Kevin West’s Saving the Season

October 1, 2013

...kitchen prep that introduces a peach recipe. The grape jelly section is preceded by an analysis of a Nicolas Poussin’s painting. This is the only preservation book I’ve found myself reading for fun. My threat to get rid of all my preserving books is not hyperbole. Saving the Season really is the definitive book on the subject of pickling and preserving. West has a website, www.savingtheseason.com, where you can find recipes as well as info about s...

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How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman

Mrs. Homegrown

August 30, 2016

Domesticus

13 Comments

...some craft: blacksmith, brewer, rope maker, dyer, tanner, painter, tailor, bookbinder. And heck, every good housewife had to know how to do a whole lot of stuff, from sewing to cheese making to brewing, and was a master of those crafts as a matter of course. How wonderful it would be to walk those streets and watch it all going on! For those of us who like to engage in this kind of wishful thinking, Goodman’s book is a close second to a long visit...

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Get Baking and Share the Loaves

Mr. Homegrown

August 7, 2014

Bread, Food

10 Comments

...this bread!” To pick up the basics of home baking I can’t say enough good things about Baker’s book, Josey Baker Bread . Baker’s previous job was in science education which makes him the perfect person to write a baking cookbook. The book is laid out to teach you all that you need to know about bread sequentially. You go from a simple yeasted bread up almost to the Einkorn baguette level. As Josey Baker says, get baking and share the loaves!...

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A Review of Masanobu Fukuoka’s Sowing Seeds in the Desert

Mr. Homegrown

December 4, 2012

Gardening, Miscellaneous, Permaculture, Reviews

4 Comments

...is parent’s farm when he first took it over. And in the second half of the book he suggests a radical interventionist approach to what he calls “deserts” (by which he means areas ruined by human activity). Here he chronicles his trips to wastelands in India and the Central Valley of California. Fukuoka suggests carpet bombing these areas with seed pellets (a how-to for making seed pellets is included in an appendix). And the content of those seed...

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Nanotecture: Tiny Built Things

Mr. Homegrown

July 20, 2016

Animals, Cats, Design

Nanotecture: Tiny Built Things is a tiny book of big ideas. It’s 336 pages of objects ranging from bird houses to sheds to temporary art installations. The unifying theme is clever design and a less than house sized scale. This is the kind of book to thumb through if you’ve got a creative block, are curious about materials or just looking for inspiration. And there’s lots of dog and cat architecture. And saunas, like the bike propelled mini sauna...

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