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I’m always looking for new recipes, so when I found out about ebook guru Morris Rosenthal’s list of  Free Classic Cookbooks for Kindle I couldn’t resist springing for 99 cents to buy it. It’s an annotated list with links to Amazon where you can download the ebooks. Rosenthal claims that his list includes every free cookbook in the Kindle format.

You don’t need a Kindle to read these recipes. Just install the free Kindle app and download to any device: desktop, laptop, smart phone or iPad.

“Classic,” it turns out, means books that are in the public domain–no longer protected by copyright. Since  copyright can last for 70 years after the author’s death, you won’t find Julia Child’s or Rachael Ray’s recipes on the list.

1900s kitchen with “modern conveniences” -- gas water-heater, gas range with pilot light, gas-heated flatiron and a garbage incinerator.

You will find books from the 19th and early 20th century and before, with a few as old as the 16th Century. Some recipes are true classics that stand the test of time. Cassell’s Vegetarian Cookbook (1875) includes recipes for carrot and lentil soups that seem straight out of today. And the Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes Cookbook (1909) includes Chocolate Glace Cake and Chocolate Souffle that would delight any modern chocoholic.

But the real joy of these cookbooks is the window they open on the evolution of cooking, society, and the role of women. If you love reading cookbooks, you’ll find a treasure trove here. Some excerpts:

The Book of Household Management (1861)

In this famous cookbook, Isabella Beeton offers 900 recipes and dishes out advice on the proper management of the household. ”The early rising is one of the most essential qualities which enter into good Household Management, as it is not only the parent of health, but of innumerable other advantages. Indeed, when a mistress is an early riser, it is almost certain that her house will be well managed.”

Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six (1879)

This is Juliet Corson’s second cookbook, written to expand her readership. ”The wide publicity which the press has given to my offer to show working people how to have a good dinner for fifteen cents has brought me a great many letters from those who earn more and can consequently afford a more extended diet. In response I have written this book. It is designed [for those who] look for more than the absolute necessities of life; it is a practical guide to the economical, healthful and palatable preparation of food, and will serve to show that it is possible to live well upon a very moderate income.”

She offers this advice to nursing mothers. ”It is generally believed that women who drink malt liquor are able to nurse children to greater advantage than those who do not use it. The fact is that while the quantity of milk may be increased, its nourishing quality will be impaired…. Do not drink beer for the sake of your child….”

Food Remedies: Facts About Foods and Their Medicinal Uses (1908)

The Grape Cure: “Many people have heard vaguely about the grape cure for diseases arising from over-feeding…. In countries where the grape cure is practiced, the patient starts by taking one pound of grapes each day, which quantity is gradually increased until he can consume six pounds. As the quantity of grapes is increased that of the ordinary food is decreased until at last the patient lives on nothing but grapes.”

The Belgium Cookbook (1915)

On cooking game: “Game is like love, best appreciated when it begins to go.”

On cooking vegetables: “Do not let your vegetable dishes remind your guests of Foissart’s description of Scotchmen’s food, which was ‘rubbed in a little water.’ ”

The Story of Crisco (1921)

“The culinary world is revising its entire cook book on account of the advent of Crisco, a new and altogether different cooking fat…. Many people wonder that any product could gain the favor of cooking experts so quickly…. This was largely because [people] were glad to be shown a product which at once would make for more digestible foods….

Good digestion will mean much to the youngster’s health and character…. [Children] may eat Crisco doughnuts or pies without being chased by nightmares. Sweet dreams follow the Crisco supper.”

Back in the day, the City of New Orleans measured the success of Mardi Gras by the amount of garbage left to scoop off Bourbon Street on Ash Wednesday. But even the excesses of Carnival season are becoming more eco-friendly, slowly.

An estimated 22 million pounds of cheap plastic beads, most of them imported from China, are tossed to crowds lined up for the pre-Lenten parades. Only about 2 percent of those are recycled, but Arc Enterprises in New Orleans is working to increase that ratio. It places recycling bins along the parade routes and its “Catch and Release” trailer follows some of the floats.

