The Sound is Forced, the Notes are Few

...otentially deadly disease that is killing people all over the world). As a urban homesteading/DIY blogger and author I’ve attempted a few of those how to “be” under quarantine hot takes and I’ve even spent part of my time making bad watercolors. I even wrote a post about that later effort (part of a longer post about learning old school architectural drawing) but never hit the publish button because it just didn’t feel right. A large part of that...

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Root Simple Reader Survey Results

...ten to. That said, many more people listen to our podcast than show up for book tour appearances. We’ve been averaging around 1,200 downloads per week, though it’s hard to tell how many people listen all the way through. But the real reason we do the podcast is that it’s a way to have a conversation with and listen to other people in the movement. Writing can get lonely and solipsistic. It’s easy to lose perspective. The conversations we have on t...

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I picked a peck of pickled peaches

...n’s recipe with you but he’s a fellow author and you really should own his book, Saving the Season. It’s the classiest food preservation book out there. Plus Kevin could have me killed and pickled (just kidding). What I can tell you is that this is a quick, vinegar powered refrigerator pickle. Any similar vinegar pickle recipe will work. West’s recipe calls for white wine vinegar. I ran out and substituted the vinegar you clean floors with. Nevert...

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Deep Work

...wport, could be just the person to lead us out of our distraction with his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. The book can be boiled down to this: thou shalt schedule uninterrupted blocks of time to focus on single, important tasks. And, yes, that includes thinking about how we spend our leisure time too. If you allow incoming texts and notifications to define your day you’ll turn into a human router, pushing around f...

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George Rector: M.F.K. Fisher’s Dirty Old Uncle

...or, c.1937. Rector (1878-1947) was a restaurateur and popular author. This book is ostensibly a cookbook–I don’t know what else it would be–but it doesn’t have recipes per se. Instead, he just mentions how to cook things as he’s steaming along. I’m in love with the hardboiled yet strangely comforting prose (though I do have to ignore the casual sexism and racism of the period). Seems most cookbooks these days range from bland to, at best, passiona...

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