What’s Your Everyday Carry?

One of the more fetishistic subcultures in the urban homesteading activity playpen is an obsession with “everyday carry,” abbreviated by hip insiders as “EDC.” EDCers peacock their carefully curated sets of survival tools in photos called “pocket dumps.” The internet’s Mecca of pocket dumps is everydaycarry.com. On that site you’ll see color and texture coordinated EDCs reminiscent of the leather and wood appointments of the luxury yachts of Russ...

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Lead in Backyard Eggs: Don’t Freak Out But Don’t Ignore the Issue

...elevated lead levels in our soil when we did a series of soil tests back in 2011. Thankfully our egg results came in at 1.02 ug, just under the average level in the study. You’d have to eat a lot of eggs as an adult to go beyond the Federal Drug Administration’s maximum recommended lead intake level, though you could bump up against it if a child ate more than three eggs a day. I’d suggest that if you live in an older urban location, next to a gas...

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Home cooking advice?

...talian and Middle Eastern cuisines and cooking traditions, but these broad labels are enough for now.) I am neither Italian nor Middle Eastern–my native regional dish would be a steak with a corncob on the side–but I live in a Mediterranean climate, and the vegetables and herbs and fruits used in these cuisines thrive in my yard, and are easy to buy locally. This food just makes sense here. And we like it. If I limit my choices like this, my pantr...

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Saturday Linkages: Forklift Furniture and Pickled Turnips

...t-dog-encrusted shrimp tempura pizza, with mayonnaise: http://boingboing.net/2013/02/06/pizza-hut-chinas-hot-dog-enc.html … Yuckylicious: Salami Bouquet http://yuckylicious.blogspot.com/2013/02/salami-bouquet.html?spref=tw … Urban Farm Magazine owner BowTie sold – Business – The Orange County Register http://www.ocregister.com/articles/bowtie-414242-fancy-company.html … For these links and more, follow Root Simple on Twitter: Follow @rootsimple...

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Dystopia Report: The I-710 Corridor Aesthetic Master Plan

...reeway builder’s utopian promise of speed and liberty delivers, instead, exurban sprawl, congestion and waves of urban decay and gentrification. That utopian vision of Freeway building is personified in mid-century figures like Robert Moses and the city fathers of early 20th century Los Angeles. But Jameson goes on to question, “does anyone believe in progress any longer? . . . are the architects and urbanists still passionately at work on Utopian...

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