passionflower's Profile

I buy books for many of the reasons you enumerated in your post. I also buy books because once I've bought them, I own them. I can resell them, give them away or lend them out to anyone I please, for any length of time. I don't need an electronic device to read a book, and don't need to worry about keeping my software up to date or complying with terms of service to maintain access to my library. Books are portable and easy to use. I think the book is a near perfect technology.

This is the perfect time of year for gazpacho of any variety, especially here in Minnesota where we're in the middle of a long heat wave. White gazpacho, made with almonds, grapes and olive oil (and of course bread and garlic) is also delicious.

Though instead of Rioja with gazpacho, I would drink sherry, a fino or manzanilla or amontillado. Drier sherries are served chilled and are very refreshing in hot weather.

I don't think color is tacky or gauche, and certainly not for a bungalow. When I looked into paint options for my own bungalow I found that colors of the period were deep and rich. I got good ideas from the Sherwin Williams historic collection palettes, and if you google around or look at books you'll find lots of good color options.

Besides, while it does take work, it's not that difficult to repaint if you don't like the result. :)

@SoccerJo: That is not necessarily true. I recommend Raj Patel's Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. One takeaway from the book: scarcity of food, and therefore a need to more efficiently produce it, is not the issue. The issue is simply that too many people don't earn enough money to buy food that is already available. Raise wages, and people can buy more food. There's more to it, of course, but if we start with this basic idea, solutions will lead us on a different path than using GMOs.

Also, while I am concerned about the safety of GMOs, another concern is how their use affects the lives of farmers and local economies. Basically, GMOs and other technologies concentrate the control of agriculture into a few companies (such as Monsanto), to the detriment of farmers everywhere. The effect of a world food system controlled by biotech companies (as well as the IMF and the World Bank) puts famers in debt they can't get rid of, forces farmers to cultivate crops for export rather than for local consumption, and eventually drives them off the land they own.

Lots more to say, but in my view the trouble with GMOs that their use if enmeshed in a system that encourages monoculture, the creation of export economies, and general lack of control over what farmers produce and what we eat.

You could try contacting Rejuvenation Interestingly, on their home page they feature The Hood, a similar fixture that is the This Old House Magazine lighting product of the year.

I've found that recipes for dosa make for a lot of batter, but the good news is that you can let the batter ferment further and then make uttapam, which I like just as much, if not more, than dosa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttapam

A food processor works ok in my experience, but grinding rice and lentils can be hard on the motor. My blender handles dosa batter much better, but the motor still tends to overheat. If anybody has suggestions about which tool does the best job I'd greatly appreciate it.

The recipes I use come from Dakshin: Vegetarian Cooking From South India. The book also has a recipe for semolina dosa that takes less time to make because there is yogurt in the batter, which speeds up fermentation time. But then we're talking a different kind of dosa, because this one calls for semolina instead of urad dal. Still delicious, though.

The Greens cookbook also has a wild mushroom sauce that is delicious, but labor intensive because it calls for making your own mushroom stock. You could use a prepared stock, though on a special occasion making the stock is worth the trouble. The sauce itself is pretty easy. Basically, you make a roux and add stock plus some tomato paste, cream, salt and pepper.

I found the recipe online here: http://bluecashewkitchen.blogspot.com/2008/08/cheese-and-nut-loaf-with-wild-mushroom.html

I don't think it'd be wrong, but would it be possible to put the TV in a different room? I also have a bungalow with built-ins, and the living room is not very big. We have a sun room upstairs that is now the TV room. Don't get me wrong, I like to watch TV, but I like that our TV is upstairs and away from the main living space, and that our living room is quiet and more suited for reading and conversation.

My partner was working on the crawl space adjacent to our sun room, adding insulation, when he found a framed photo inside the wall. A man and a woman, holding each other closely and standing cheek-to-cheek, looking very happy. He is in uniform and has a cigarette in his hand. Looks like the photo was taken in the 40s or maybe the 50s. Why someone would stuff that photo in the wall, who knows. But it came out in perfect condition and is now hanging in our sun room.