Urban Homestead Book Signing and Lecture

...rban Eco-Villages and the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition present THE URBAN HOMESTEAD Talk, Slide Show and Book-Signing with Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen Thursday June 26th 2008 7:30pm at Los Angeles Eco-Village 117 Bimini Place, LA 90004 Directions at www.laecovillage.org Suggested donation $5, no one turned away for lack of funds Books sold separately for $15 Come hear the authors of the Homegrown Evolution blog and get yourself a copy of t...

Read…

The Sundiner–A Groovy 1960s Era Solar Cooker

...of how long various meats take to cook: Hamburgers, franks, and fish, 15 to 20 minutes. Steaks and fillets, 20 to 25 minutes. Quartered chicken, 25 to 30 minutes. Temperature variations are possible by turning the Sundiner toward or away from the sun. The advantage of the Sundiner is that it can be used as a safe substitute for a fuel-fired stove on beaches, parks, decks of boats, and other restricted areas. Carrying handles are standard. The pric...

Read…

Camping and Solar Cooking

...n at home, are the perfect occasion to deploy a solar cooker. Best of all you can build a solar cooker yourself for pennies out of cardboard and aluminum foil. For some foods, such as rice, it’s actually easier to cook with a solar cooker than it is on a stovetop. Put some rice in a pot, place the pot in the solar panel cooker, stick it out in the sun and two hours later you have lunch. Read the rest at The Cleanest Line via the Patagonia Company....

Read…

Waxed Cloth Food Wrap (Made in a solar oven for bonus self-righteousness points)

...perhaps drying herbs as well. And for those of you who were following our solar cooking initiative, it has been on hiatus because our weather this May was dominated by a heavy marine layer which kept the skies overcast until mid-afternoon. I love this weather, personally, but it has put a wrench in the cooking experiments. June, however, is coming in hot and bright. Usually June in LA is characterized by these same overcast conditions–we call it...

Read…

Home cooking advice?

...Of course there are many different Italian and Middle Eastern cuisines and cooking traditions, but these broad labels are enough for now.) I am neither Italian nor Middle Eastern–my native regional dish would be a steak with a corncob on the side–but I live in a Mediterranean climate, and the vegetables and herbs and fruits used in these cuisines thrive in my yard, and are easy to buy locally. This food just makes sense here. And we like it. If I...

Read…