Jas. Townsend’s 18th Century Cooking

...te Townsend’s well researched videos. You can tell he’s having a good time making them too. Kelly wanted me to highlight the portable soup video I embedded above. And note that it’s just one of four videos on portable soup! There’s also a fascinating series on 18th century breads. If Townsend’s video output isn’t enough for you he’s got a website containing the recipes and videos called Savoring the Past. Does Townsend sleep? I’m glad he doesn’t b...

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The Primitive Technology Guy

...of Queensland, Australia uses a “show me don’t tell me” philosophy of film making that I greatly admire. No long, babbling intros! Kelly was especially impressed with his pump drill fire starting technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEl-Y1NvBVI He has a blog that describes the content of his videos in more detail. People like John Townsend and the Primitive Technology guy are the good side of the internet, producing quality work that’s a lot...

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It’s safe to comment again

...service. Our intrepid webmaster put out the fire a couple of days back by making it hard to comment We’ve had no spam at all as a result. That is good. But no one is happy with the draconian commenting protocols. So we’re trying something new. Now, commenting is back to our usual system, but we’re closing down comments on older posts. We have a library of 2,522 posts on Root Simple as of today–crazy, huh?– and that’s a whole lot of territory for...

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The Secret of Tidiness Revealed

...thrift store first may be necessary for the more wayward members of the untidy tribe. What do you think? Tidy tribesters–are you laughing? Untidy tribesters–are you weeping/making excuses/confused/skeptical? And I haven’t even touched on the issue of a tidy person living with an untidy mate!...

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German Rye Bread Recipe

...e to slash the loaf before it goes in the oven. And unlike the white bread that passes for rye in the US, this loaf is actually made out of mostly rye. It does have some white flour in it, but just enough to allow making a hearth loaf. If you’re in the LA area, I’ll be teaching some more rye classes this year. Sign up for the Los Angeles Bread Bakers on Meetup.com and you’ll get all the announcements and invites....

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