How to Cook Perfect Scrambled Eggs

...led eggs? Two words for you: double boiler. It’s a method I learned from a book I had out from the library, Ruhlman’s Twenty: 20 Techniques 100 Recipes A Cook’s Manifesto . I can’t say that I read the rest of the book, but the double boiler egg method sure works well. You melt some butter in a double boiler first to help keep the eggs from sticking. You can also use a pan held over (but not in) a pot of boiling water if you don’t have a double boi...

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The Hen: An Appreciation

Reading the fine book, On Writing Well, I came across this passage by E.B. White (Charlotte’s Web) about chickens, proving that nothing ever really changes: From “The Hen: An Appreciation,” which is found in the book of essays, The Second Tree from the Corner, by E.B. White, 1944: Chickens do not always enjoy an honorable position among city-bred people, although the egg, I notice, goes on and on. Right now the hen is in favor. The war has deifie...

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Least Favorite Plant: Yellow Oleander (Thevetia peruviana)

Thumbing through a book of toxic and hallucinogenic plants, I finally manged to i.d. the neighbor’s shrub that looms over the staircase to our front door. The popular name given for this plant in the book was “suicide tree”, so named for its use in Sri Lanka, though I’ve found other plants with this same moniker. The scientific name is Thevetia peruviana, and it’s also known as “lucky nut” (can we change that to unlucky nut please?), Be Still Tre...

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Alektyomancy: Divination by Rooster

...sed, and the letters were read in the order in which the rooster pecked the seeds. The interpretation of the oracle is unknown.(1) Thankfully you don’t need to own a chicken to practice alektyomancy. There’s an online version. 1) From I.P. Couliano’s book Out of this World: Otherworldly Journeys from Gilgamesh to Albert Einstein. Couliano was, incidentally, a gifted scholar whose life was tragically cut short by an assassin’s bullet. His book Eros...

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Saturday Linkages: Pallets, Ladybugs and Portlandia

...chicks wearing muffin wrappers as tutus! http://www.recyclart.org/2014/08/little-chicks-wearing-muffin-wrappers-tutus/ … The Flight of the Ladybugs http://www.theawl.com/2014/08/the-flight-of-the-ladybugs … The Portlandia Activity Book http://boingboing.net/2014/08/25/the-portlandia-activity-book.html … World made by bigots http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-08-27/world-made-by-bigots … For these links and more, follow Root Simple on Twitter:...

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