Interview With Apartment Gardener Helen Kim

August 27, 2008

...I have to say that, yes, the plants are a bit happier than they were this time last year. I’ve been using Dr. Earth fertilizer and making fertilizer tea. HE: Did you choose your apartment with the idea that you’d be gardening in it? If so, what should a prospective renter look for? HK: I had three main things on my mind when I was looking for an apartment: the place would need to comfortably house me, my dog, and my plants. There were so few buil...

Read…

Parkway Plantings

Mr. Homegrown

October 3, 2006

Vegetable Gardening

1 Comment

...the best growing season for vegetables here in Los Angeles, and now is the time to start planting. Our parkway garden consists of two 1.8 x 1.8 meter raised beds with a central wire frame obelisk in each bed to support beans. We ordered all of our seeds this winter from Seeds from Italy and have begun succession planting seeds every two weeks. North Bed as of October 2, 2006 In the north bed we have: Broccoli Rabe – Cima di Rapa Novantina, which m...

Read…

Rats

Mr. Homegrown

November 30, 2006

Pests

...he flesh of well-nourished rats can be, it seems, of good quality, but sometimes with a musky taste. Rats nourished in the wine stores of the Gironde were at one time highly esteemed by the coopers, who grilled them, after having cleaned out and skinned them, on a fire of broken barrels, and seasoned them with a little oil and plenty of shallot. This dish, which was then called Cooper’s Entrecôte, would be the origin of the Entrecôte à la bordelai...

Read…

Revolutionary Rusks

Mr. Homegrown

November 5, 2006

Bread, Food

3 Comments

...cipes From the Cooks at the Legendary Restaurant” To make the most of your time and maximize energy efficiency, bake two batches and stack them all up together for the 12-hour dry-a-thon following the initial 25-minute bake. You’ll end up with about 20 pieces from a single batch, and they go pretty fast. While rusks historically were created as hot-weather food, baking them during the winter is more pleasant because you end up having the oven on a...

Read…

Airing Our Dirty Laundry

Mr. Homegrown

November 5, 2006

Domesticus

3 Comments

...touch with the natural world i.e. the weather. For those folks pressed for time and unable to enjoy the blessed idleness that pervades the SurviveLA compound, another drying alternative exists — the Spin X dryer. Made by the Krauts, this thing is sort of like those small spinning machines you stick your bathing suit into at the swimming pool. The Spin X spins at 3,300 rpm, and according to the manufacturer will remove 50% of the moisture of a ten...

Read…