Roasted Asparagus

...ere they can spread out in a single layer. Drizzle them with lots of olive oil, then get in there with your hands and toss and massage that oil in, so all the stalks are completely coated. Lay them back down in a single layer. Give them a generous salting and a grind of pepper and chuck the pan in the oven. Roast for about 30 minutes at 400F until tender but still retaining a bit of spine. Fat stalks might take longer, skinny, less long. You may l...

Read…

What to do with not-so-good tomatoes

...chment paper or foil to help with cleanup. Drizzle the tomatoes with olive oil–using maybe a couple of tablespoons of oil per sheet. Next brighten them up with just a few drops of balsamic or red wine vinegar per piece. Finally, give the whole sheet a generous sprinkle with sugar–the sugar is important–and salt and pepper. Put them in a low oven–around 300F- 325F. They’ll need to cook a long time, maybe two hours or so. The exact cooking time depe...

Read…

The Future is Biomorphic

...inds me of the wisdom of what Nassim Taleb calls, “non-predictive decision making.” Why? Futurists and prognosticators are as accurate as a dead clock. Twice a day they get it right and the rest of the time they end up looking foolish. We can be especially thankful that the washing machine for people on page 179 of The Futurist never caught on. That said, the point is not always to predict the future. Architects, artists and designers push the env...

Read…

Root Simple Redesign

...me big improvements to our website. Roman Jaster, the designer of our book Making It (seen at the console in the picture above taking some last minute refinements from Mrs. Homegrown), is just about to pull the switch on the new design. We’re switching from Blogger to WordPress. Our new website design will feature: improved search functions an easier to navigate interface improved comment moderation better graphic design podcasts videos All of the...

Read…

Saturday Tweets: Too Many Tweets!

...PG56m0hpdU — Thomas Rainer (@ThomasRainerDC) March 4, 2019 Alias: a smart-speaker "parasite" that blocks your speaker's sensors until you activate it https://t.co/uvSQXWz9kK — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 4, 2019 Goodbye Sidewalk Trees https://t.co/6MmMq42ay7 — Benjamin Vogt (@BRVogt) March 3, 2019 Haha. Our neighbours just accidentally connected the porn film they were watching to one of our Bluetooth speakers. — Jonathan Healey (@SocialHi...

Read…