Revelers are also encouraged to toss their throws back into the trailer for recycling and resale to next year’s float riders. Last year the organization, which employs the disabled, sorted through 100,000 pounds of reclaimed beads.

“My Beauty Underneath” by Stephan Wanger is 88" x 66" and created with 60,000 reused Mardi Gras beads glued to a trashed front door.

Artist Stephan Wanger knows just what to do with a lot of those beads: He created the world’s largest mosaic ever made entirely out of the colorful little baubles. “Sanctuary of Alegria — Home of Happiness” is 8 feet tall and 30 feet wide, and contains more than a million individual recycled Mardi Gras beads. The mosaic, which depicts the New Orleans skyline, took over 14 months to assemble, with help from volunteers. It will be auctioned off in March to raise funds for the Lower Ninth Ward, devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Detail of Wanger’s “Sanctuary of Alegria” created to mark the 200th anniversary of Louisiana’s statehood as the 18th state in the Union.

Wanger has been creating works of art from recycled beads with a mission – to help rebuild the city – since 2005. He also teaches classes in his Galeria Alegria on Magazine Street in New Orleans.

There’s even a new krewe that brings the green message to the parades themselves. Made up of local performance and visual artists, The Ancient Krewe of Kolossos paraded for the first time on Feb. 16, with a host of bicycle-powered floats, marching bands, street performers and eco-friendly handmade floats.

Laissez bon temps rouler!

Valentine’s Day is a tricky holiday for the eco-conscious consumer. Unless you live in California, the chances are those beautiful red roses have come a long, long way to your flower shop or supermarket.

Although many of the roses sold by U.S. retailers come from Ecuador or Colombia, locally-grown flowers are becoming more popular.

Domestic growers supply less than 10 percent of all the roses sold in the United States, according to Amy Stewart, author of the best-selling “Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers.”

California produces about three-quarters of that 10 percent.

Almost all the rest of the 4 billion stems Americans spend $6.2 billion on annually come from Latin America. In fact, 12 percent of Colombia’s annual flower output, and one-third of Ecuador’s, is shipped to the U.S. in the beginning of February, when we will purchase about 200 million stems.

Bouquet designed by Berkeley, California florist, Max Gill, who arranges whatever he can clip in his garden to create centerpieces for Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Restaurant, also in Berkeley.

That doesn’t leave a lot of market share for growers in the other 49 states, not to mention the carbon footprint of all that transportation. But the demand for local flowers is, well, growing.  Since Stewart’s book was published in 2007, more consumers and florists are asking about the origins of their bouquets. Stewart says 6 percent of the flowers sold in the U.S. are now certified eco-friendly and socially responsible.

Spring flowers from Local Color Flowers (locoflo.com) a Baltimore, Maryland-based floral design business which creates arrangements and bouquets from sustainable and seasonal flowers cultivated by local specialty growers.

One of the biggest challenges for domestic producers is that their product is seasonal. Farmgirl Flowers in San Francisco delivers locally sourced arrangements that sometimes feature ornamental kale, and you won’t find locally grown Valentine’s roses in Denver that match the picture-perfect — and chemical-laden — imported varieties.

Arrangement from Farmgirl Flowers (farmgirlflowers.com) in San Francisco, California, which uses only fresh, local flowers delivered by bicycle couriers.

But what’s wrong with a lovely bunch of carnations? Colorado was the number one producer of carnations worldwide until 1974, when the U.S. government’s war on drugs encouraged Colombia to use its mild climate and cheap labor to grow legal crops.

You can find a responsible flower retailer through third-party certification organization Veriflora, and local flower farms through the Association of Specialty Flower Growers or Local Harvest. Seattle author Debra Prinzing blogs about sustainable flowers at www.the50milebouquet.com, and will soon publish a book of the same name.

“Art teachers have always used found materials,” Marilyn Brackney said.  “Budgets for art materials are slim, and late in the semester funds are gone. Teachers had to fall back on free supplies.”

