Search Results for: label/trees/2011/04/making-it

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I Made an Enzo Mari Table and So Can You

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Design
6 Comments
...terial than the examples in this book. I experienced my own contradictions making this table. Using reclaimed lumber meant the base was free but the decking material used for the top (it’s an outdoor table) was expensive. And my little modernist experiments in furniture–this table and my Gerrit Rietveld chairs–live outside, while a Medievalist arts and crafts fantasy plays out in the furniture I’ve build for the inside of the house. Such is the fa...

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Baking Bread with Specialty Malts

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Beer, Bread, Food
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...king and just use malted grains directly in your bread. The grains used in making beer are, mostly, barley that has been malted (sprouted) and then either caramelized or roasted. To make beer you soak the grains in warm water to extract the sugars that form in the malting process. Fermenting that sugary malt water creates alcohol. Most of the grain used to make beer is two or six-row malt. You add so-called “specialty” grains (that have been caram...

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The Institute of the Present

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Appropriate Technology, Water and Power
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...de a bad bet back in the early 20th century on the automobile. Sadly, it’s making another bad bet now on a hoped for future of self driving cars which Lyft and Uber’s business models depend on. I had thought, ten years ago, that Los Angeles’ elected officials were beginning to imagine a future not dependent on cars but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’m going to stick my neck out and make a few predictions. Self driving cars won’t work unless t...

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2022 in Review: Cats, Mushrooms and Politics

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Thoughtstylings
5 Comments
...he blurry photo here, but our street, with its majestic, 100 year old palm trees has that iconic LA look and has become a destination for Instagrammers. Behold the most liminal space in Los Angeles, a corridor in the mall that also houses the plastic simulated corn dogs. I correctly predicted the meltdown of crypto, an utterly worthless trend. These things are sprouting up in the neighborhood. I call this one the Death Star. I got lazy and did not...

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Our Rocket Stove

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Preparedness, Rocket Stove
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...rn some of the palm fronds that regularly tumble down from the iconic palm trees that line our old L.A. street. Here’s the materials we used: 36 bricks 4-inch galvanized steel stove pipe elbow 4-inch stove pipe ash (scavenged from park BBQs) 1 tin can 50 pound bag of premixed concrete for the base mortar mix grill (scavenged) The first step was to make a small foundation for the rocket stove. We fashioned a 18 by 18-inch by 4-inch slab with 2 x 4...

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