We Grow Houses

September 27, 2007

The last time a television news crew showed up near our domicile we were living in San Diego for a brief stint in grad school and those dozens of microwave relay trucks that showed up were beaming vital information about the former apartment of Gianni Versace assassin and spree killer Andrew Cunanan. So when we spotted a NBC news truck near the Homegrown Revolution compound we assumed our Los Angeles neighborhood had produced a new celebrity kill...

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Solar recipe review: Moroccan Chickpea Tagine (Works on the stovetop, too)

Mrs. Homegrown

August 12, 2016

Food, Recipes, Solar Oven Summer

4 Comments

...spicy that would have counterbalanced the sweetness. But at any rate, next time I will either leave out the raisins or sub them with something a little more tart, like chopped dried apricots. If you don’t have a solar oven all you’d have to do to adapt this recipe is start by sauteing the onions and garlic and carrots till they soften, then add in canned chickpeas and tomatoes and spices. Bring to a simmer and cook, maybe covered, until everything...

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How’s that Tomato Grafting Project Going?

Mr. Homegrown

July 21, 2016

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

4 Comments

...o stagger the days I started my seeds rather than planting them all at one time. The healing chamber needs to be a carefully controlled environment. I improvised a greenhouse by putting my seedlings in plastic bags. This worked but I had trouble re-introducing light in a uniform way. Grow lights would make this easier. And it was a pain to open all the individual bags to mist the plants. Because of my lack of stem sizes to choose from I ended up w...

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Pet Peeve: Texting at the Gym

Mr. Homegrown

March 17, 2016

Fitness, Thoughtstylings

12 Comments

The older I get the more time I seem to have to spend at the gym fixing dumb sports injuries. With that age also comes a crankiness about rude smartphone habits. Lately I’ve found my exercise routine lengthened by having to wait for people just sitting on equipment and texting. I know that this is a “first world problem” and I’ll acknowledge that I’ve probably been guilty of searching for just the right podcast episode between sets. But the gym s...

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A Guilty Pleasure: The Mid-Century Menu

Mr. Homegrown

January 19, 2016

Food

5 Comments

Back in my time-wasting grad school days I made somewhat of a hobby out of thrift shopping. Along with the mandatory copy of Herb Alpert’s Whipped Cream, every thrift store would have a collection of post-war, space-age cookbooks. Recipes, in this period, are a kind of recombinatory matrix of industrial ingredients. You take some cocktail wieners, a dollop of mayonnaise, some ketchup and a surprise ingredient, say dried prunes and roll them all u...

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