RubyJane's Profile

The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book, by Laurel Robertson, has a particularly detailed and helpful set of instructions (illustrated!) for kneading bread by hand, in the "Loaf for Learning" recipe. The book focuses on 100% whole grain breads and is excellent for beginners.

Chad Randl's book Revolving Architecture explores this concept reasonably thoroughly. It's interesting and has lots of great illustrations.

If I remember correctly, Randl explains that Shaw appropriated the shed from his wife; and at the time, revolving sheds of this type were mass manufactured in Northern Europe for use at tuberculosis sanitariums.

My personal favorite, which I first heard broadcast in the golden era of public radio dramas in the 70s and 80s, is The Fourth Tower of Inverness. Very silly and metaphysical.

Odds are your local library has lots and lots of radio plays on CD and/or through their downloadable audiobook service. Look in the library catalog for the subject Radio plays and you should get a list.

There is also a sizable archive of old-time radio at the Internet Archive. Some of the stuff there is really interesting, particularly the news segments reporting various historically significant events. But there is lots of radio comedy and drama too.

I came from a family of devoted make-everything-from-scratch folks on both sides, but we always had cranberry sauce from a can and I loved it. I think there's something about the shape, actually, that is particularly appealing.

But, last year I made Marisa McClellan's cranberry jelly (from her blog Food in Jars), and it had everything I love from the canned version plus an extra freshness to the flavor. And I think a certain satisfaction comes from making something beautiful like this that many folks assume can't be made at home. I put my cranberry sauce in jars I'd saved from Bonne Maman jam, because they're a nice shape (flat sided, a little bit like a very small jelly mold), and that helped me get over the fact that the sauce wasn't the traditional from-the-can shape with the ridges.

Can someone explain the difference, if any, between shampoo bars and other kinds of bar soap? They seem nearly identical to me, or at least the ones I've tried do. I've been puzzled by this for some time, and haven't found a good explanation.

The pots in the picture above aren't glazed, and this style is common in many regions of the world. There may be something untoward in the clay, I suppose, but with no glaze, you avoid the lead-in-the-glaze problem.

The pots in the photo look a lot like the traditional cookware of the mountain region immediately north of Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, for example. These pots are made with local clay, and are polished with stones as the craftswoman (or occasionally craftsman) makes them. You have to oil them to make them waterproof, as you would a cast iron pan.

I think it's good to talk with the person you're buying cookware from, to see if they have any special advice on how to care for it, and how to use it. Plus, it gets you using the local language (if it's not one you're fluent in this can be a challenge and a treat!), and you may make a new friend or at least have an engaging conversation with a fellow cook.

I have a very similar tea tin on the bathroom windowsill, ready to put in service to hold the window open (the sash cords are gone). Pretty and practical, though it doesn't have anything inside!

If you're willing to build a table, or have one built, you should be able to find vintage shop drawings at your local public library. There are dozens of books of reprinted drawings and plans -- here's an example (though I don't know for sure that this one includes breakfast nook tables):

Shop drawings for Craftsman interiors : cabinets, moldings & built-ins for every room in the home, by Robert W Lang (Cambium Press, ©2003).

You can find others by looking in the library catalog for the subject "Furniture -- Drawings," or of course, by asking the friendly reference librarian! I mean, I hope the librarian is friendly. . . anyway, for sure she or he will know how to help you find plans for a table that will fit with your nook.

In the past I've always cleaned the stove with a bit of concentrated soap and water, or with baking soda, when it got really bad. That worked fine.

But now I have a lovely old 1940s stove and I am trying hard to preserve and respect its original enamel surface. Though it is mild and fine-textured, baking soda is still an abrasive and it does wear down the enamel -- very slowly! So, instead of using baking soda, I mix a tablespoon or so of powdered oxygen bleach with hot water, swirl it about a bit, and then spray it on my stove top. After it sits for a few minutes, all the grease, cooked-on food, stovetop espresso splatter, and gunk wipe off with a regular kitchen sponge or rag and next-to-no physical effort. No scrubbing.

The only downside to this is that the oxygen bleach and water solution is only good for an hour or so. Generally I solve this problem by cleaning the bathroom right after I do the stove. Or sometimes I do the inside of the oven instead.

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 (about 12 x 15' or so), and it's laid out just so to accommodate the couch nicely. But what a treat when there's a dinner party -- room for three or four people to sit and chat with the cook without being totally in his/her way, and the couch has flat wooden arms so there's always somewhere to set your glass of wine!