A Better Garage Organizational System

...anges to the workshop I made in order to make it more useful for furniture making such as being sure that I could access my workbench from all sides, as well as improvements to the dust collection system. I can detail these changes in a future post but I’m more interested in showing that a well organized workshop can benefit any activity from sewing to gardening. Taking the time to plan a workspace makes work go much easier. Aesthetics are importa...

Read…

We Grew a Cocktail Avocado!

This morning Kelly alerted me to the latest avocado news making its way around the internet tubes. Apparently a chain of grocery stores in Great Britain, worried about the lack of knife skills in our young folks (ugh), is marketing a seedless “cocktail” avocado. What is a cocktail avocado? Some deep Googling revealed that they aren’t some new variety, just un- or under pollinated Fuerte avocado. Since we have a Fuerte tree in our backyard, I deci...

Read…

Saturday Linkages: Quarantine Movie Suggestions

...he Jacobin (behind a paywall but worth the price of admission). We’ve been making our way through Kilpatrick’s golden-age of Hollywood sub-list. So far we’ve watched: Scarface (the 1932 version) The Big Sleep (Don’t worry about the plot it makes no sense at all–just enjoy the scenery) His Girl Friday (You can watch this one for free on the YouTubes) The Sea Wolf (This one is kinda like a relentless, brutal film noir at sea and, remember, the sea i...

Read…

I Can’t Get Adam Curtis Out of My Head

...e that this entire multi-thousand post blog, with all those canning, bread making, gardening, squirrel complaining ramblings are just an excuse for those few times I get to implore readers to watch the latest Adam Curtis documentary? Methinks yes and so I must note that a new Curtis just dropped on the BBC yesterday. “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” is Curtis at his most sprawling and complex. We watched the first episode last night which covers, am...

Read…

A Simple and Life Changing Bagel Recipe

...agels. Deep Bagel Thoughts Why did it take me so long to getting around to making bagels? It turns out bagel baking is much easier than the sourdough loaves I sometimes attempt. These homemade bagels are soooooooo much better than store bought or even bagels from specialized bagel bakeries. Why? First off, the boiling step gives you that perfect chewy bagel not found in supermarket bagels. But as Hamelman notes, hand shaping also gives you a bette...

Read…