Recipe for the World’s Best Whole Wheat Pancake

January 8, 2014

...the oldest wheat in the Americas. It’s a soft, winter wheat traditionally used for tortillas. Recipe (based on Nancy Silverton’s pancakes) 210 grams starter 2 tablespoons maple syrup 3 tablespoons safflower or corn oil 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoon sea 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...

Read…

Our new front yard, part 2: theory

Mrs. Homegrown

November 13, 2015

Back to the Garden, front yard series, Garden Design, Gardening

12 Comments

...mage courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons) The concept of legibility One term used by Rainer and West in Planting in a Post-Wild World that I really glommed onto was “legibility.” Landscapes have to be legible to be likeable. The Western world has an inherited bias toward open landscapes with clean edges. In its simplest incarnation, a lawn with a tree. The driveway and the clipped hedge. The golf course. This may be an aesthetic inheritance of those...

Read…

Cat Scratch Fever: How to Make Your Own Cat Scratching Posts

Mr. Homegrown

January 28, 2016

Animals, Cats

15 Comments

...our Ikea couch. Here’s what you’ll need: 3/8 inch sisal rope scrap wood (I used a 4×4) [I have revised this post: nails work better than staples!] #17 x 1 inch wire nails hot glue (optional, but a few dabs will keep the sisal on the post longer) Wrapping the wood is straightforwards, if tedious. I used some clamps to hold the post down to my work bench while I did the wrapping. Put a few nails in the sisal as you begin to wrap it around the wood....

Read…

A Not So Close Shave

Mr. Homegrown

April 25, 2019

Domesticus, Shaving

7 Comments

...force-multiplied reality. And yet, every time I look at social media it causes me to ask how am I also complicit in the curation of an idealized alternate self via this blog and our books? How many times have I presented some neatly tied up homemaking/gardening tip when the actual results were more ambiguous? Or, to go deeper with this, how often have I presented a “failure” as a kind of false modesty? At the risk of doing the latter, and via a l...

Read…

Why You Should Own an Impact Driver

Mr. Homegrown

September 25, 2017

Tools

7 Comments

...nce. At that point an anvil engages to increase torque. It’s not to be confused with a hammer drill, used for drilling holes in concrete and masonry. A hammer drill taps down the length of the bit, whereas a impact driver’s internal hammer is used to increase torque, i.e. rotation. The increased power of a impact driver means fewer stripped screws and less muscle fatigue. The two disadvantages are the need for more expensive forged steel (rather t...

Read…