Dave Miller on Baking with 100% Whole Wheat

...ed by Chad Robertson’s first cookbook. Results were better but I was still making white bread. My new bread baking adventure began this weekend when I took a workshop taught by Chico, California baker Dave Miller. His breads are almost all 100% whole wheat. He mills his own flour from carefully sourced heritage grains. Using a levain (a starter), he creates loaves that foreground the flavor of the grain. In short, he shows that bread can have as m...

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A viewing suggestion from the media arm of Root Simple

...outside world, to the electric light burning beside me. Bless the BBC for making Tudor Monastery Farm (a title which I believe would not fly on American television). This is a quiet series showing three historians/archeologists at play in the Weald & Downland Open Air History Museum, trying out some of the skills they’d need to be tenant farmers to the local monastery. It has some of the structure of a reality show, but it seems that no one reall...

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My Brand New Homebrew Soda Carbonator

...husband award this Valentine’s Day. He surprised me with my very own soda making machine. This is not a SodaStream–it’s better. It’s an industrial strength CO2 tank topped with sturdy dials and valves and whatnot, all sourced from the local homebrew shop. He’s going to do a how-to post soon (tomorrow maybe?) on how to put together the parts, and how to use it. So hold on for those details! Right now, I’m just going to gush. I’ve been wanting some...

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What the Internet Will Look Like After the Zombie Apocalypse

...of off the shelf wireless routers overlaps with amateur radio frequencies making it legal for Hams to boost the range of these devices. That and the fact that several models of ubiquitous Linksys routers are cheap and easy to hack. Photo: Texas Ham Radio All you do is take your Linksys router, screw in a better antenna (note the one above made with a tin can), load some open source software on to it, scatter them around town and you’ve got a wire...

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The Theme of a Great Garden

...den it would be useful to toss around a few abstract words and ideas to help unify the design vocabulary of the garden. Picking a theme or several related themes could make it easier when it comes to making plant and hardscpaping choices. Of course, the current theme of our garden is “Skunk Encounters.” We’re going to have a bunch of stinky school groups this spring . . ....

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