September 04, 2007 | By Novella Carpenter, Special to SF Gate
Jessica grates the just-picked zucchini from her garden. She chops cilantro and minces ginger, sprinkles in chickpea flour. A cast iron pan bubbles with oil, and she gingerly drops a dollop of green into the pan.
Her home in Oakland -- which she rents with a carpenter and a chef -- is airy and open, with exposed beams and floor-length windows that look out over a lush vegetable garden. The house is heated by radiant heat (hot water pipes zigzagging under the concrete floor), and almost all of the building materials were salvaged and recycled.
Jessica (not her real name) lives what some might consider the perfect alternative lifestyle. She makes enough money to pay for rent and food (from the farmer's market) by teaching classes at the Solar Living Institute and selling her self-published zine about alternative fuel. She grows much of her own food and raises chickens and bees in her backyard. As a child, her family life centered around growing food and cooking meals together. Her parents never emphasized money.
She hasn't strayed far from her upbringing. When asked about her views on money, she said: "It's better to be happy than to worry about your credit card bill or working a lot."
One of the key points of being happy, for Jessica, is to bank at Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union. Jessica's made it a point to convert her friends to using credit unions, which are nonprofit banks. While she flipped the zucchini pancakes, she laid out her best argument, "I say to people: So you shop at a farmer's market. You use alternative fuel or bike or take public transportation. But you still bank at Bank of America?" She laughed at the paradox of the small- is-beautiful crowd supporting a global corporation.
