Jas. Townsend’s 18th Century Cooking

...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 because we’ve both been enjoying his creative output. And, lastly, a note on Kelly. She thanks you all for your kind comments, thoughts and prayers. Getting over a surgery like...

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Are Miniature Books the New Smartphone?

...e the 90s I’ve occasionally picked up their inexpensive and short classics series such as Thoreau’s essay Walking and Michel De Montaigne’s Four Essays. Kelly just got me their Little Black Classics Boxed Set which includes 80 works of short fiction and non-fiction by authors as varied as Samuel Pepys, Edith Wharton and Dante. But the first book I started my cellphone alternative experiment with is Ammianus Marcellinus’ History Books 14-19 in an e...

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025 Bees and Home Ec Disasters

...linators such as the Sunflower Project. We conclude with a discussion of a series of household disasters, including breaking a precious tool, the Silent Paint Remover and burning a batch of spicy maricopa beans. Make sure to listen until the end for Kelly’s eloquent addendum on the discussion. If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to rootsimple@gmail.com. You can subscribe to our po...

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Restoring the Original Black Box: Our Western Electric 534A Subset

...e, I replaced the missing capacitor with a new 1uF mylar/film capacitor in series. The capacitor prevents the phone line from going off-hook while allowing the ring signal to go through. I also had to replace a spring and adjust the spacing between the bells. Since these boxes were owned by the phone company, solidly built and meant to be fixed (unlike the cheap crap we buy these days) all of the adjustments to the ringer were relatively easy to m...

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How to Garden With California Natives: Lessons from the 2016 Theodore Payne Garden Tour

...ive chaparral. Spacing can be tricky. You have to pay attention to nursery labels and not plant too far apart or too close together. Not that plants always perform predictably. You have to go back and edit: fill gaps in or take stuff out. The best gardens on the tour got the massing right like the Hessing/Bonfigli garden in Altadena shown in the photo above. Outdoor Rooms My favorite garden on the tour is the Loxton/Clark garden in Pasadena. It’s...

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