German Rye Bread Recipe

March 10, 2016

...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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Deep Work

Mr. Homegrown

April 11, 2016

Reviews, Thoughtstylings

3 Comments

...ates and tweets? Can’t seem to get that garden planted or get that novel started because you’re too “busy?” How ironic that a computer science professor, Cal Newport, could be just the person to lead us out of our distraction with his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. The book can be boiled down to this: thou shalt schedule uninterrupted blocks of time to focus on single, important tasks. And, yes, that includes thin...

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Islamic Geometric Patterns

Mr. Homegrown

May 2, 2016

Design

5 Comments

...ese shapes with just a compass and ruler. Here’s the square and hexagon: Starting with these basic shapes, you then do further subdivisions. Once the pattern is penciled out you start using ink to make the final design. Add color and texture and these basic patterns can become enormously complex, what David Wade calls “windows into the infinite”: So what can you do with this arcane exercise in geometry? Just look at some of the amazing things Brou...

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Harry Partch: Woodworker and Composer

Mr. Homegrown

May 12, 2016

Design, Music, Thoughtstylings

5 Comments

...ying them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfZrNaLxH-0 You can see all of Partch’s instruments here. Partch’s music can be jarring at first. Then it grows on you. I think my favorite Partch composition is Daphne of the Dunes. It sounds like an artifact of an ancient culture that never (but should have) existed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa5ok_Ju_MY Partch pushed the cultural envelope so far that he’s often labeled (I think, disrespectfully)...

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Salted Spruce Tips and Pine Infused Garlic Salt

Mrs. Homegrown

July 1, 2016

Food, Foraging, How-to, Recipes

5 Comments

...at is to say, herbed salt or salted herb? The best approach is to simply start with less salt and see how it goes, because you can always add more. Feline assistance in making the pine garlic salt. A Tale of Two Salts To give you some concrete examples, I made two small batches of salt today. I often make herbed salt in tiny batches that get used up quickly, because I like to experiment. The first one I made was with spruce tips. These are the fre...

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