Meet our book & web designer: Roman Jaster

March 14, 2014

Roman Jaster is the gifted designer who designed both Making It and this very website for us. He recently gave a Visiting Designer talk about his work at his alma mater, CalArts and made that lecture public on YouTube. In it, he talks about his childhood in East Germany, the decisions he made early-on which determined his career, his working methods (which are really interesting, combining coding with design) and talks about the concepts behind s...

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Choosing the Perfect Tortilla Press

Mr. Homegrown

April 9, 2014

Food

17 Comments

...2 inch press as small tortillas are used in authentic Mexican street food. Making corn tortillas is much simpler than I expected. All you do is get masa harina (a limed corn flour), mix it roughly 50/50 with water and let the dough rest for a half hour to an hour. Next, you roll the masa into little 2 inch balls and press them between a plastic bag inserted into the tortilla press. The last step is to heat them on the stove for one minute on each...

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Josey Baker’s Awesome Adventure Bread (gluten free!)

Mrs. Homegrown

May 19, 2014

Bread, Food

13 Comments

...’s foolproof. If you have bread baking anxieties, just leave those behind. Making this “bread” is easier than making cookies. In texture, Adventure Bread could belong to that camp of dense Nordic/Germanic breads, like Vollkornbrot, but its nutty nature sets it apart. The only thing I don’t love about it is the pumpkin seeds–I don’t like their slippery texture so much in this context. Next time I may switch those out. I’m going camping this weekend...

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Kevin West’s Saving the Season

Mr. Homegrown

October 1, 2013

Food, Food Preservation, Reviews

8 Comments

...h. Full disclosure here: I’ve tasted a lot of West’s jams. I teach a bread making class at the Institute of Domestic Technology. After my bread demo West does a jam making session and I stick around to watch and, hopefully, filtch an extra jar. Those West jams are coveted items around the Root Simple household. What makes Saving the Season different from other preserving books is West’s masterful use of aromatics and alcohols. As he explains in th...

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Tips on growing great garlic

Mr. Homegrown

September 12, 2013

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

8 Comments

...f they appear. The flowers pull energy from the plant that is better spent making big cloves. The flowers are also edible: some farmers are actually making more money selling the flowers as culinary exotics. Growing garlic in hot climates I’ve had mixed success growing garlic in Los Angeles. It turns out I was growing the wrong varieties. Most garlics appreciate cold weather, including some time spent under a blanket of snow. For hot climates you...

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