In Praise of Turkish Towels

...your body. After a few disconcerting mornings spent missing terry, I grew used to them, and then fell in love. I love them because: The are not as bulky as terry, so wrap and tie around the body more more easily They roll up into neat little bundles and take up very little space in my bathroom cupboard They dry more quickly than terry towels They don’t hog the washer They’re not heavy when wet They dry quickly on the line and feel soft afterward...

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Delicious Cauliflower

...And we all have a lonely can of tomato paste on the shelf that needs to be used, don’t we? We’ve been eating it hippie style, over brown rice, but it would be more elegant over an herbed pilaf, or it could be used as a side dish. I suspect it would be good cold, too, but we’ve never had leftovers. Cauliflower in Tomato Sauce (Kharnabit Emforakeh) 1 large head of cauliflower 6-8 tablespoons of oil 2 cloves of garlic, crushed 3 green/spring onions,...

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Stellarium: A Handy Desktop Planetarium

...n you can also take a look at the moon. In the pre-personal computer era I used to use a planisphere. I still have my 1980s era plastic planisphere. But the planisphere does not show the planets or moon. You’ve got to hunt down that info elsewhere. And my planisphere is so small that it’s hard to use. Thankfully, there’s a powerful, free open-source solution: Stellarium. Stellarium is a computer based planetarium that comes in OS X, Windows, Linux...

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How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman

...called finger loop braiding, which produces decorative silken cord. Tudors used this stuff a lot as trim on their garments. She started doing it for fun, as some girls get into weaving friendship bracelets, but she really took to it and sold some to a costumer. Thus encouraged, kept doing it, and as an adult she produces this stuff for high end theater and film production. Because she has been doing it since she was a child she has tremendous spee...

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Tomato Grafting Fail

...have purchased or made a seed starting mix rather than the potting soil I used. I ended up with weak seedlings. Secondly, I did not manage the post-graft period well. Having a greenhouse within which to create a “healing chamber” for the grafted plants would have made the process much easier. Since I have no space or desire to build a greenhouse I’m, most likely, going to give up on attempting to graft my own tomatoes. I did this project out of a...

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