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...

If it's Ethiopian food you want, Horn of Africa, a few blocks north of Alberta St. at 5337 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. is excellent and friendly. It's in the new Vanport Square development. ...

Arthur Schwartz's What to Cook When You Think There's Nothing in the House to Eat (which I think is out of print) is an excellent guide to...

This looks great, except that it doesn't allow for houses (or, I suppose, apartments) that are smaller than 800 square feet! When I entered my house's square footage (720), I got an error message ...