Hoshigaki Season

...ime to make hoshigaki, a Japanese delicacy made by hanging peeled persimmons up in a window to dry. Hoshigaki are chewy and subtly sweet. The texture of hoshigaki is different than what you would get if you just put persimmons in a dehydrator. And if all goes right the sugar comes to the surface making it look like the fruit has been dipped in powdered sugar. If you can find them in a Japanese market they are extremely expensive. And the ones I sa...

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The #700 Bookshelf

...art. The #700 bookcase as seen in the 1909 catalog. My latest project was making a copy of Gustav Stickley’s #700 bookshelf, originally manufactured in 1904. The $30 price in the 1909 catalog would be around $900 today, not cheap considering that a good salary at that time was between $2,000 and $5,000 a year. In my cranky opinion the pre-WWI Arts and Crafts era marks the pinnacle of American design. It’s all downhill from this point. The #700 bo...

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Root Simple Reader Survey Results

...a paradoxical problem with a DIY blog. If we’re gardening or in the garage making something we’re not writing and vice versa. It’s been difficult to find the right balance. Looks like you’re all good with where we are. When we first began this blog ten years ago the standard advice was along the lines of, “people are distracted so make your posts short.” Lately, the common wisdom is that blog posts should be long and footnoted. We decided to split...

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Our new front yard: history

.... The slope looked alive, but it did not look loved. It’s hard to admit to making a mistake, particularly when its a costly mistake, or a mistake that you’ve made publicly, or a mistake that you’ve been making for a long time. This is why people keep climbing Everest even when they see a storm is rolling in. This is why we ended up with an ugly yards full of struggling trees. The cactus, however, grew exponentially. Its position was front and cent...

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Instant Soup Stock=Happy Flavor Bomb

...ause I want to. Back in 2013 I linked to this post by our friend Pascal on making instant soup stock with foraged greens: Wild Food Soup Stock. It’s great! But foraged greens have a short season here, and lately I’ve been using a more domestic recipe from the great blog Food in Jars: Homemade Vegetable Soup Concentrate. Check them out. You’ll see the ways in which they are similar. Basically you’re just taking all the tasty, aromatic parts of soup...

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