050 Who Wants Seconds?

...Secrets to vegan cooking Tips for healthy home cooking Roasting vegetables Making your own mayonnaise Involving kids in the kitchen The problems with cooking shows Working with leftovers Advice for throwing a party Jennie’s book Who Wants Seconds? How to not burn your soup Food swaps 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 podcast in t...

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Haint Blue

...sting insects — and restless spirits (“haint” derives from “haunt”) — from making themselves at home in our living spaces. Haint blue is not a single shade of blue, but refers rather to a blue used for this purpose. The actual color could run from soft powder blue to true sky blue to bright teal. While the cool, airy white porch with a blue ceiling speaks to elegant Victoriana, I’ll note that the practice probably does originate in the traditions...

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Picture Sundays: US Postal Service Creates World’s Ugliest Stamp

...mminent collapse of the US empire or just evidence that the email thing is making the post office go broke? Either way, you’d think the Postal Service would be embarrassed by this graphic design nightmare. How do we get them to reissue this one? I may not be a big fan of the American Poultry Industry, but that sure is a fine looking stamp. Thankfully the post office lets you make your own stamps. So how about one with that beekeeping donkey from y...

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End of Season Tomato Review

...s were grown in cages made from concrete reinforcing wire (instructions on making tomato cages here) in raised beds with a drip irrigation system as pictured above. As an experiment for folks in apartments or with limited space, we grew a bunch of tomatoes in self watering containers on a strip of concrete next to the back wall of our garage (note crappy picture below). You’ll see that we were too lazy to put the container tomatoes in cages–don’t...

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