Making Beer in Plain Language

...of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.” -Guggenheim Fellowship-winning professor of rhetoric and comparative literature Judith Butler via the Bad Writing Contest Huh? At least the terminology surrounding beer making ain’t that obtuse, but it certainly could use some simplification. For novice home brewers, such as us here at Homegrown Evolution, the terminology creates an unnecessary barri...

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Making Tofu From Scratch at the Institute of Domestic Technology

...coffee roasting, bacon curing, bread baking, jam and exotic projects like making your own nocino and toothpaste. One of the perks of teaching at the IDT is getting to sit in on some of the other classes. The coffee roasting class changed my life. Now, every morning, I look forward to fresh coffee I roasted myself in a Whirley-Pop Popcorn maker. This past weekend I sat in a new IDT class taught by author Andrea Nguyen on how to make tofu from scra...

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Picture Sundays: Memory Castle

An example of a memory palace or “method of loci.” From the description of this woodcut, which is in the collection of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford: The Tower of Wisdom is constructed of a basement supported by 4 buttresses, a first floor with 5 windows and a double door reached by a staircase of 7 steps, above which rises the keep of a castle constructed with 12 courses of 10 stones inscribed with the names of religious virtu...

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Asphaltum as a Wood Stain

...the distance I could see the ongoing demolition of the LA County Museum of Art. As I said goodbye to the high 60s modernist art museum cafeteria my mom used to take me to, I scanned the park for asphaltum plumes. Thankfully, park employees facilitate hipster artisinal asphaltum collection thanks to cones marked “tar pits” to keep people from spreading their picnic blankets over the foul smelling, sticky stuff. I discovered one particularly prodigi...

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The Art of Sadeli Mosaic

...by Sneha Sarang showing Indian craftsman creating the intricate decorative art called Sadeli mosaic. Used to adorn small boxes in India, the Middle East and Iran, the technique is similar to the way “slice and bake” cookies and European “rock” candy are made. Narrow triangular strips of wood, metal or plastic are cut using a jig on a table saw: The strips are gathered into bundles: sliced: and applied to a wood backing: It looks simple but I’m sur...

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