Search Results for: label/book reviews/page/31/2011/04/making-it

575 results

Meet us this weekend in the Bay Area

Mrs. Homegrown
Events
1 Comment
This Friday, April 29, we’ll be talking and signing at Book Passage in Corte Madera: 7:00 PM Saturday, April 30th, we’re gathering for a forage at Sutro Heights Park, San Francisco. It’s supposed to be a pretty day. Bring drinks, and we’ll gather a salad to share. Feel free to bring more food, your guide books, gathering implements, things to sit upon, and most especially, any local knowledge you have. Very casual. Meet...

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Till vs. No Till Poll Results

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil
2 Comments
US Department of Energy Our highly unscientific till vs. no-till poll results are in: 17% of you said you till43% of you don’t till23% of you double-dig15% are undecided Looks like most of you fall into the permacultural no-till camp. For more information on no-till ag see the no-till section of our publisher Rodale’s website. Meanwhile, we’re on our book tour of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Check out...

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California’s New Greywater Code: Common Sense Legalized!

Mr. Homegrown
Water and Power, Water Conservation
8 Comments
...code can be superseded by local municipalities. Plumbers unions opposed loosening the code, no doubt fearing the loss of business. Combined with NIMBYs, they could put pressure on city governments to keep greywater illegal. It’s time for us Californians to be vigilant and start letter campaigns should cities try to restrict our new right to use our greywater. As for the practical side of this new law, I’d suggest that anyone interes...

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Gathering in Portland: Looking for ideas

Mrs. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
9 Comments
Hey all, We’re visiting in Portland on Tuesday, May 3rd and Wednesday, May 4th as part of our book tour. On the Tuesday we arrive, we’re going to be on KGW’s “Live at 7″ program. We’ll be done by 7:15 and have nothing to do afterward. Would anybody like to meet us downtown? Our idea is that we could settle ourselves at a pub or cafe, and anybody who feels like it could come and hang out with us. We’ll ta...

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Keeping it Local

Mr. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
7 Comments
A depression ear local currency The Wall Street Journal had a fascinating article, Cash-Strapped California’s IOUs: Just the Latest Sub for Dollars on the history of IOUs and local currencies. It seems that Depression 1.0 spurred quite a few improvised currencies, including the “Minneapolis Sauerkraut Note”, for a good reason. Just as today, a lot of people want the rewards for our labor tied to tangibles rather than moneti...

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Bean Fest, Episode 5: Black-Eyed Pea Salad (Lubyi Msallat)

Mrs. Homegrown
Bean Fest, Food, Recipes
4 Comments
...allment comes from a cookbook we’ve been trying out over the last week called Vegetarian Dishes from Across the Middle East, by Arto der Haroutunian. These recipes really fit well with our kitchen just now, considering its emphasis on classic summer vegetables (like eggplants, cucumbers and tomatoes) and bulk bin foods like beans and grains. This black-eyed pea appetizer (meze) is of Syrian-Lebanese origin and is easy to prepare. All you...

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The Pressure is On

Mr. Homegrown
Food
14 Comments
...end sent us a copy of Pressure Cooking for Everyone by Rick Rogers and Arlene Ward. The recipes are simple and I’m especially fond of the squash risotto and vegetarian chili. Speaking of vegetarian, the recipes in this book are on the meaty side (Kelly is a “fishatarian” and I simply don’t buy supermarket meat). Someone does need to do a good vegetarian pressure cooker cookbook as the only one I could find was stuck in a...

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Deep Bedding for Chickens

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens, Composting
42 Comments
We’ve got about 5-6″ of loose stuff on the floor of our chicken run. Underneath that, it’s black gold. Around this time of year, folks are getting chickens. Some for the first time. So I figured it was time to talk about deep bedding again. I know we’ve written about it before, in our book, or on this blog, but this advice bears repeating: Nature abhors bare ground.  Line your chicken coop and run with a thick l...

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Gardening Classes at Silver Lake Farms

Mr. Homegrown
Resources, Urban Farming
1 Comment
Local gardening guru Tara Kolla, who we met in the course of writing our book the Urban Homestead, will be hosting a series of very reasonably priced classes at her beautiful urban farm in Silver Lake beginning in March. Topics include vermicomposting, organic gardening and more. Full information on the Silver Lake Farms website. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, we highly recommend taking a class or two, and sign up early as space is li...

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You’ve probably never met a soup like this

Mrs. Homegrown
Food, Recipes
5 Comments
Mushroom and Fruit Soup. Yep. I don’t know if you’re going to like this recipe. I did. Erik made it, which shocked me, because he has a general prejudice against savory fruit preparations. In fact, he has a general prejudice against soup, seeing it somehow as being a substandard food form. Nonetheless, he cooked this soup.  I smelled it first, as it was cooking, and it smelled really good. Then I saw it in the pot, and said, “...

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