Making Beer in Plain Language

...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 barrier as impenetrable as a graduate school seminar in the humanities. Let’s see, there’s a mash, a mash tun, a wort, some sparging, malting, all the while specific gravities are measured and hopsi...

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Book Review: An Everlasting Meal

...stores happy to sell you expensive kitchen gadgets, the truth is that good cooking and frugal cooking are one in the same. She covers all the basics. This makes for a good review for a seasoned cook, but would be a great introduction for someone just learning to cook. She’ll tell you how to make basics like rice and beans and eggs, how to deal with stew meat, how to dress a salad, how to put together little finishing touches, like herbed butters o...

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SolSource Review Part I: Assembly

...sun’s rays are directed beneath a pot/frying pan support, so that all the cooking heat is focused on a single spot at the bottom of the cooking pot or pan. A small mirror in the center of the assembly helps you keep the light focused in the correct place. You refocus the sunlight by rotating the whole assembly, which move easily on two separate axes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqj_-AIBc_A I have assembled and disassembled the SolSource twice...

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A Parvati Solar Cooker

...conventional stove, but with a solar cooker there is no danger of burning, making the process, in our opinion, easier than stove-top cooking. Consider a solar cooker a kind of low-powered crock pot for lazy and cheap people–good for things like rice, beans, soups and stews, but not good for sauteing. Just remember the oven mitts–this thing gets hot! When the sun gets higher in the sky, as we move into summer, this cooker will reach even higher tem...

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Eating the Void: On Making a Raw Café Gratitude Chocolate Hazelnut Pie

...wledge that our digestives systems have evolved over thousands of years to cooking food. Indeed, there are many foods that don’t release their nutrition unless they are cooked. In addition to this culinary nihilism, the proprietors of Café Gratitude mix into the recipes what Mark Fisher called “business ontology,” that ever present drive to explain every aspect of our lives in the language of business. A pull quote next the the I Am Bliss recipe e...

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