How’s the Sugar Free Experiment Going for Erik?

June 2, 2014

Food

...t processed foods as a whole are what are making us unhealthy. But as I discovered in my own life, it’s difficult to avoid sugar. It’s in everything the big food companies make. Making time to cook from scratch and eating a diverse variety of foods looks like the only way out of the food mess we’re all in....

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Shakerato (Why don’t you come to your senses?)

Mr. Homegrown

July 6, 2015

Food

10 Comments

...caffé shakerato. A shakerato is an iced coffee mixed in a cocktail shaker. Making one is much easier than hauling yourself down to that dreaded temple of middlebrowedness whose green siren logo will lead us all to financial ruin and sugar-induced comas. No, you don’t need another Frappuccino. Making a shakerato is simple. Brew some strong coffee (espresso is best, but I don’t have an espresso maker). Let the coffee cool down (this is important–add...

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Our Rocket Stove

Mr. Homegrown

November 21, 2007

Preparedness, Rocket Stove

92 Comments

...ew small branches or twigs. Before we built the rocket stove we considered making a cob oven, a mud domed wood fired oven in which you can cook bread and pizza. There’s a trend in the eco-world to build cob ovens and we felt a certain pressure to keep up with the eco-Joneses. We started to build the base for one and then began to think about how often we would actually build a fire, especially considering that it has to burn for several hours befo...

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Meet our book & web designer: Roman Jaster

Mrs. Homegrown

March 14, 2014

Miscellaneous

2 Comments

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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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Grub

Mr. Homegrown

October 2, 2009

Animals, Chickens, Composting

11 Comments

...rning you empty a bucket full of grubs for your grateful chickens or fish, making sure to reserve a few to ensure future black soldier fly generations. Adult black soldier flies don’t bite and are only interested in flying around looking for sex and, in the case of the females, to find a good place to lay eggs. At $179, the BioPod™ is above our humble slacker budget level, but you can make your own out of the ubiquitous five gallon bucket. While I...

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