My book publisher forwarded some interview questions to me from a British magazine a while back. One of the questions was, “Why would people want to make their own body care products instead of buying them in the shop?” Three days after I returned my answer, Johnson & Johnson, the company behind some of the most recognizable…
Reader Questions: February
I can’t let February sneak past without doing a reader question post. This month: fermentation lids, peppers that will ripen in the Northwest, litter for chicken coops and more. We also have Community Questions asking for suggestions, advice or resources for gardening in Central America and Florida. I’m not knowledgeable enough to answer, but maybe you can help?
5 Things Friday: 2/26/16
Ooh, how time flies! This week: what the heck I’ve been doing for the past week, Jim Gaffigan on parenthood, slow flowers for late February and more.
Kale & Chickpea Salad with Slow-Roasted Tomatoes
The thing about salads in winter, is – they have to have some ooomph there, you know what I mean? In summer I’ve been known to eat a head of romaine plain, one leaf at a time…munch, munch, munch. But in winter I like meal-worthy salads with hearty components like beets, apple, sweet potatoes and more. With garbanzo beans, slow…
How To Make DIY Liquid Castile Soap
I made 6 gallons of liquid soap so you don’t have to. You know about Dr. Bronner’s Liquid Castile Soap. It’s been an all-in-one, all-natural cleaning solution for generations of hippies, greenies and all manner of natural living advocates. Dr. Bronner’s is great, but it’s not the cheapest cleaner out there. So, these were my…
Five Things Friday: 2/12/16
I’m sick. I’ve been sick and more-or-less in bed for three days. Shout out to my husband for keeping everything running around here while I’ve been down for the count. So this week’s 5 Things Friday is really 3 Things Friday. I’m cutting it off short so I can go crawl back into bed with my tea….
Fasting, Booze, Lent and The Hedonic Treadmill
Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. You’ve probably heard of giving something up for Lent. Traditionally, Catholics who are better Catholics than me use the 40 days (not including Sundays) between today and Good Friday (that’s the Friday before Easter) to fast, pray, do charity and reflect on the sacrifices of Christ. But…
5 Things Friday: 2/5/16
Time for the weekly-ish round-up of randomness! 5 Things Friday is my way of shoe-horning in and discussing things that don’t necessarily belong on an urban homesteading blog, just because I’ve been thinking about them the past week. This week: George Carlin is my kind of life philosopher, how to get one over on the internet, a…
Lacto Fermented Spicy Korean Kraut
Think of this as kimchi for wimps. It’s more accessible in flavor than a traditional Korean, long-fermented pungent cabbage or turnip ferment. But it’s not so unlike kimchi that it won’t stand in well as a spicy, pungent addition to rice bowls, soups, and noodle dishes of all kinds. For the best results on this…
The Corpse Reviver No. 2
Back in the late 1800s, Corpse Reviver drinks were promoted as hangover cures – think “hair of the dog” for the 19th century inebriate. There were all number of drinks that claimed the potency to bring even the most hungover “corpse” of a drinker back to life. Only a few of the Corpse Reviver recipes survive – and of these, the…
3 Easy Steps To The Juiciest Lemons Ever
It’s citrus season, which means a couple of things around here. One, any pretension of even halfass locavorism goes out the window. I’ll take all the citrus California, Texas and Florida can manage, please, for as long as they’ll ship it up to me. Two, I start going crazy making lemon curd, salt-preserved lemons and limoncello. (I also…
When Chicken Keeping Was Patriotic
A hundred years ago Europe was in the middle of one of the ugliest, bloodiest wars the world had seen. Battlefield technology had advanced; battlefield medicine had not. Trench warfare saw millions of men killed for territory gains you could measure with a yardstick. This was World War I, definitively called The Great War by people who didn’t…