Choosing fabrics, cleaning china, keeping the piano in tune, making a good fire, folding a fitted sheet, setting the dining room table, keeping surfaces free of food pathogens, watering plants, removing stains -- Home Comforts addresses the meanings as well as the methods of hands -- on housekeeping to help you manage everyday chores, find creative solutions to modern domestic dilemmas, and enhance the experience of life at home.Further topics include: Making up a bed with hospital corners, Expert recommendations for safe food storage, Reading care labels (and sometimes carefully disregarding them), Keeping your home free of dust mites and other allergens, Home safety and security, A summary of laws applicable to the home, including privacy, accident liability, contracts, and domestic employees and more in this practical, good-humored, historic, philosophical, even romantic, guidebook to the art of household management.--back cover

    Concrete Countertops is an essential book for architects, homeowners and contractors who want to learn how to design, form, mix, pour, color, trowel, inlay and finish decorative concrete countertops. Homeowners will be inspired by the 350 color photographs that bring this exciting medium to life.

    Forced into a radical life change, she returned to her native rural Michigan.  There she learned to live on a limited budget while remaining true to her culinary principles of eating well and as locally as possible. In The Feast Nearby, Mather chronicles her year-long project: preparing and consuming three home-cooked, totally seasonal, and local meals a day--all on forty dollars a week.  With insight and humor, Mather explores the confusion and needful compromises in eating locally. She examines why local often trumps organic, and wonders why the USDA recommends white bread, powdered milk, and instant orange drinks as part of its “low-cost” food budget program.  Through local eating, Mather forges connections with the farmers, vendors, and growers who provide her with sustenance. She becomes more closely attuned to the nuances of each season, inhabiting her little corner of the world more fully, and building a life richer than she imagined it could be.  The Feast Nearby celebrates small pleasures: home-roasted coffee, a pantry stocked with home-canned green beans and homemade preserves, and the contented clucking of laying hens in the backyard. Mather also draws on her rich culinary knowledge to present nearly one hundred seasonal recipes that are inspiring, enticing, and economical--cooking goals that don’t always overlap--such as Pickled Asparagus with Lemon, Tarragon, and Garlic; Cider-Braised Pork Loin with Apples and Onions; and Cardamom-Coffee Toffee Bars.  Mather’s poignant, reflective narrative shares encouraging advice for aspiring locavores everywhere, and combines the virtues of kitchen thrift with the pleasures of cooking--and eating--well.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    But don't be fooled by its unassuming location—stumbling across the Bakery, as countless visitors have done on their way up and down the Pacific Coast, will make you feel as if you've discovered a secret: a gem of a restaurant where the food, people, and atmosphere meld together in a perfect embodiment of the spirit of Big Sur.The three restaurant owners, chef Philip Wojtowicz, baker Michelle Wojtowicz, and host Michael Gilson, escaped the Los Angeles food scene to create their version of the ideal restaurant, nestled in the heart of some of the most beautiful country in the world. This is simple, wood-fired American cooking at its best, executed in a way that lets the ingredients—seasonal and often locally produced—shine. Weekend brunches feature thick, nine-grain pancakes and savory breakfast pizza topped with crisp bacon, fresh herbs, and pasture-raised eggs. At night, Phil offers classics like Grilled Prime Rib Steak with Red Wine Sauce along with twists on traditional favorites like Venison Osso Buco or Rockfish Scampi. And every meal should end with one of Michelle's great desserts, whether it's a homemade Peppermint Ice Cream Sundae or Hazelnut Flan with Roasted Cherries.But this is more than a cookbook; it's a yearlong glimpse into what it's really like to live in Big Sur, introducing the people and places that make the restaurant's renowned food possible, including Wayne Hyland, hunter and forager, Jamie Collins, organic row cropper, and Gary Pisoni, the eccentric vintner who supplies some of the restaurant's most beloved wine. With its outstanding photography, lively profiles, and dozens of must-make recipes, this book helps bring the experience of Big Sur home.

    Combining his artistic abilities, wild imagination, and his passion for small houses, he self-published Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts, and Whatever the Heck Else we could Squeeze in Here in 2009. This book is a collection of Diedricksen’s creative/imaginative sketches for building small houses, shacks, cottages, and forts. The sketches are accompanied with hand-written commentary, both instructive and comical. Derek’s main purpose is to get your creative juices flowing and encourage you to get off the couch and use your hands. Believing that specific building plans squash creativity, he avoids too many detailed instructions, giving you the chance to put your own creative spin on your very own small abode (even if it is just in your imagination).

