2013 in Review Part I

December 30, 2013

...atellafemoral syndrome, aka bad knees. In May I did what I should have done 20 years ago: hire a personal trainer to set up a gym program tailored to my needs and weaknesses. After many hours at the YMCA I’ve got PT syndrome under control but I’ve still got a lot of work to do. Thankfully, I’m back to running and fencing. February In February in Los Angeles it should rain. It didn’t. The year was the driest on record: 3.6 inches, making it a deser...

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Party in the Bathroom!!!!!

Mrs. Homegrown

June 5, 2014

Animals, Cats

24 Comments

...I do lock the door, she scratches on the other side in protest–tirelessly– making a noise so annoying that I have to submit and let her in. The boys, Buck and Trout, being handsome but sadly thick, can’t even begin to open the door without her. Phoebe is deeply bathroom obsessed, though, so the boys will never be locked out. Wherever Phoebe is, she comes running when she hears me entering the bathroom. Maybe she doesn’t hear me–maybe she’s set up...

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Recipe for the World’s Best Whole Wheat Pancake

Mr. Homegrown

January 8, 2014

Bread, Fermentation, Food

22 Comments

...ea salt 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder The night before making these pancakes I take a tablespoon of mature starter and add it to 100 grams of freshly milled Sonora wheat flour and 110 grams of water. This mixture will be the 200 grams of starter you’ll use in the recipe. The next day mix all the ingredients together, fry them up in a pan and get ready to have your pancake paradigm shifted. New frontiers in baking Freshly milled...

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Dave Miller on Baking with 100% Whole Wheat

Mr. Homegrown

January 21, 2014

Bread, Food

23 Comments

...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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A viewing suggestion from the media arm of Root Simple

Mrs. Homegrown

February 11, 2014

Domesticus, Food, Gardening, Preparedness, Resources, Thoughtstylings

34 Comments

...outside world, to the electric light burning beside me. Bless the BBC for making Tudor Monastery Farm (a title which I believe would not fly on American television). This is a quiet series showing three historians/archeologists at play in the Weald & Downland Open Air History Museum, trying out some of the skills they’d need to be tenant farmers to the local monastery. It has some of the structure of a reality show, but it seems that no one reall...

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