Hoshigaki Season

...ime to make hoshigaki, a Japanese delicacy made by hanging peeled persimmons up in a window to dry. Hoshigaki are chewy and subtly sweet. The texture of hoshigaki is different than what you would get if you just put persimmons in a dehydrator. And if all goes right the sugar comes to the surface making it look like the fruit has been dipped in powdered sugar. If you can find them in a Japanese market they are extremely expensive. And the ones I sa...

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More on How to Make Clear Ice

...amper English has done my work for me and carefully tested every clear ice making method and documented the results in painstaking detail on his entertaining and enlightening blog Alcademics. The winning method he suggests is the one I wrote about: freezing ice in a cooler (also known as “directional freezing”). The distilled water and hot water methods don’t work, according to English. I also learned that the enigmatic David Rees (author of a boo...

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When it’s time to remove a tree

...the time comes to make changes in your garden. There’s nothing wrong with making changes–the trick is in how they’re made, and why. When you remove a plant and it’s the right thing to do, and it’s done properly, it feels good. Really good. Not just on an aesthetic or practical level, but on a gut level. You don’t miss the plant once its gone. The empty space is hardly noticeable. The garden feels more lively or, conversely, more peaceful. It’s as...

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What You Can Do to Make Our Streets Safer

...can think of at least two simple things you can do to begin the process of making our cities more livable and safe, especially for our children and elders. Burn Your AAA Card The Automobile Club likes to hide behind the cheery road trip facade epitomized by their magazines and free travel advice. But behind the scenes they are a lobbying group as powerful and nefarious as the tobacco industry. They’ve never seen a road they don’t like and have spe...

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How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman

...ever see that described? Yet somehow, I feel better for understanding the making and maintenance process of these things. Now the ruff seems less like the inexplicable product of an alien civilization. Just think, someone (many someones) made that ruff and all those baubles and do-dads by hand Did you know folks could change the color of their ruffs in and out by treating them different colored starches? Or that there were colored ruffs at all? (...

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