My parents have a couch in their kitchen. This sounds excessive, I know, but it's seriously the best thing about their house. Admittedly they have a reasonably large kitchen...

Consumers Union (the organization behind Consumer Reports magazine) has a very useful site called eco-labels that compares different p...

My biggest question about "natural" or "green" mattresses is where can I buy one (or at least try it out) in person? Regular mattress stores don't seem to stock any of the ostensibly eco-friendly ...

I must strive to represent my home state! My winter special brew favorite from Oregon is Deschutes Brewery's Jubelale. Each year's beer has a slightly different character, but every year it's good.

My grandma always made cheese treats, and although my mom made cinnamon-sugar pastries much like those other folks describe, I have to admit I'm partial to the cheese pastries and that's usually wh...

Black Butte Porter (from Deschutes Brewing Company in Bend, Oregon) is the beer that taught me to like beer. It's worth going out of your way to get it on draught, though, I have to say. It's goo...

I'm a huge, lifelong fan of hard cider. My parents made it at home when I was growing up, but recently I was pleasantly surprised to find a nearby cider maker,

It's lovely, from a design point of view! But what is the "heat proof cylinder" made of? It seems likely that if it were glass, they'd call it the "glass cylinder," which would imply ...

I have a big birthday party every year with cupcakes, and since I know a lot of vegans I always make vegan cupcakes as well as egg-and-dairy cupcakes. For vegan frosting, I'm a big fan of a partic...

Maybe this is obvious, but Schoolhouse Electric (stores in Portland and New York City) has a whole variety of schoolhouse style fixtures. I partic...

I used to be addicted to Comet, but now I just sprinkle a few tablespoons of oxygen bleach powder in the bowl, add some Biokleen concentrated all purpose cleaner (the one with grapefruit in it), sc...

I'll out myself as a librarian, now that mdevans has laid the groundwork. . . local libraries in nearly every town in the U.S. offer interlibrary loan services, and libraries everywhere take dona...

Portland has two that I know of: the Northeast Portland Tool Library and the North Portland Tool Library . ...

I wash my well-seasoned cast iron pans regularly with soap. I do, however, re-season them sort of regularly, maybe three or four times a year. And most of my use of the pans includes using oil or...

My personal favorite is a vegetarian cookbook, Good Food from a Japanese Temple by Soei Yoneda, later published as

I like the bagel recipe in the classic vegetarian cookbook Laurel's Kitchen . It requires practically no kneading, and though it is 100% w...

I use a Rubbermaid container (a square one about 8x8x4"), and keep it in the freezer. This totally eliminates any smell, and keeps compost from dominating any space in my teeny fridge. I'm not su...

In the old days this would have been called a mangle . They came in two types, with a roller like the Miele above, and with two flat pads...

I don't think this is a fixture that was converted from gas -- I've seen lots of other fixtures like this (and in fact I have one that's quite similar, just a bit more obviously Deco, in my bedroom...

I can't tell from the picture -- how do the dusting cloth and mop pad attach to the wand? I've seen several similar mops & dusters that attach with a velcro-like system, and I've been wondering if...