Book Review: What the Robin Knows

September 9, 2013

...ould otherwise have fled our presence long before. Most of all I like this book because he asks a lot of you. At one point in the book he’s talking about how there’s no formula for this stuff, just lots of dedication and time, and notes, “The lifelong learning curve is the ultimate appeal of what we do.” This made me laugh out loud. Appeal? The notion of working on one skill all your life (especially one as unglamorous as robin-watching) is not a...

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Josey Baker Bread: One Bread Book to Rule Them All

Mr. Homegrown

May 14, 2014

Bread, Food, Reviews

18 Comments

...to hold up half a dozen. Not any more. Now I can send students to just one book: Josey Baker Bread. The appropriately named Josey Baker (who used to work with another baker named Dave Miller–who mills his own flour, naturally) has written a perfect bread baking course in book form. Everything I’ve figured out about teaching how to bake is in here–start with a simple white bread, graduate to sourdough and then start baking with whole grain. Having...

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Everything Must Go Part II: Books

Mr. Homegrown

January 12, 2015

Cleaning, Domesticus, Tidying up

41 Comments

...the first steps on Kondosans’ path to a tidy house is to go through one’s books. We managed to accumulate more books than our shelves could hold. An untidy and anxiety producing book pile had developed in the living room. It was time for a book cleansing. But let me first state our rule about buying books. My gym is mere steps from the Los Angeles Central Library from which I can easily access over 6.2 million books, movies, CDs and downloadable...

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Is the Urban Homesteading Trend Over?

Mr. Homegrown

December 14, 2015

Thoughtstylings

26 Comments

...re, they can just buy it at the store. She is correct that interest in DIY homesteading books wane during good economic times. But I was curious to see whether Google search trends for DIY topics would back up Sack’s hunch. Above is the result for “bread recipe” searches and you can definitely see a slight decline over the last two years. “Jam Recipe” searches “Jam recipe” shows a similar decline as well as seasonal spikes that coincide with canni...

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Little Library Walks

Mr. Homegrown

June 27, 2024

Design

4 Comments

...urse, find many more unofficial libraries out in the wild. I seldom take a book and usually regret when I do. You can often guess why a book no longer “sparked joy” in the owner’s life and ended up in a Little Free Library. Case in point: Aziz Ansari’s book of dating advice. But I have, occasionally, found some really interesting books such as a catalog of the works of the artist Gordon Matta-Clark and a guide to Los Angeles’ dive bars. I also had...

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