Search Results for: label/book reviews/page/5/2011/04/making-it

562 results

Notes on Mark Bittman’s “Behind the Scenes of What We Eat”

Mrs. Homegrown
Events, Reviews, Thoughtstylings
3 Comments
Last week Erik and I went to see well-known food writer Mark Bittman speak on food policy. He spoke in a huge room in The California Endowment–and it was a full house. Afterward, Erik and I compared it to being in church. We were surrounded by people of the same faith, being told things we already know, and being reminded to be good. And I don’t mean that in a bad way! It never hurts to meditate on how to be better, to do more. Bitt...

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Out Of The In Box

Mr. Homegrown
Design
6 Comments
While my architectural tastes run closer to Prince Charles than Buckminster Fuller (those damn domes leak!), I have a soft spot for DIY hippie design manuals. I recently stumbled upon Ken Isaacs’ 1974 book How to Build Your Own Living Structures, which contains plans for everything from a simple chair to a multi-level home, all in a distinct modular style. Best of all, it’s available as a pdf for free here along with a couple of othe...

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When the Crate’s Better Than the Chair

Mr. Homegrown
Design
2 Comments
Steve Badgett of the design/art/architecture collective Simparch tipped me off to Dutch furniture designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld’s set of chairs built out of crates, done back in the 1930s. As Rietveld put it, “A piece of furniture made of high-grade wood and manufactured completely according to traditional production methods is transported in a crate to avoid damage…no one has ever ascertained that such a chest embodi...

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All is Fire

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
6 Comments
...nvoking these stoic philosophers both ancient and modern is along winded and perhaps pretentious way of saying that I believe, along with Taleb, that the “highly improbable” is more probable than we think and that it’s best to do the things within our power to do and not worry about what’s going on beyond what we can change. That China’s Sovereign-Wealth Fund is considering investing in the bearish (to put it mildly)...

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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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Apron Contest Winner

Homegrown Neighbor
Miscellaneous
RLeave a comment
Homegrown Neighbor here: We have a winner for our apron giveaway . I received a lot of great entries. It was fun to hear what each of you would do in an apron. I’m happy to say that we have a lot of interesting, witty and crafty readers. I even received some international entries. I wish we could give you all aprons. But Katie Presley made me laugh, so I had to choose her as our winner. Lots of people cook and craft, but Katie cooks and...

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Nopales Season

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Foraging, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
6 Comments
It’s nopales (the pads of the prickly pear cactus for you Yankees) season at the Homegrown Evolution compound. Our prickly pear has thrown off so many leaves that a neighbor dropped by last week to ask for some. We filled a bag for her and declined the dollar she offered us. To cook up our nopales we use a simple recipe found in Delena Tull’s book, Edible and Useful Plants of Texas and the Southwest. First scrape off the spines with...

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Arundo dorax

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Foraging
3 Comments
...ugh stems make excellent building materials, which is why the plant was originally imported to California in the early 19th century. Arudo dorax often finds a home alongside river banks, and in Los Angeles massive amounts of it wash up on the beach after big storms. The plant’s prodigious spread and ability to crowd out native species puts it on many a bad-ass plant list. Homegrown Evolution’s attitude is–like it or not it̵...

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Deadly Nightshade vs. Black Nightshade

Mr. Homegrown
Foraging
16 Comments
...na. One must be careful when using the popular names for plants! Solanum nigrum To add to the confusion, Solanum nigrum is eaten and used as animal fodder all over the world, though many sources continue to describe it as toxic. As with all members of the Solanum family there’s still a great deal of superstition when it comes to toxicity. Remember that many Europeans considered tomatoes to be poisonous well into the 18th century....

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Homemade Cat Toys

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Cats
53 Comments
...hing else. And I don’t mean genuine novelty–they don’t need newer and stranger toys all the time. Rather, individual toys seem to get stale for them. A fresh paper bag is thrilling, but by the end of the day it’s old news. However, if you put another paper bag down, even the exact same kind of bag, the thrills will start all over again. If you try to fulfill their whims by buying them new toys all the time, soon your pocke...

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