Making Tofu From Scratch at the Institute of Domestic Technology

...coffee roasting, bacon curing, bread baking, jam and exotic projects like making your own nocino and toothpaste. One of the perks of teaching at the IDT is getting to sit in on some of the other classes. The coffee roasting class changed my life. Now, every morning, I look forward to fresh coffee I roasted myself in a Whirley-Pop Popcorn maker. This past weekend I sat in a new IDT class taught by author Andrea Nguyen on how to make tofu from scra...

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Butter Making Demo at the Natural History Museum

Join us for what I promise will be the Burning Man of butter making this Friday evening at the Natural History Museum. We’ll be doing a hands-on shake your own butter demo with live drummers. Best of all it’s freeeeeeeeeeeee, but you need to RSVP. And there’s more: MUSIC with COASTIN (5-7 pm) and Evan Weiss from Junk (7-9pm) BUTTER MAKING with authors, Erik Knutzen & Kelly Coyne (*timed-ticket required) POTTING SUCCULENTS (*timed-ticket required)...

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Making It Available in Overdrive App

...ecreational library visit, my favorite librarian informed me that our book Making It is available for download in the Overdrive app. Ego boosted! Many public libraries, in addition to books, now have a long list of digital gewgaws, apps and resources. One of those apps is Overdrive, which allows you to download eBooks, videos and audio books to your digital devices for free. Over 30,000 libraries worldwide use Overdrive to distribute materials. To...

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The problem with polar fleece: it’s in the ocean, it’s in sea creatures, it’s on our plates

...h impacts all this ingestion of microplastics will have for us, or the sea creatures. The news first came to me, ironically enough, via Patagonia, purveyors of very expensive polar fleece. They’d commissioned a study on this, which showed that all fleece sheds significantly in the wash. High quality fleece sheds less initially than budget fleece, but they even out as they age, and aged fleece sheds significantly more than new fleece. They also fou...

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Big List of Earth-Friendly (homemade, compostable, recyclable, no-plastic) Holiday Decorations

...ative carving of the peels (see this, scroll down) Stars made out of twigs Creatures and whatnot nestled in walnut halves A tiny boat made of a walnut half and a paper sail Make little creatures out of teasels, acorns, milkweed pods, etc. Make cookie-type ornaments out of a simple dough made of applesauce and cinnamon–add applesauce to cinnamon until it forms a dough. Just leave to dry–no baking, or maybe try drying in a very low oven. These smell...

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