    He also offers a comprehensive guide to the various pests and diseases of tomatoes and explains how best to avoid them. No other book offers such a detailed look at the specifics of growing tomatoes, with beautiful photographs and helpful tomato profiles throughout.

    Stranded in their off-the-grid summer cottage in the Canadian wilderness with unexpected guests, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon turned to the land around them. They caught a trout, picked mushrooms, and mulled apples from an abandoned orchard with rose hips in wine. The meal was truly satisfying; every ingredient had a story, a direct line they could trace from the soil to their forks. The experience raised a question: Was it possible to eat this way in their everyday lives?Back in the city, they began to research the origins of the items that stocked the shelves of their local supermarket. They were shocked to discover that a typical ingredient in a North American meal travels roughly the distance between Boulder, Colorado, and New York City before it reaches the plate. Like so many people, Smith and MacKinnon were trying to live more lightly on the planet; meanwhile, their “SUV diet” was producing greenhouse gases and smog at an unparalleled rate. So they decided on an experiment: For one year they would eat only food produced within 100 miles of their Vancouver home.It wouldn’t be easy. Stepping outside the industrial food system, Smith and MacKinnon found themselves relying on World War II–era cookbooks and maverick farmers who refused to play by the rules of a global economy. What began as a struggle slowly transformed into one of the deepest pleasures of their lives. For the first time they felt connected to the people and the places that sustain them.For Smith and MacKinnon, the 100-mile diet became a journey whose destination was, simply, home. From the satisfaction of pulling their own crop of garlic out of the earth to pitched battles over canning tomatoes, Plenty is about eating locally and thinking globally. The authors’ food-focused experiment questions globalization, monoculture, the oil economy, environmental collapse, and the tattering threads of community. Thought-provoking and inspiring, Plenty offers more than a way of eating. In the end, it’s a new way of looking at the world.From the Hardcover edition.

    Rombauer self-published the first three thousand copies of Joy of Cooking in 1931, it has become the kitchen bible, with more than 20 million copies in print. This new edition of Joy has been thoroughly revised and expanded by Irma’s great-grandson John Becker and his wife, Megan Scott.John and Megan developed more than six hundred new recipes for this edition, tested and tweaked thousands of classic recipes, and updated every section of every chapter to reflect the latest ingredients and techniques available to today’s home cooks. Their strategy for revising this edition was the same one Irma and Marion employed: Vet, research, and improve Joy’s coverage of legacy recipes while introducing new dishes, modern cooking techniques, and comprehensive information on ingredients now available at farmers’ markets and grocery stores. You will find tried-and-true favorites like Banana Bread Cockaigne, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Southern Corn Bread—all retested and faithfully improved—as well as new favorites like Chana Masala, Beef Rendang, Megan’s Seeded Olive Oil Granola, and Smoked Pork Shoulder. In addition to a thoroughly modernized vegetable chapter, there are many more vegan and vegetarian recipes, including Caramelized Tamarind Tempeh, Crispy Pan-Fried Tofu, Spicy Chickpea Soup, and Roasted Mushroom Burgers. Joy’s baking chapters now include gram weights for accuracy, along with a refreshed lineup of baked goods like Cannelés de Bordeaux, Rustic No-Knead Sourdough, Ciabatta, Chocolate-Walnut Babka, and Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza, as well as gluten-free recipes for pizza dough and yeast breads. A new chapter on streamlined cooking explains how to economize time, money, and ingredients and avoid waste. You will learn how to use a diverse array of ingredients, from amaranth to za’atar. New techniques include low-temperature and sous vide cooking, fermentation, and cooking with both traditional and electric pressure cookers. Barbecuing, smoking, and other outdoor cooking methods are covered in even greater detail. This new edition of Joy is the perfect combination of classic recipes, new dishes, and indispensable reference information for today’s home cooks. Whether it is the only cookbook on your shelf or one of many, Joy is and has been the essential and trusted guide for home cooks for almost a century. This new edition continues that legacy.

