July 4th, 2012 | Basics, Condiments, Fermentation, Gluten Free, Grain-Free, Recipes, Sauces, World, cheap food, D.I.Y., fermentation, hot sauce, inspiration, slow food, sriacha, thai bird chilis
I never used to like hot sauce.
That changed during my first camping trip. I was 19-years-old.
Traveling to the site with a fellow newbie girlfriend, en route we picked up a lot of beer, a 12-pack of hot dogs and a sack of buns. That was it. We had no tent, no sleeping bags, no nothing. Just beer and hot dogs. We joined a big group of experienced campers. They had barbecues, food tents, frying pans, cooking sauces, venison, and…
Sriacha sauce. That lovely fermented garlic hot sauce, you all know it, the squirt bottle with the green lid. The symbol that you’re in a good restaurant. I mean, come on, Morimoto uses it.
June 9th, 2012
The real offal experiment continues... with a sheep tongue. My attempt with the brain was fascinating but not incredibly tasty. Will the tongue taste better? If looks are any indication then the answer is a resounding no! Good god a tongue is an ugly piece of meat. None of the silkiness of a pr ...
June 1st, 2012
The rhubarb theme continues in my mother's garden. My niece was visiting from LA and the family decided to celebrate her "Almost 1" birthday since she wouldn't be in town when she actually turned one. It was the perfect opportunity to use up some of my mom's rhubarb and introduce my wee niece to ...
May 20th, 2012
For my first recipe out of Odd Bits, I decided to bust it open, literally. The author, Jennifer Mclagan, mentioned that a sheep's head was quite fiercesome looking. When my butcher brought it out from the back, held right about head level, I'll admit that it looked quite hideous. The eyeballs b ...
May 12th, 2012
I first heard about guanciale on Chopped. It was a secret ingredient and for some reason I decided to look it up. Oh my goodness! Luscious pig jowl washed with wine and scented with black pepper and thyme. This was something I had to try. The word guanciale comes from 'guancia', which mea ...
April 18th, 2012
One of these days I have to write up a post about how amazing and nutritious traditional Burmese food is -- until I have enough time to do so, I will satisfy myself with raving about some traditional Burmese medicine. In Myanmar they have several grades of turmeric, some are especially medicinal ...
March 27th, 2012
The edible schoolyard project that Alice Waters began with the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, in Berkeley in 1995 is a truly visionary project. Since it's beginning 17 years ago it has spread across North America as well as the world. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse restaurant is the mother ...
March 14th, 2011
I have finally gotten the first draft of my Urban Dweller's DIY finally up. Please check it out! Bear in mind that this is a work in progress. What I am especially interested in is bringing together all kinds of ways people are working towards living a more sustainable life. I am eager for suggestio ...
February 15th, 2011
I originally stumbled across this great Instructable detailing how to make a straw slow-cooker, and was so thrilled by it that I soon made one myself. After the first attempt I discovered that it made a great incubator for home-made yogurt (I currently incubate my yogurt for around 24 hours for maxi ...
February 7th, 2011
The world is too much with us;
Late and soon,
Getting and spending,
We lay waste our powers. - Wordsworth This is a great little video from a practical fellow who seems to be one of the ole' sourdoughs from the gold-rush days, returned to tell us how to live more practically. We really don't n ...
