around her crazy work schedule. The paradox to this is that she loves to cook. She has some signature dishes that have become family legend. Onion Souffle for example. She does very well for herself, and has shortcuts to help her cope with such little time in the kitchen. When we visit her we usually go out to eat. My country life does not afford much in the way of great restaurants. Only two worth eating at in my small town. I go kinda crazy when I visit her. Really. A bit crazy. She deals well with my enthusiasm. I almost do cartwheels when I walk one block (Only One Block!!!) down to her local grocery store. For me at home, a "little trip to the grocery store" is either 20 minutes to the little country grocery store or 45 minutes to the big store in town. I have adjusted to this. When my friends come visit me and drive the three miles down the dirt road to my house they are usually impressed we can live in such a rural environment and startled that there is just nothing else around. That includes no power. We live in a 100% solar powered house. This is good for my doomsday fears, of which I have a few. I am lucky that my dear husband has worked in the solar industry for ten years now and has tricked out our house to be just as functional as a city house. For instance, I have a dishwasher,  and this is a novelty in our community where many people still use outhouses. We used to have an outhouse too, but that is a story for another blog post.
Back to the food.
I wanted to let you know the brands of canned foods that are BPA free. Turns out that Eden Foods has been making BPA-free cans for a decade now. Canned tomatoes are the exception however due to the acidity. I am putting a link to a Tree Hugger article that lists brands that do not use BPA in their canned food. Turns out that Trader Joes has a selection to BPA-free canned food too!

Here is my sister (on the left) and I.  (last summer in Paris)...We jokingly refer to ourselves as the country mouse and city mouse. I highly recommend being a twin. We switched classes in high school....tricked the teachers. I was the trouble maker though. My dad can attest to that. Got my mouth washed out with soap when I was 5 for spitting at the bad guy on tv. That is a story I won't be telling my daughter. Don't want her to get any bad ideas from her mother!