An open letter to Trader Joes

October 16, 2007

...ks were snoozing during their high school biology classes. We replaced the picturesque barn with a windowless industrial shed to show the most prevalent housing for poultry and, more than likely, where these cage free eggs came from. The family poultry farm alluded to in your cover art has long since been replaced by huge industrial operations housing thousands of chickens in enormous sheds. Our relatives, living on a nearly century old family far...

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Homegrown Evolution Visits the Los Angeles County Fair

Mr. Homegrown

September 30, 2008

Thoughtstylings

2 Comments

...splay hive and talking with a knowledgeable beekeeper (didn’t get a decent picture). Best of all we made contact with our local beekeeping club, and we’ll have information next month for those of you in the L.A. area who are interested in keeping bees. From beekeeping we jumped on over to the home economics competitions and marveled at the preserved foods display. With the recent success of Pickle Fest 2008, we predict a new batch of competitors i...

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Beans 101 (Return of Bean Friday!)

Mrs. Homegrown

March 1, 2013

Bean Fest, Food, How-to

21 Comments

...You could cook beans in pre-made stock, but what I like to do is toss the makings of stock into the pot with the beans. In the picture below you see the gleanings from my fridge and garden, ready to go into the pot. An oldish carrot, a couple of stalks of celery, half of an onion leftover from something, a garlic clove (I like more, but ran out), some red chile flakes, and a bundle of herbs. The herbs are just what is in my garden now: fennel, pa...

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End of Season Tomato Review

Mr. Homegrown

November 26, 2008

Gardening, Tomatoes, Vegetable Gardening

7 Comments

...s were grown in cages made from concrete reinforcing wire (instructions on making tomato cages here) in raised beds with a drip irrigation system as pictured above. As an experiment for folks in apartments or with limited space, we grew a bunch of tomatoes in self watering containers on a strip of concrete next to the back wall of our garage (note crappy picture below). You’ll see that we were too lazy to put the container tomatoes in cages–don’t...

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How to Make Your Own DIY Instant Oatmeal

Mrs. Homegrown

March 24, 2016

Food, How-to, Recipes

6 Comments

...ielding maniacs. At the time, some of you pointed out, “Umm…why aren’t you making your own darn instant oatmeal, Mrs. Homegrown?” To be sure, you all said it more nicely than that, but this was my takeaway. Well, you were right. I think the impulse to bring packets of oatmeal camping is the sort of thing which, once inculcated at an early age, is never considered again consciously afterward. But yes, of course one can make their own instant oats,...

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