Heirloom Expo in Photos

I highly recommend making the trip next year to Santa Rosa to see the National Heirloom Exposition put on by the folks at Baker Creek Seeds. The centerpiece of the expo is the massive display of hundreds of different varieties of squash, melons, tomatoes and other edibles. It’s inspiring and frustrating all at once since, unless you have your own garden, you’ll never see such diversity at the supermarket. I came back with the will to improve our...

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Saturday Linkages: Paleo Flour, Viking Tents and Chinese Cabbage as the New Kale

...— Root Simple (@rootsimple) September 16, 2015 Via @NPR: Paleo People Were Making Flour 32,000 Years Ago http://t.co/Q6xlGIBBG3 — Root Simple (@rootsimple) September 17, 2015 Equity, the Mobility Plan, and the Myth of Luxury-Loving Lane Stealers http://t.co/nPB0sbqjug via @streetsblogla — Root Simple (@rootsimple) September 18, 2015 How America’s Staggering Traffic Death Rate Became Matter-of-Fact http://t.co/onrP7oreWC via @StreetsblogUSA — Root...

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An Early Resolution

...by 22% in one year: In 2013 customers brought their own tumblers into our stores 46.9 million times, up from 35.8 million in 2012, saving more than 1.4 million pounds of paper from landfills. As more customers brought in their personal tumblers over the previous year, the percentage of customers choosing reusable mugs saw a 22% increase over the prior year from 1.5% to 1.84%. (Starbucks blog) Okay, so it’s not even 2% of their customers, but thos...

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Behind the Scenes at Root Simple is a World of Big Pumpkins, Pomegranate Catapults and Man Crates

...ocation for this annual event. “The available space and the City’s help in making the event happen really creates the perfect environment for the Pomegranate Festival,” Debi Bray, president and CEO of the Madera Chamber of Commerce says. Returning to this year’s lineup is a display for various aircraft as well as skydivers from Madera Parachute Center. New to this year’s festival will be a children’s stage featuring local dance, karate and other t...

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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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