Search Results for: label/build it/page/14/2011/04/making-it

465 results

Did Kelly follow her 2012 resolutions?

Mrs. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
11 Comments
mposed for myself I wouldn’t have to worry about work at all.  I sing the sad ballad of the freelancer. -Accomplish my “yucky list” this month:  switching banks, upgrading my RAM, getting a new passport, and making appointments for a physical, a dental exam and an eye exam. (In terms of engaging with the medical establishment, I prefer to behave as if though the zombie apocalypse has already occurred, thus I’m well overdue...

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Connect with Nature Project #2: Rediscover Your Feet

Mrs. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
9 Comments
...ew years back I learned to spread my fashion-cramped toes in order to ground myself during difficult asanas. My toes opened wide, taking on a permanent, natural splay. My foot size also increased by an inconvenient half size, making it newly difficult to find shoes which fit. Next came barefoot walking. As has been oft mentioned in this blog, Erik is a barefoot runner. I don’t run, but I am a barefoot walker. Barefoot walking woke me to a w...

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What to do with all those hot peppers: Harissa!

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Gardening, Recipes, Vegetable Gardening
13 Comments
ry, though we should know better (having once accidentally inhaled hot pepper seeds), we disregarded warnings about wearing rubber gloves when slicing the peppers. At the risk of providing too much information, a post Harissa making trip to the bathroom led to, shall we say, burning sensations for Señor Homegrown Evolution! Burning sensations aside, Harissa is a very tasty and spicy addition to almost any meal, not just Moroccan dishes. We still...

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Artichoke Season at the Homegrown Revolution Compound

Mr. Homegrown
Vegetable Gardening
1 Comment
You can’t ask for a more perfect plant than the Artichoke (Cynara scolymus) which is also one of the most ideal plants for our climate here in coastal California. Let’s count the other reasons: They are perennial, producing and abundant crop starting with the second year. Artichokes are attractive, making an ideal choice for edible landscaping. They spread like crazy. Suckers can be transplanted elsewhere. They’re damn tasty...

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Is Kombucha Safe?

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food, Thoughtstylings
27 Comments
p. and Candida albicans. While describing the contamination rate as “low” (nearly 1 out of 10 samples seems high to us) it goes on to recommended that immunosuppresed individuals buy commercial kombucha instead of making it at home. A literature review conducted by the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth in the UK concludes, “the largely undetermined benefits do not outweigh the documented risks of kombucha,” said risks...

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Busting open a Durian

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Gardening
1 Comment
Via Mark Frauenfelder over on BoingBoing, a trailer for Adam Leith Gollner’s entertaining book, The Fruit Hunters: Is their something about being an older white man of a certain age and exotic fruit? Mrs. Homegrown has become concerned about Mr. Homegrown dropping talk of durian into conversations at inappropriate moments of late. And look out Mrs. HG, because Mr. HG just heard about the Mimosa Nursery (thanks beer making Scott!), purveyor...

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Loquat Season

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Foraging, Gardening
3 Comments
For some mysterious reason our corner of Los Angeles has an abundance of loquat trees (Eriobotrya japonica) that, at this time of year, produce prodigious amounts of fruit that mostly goes to waste. Many of these trees live in public spaces, the parkway and people’s front yards making them prime candidates for urban foraging i.e. free food. The tree itself has a vaguely tropical appearance with waxy leaves that look like the sort of plasti...

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Buddy Burner

Mr. Homegrown
Preparedness
8 Comments
e the subject of another post. To light the BB, light the wicks and turn the can up on its side so that the cardboard catches fire too. The cardboard is a huge wick. That inferno effect is what you want. Control your flame by making a damper out of a piece of aluminum foil folded into a long rectangle three or four layers thick and as wide as the can, but much longer so that you can use the excess as a handle. Slide the foil back and forth to exp...

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Age of Apocalypse

Mr. Homegrown
Age of Limits, Thoughtstylings
39 Comments
...zed many people — the lust for dying.”2 But as both Greer and Rushkoff have pointed out, the biggest problem with the apocalypse meme is that it functions as an escape from doing the hard work of fixing your own life or making the world a better place. Why bother doing anything at all if the world is ending? This sort of paralysis is very dangerous, because when the apocalypse you were waiting for fails to arrive, you are in even worse shap...

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The grape that ate the world

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Mistakes
18 Comments
thout water or any encouragement whatsoever it has grown all along the side of the house, from the back yard to the front yard–some 50 feet. It long ago swamped the 6′ chain link fence and now entertains itself by making grabs at both our house and our next door neighbor’s. This week we have to go next door armed with pruners and machetes and flame throwers and beat it back out of the neighbor’s yard. Meanwhile, tendrils...

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