     "Takes the pressure off cooks who don't have much time... but still want to savor the season's bounty." -Chicago Tribune (Review of the prior edition) The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving takes the guesswork out of home preserving. Both beginners and pros can make the most of fresh fruits and vegetables when these are readily available and inexpensive. Because these recipes require a minimum of time and fuss, home cooks will enjoy creating the preserves almost as much as everyone will enjoy tasting them. Included are both traditional and new recipes. Detailed instructions provide the safest and latest processing methods. Some recipes are suitable for microwaves. A brand new chapter features freezer preserving as an alternative to the traditional methods. The more than 300 enticing recipes include: Jams, jellies and low-sugar spreads Conserves, butters and curds Pickles, relishes and chutneys Salsas, mustards and marinades Flavored oils Dessert sauces, syrups and liqueurs. With delectable recipes and professional tips, The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving is the ideal guide for anyone who craves home-made preserves but doesn't want to spend all day in the kitchen. (20010521)

    It just makes sense to preserve food quality for those times when it's not as plentiful or not available at all. Dehydrating food with this terrific book is easy and creates tasty food year-round.Incorporating the age-old practices of food dehydration takes full advantage of what nature offers. All the wonderful recipes are still here and there is a bonus section on everything from pet treats to crafts and homemade gifts. What has changed is that the Everything You Need to Know About Dehydrating Foods section has been expanded to include even more comprehensive and complete information about dehydrating foods along with even more tips and techniques.There are more than 150 recipes for dehydrating everything from herbs and seasonings to fruits, vegetables, meats and fish, plus more than 250 delicious recipes that actually use the dehydrated foods as ingredients. Putting home-preserved food to work for home, RV, boat or campsite has never been easier.The easy-to-follow drying instructions along with time guidelines make even a novice cook feel like a seasoned professional.Planting a few extra rows of tomatoes or beans, picking many strawberries at their peak or buying that big basket of freshly harvested carrots can really pay off later. Loading up the dehydrator will provide personally dried foods the whole year through.

    Since the process takes place in a closed system, insects and smell are controlled, making it ideal for urban or business settings. The process is very fast, with compost usually ready to be integrated into your soil or garden in around two weeks.While bokashi has enjoyed great popularity in many parts of the world, it is still relatively unknown in North America. From scraps to soil, Bokashi Composting is the complete, step-by-step, do-it-yourself guide to this amazing process, with comprehensive information covering:Background—the history, development, and scientific basis of the techniqueGetting started—composting with commercially available products or homemade systemsMaking your own—system plans and bokashi bran recipes using common materials and locally sourced ingredientsGrowing—improving your soil with fermented compost and bokashi "juice"This essential guide is a must-read for gardeners, homeowners, apartment dwellers, traditional composters, and anyone who wants a safe, simple, and convenient way to keep kitchen waste out of the landfill.Adam Footer is a permaculture designer with a focus on soil building, food forestry, cover crops, water conservation and harvesting, and natural farming. He is a tireless promoter of bokashi to maximize the recycling of food waste and runs the website bokashicomposting.com.

    John Kallas makes it fun and easy to learn about foods you've unknowingly passed by all your life. Through gorgeous photographs, playful, but authoritative text, and ground-breaking design he gives you the knowledge and confidence to finally begin eating and enjoying edible wild plants. Edible Wild Plants divides plants into four flavor categories -- foundation, tart, pungent, and bitter. Categorizing by flavor helps readers use these greens in pleasing and predictable ways. According to the author, combining elements from these different categories makes the best salads.

    Healthy Cooking for Two (or Just You) by Frances Price offers:* More than 200 creative, low-fat recipes for today's smaller households* Unique two-column recipe format for hassle-free preparation* Tips on shopping for one or two, and streamlining your kitchen* Full nutrient analysis with every recipe* Special chapter of delicious, no-fuss menus* Plenty of 30-minute recipes-- plus meatless meals, divine desserts, tip-packed boxes and more

    The '90s have brought their own litany of worries -- company downsizings, severe hurricanes and winter storms, flooding, government shutdowns -- that make in-home storage an attractive proposition again.The recently updated and expanded Ninth Edition of Making the Best of Basics is designed for the urban family. It offers a manageable and effective plan for accumulating, storing, and utilizing an in-home supply of food and other essentials to support a family in a near-normal manner for one year. Basics includes-- recipes for using stored foods, -- a section on common storage problems and solutions, -- lists of sources for storage items, -- charts to help you determine what and how much you need, as well as chapters on storing and using essentials such as water, wheat, fruits and vegetables, and fuel.-- Over 350,000 copies of earlier editions sold.-- This single volume tells you what to store, how to store it, and how to use it.-- Basics' unique "Family Factor" makes determining storage quandties easy.