Plenty of choices

July 15, 2016

...had to take a snapshot of what I was seeing. This is only a portion of the water case. I can buy water from Italy or France or Fiji or Hawaii or Iceland. I can buy water with odd molecular super powers: it’s oxygenated or alkaline or…something? Buying a bottle of water in certain stores in Los Angeles in the year 2016 can be as exquisitely nuanced a process as buying a bottle of wine. When it comes to buying water, I have tons of choices–as long a...

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How to Make Stock

Mrs. Homegrown

June 19, 2014

Food, How-to

17 Comments

...r it. Just skim off the fat or scum which rises to the surface, and if the water level drops so that the bones are exposed, add more water or wine. When it’s done, strain the stock through a colander or strainer, lined with cheesecloth if you want the stock to be particularly clear. When the stock cools you’ll find a layer of fat floating on the top, which you can lift off. Fish Stock Fish stock is, obviously, used as the basis of various classic...

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Make a Sourdough Starter

Mr. Homegrown

March 9, 2007

Bread, Fermentation, Food, Recipes

24 Comments

...friends so that they can start baking immediately. You should use bottled water. We’ve done it with plain old LA tap water with no problems. Wild yeasts are in the air and you have to “catch” them. Yes, there are yeasts in the air, but there are many millions more in the damn flour. If we had to “catch” wild yeasts we’d be making bread with Los Angeles yeasts, which would likely to be too busy yakking on their cell phones in search of an agent to...

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Why You Should Have a Cat Fountain

Mr. Homegrown

May 4, 2017

Animals, Cats

9 Comments

...rts say they perceive it as fresher and more likely to be a safe source of water. Some cats, apparently, won’t drink anything but water flowing from a tap. While cats are desert creatures they still need water. For our cat’s wild ancestors rodent blood (yum!) provided supplemental hydration. The ideal diet for a cat would be a mouse a day, but we’d get in trouble with the PETA folks if we started a mouse farm at the Root Simple compound. So we’ve...

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Watering 101

Mrs. Homegrown

July 2, 2013

Gardening, How-to, Vegetable Gardening

13 Comments

...swer will vary, depending on your soil, the weather, the method you use to water, how often you water, and what you’re growing. In the end, you just have to use your hands and your common sense to figure it out. There is no formula. In the picture above, you see the surface of the soil in one of our raised beds. This is imported soil, the kind that comes in bags. It doesn’t hold water in pools like clay soil does, it doesn’t sink in fast as it wou...

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