Virtuosic Bread Shaping

...al many different Markook shaping techniques. Here’s a pillow free version making the rounds on Facebook: Post by Akhilesh Sharma. Back to learning a difficult skill. In the case of shaping dough it’s often best to practice with a sacrificial lump of flour and water that you’re not going to eat. It takes the pressure off and you’re free to try and try again. This applies, of course, to many other skills. Once you get the basic motion down, than it...

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Get Baking and Share the Loaves

...oll, answering questions and sharing his knowledge. Baker’s love for bread making is infectious. Catch that infection and you’ll go down a very deep and geeky vortex of hydration ratios and cold proofing sessions. At a panel discussion on Monday, moderated by KCRW’s Evan Kleiman, Baker announced that he’s working on an Einkorn baguette, the bread geek equivalent of proposing a new route up K2 sans oxygen. At both events he dropped a lot of advice...

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Biodynamic Composting Workshop

...utzen is the author, with his wife Kelly Coyne, of The Urban Homestead and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post Consumer World. He blogs and produces a podcast at www.rootsimple.com. Cost: $20 per person. Space is limited to 20 attendees. Children are free and welcome to participate under the supervision of their parents. Register in advance here. What to bring: hat, gloves, sturdy shoes – be prepared to get your hands dirty! Refreshments will be...

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Summer Nights in the Garden at the Natural History Museum

...Natural History Museum’s Summer Nights in the Garden. We’ll be part of the festivities this Friday July 25th where we’ll be: POTTING SUCCULENTS! They’re one of the most low maintenance plants out there, and one that’s perfect for our dry L.A. climate. Urban homesteading experts Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne are here to help you plant your own succulent and give you tips on keeping them alive. Supplies are limited. Available to participants on a fir...

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Creating a Moon Garden

...t pollinators and other wildlife. Bornstein had a number of great tips for making a garden interesting at night: Consider color. White flowers, of course, will pop out under moonlight. But yellow flowers stand out even more. We’re lucky in Southern California to have a lot of native plants with silvery grey leaves (an evolutionary adaption of dry climate plants). Masses of silvery grey leaves stand out well at night. Include a contrasting backgrou...

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