Brackney speaks from experience. A trained artist and art educator, she lives in Columbus, Indiana, where she taught in local public schools. In 1988 her budget for art supplies was reduced from $1,000 to $250 for the semester, so she collected discarded items to reuse as art materials. Then she had to figure out projects for them that would interest her elementary through high school students.

While developing her course, she listed each material (e.g., aluminum cans, calendar pictures, latex house paint ) along with step-by-step instructions for each activity.

To share these ideas, her husband, who was director of  technology for the Columbus school system, created a website, The Imagination Factory. The Trash Matcher section pairs each waste material with an illustrated art/recycling “how-to” activity.  It’s a great help to teachers planning classes and parents figuring out what to do with children unexpectedly housebound for an afternoon. The site has been visited by millions of people.

The Imagination Factory website is a family project. The Brackneys' daughter, author Susan Brackney, created the logo.

During her classes Brackney talks about landfills and the need to reuse materials to raise the students’ awareness of the environment. She created Trashasaurus Rex, a 300 pound dinosaur, 9 1/2 feet tall by 11 feet long, made entirely of household rubbish, in protest to a court ruling that forced Indiana to accept trash from the East Coast although their local landfills were almost all filled up. After exhibiting it in Indiana and Florida to raise awareness, she donated it to the Rocky Mount Children’s Museum of North Carolina.

No longer teaching in the public schools, Brackney holds private classes in her home and updates the website with new projects and ideas. She also curates and mounts exhibits created with reused materials — the  Deja Vu Fine Art and Crafts Show — held periodically in Columbus.

In honor of Super Bowl Week 2012,  Brackney was asked to create Tree Cozies to decorate the downtown area of Columbus, an hour from the stadium in Indianapolis. With the help of 32 young volunteers, the group created Super Kids from old and spare mittens, stuffed with fibers from an old pillow.

Super Kids decorations made from odd mittens in honor of the Super Bowl.

Another Indiana art educator, Joe LaMantia, who lives in Bloomington, aims to demystify art, developing projects with communities and schools that they can work on as a group.  He offers “a holistic approach to creating art that’s shaped for each unique cultural setting” with children, parents, families and staff to encourage their imagination. The adults help in assembling the framework for each project, which are usually made with reused materials.

Originally studying to be an architect, LaMantia has picked up a variety of skills in several art careers: He taught art therapy in an adult day care center, spent years as a dimensional illustrator for magazines and publications and helped install exhibits in Boston at the Institute of Contemporary Art and MIT art gallery before carving out his niche as an educator and collaborative, public artist.

For example, when his daughter’s school was moving to a new building, LaMantia approached the principal and suggested that they use materials from the old school for art in the new school.  With the school’s support, he secured funding from the state and city; eventually more than 30 organizations donated money and services.

The result, completed in 2010, is a 12-foot-tall head of a cat — based on a drawing by a fourth grader — made from recycled and new steel. Cat parts are made from recycled steel and aluminum:  The aluminum lettering comes from signage of the old school; the aluminum mouth comes from the old fire escape, the cast iron nose comes from a metal fire door that had these cast iron rollers and the whiskers come from recycled reinforcement rods from a local scrape yard. To make this as inclusive as possible, all the children, teachers  and adults of the school put their handprints on the cat which in turn gave a texture that looks like fur. The project involved about 350 people: students, parents and the immediate community.

Cat made from recycled steel, outside the Artful Learning Center in Bloomington, Indiana.

As Artist in Residence, LaMantia helped a school in Indianapolis build The Villagers’ Bell Tower to commemorate 80 villagers who settled the school’s neighborhood in the late 1800s. Each bell includes a historic or cultural reference to the original settlement.

LaMantia, who has also developed community projects in Kentucky, Illinois, Oklahoma and Minnesota, continues to raise public awareness of the environment while creating an opportunity to work as a community, one unique project at a time.

For more information, visit his website.